Well, there seems to be a lot happening in the world right now. The Israeli-Palestine peace work that's going on, Bosnia, Gorbachev is in San Francisco, and Thich Nhat Hanh and Maha Gosenanda, as well as others, are meeting with him. My parents are coming in town. It's also the High Holy Days in the Jewish faith, the New Year, and then coming up on the 4th, someone's trying to get in, is the Day of Atonement. And also Bodhidharma Day that we

[01:10]

celebrate is on October 5th. So the Day of Atonement, the word atonement or atone means to be at one, to come back to being in accord or reconciled again. And Bodhidharma, do you all know who Bodhidharma was? Who's never heard of Bodhidharma? Bodhidharma was an Indian man who ended up going to China, spread Buddhism to China, and became the first ancestor or pioneer in China.

[02:15]

So he's the 29th ancestor, counting from Shakyamuni Buddha, that lineage, and then the first of the Chinese. He's called the first Chinese ancestor, even though he's Indian. And Bodhidharma is very famous for a story that's in Koan collections, collections of Zen stories. It's the first case in the Blue Cliff Record, and the second case, I believe, in the Book of Serenity, which talks about Bodhidharma when he came to China for the first time. He landed in the south of China and met up with the emperor there, Emperor Wu of Liang. So for Bodhidharma Day, we reenact this meeting, or we have in the past, with costumes, someone dressing up like the emperor and somebody dressing up like Bodhidharma and reciting the case. But there's a lot of legend around Bodhidharma as

[03:24]

well. Supposedly, have you ever seen those red dolls that have weights in the bottom and they knock them down and they pop up? Asian, both Japanese and Chinese. These are Bodhidharma dolls because he sat for nine years facing a wall. He was called the king of the wall starers. He was a very strong Zazen practitioner. So these dolls, if you push it down, they pop right back up. And also they don't have their eyes, they're always staring because Bodhidharma was at one time got so annoyed at himself for getting sleepy that legend has it that he, excuse me for this graphic description, but tore off his eyelids, threw him down on the ground, and they became the tea plant. And the drinking the brewed tea helps you stay awake. So that's,

[04:26]

thanks to Bodhidharma. He also, I just found out he had his two front teeth knocked out, but I'll tell you about that in a second. So before he got to the Emperor Wu, he was the third son of an Indian prince and Prajnatara, his teacher was very highly thought of and Bodhidharma, whose name was Bodhitara at the time, his father gave Prajnatara a beautiful jewel and Prajnatara asked the three boys, the three princes, what they had to say about that. And the oldest two said, well, you're such a wonderful teacher. And of course, our father gave you this high, highly precious gem. But when it came, Bodhidharma, Bodhitara's first chance to say something, he said, it isn't the, well, he said a lot about this jewel, but basically that the

[05:32]

shining of the jewel was not the important thing, but the knowledge and the wisdom that sees the jewel, that's the important thing. And so Prajnatara knew that he had a lot of aptitude, but he kept very silent and didn't say anything yet. And over the years he watched him and after his father died, Bodhidharma sat by the casket for seven days in a kind of meditational samadhi or concentration state. And after that he asked for ordination. And then he practiced with Prajnatara for 40 years as his close attendant. This was before he started teaching. And Prajnatara told him, I don't know how old Bodhidharma is, but you can count up. He said, 67 years after I died, go to China and you can start teaching. So he was with Prajnatara for 40 years. And then 60 years after he died, he set out three years, took him three years on a boat to get to China. So he was

[06:37]

an old guy, Bodhidharma. And Prajnatara told him when he got to the South to not stay there because the understanding of the people in the South, they were very interested in pious works and not in the true teaching. He kind of predicted this. And when he got there, he met up with Emperor Wu. And Emperor Wu was a big patron of Buddhism, built monasteries, supported monks. And when he met Bodhidharma, he said to him, what is the highest meaning of the holy truths? That was the Emperor's question. And Bodhidharma said, empty, no holiness. And the Emperor said, who is this facing me? And Bodhidharma said, don't know. And after that, he left the Emperor and crossed the Yangtze River and

[07:42]

went to Shaolin Temple and sat facing a wall for nine years. That was the exchange. So, you know, what are the high holy days? And what is holiness? And how is it that when asked what is the highest meaning of the holy truths, Bodhidharma says, empty, no holiness. What was he pointing out there? So just to go on a little further, he did get disciples while he was in China, four different disciples. And he also, his fame spread very wide and people became his enemy. Certain people at the time, a fellow by the name of Bodhiruchi and another guy Guanglu, and they threw stones at him, knocked out his front teeth. That's what happened to him. And they also tried to poison him five times. So

[08:43]

he somehow attracted a certain negative energy, Bodhidharma did. Now, there's a fascicle, a little essay by our founder Dogen Zenji about Bodhidharma and his four disciples called Kato, Twining, Vines. And I owe this lecture actually to something I came upon while reading to my son the book Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, which takes place in Scotland. And one of the people, the character says, we will have to twine. And there's a note in the book and it says it means part, we'll have to part. So I thought, well, isn't that interesting? Twine means part. I thought twine kind of meant to go together. But twain, I guess, means part. So maybe that's similar to twain,

[09:47]

never the twain shall meet. So twining vines. What is twine? Twine is this rope that's made of two strands, at least two strands wrapped around together. So you have this rope that's two strands, but it's actually one piece of rope. It's not one and not two. It's neither two nor one. And twining vines are like that. Twining vines is another name for the teacher-disciple relationship where the Dharma is transmitted through this thorough understanding between teacher and disciple, like twining vines. And the teacher and disciple are not one, but they're not necessarily two either. Now, usually we think if something is not one,

[10:48]

then it's got to be two or two or more. But to have something that's not one and not two, or both one and two, but actually our life is closer to that. So these twining vines are twisted strands that twist together and turn around and make a myself-yourself being that's neither one nor two. So Bodhidharma's four disciples, when they expressed their understanding, he said to one, you have my skin. To the other one, you have my flesh. To another one, you have my bones. To the fourth, you have my marrow. And each one of those disciples was met thoroughly by Bodhidharma and expressed their understanding thoroughly. And each was totally unique. And one of them received his transmission, the last one,

[11:53]

as well. So were some of them better than the others? Were some of them closer to Bodhidharma than the other? How do we understand this? And that's studying twining vines, how things are wrapped around each other, twisted together, woven together, interlaced together. And yet, is one closer than the other or further away? Or are they just all tangled together like twining vines? So the teacher-disciple relationship is not one and not two. And I've been reading this book called The Great Bliss Queen by Anne Klein. And it has lots of notes. I'll be reading along,

[13:01]

and there'll be a note. And you look it up in the back, and it says, I owe this point to a conversation I had with so-and-so that clarified this for me, or gleaned from an understanding from a conference where some people were talking. She notes all these different ways in which she was influenced and informed by all these people in her life. Not only quotes from books, but conversations with her friends and colleagues. But she wrote the book. The book is Anne Klein's. It's her book. You can't say anyone else wrote it. But she owes a lot to all these people for saying something here and saying something there, which is closer to how our life is. We don't just produce in a vacuum anything, our works of art, any kind of creative

[14:02]

idea. There's this combination of not one, not just from yourself, and not two, not just from other people. Other people didn't. So with this lecture, if I begin pulling all the strands, all the people I speak with in practice discussion and at meetings where things come out, or what I heard on NPR, driving the kids to school, all this is just always flooding in to help create this lecture. I owe it. I owe it. And to all of you, and the mood you're in, the fact that it's a little bit hot in here, all this helps to create this lecture that's happening right this minute. So it's not one, and it's not two. And this is emptiness. Emptiness, not holiness. So emptiness does not mean air. Air is coming. Emptiness does not mean nothingness, total

[15:13]

blank nothingness. Emptiness is very full, and I know that sounds like a paradox, but it's true. Emptiness means not separate, inherent existence, independent of anything else. Emptiness has to do with the fact that we are interdependent and do not exist by ourselves, can't do anything totally alone. And yet here I am sitting up here and talking. So it has this flicker of, yes, but wait a minute, not one, not two. This is sort of like twine. It's not one, not two. It's both. And if you can hold that in your mind, that's closer than being stuck on one side or the other. So, and our Zazen posture is like that, too. If you sit in a cross-legged posture and you're

[16:24]

sitting there for a while, you can't remember necessarily which side is right and which side is left. It's all one, but it's made up of these limbs that are brought in to this stable posture. So, how can you look at anything and say, that's holy, that's special? Or Suzuki Roshi even said, you know, if you look at a flower and say, that's beautiful, that's a sin, or that's kind of defiling, defiling that flower, which is not just beautiful. It's more than that. It's everything. It's the fact that you're standing there, sitting there, looking at a flower, and can see color has to do with the fact that the sun is shining, and there's enough light so that you can even see it. So, it's so much bigger. It includes everything, the flower. So, to just say, it's beautiful, is defiling it, is narrowing it,

[17:27]

is getting caught in one side or another. But still, we do say lots of things. We say, it's beautiful. But to know that, to say it's beautiful, is maybe too much, or not enough. It's not quite right. It's not necessarily hitting the mark. So, the teacher-student relationship as twining vines. You know, I recently saw the movie, Il Postino, The Postman. Did a lot of you get to see it, I hope? I was playing in Mill Valley for a long time. And to me, this was a beautiful example of twining vines. You had, for those of you who didn't see it, it was a very simple plot. It had to do with Pablo Neruda being exiled, the poet Pablo Neruda, being exiled to a small island in Italy, in a house on a hill. And a young man who was kind of, what shall I say,

[18:34]

seemed to be kind of like a ne'er-do-well. You know, he couldn't get a job, and he didn't want to do what his father did, which was fishing, and he used to get seasick on the boats. But he was kind of an artist himself, but he didn't even know it. Anyway, he gets the job of bringing the mail up to Pablo Neruda on his bicycle every day. And pretty soon, he and Pablo Neruda, just by this kind of daily contact, get to have a relationship. And, you know, it looks like maybe they're becoming friends, but I don't know necessarily if they were real friends. I think Pablo Neruda became his teacher, actually, and he taught him and opened up for him a world, a world of beauty and language and metaphoric metaphors that was there, that was right there, that Il Postino

[19:36]

couldn't really see. You know, he needed help. He needed some help to see the beautiful island he lived on and to know and have confidence in his own ability to appreciate the world and describe the world. And they twined, you know, and they helped each other. In fact, at one point, Pablo Neruda says to the postman, how would you describe your father's boats? And the postman kind of thought for a while, and he said, triste. He said, sad. And Pablo Neruda kind of looked at him, he goes, gee, I wouldn't have said that probably, he thought, and that's how it looked. And he wrote it down. I actually found the poem where it says, with the sad boats. I should have brought it to me, but so this is all fictitional, you know, but they use that poem, sad boats.

[20:40]

So at the end, Pablo Neruda goes back to his life, and the Postino is left in his poor island, but he has a new wife and a kind of joy of life. But he misses Pablo Neruda and everyone else feels, well, since he doesn't write, maybe he wasn't really your friend, maybe he really didn't care for you, and the years pass. And what happens to the postman is he has to drop his dependence on Pablo Neruda to make his life alive. And he finds a way to make his life alive and goes forward and steps out in a very valiant way and ends up getting killed in a mob, in a crowd, right when he's going to read his poetry, the first poem that he had written, dedicated to Pablo Neruda, in a kind of a rally where it turns into a mob scene.

[21:43]

And so he lets go of his dependence on his teacher and sets forth, but still there are twining vines, still his understanding came through his relationship with his teacher, but you can't, it can't be, you can't hold on to that, you can't grasp after that, you have to let that go and find your own way, which he did. So this kind of valiant going forth is what we all have to do. And to find our at-one-moment again, to reconcile ourselves to our, to reconcile means to find the friendship again, to reunite, and the root of it means

[22:46]

to call for uniting, kind of a shout, conciliare, to call out for uniting. And this is very difficult to do, and sometimes it takes a lot of courage. I've witnessed people trying to find reconciliation, and the courage that it takes, and the strength it takes to come to at-oneness again, which is neither one nor two, which takes two people to come to a chord, and yet there's still those two people. I have been spending a lot of time at soccer games recently. My son's on a select soccer team, and he has a coach from Australia, and very interesting, because he says things that I think an American coach probably, probably couldn't get away with,

[23:51]

but wouldn't occur to an American coach to say. He yells out in this Australian accent, be bribe, be bribe, sons, be bribe. And did you understand what I said? Yeah, and I remember, what's he saying? What's he saying to the kids? They're now picking up on how he talks, and he also says, you know, be strong, and he calls his players honest. They're honest. These are honest players. So, you know, I never thought of an honest soccer player, really. But honest comes from honor, and honest to goodness is absolutely genuine, the honest to goodness truth. And when he admires a player, he says they're honest, meaning they're not, they have no designs, you know, on being the one who gets the goal,

[24:54]

or they're just trustworthy. They'll play for the team. They'll play for the team's benefit, and to be brave means to be strong. Valiant means to be strong. So he calls up, I think, these kids are under 10. They're nine years old, mostly. They're now beginning to turn 10, but they're youngsters, you know. But he's able to call up from them an energy and a heroism, really. When they're on the field, they're just like heroes. You see them putting forth their stout-hearted and true energy for this game, dropping off any, you know, self-serving actions, and going forth. And they do need to be brave, because that ball comes, you know, you can get hurt. Kids get pulled off the field, and teeth, just like Bodhi Darwin,

[25:55]

they get their front teeth knocked out. So to go towards that ball, sometimes you need to have this spirit. Brave, bravery is sometimes thought of as an innate quality, and courage is what you bring forth at the moment. I don't know if I would say that exactly, but that's what the dictionary says about brave. Brave is an innate quality. So they become heroes, they really do, when you watch them. And then, and you're surprised when they come off the field after watching these heroes, that, you know, they want their popsicles, and you know, their french fries. Oh yeah, these kids are nine years old. But when they're on the field, putting forth their stout-hearted, valiant energy, it's stirring, you know. They're heroes, and the word hero means to protect. So the true heroes are those that

[26:57]

live for the benefit of others, that drop their one's needs to get things for oneself, and live to help all living beings. This is the bodhisattva vow, and the bodhisattva is also called a hero. It takes a kind of heroicness to drop our inclinations for getting things for I, me, and mine, and to see what the situation calls for, and to protect other beings. To protect other beings, protect them from one's own, you know, to be mindful, to be filled with mindfulness, has a social dimension. I owe this thought to Anne Klein. It has a social dimension, which is to protect other beings from one's own carelessness, and possible ways you can harm.

[28:02]

If you're mindful, not only do you become enlivened yourself, and filled with kind of joy of living in the present, but you protect other beings from your own carelessness, and harsh words, and so it takes care of other beings to be mindful, and present. This protects other beings, and in trying to reconcile with other people, to be very aware of one's own internal take on things, and not necessarily believe that that's the way things are, is a kind of protection. You turn your attention inwards, and see where you might be stuck, where, what is the dialogue

[29:05]

an internal dialogue that's going on about that person that's stopping you from reconciling, that's getting in the way of reuniting. So mindfulness of that is very helpful for reconciliation, and at one moment, and creating this two, not one, twining. So this kind of honesty and protection, the hero, the bodhisattva as hero or heroine, it helps in practicing all the precepts. You know, we've been having a lot of difficulty with our parking lot, our guest parking. Is it open today? Did you park down there? It's open today.

[30:06]

We've had to close it. I don't know if you know this, but there's been a series of break-ins, especially in the night, overnight parking, night after night, several times a week. Even though we've asked people not to leave valuables in their car, people are staying at the guest house and coming for overnight stays. But the locks have been jimmied, roofs have been slashed, and then Tayo, who's head of our maintenance, went kind of searching around back there to see what was going on and found a purse, a woman's purse with credit cards and whiskey bottles and beer bottles and junk, lots of junk, all down at Green Gulch, down at the end of the road there, which we really weren't aware of. It's some place where we really haven't extended our presence. It's not exactly unconscious, it's just down at the other end of Green Gulch,

[31:07]

but it's not safe anymore to have cars there. And then we just had cars park in the day, and then there were some break-ins in the day, like between four and six in the afternoon. So it's a big problem, and we don't know exactly what to do. We're really taking this up. A number of people on staff have formed a subcommittee on what we're going to do about this. Now, you know, the second precept, or actually, after the three pure precepts, then there's the ten grave precepts. The second grave precept is not to steal or not to take what is not given. And in a commentary about this precept, it talks about anything that's been given to the triple treasure, has been given to the Buddha, it has great merit.

[32:08]

Even the smallest thing that's been offered to the Buddha has great merit. And so to steal from the Buddha or to steal from the triple treasure has a graveness to it. So in order to protect beings, I mean, this is a way that I've been trying to look at this in terms of the parking lot down there. In order to protect these beings who are coming and stealing basically from the triple treasure, which has grave consequences, we have to do something. We have to put a gate up or lights or motion detectors, something to help them and also help the people whose cars are being broken into. But this... I've been trying to look at it as how to protect beings in this situation. So it's very...

[33:18]

This I owe to a conversation in a priest's reading with Tien Chin, Rev. Anderson. Another one of the precepts is not to praise self at the expense of others or not to discuss the faults of others. So fault means a defect in perfection that stops you from perfection, that stops you from fully expressing your Buddha nature of perfection. So if you look at people and see their faults always, it's very easy. As Rev was pointing out, it's very easy to... Anybody can look, in fact, we do it all the time, look out and see everybody's faults. But the difficulty is seeing people's virtues. How do you look and see people's virtues? So this is something for me to study.

[34:20]

How do you see people's virtues? How do you look at someone and see their virtues? And if you study very strongly, looking for virtues, you discover a lot. You can discover a lot. I owe this to listening to Terry Gross, Fresh Air NPR. She was interviewing a man named Eric Lomax who was an English officer who had been captured during the war and was a Japanese prisoner of war and had been interrogated and tortured terribly, especially by this one Japanese officer. I don't know if some of you heard the interview. And he survived the war and afterwards had a kind of vow to find this man and he actually wanted revenge. He didn't know where to find him.

[35:22]

He didn't know his name. Or if he knew his name, it was a name that there were a lot of... Anyway, synchronistically, he was given, years later, while he was searching, he was given an English-language newspaper from Japan that had the story written by a Japanese officer talking about the remorse and regret that he had for what he had done to this particular English officer during the war. And so the English man began to... He went and tried to find out as much as he could whether or not this was the actual person. And he contacted him and they met in Thailand. I think that's where they had their encounter with their wives and they came and they met each other. And the Japanese man asked for forgiveness and he was a Buddhist

[36:25]

and it was through his practice that he came to feel this... ...wanting to... He wanted to make atonement. He wanted to become at one again. He had actually thought the English man had died and when he found out that he was still alive, he was so thankful because he could, in person, make his atonement. It wasn't too late. And to reconcile, reunite. And they actually were able to do it. And the English man waited until they had had a number of meetings together until he really believed that this man was thoroughly... ...thoroughly remorseful and sorry for what he had done. And at that point, he forgave him. So this is possible, this kind of reuniting at all different levels.

[37:30]

Misunderstandings and grave, grave wrongs that we've done. There is possibility for atonement and reconciliation. So, our understanding of emptiness, it's very important not to think of emptiness as a nothingness. Out of emptiness, without emptiness, nothing, nothing can emerge. The fact that everything is interdependent means that it changes and grows and dies and forgives and loves. And otherwise, it would be very stuck and stagnant if it were not in relationship. So being in relationship is of paramount importance.

[38:33]

And mindfulness, it's very important to be filled with mindfulness and yet not fall into the pitfall of being so... You can become so involved with mindfulness that you forget about compassion. There's a kind of pitfall there to watch for. So, I wanted to read you a kind of description of emptiness, which is interdependence and compassion. I read this at a lecture I gave on Wednesday. I thought you'd appreciate it. So this is from Joanna Macy's book, World is Love or World Itself. And it describes the time before the Big Bang. And she's quoting Italo Calvino, who's an Italian writer,

[39:39]

and also he collected Italian folktales. And he wrote a book called Cosmic Comics, where he describes the evolution of life from an individual who experienced it before the Big Bang. So everything's, as he says, all the universe, all the matter was concentrated in a single point before it began to expand into space. So everything was there. So this is what he says, we were all there, where else could we have been? We were all in that one point and, man, was it crowded. Contrary to what you might think, it wasn't the sort of situation that encourages sociability. Given the conditions, irritations were almost inevitable. And then he goes on, in addition to all the people, you had to add all the stuff we had to keep piled up in there. All the material that was to serve afterwards to form the universe, from the nebula of Andromeda, to the Vosges Mountains, to so on and so forth. And then there was this family, the Tsutsu family,

[40:42]

and all their household goods, and their camp beds, and their mattresses, and their baskets, just a big mess. So naturally, there are a lot of complaints and gossip and stuff going on when they're all in this one point. Except for this one lady, Mrs. Pavicini. And Mrs. Pavicini, no complaints ever attached to her. And she's remembered very fondly, her bosom, her thighs, her orange dressing gown, everybody liked her. And she slept with her friend, Mr. Whatever's name. But in a point, if there's a bed, it takes up the whole point, so it isn't a question of going to bed, but being there, because anybody in the point is also in the bed, and anyway, they're all there together. So this state of affairs could have gone on indefinitely, but something extraordinary happened. And this is kind of really the origins of the universe.

[41:44]

An idea occurred to Mrs. Pavicini. Oh, boys, if only I had some room, how I'd like to make some pasta for you. And then, this is the longest sentence of the English language to this paragraph here, that Joanna Macy loves. And in that moment, we all thought of the space that her round arms would occupy, moving backward and forward over the great mound of flour and eggs, while her arms kneaded and kneaded white and shiny with oil up to the elbows. And we thought of the space the flour would occupy and the wheat for the flour, and the fields to raise the wheat, and the mountains from which the water would flow to irrigate the fields, of the space it would take for the sun to arrive with its rays to ripen the wheat, of the space for the sun to condense from the clouds of stellar gases and burn, of the quantities of stars and galaxies and galactic masses, and so on and so forth.

[42:44]

And at the same time, we thought of this space, and at the same time that Mrs. Pavicini was uttering those words, ah, what pasta, boys, the point that contained her and all of us was expanding in a halo of distance in light years and light centuries and billions of light millennia, and we were hurled to the four corners of the universe, and she dissolved into I don't know what kind of energy light heat. She, Mrs. Pavicini, she who in the midst of our closed petty world had been capable of a generous impulse. Boys, the pasta I could make for you. A true outburst of general love initiated at the same time the concept of space and properly speaking space itself and time and universal gravitation and making possible billions and billions of suns and planets. And that was Mrs. Pavicini. She scattered through the continents of the planets, kneading with flowery, oil-shiny, generous arms.

[43:46]

And she lost at that very moment, and we mourning her loss. So in the midst of our life, to have a generous impulse, a generous what you can do for someone, and this creates our world, actually. This is what created our world. Compassion, Mrs. Pavicini. Okay, thank you very much. May our intention... My book is Meeting the Great Bliss Queen. I think that's right. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen. It's about basically feminism and Buddhism

[44:55]

and the Great Bliss Queen is a Tibetan, I think part legendary, part historical woman, practitioner, teacher. Yes, she's so young. Who's Anne Klein? I haven't heard her name. Anne Klein, she's a scholar. She teaches at... I know she was at Wisconsin for a while, somewhere in the East. She's in the East. I can't remember where she teaches. And practitioner born. Yes. K-L-E-I-N. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen. The story about Mrs. Pavicini, that was from a book called Cosmicomics, C-O-S-M-I-C-O-M-I-C-S, Cosmicomics, one word, by Italo Calvino. And it was quoted in Joanna Macy's book,

[45:58]

World as Lover, World as Friend. Yes, ma'am. Okay, I haven't thought about that. You said to use mindfulness for the voices or the messages that get in the way of reconciliation. I wondered if you could say more, I mean, what the pattern would look like, I mean, the jump between mindfulness and reconciliation. Okay. Well, the example that comes to mind is, I did an improvisation, the example that comes to mind is, I did an improvisational workshop, I think I've told this story maybe here before, but, and each person was given something

[47:00]

that they had to repeat in their mind, over and over and over, and then they had to go out and do the little ensemble, the improv, you know, they just began talking, and mine was, I'm normal, so I kept repeating, I'm normal, [...] and then I had to act out the scene, and other, somebody else was, I'm sophisticated, I'm intelligent, I'm rich, I'm, everybody had their own, and then we tried to interact. Well, it was amazing. Because I found whatever I was saying internally, I'm normal, I'm normal, I'm normal, so I would say things like, well, stitching time saves nine, and I kept saying these cliches because I was normal, so I couldn't, nothing else would come during this, what else did I say? Anyway, and the sophisticated person kept using French sayings, you know, oh, très chic, and she kept doing things like that because she was so sophisticated, so we were all caught in our own tape

[48:02]

and couldn't actually relate to one another, we were very, so I think the mindfulness helps one become aware of the internal dialogue, and then there's the internal dialogue about other people, too. They think they're so pure, and they think they've got so much power and da da da. That will get in the way of listening, you know, feeling the pain of what maybe the person's saying, feeling where it lodges, you know, mindfulness isn't just mind, it's mindfulness of body and breath and feelings and the moments that are coming up. So to fill your body with mind, to be mindful, your body mind is that not one, not two thing, this body mind filling. Where you're focused and yet aware of this flux, you're focused on what's happening

[49:03]

and still with it, and yet aware of the kind of movement and emotion and stuff that's also happening at the same time. So if you're not aware of that, then you do, then you're not examining, you just say something because they're like that, you know, without that turning, well, it's also turning in. So I think the other thing about mindfulness is if you practice it strongly, you become very alive feeling, you know, very present and you don't have time to kind of think, well, what can I do for their approval or to make it sound good or to fulfill their expectations. It's like because the practice of being so aware of what's going on is so satisfying, you know, and so alive and enlivening

[50:05]

that there's not so much room for falling into, you know, living for the, for what other people want you to be, you know, that make the leap. The story you related about the program on NPR, I mean, when I hear these stories, it always kind of gets me. And I think the reason is that because I am not able to have those same kinds of abilities to forgive in that way. And so when I hear these stories, it really means a lot. Uh, so would you give a little Dharma talk on forgiveness? I mean, how, how? I always want someone to give me a little formula. Well, you do this, this and this,

[51:08]

and then you'll be able to forgive. And so far I haven't found it. Well, it's not an intellectual event. I don't think it's, you know, the word to pardon. I think the last talk I gave, which was in July, the last Sunday talk was about forgiveness for those of you who might remember. So the word to, what? We can't hear you. Oh, I'm sorry. So the word forgive is forgive. It's the exact translation of perdonare, for to give, to give. It's, it's talking about giving, you know, so to forgive is, and to pardon is the same thing. Pardon and forgive and perdon, and to donate, you know, it's a gift. So, uh, before that time

[52:12]

is before that time. But I think, um, this is one thing, and I should say who I owe it to, and I can't remember it. I think it's, um, like Joko Beck, maybe. Joko Beck, who says, if you look at any relationship that's not going well, where there's strife and problems, there is somewhere in there, there's an inability to forgive that you can bet on it. Um, so that, that really came, you know, home to me, uh, just looking at my relationships. Now, one may say to themselves, I can't forgive them. What, what they did was unforgivable, you know. Um, but then you hear this story, you know, and you see that there is the human, we have, we do have this capacity. Because we, we actually, um, I think we want to forgive.

[53:15]

It, it actually keeps us, this is more, I think, um, I think this is Kariyuri Roshi. This is a combination, when I was doing the talk on forgiveness last time, I remember reading Joko Beck, Kariyuri Roshi, Akin Roshi, maybe a lot of people talking about forgiveness, and the, um, the fact that when you don't forgive, you are keeping yourself from filling and flowing with joy, it, it stops you, it is hurting you. The person may not, well, the person may feel badly as well, but they may not, you know, be affected, but it actually affects you. So, um, when, when you say you don't think you're one of those kind of people, or something who care, you know, uh, one may not know how to even start. Well, what do I do? I know I don't forgive this person, so how do I even start? And,

[54:17]

I, I guess my feeling is you don't want to hurry the process, but you, but to start somewhere like, I need help here, I want to forgive and can't, you can start there. And you can also, there's loving-kindness meditations that you can actually, very beautifully worked out Buddhist meditations where you start with sending, um, you know, thoughts of loving-kindness, may all beings be happy, may they be filled with joy, and you start with, usually you start with yourself, and, you know, there's visualizations where you can, you know, visualize your heart chakra, a white lotus and opening, and, we don't do this so much in, in Zen practice where you have a guided visualization such as that, but I know at Spirit Rock they do, and Thich Nhat Hanh's group does, and, and they're not antithetical or anything to Zen, I, I don't think, by any means. So you, you wish for yourself,

[55:22]

um, to be free from sickness and to be happy, and, and then you, the next kind of, you think of yourself, I mean, you can do it a lot of different ways, but anyway, the next tier is the people you love and are close to, your family and friends, and then the people that, um, are kind of neutral people, acquaintances that, you know, and then you go to your enemies, and you actually consciously make words and vows and send out wishes to these, and then beyond into all, you know, straight people in the entire universe. Um, so that's an actual practice that people do, do if you want to, um, so, it's, you know, about forgiveness, it's, some people can't forgive themselves for what they've done to others, there's that,

[56:23]

where they, what they feel they've done is unpardonable, unpardonable, and so terrible that they cannot forgive themselves, so that's one kind of forgiveness, then there's other people who you feel have done things to you, uh, and there is this way by which you, this is another practice of exchanging self for others, where you, you imagine you were brought up like that person, had the same background, you stand in their shoes, in detail, you know, what their life was like, what, how they were ignorant of various things, and you, you understand, you, you try to understand, and out of that often will come some insight into what made them do what they did, or what it was all about, you know, those are, what do you think about that? I think those are good things. Um, about not,

[57:28]

not one, not two, I happen to have tuned in the other day, in the summation of the O.J. Simpson case, and it was all over now, and I couldn't help but feel a great sadness, not a question of blaming for what he did or didn't do, um, not, not, whether he's guilty or not, not the issue, but that he's there with all this heavy stuff coming on, and, um, the interconnectedness, how he affects so many people around the world, the whole world is involved in this, and so that, um, there was this great sadness

[58:29]

that I felt suddenly that there was no separation between O.J. and myself being not different than him, yet, it's not one, it's not two, I'm still, not in his shoes, but nevertheless, he affects me, and I'm sure so many, so many people around the world are, everyone's affected by it in some way, so I'm just thinking of the ripples that, that it has, and the area of forgiveness for me is that I'm not different. I have other things, I may, I may even do a thing like that in a rage,

[59:29]

I will be raged, I don't know, but I have other things that are just as, well, not just as bad, you know, if he were, if he's found guilty, but, um, I think it just has something to do with the great sadness that I felt for, for having just to be in that kind of a situation, I really don't know what I'm saying right now, something just came up, again, Well, I, uh, I appreciate what you're bringing up, I, what it reminded me of while you were talking is the Thich Nhat Hanh poem about the pirate, which I think a lot of you probably know it, basically he describes Vietnamese boat people and a pirate ship coming as they did,

[60:33]

and capturing the ship and raping a 12-year-old girl, and she drowning her, throwing herself overboard, drowning herself after that, and he says, I am this young girl who, the poem is, you know, call me by my true names, I am this young girl who felt she couldn't, this is not the poem, this is the gist, this is my, what I'm remembering of it, who felt she couldn't live anymore in her community after this, and I am the pirate who, um, you know, out of ignorance did, did this thing, and I'm no different had I been brought up the way he was, and had his life, I, you know, who is to say that I wouldn't also, he says I would have done the same thing, so this self-identifying, identifying with, not just picking ones that, oh, I want to be like that, like the ideals, but realizing all of that, call me by my true names,

[61:33]

all of that, so, it's a beautiful poem, I was thinking about this, uh, forgiveness aspect too, because, um, I was, one of my kids, I've been not forgiving for something he did, not controlling him, responsible for it, I realized how much it's hurting me, and, so I was trying to write about it, and what I wrote, seemed to just turn something for me, and of course I owe it to a lot of different people, but what I wrote was, to forgive someone means you let them back in your heart, not necessarily into your body, and that, like, gave me, a way,

[62:35]

it just let me just put it down, but, because at least the first thing, needs to be an action of the heart for me, it needed to be an action of the heart, not of the body, and then I don't know what will happen later, but that needed to be the first step. Thank you very much. About, 10 years ago, I sort of left the practice, and went to work, and started a business, and went through selling that, and becoming real, caught up in the corporate world, and, got burned,

[63:36]

very badly, and coming out of that, this last May, it's been a period of time of, complete disconnection really, from the world itself, and what is momentous, what is exciting, what is, you know, enthusiasm that's dropped away, for anything I love to do, and looking back at that, it was, that this person had, taken from me, the things that I had worked so hard, so long to create. It came up to the point where I, fell, and had an operation, and fell over the edge of the bathtub, after that, and split up, and ended up hanging by the throat, and, was out cold,

[64:37]

and came to choking, and was very close to death. In the last week since that happened, a lot of emotions have been very close to the surface. The time, of, allowing those feelings to come, I've been back through many interactions with this person, and, realized, that he represents my ego, that this person represents my ego, part of me, that has, put me through all, of, the closing in, the shutting down, the distancing from other people, the stories, like this one, that just keep coming back up again, that have to be told. And, so, in the process of realizing that that was me,

[65:42]

that, that, that poem, and then, the pirate, that, that suffering, what I am in the state of now, is, saying, what can I do in my life, to make things meaningful at the end of the day? And, what can I do, to connect, to be one with other people, to, to open my heart, to let other people in? And it's, it's not a question in the sense of, you need an answer, it's just a question in the sense of, how, how is the world wired? It's too big to have an intellectual answer right now. And, so, here I am,

[66:46]

to obey people, and it's the question, where, where, I'll stop talking, thank you. Thank you for coming to Greenbelch. I've heard Thich Nhat Hanh also say, after talking about that poem, or reading it, that at this moment, on the coast of Thailand, the baby's being born, we'll become a pirate, 20 years from now, in our world. Which is a powerful thing, if we think about it. That the world that we've created, will create that pirate who's capable of doing those acts, that he writes about. And I think, I think Monkanya said something like, what one person is capable of, all people are capable of. And that's,

[67:54]

that's very, that's powerful, if we really take it into our hearts. And, I, I'm part of 12-step programs, and one of the, my, one practice that I've learned there, is that we have two steps. One is that we make a list of all people we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all. And then the second, the step after that, is to make direct amends to such people, wherever possible, except when we do so with hatred. And that practice of actually taking responsibility for myself, and in some direct way, making amends to other people, is a practice of compassion and of forgiveness. And the more I'm capable of being honest, myself, and of directly owning my misdeeds, or the ways that I've harmed others, the more open I become to forgiveness for other people. At least that's been my experience with that practice, is that it's, I honestly, to the best of my ability, which is irregular, at least, try and take responsibility for those things.

[68:58]

Then I become much more forgiving of other people. And it's that, and I think embedded in that is the notion that it's not, that justice, it's not about justice, it's about compassion. That if we can let go of that notion of justice, if I can just get justice, get that person, or get some kind of redress, or, I mean, it's that whole litiginous thing that we do here in this culture. And if there's some way that we can go beyond that, then it becomes more possible to open ourselves to forgiveness in some deeper way. And I have a question, which has to do with the parking lot. There is a Zen carible that talks about thieves coming into a Zen master's house when he's meditating. And they come in and start robbing, and he's sitting there in the moonlight, it's in my recollection, and when they've just about cleaned out the house, he stops, and then he makes himself known, and he says, well, take my cloak, too. You've forgotten that. And he offers him the thing that he's wearing, and then they leave.

[70:00]

And then he says, and I wish I could give him a moment. Yeah. If I could. And I wonder how that applies to what we're dealing with. Yeah. Well, I think... God. I think it's... If someone chooses to do that, that's right for them, you know. I think the people who come to be guests here are not choosing to have their cars ripped up, you know. So it's a practice, you know, to... practice with whatever's happening. And I think people are practicing with whatever's happening, but it's a big mess. So I don't... I wouldn't extrapolate necessarily that, but the idea of... I think that, you know, to live... So that's your main thing, is to awaken other people, you know. That's... To benefit other people,

[71:01]

what can you most give them that is the most beneficial? It's to expose them to the teachings of the Buddha and awaken them, you know. So that's what he was doing, I feel, with those guys. This was his way of awakening them. Another time he might have said, get your hands off that body, you know. I mean, I don't think it's necessarily that it means the teaching of giving all your possessions. It's how, on that moment, the most appropriate response was that. And that's what it's written about, you know. But it could have been something else the next day, depending on who the robbers were. You know, one of the first lectures I heard when I came to Zen Center, one of the first lectures by Zen Tatsu Baker had to do with this thing that you mentioned about corruptibility. You didn't say corruptibility, but he said something like, we would all sell our mothers. We're all corruptible, basically. And we would, if the circumstances were such,

[72:03]

we would sell out our mothers, you know. And that hit me, just kind of, Elsa, when you were speaking, that hit me so hard. It just, being honest about the fact that I was capable, just like Walter was saying, I'm capable of doing acts in a rage. I can't guarantee, you know, I cannot guarantee that I wouldn't. Or, you know, you can think of lots of other scenarios where you would go against your best intentions out of fear or... So knowing that, you know, I remember when I heard that lecture, I was like, well, knowing that, then I have to practice with all my might, you know. I cannot slacken off for a moment because there may be harm, you know. I may, I'm corruptible, you know. I act corruptible, meaning able to be, um, to go against your deepest intention. You know, there is this possibility. So that really came in very strong.

[73:05]

That, and if you can't, if you steal pencils from work, you can't sit Zazen. Those two things were, I think it was the same lecture. That also came in like, whoa. This is, we're talking about the details of our life here. We're not fooling around no more. I'm a plant police now. I don't know if anybody's tuned into KPSA, but there's this very grounding thing between Thich Nhat Hanh and I just haven't heard mine. He said, we have something different today. Here is Thich Nhat Hanh. And it was an interesting discussion because it was very grounded, very political, talking to Thich Nhat Hanh about how to deal in politics with a government that's hostile to a government that's actually practicing compassion. And Thich Nhat Hanh was talking about the Vietnam War

[74:05]

and said, well, you know, we did fight back, and the monks did fight during the Vietnam War, and history of Buddhism is not one of total pacifism. He said, but the difference is that hopefully they're all fighting with compassion. That is, the motivation wasn't anger. If the motivation is anger and you're dealing with anger, then you're not mindful. You're not mindfully killing. So it was a very interesting discussion about, because there are people who do want to fight into death, and there are people who don't want to practice, you know, the way Dalai Lama or Martin Luther King or any of this. I just thought it was a very interesting thing about, you know, even if you're going to fight, then have some clarity and vision around it. I mean, you don't really think of it that way. I mean, you know, okay, here, take my hook. But, you know, if you're going to punch the guy in the face, then he can do it mindfully.

[75:07]

And I think we encounter that all the time. And we like to talk about, here, you know, take my hook. But, you know, someone comes up to you and they're in your face. I know that I work in a school, and one of the things they tell teachers is that if a kid comes up to you with a gun or a knife, you always say, shoot to kill. Don't, there's a line you say to them, I forget what it is, but shoot to kill. Don't, don't mean me. Okay, just shoot to kill. And I know a gym teacher who was kind of punched twice by a kid who came up to him with a gun. Shoot to kill. And they get really scared. I mean, and they couldn't shoot to kill you, you know. But, again, it's just, it's nice when you can in a club, but, you know, when you have to go to the gym, you don't get to do it. You know, one of the saddest things about, you know, when I was talking about, excuse me, be bribed, be bribed, you know, that this, the kind of, you know, you can use that beautiful energy, that stout-hearted and true,

[76:10]

sincere, physical energy. And, and I think in the military, you know, that's often, they use that, they take that beauty, you know, and use it for purposes for, you know, and it's, and young men and women, but I think of it mostly as a male thing, actually more that energy is, you know, they're destroyed, you know, because they're, they're actually, their hearts are true and brave, and they're heroes, they're trying to protect, but it's, it gets perverted, you know. So yes, if you're going to punch out of compassion, I don't know about mindful, be mindful while you're punching, it's more like, what is the intention of your punch? And if it's to wake somebody up, and there's plenty of stories about it, although, you know, I had a, somebody in a, the Covell Zen group who had read a lot of these stories, and he didn't like what somebody said, so he grabbed him by the, scruffed the neck,

[77:13]

and shook him around, and, because he was doing the Zen master thing, you know. We had to have several meetings, and the woman never came back to sit after, I mean, so he may have been very mindfully shaking, but it had, it was sort of some idea about what Zen, you know, nothing to do with, you know, meeting this person and awakening it, you know. So you always have to look at, intention beneficial to others, and the true benefit is waking to their true nature. It's not having them, waking them up to what you believe, and want them to, you know, go along with you. So you have to be very careful. I wanted to thank you for that. I have a 21-year-old son who's raging through my parking lot right now, and I think I've given away my mother, and my, kind of my position, that's how it feels, it's gone that far. And so, there was some punching

[78:13]

going on last night, and I was doing this mindful punching. We had that, you know, we had the worst verbal battle I've ever had in my family last night. I think you're very much on the point, is that I was trying to transmit Dharma somehow, or in some sense, rather than seeking his true nature. I believe that's what I heard you say, and since he's my son, I think I really know his true nature, but that's actually not true at all. I don't know his true nature. Yeah, so that's, that's what's going on with me right now, in my arena of forgiveness, yeah. So, you felt, you were trying to transmit your Dharma, your view, kind of? Yeah, well, I have given, and given, and given, and my cloak, and my mother, it's just how it felt. And it still isn't enough, it's just this raging, [...] going on. And so, it is, for me, at the point where it seems like punch is relevant, it seems like saying, no, I'm not going to give the moon and my mother, nor my cloak,

[79:14]

nor my parking lot, that this is not, listen, this is not the right, the right thing at this point. But it's a deep, for me, a deep conundrum, and I think the way through it, that I see is the comment that you just made, about my seeking his true nature in some way that's not a codependent, co-alcoholic, co-something. My purely seeking his true nature, which is a, for me, kind of a high Dharma point. And if you get a ladder, then I'm sure I'd like to do it. Yeah. Well, I think that's what Sala was saying, you know, is, how can you bring everything you've got to this event with reconciliation as the goal, as you're, you know, uniting, being on the same side, how, without any attempt to have it go your way, whatever that is, you know, to drop, and just find out what's going on,

[80:14]

you might need help. I mean, I don't know, I don't want to get too personal or anything, but, you know, you may need like a third, you may need a witness, who is a helpful, neutral, who helps you to listen, and the other person to listen. But, you know, I don't know how old your son is, but I imagine... 21. Yeah, you said 21. So, there's a lot going on there, you know, there's a lot, a lot, that's all concentrated on that one point, you know, of, history and needs, and, so, you know, the, the thing about, are you speaking truly, are you speaking for benefit, and is it the right timing, and is it the right place? Those are four things. Before the Buddha spoke, he checked those things out. Is it beneficial? First of all, is it true? And you might just stop there.

[81:16]

Is it, is what I'm saying true, or is it just out of, is it reaction, is it anger, is it, old tapes? What? That's a question that's difficult to answer when you're emotionally empowered. That's right. So, so if you're not sure, maybe you are quiet, you know, maybe you listen, maybe you wait. Is it beneficial? Maybe it's true, but is it beneficial to tell? Maybe not then. Is the time right? And is the place right? So those four, and it may keep you from, one may, wait, to speak. So, anyway, I have, um, I feel for your situation, having a teenager, you know, and, I, you know, we just heard this,

[82:17]

uh, story about Suzuki Roshi, uh, on Wednesday night talk. A recollection, Rev was talking about, stories that Suzuki Roshi told, and with his first teacher, who was very, um, what shall I say? I don't want to call him mean, but he did various things, so that all the other monks ran away, except for Suzuki Roshi. It wasn't like, some jovial, fun, Zen master to hang out around with, it was, really difficult. But he stayed, he stayed in there, because as he says, he was too stupid to go, but, you know, it may not, it may not be, at this time, friends, you know, you're not friends, maybe now, but there's something deeper, that's more important. Thank you. I have a question, in relation to our responsibility, to our own lives. Something that's been coming up,

[83:24]

for me in my meditation lately, sometimes I'll, do something that really, is distressing me, and I'll see that I'm that, and I'll see that I'm the opposite of that too, you know, planned out. And when I hear people talking about, compassion, and dealing with anger, dealing with rejection, I've been seeing more and more, how a lot of my demons, are, my own fears, and denial of my own stuff, and stuff that I struggle with in the world. And it seems that most of our efforts, and most of mine anyway, efforts and awareness around compassion, is all around others, how to be connection to others. And as we are in connection, our interbeing, and I feel like I lose sense, of where,

[84:25]

where there is an honoring of self. You know, for some reason, I have a greater awareness of this body than this one, and there's some responsibility there, that I'm not, privy to maybe at this moment. And I just, I get the sense that there's something, about relationship to self, that I'm not getting enough attention. Yeah. Well, it's, it's a big issue, especially for women, I might add, about self-care. You know, I think women, and men too, or a lot of men I come in contact with, but anyway, being socialized into taking care of everybody else first, and everybody else's needs first, and being kind of, the priorities being such that your, needs are way down at the bottom,

[85:25]

then if you put them above, then you're called selfish, and I mean this, this is not uncommon. This is a big issue, self-care, and, and the kind of, this is very interesting, I was trying to bring it into the lecture, but I didn't find a way, but I'll tell you, the Dalai Lama, met with this group of therapists, this I owe to Anne Klein, this book, Meeting the Great Bliss Queen, group of therapists, and he is a very sensitive, she says, sensitive and acculturated man, and they had this very difficult time, trying to get across what self-hatred was. He didn't, he could not get it. So I, I just found that so fascinating, because it, it's, it's so common, it's so common this, where you turn the self-loathing, and self-hatred, and self-deprecation, and I mean it's, it's, it's epidemic, you know, it's, it's just, and very, for people who are meditating,

[86:26]

that's what comes up, this critical judging, and he didn't, he could not understand what they're getting at, self-hatred, you know, now don't you find that interesting? Anyway, so yes, I think you're right, the compassion, it starts, it starts with yourself, I mean just like that loving-kindness meditation, it starts with you, may I be happy, may I be filled with joy, free from disease, free from enmity, and all those things. Yeah, but all, all of those kinds of words, are concepts, and are cultural concepts, and somehow that means, you know, more distant, than, than just a person, sounds like another response to the word yourself. Well, when it, what does make you happy, you know, when you, if you say may I be happy, what, what do you do, on a day-by-day, moment-by-moment, basis, that is self-care? Well actually,

[87:27]

the first thing that came up for me, when you said that, it's not allowed, that is allowed, you know, it's like, bad thoughts, and, even, you know, steps away, it's, you know, there's tissue here, I don't know, everything seems about, loving, I don't want to say other, you really can't love other, unless you love yourself, I mean that, that also is a concept you hear, batted around, but the fact is that, that, what happens is, it turns into, I mean you have, like jealousy, and envy for all the good things they have, well what about me, you know, and it, it gets all perverted, you know, and distorted, unless, unless you're thoroughly taking care of yourself, you know, people sometimes talk with me about, you know, somebody was so mean to them, and they said this,

[88:27]

that, and the other, da [...] da, and the fact is, the person who is that way, is an unhappy person, suffering, is filled with, that's what it's all about, a person who's joyful, and happy, does not speak harshly, and unkindly, they're, that's not what comes out of it, so you've got to, if you don't want to speak harshly, you want to have compassion, you have to take care, you have to have some self-care here, yes it's allowed, Darlene Cohn, I don't know if some of you heard her speak here, she just wrote a book on arthritis, and self-healing, and one of the chapters is about the relentless pursuit of pleasure, and she goes into, this is one of the main ways she helped heal herself, she found, she found that she was hanging out with people, who were not nurturing to her, actually treated her kind of badly, but social niceties, and go to parties, and she realized with mindfulness, that these people, she felt sicker actually,

[89:29]

she had an illness that her body told her right away, you know, she'd go into attack, you know, she'd have a rheumatoid arthritis attack, if she was with people who treated her badly, so she had to say, okay, I cannot be with these people, I'm not strong enough for, and she would choose people who were nurturing, who loved to be with her, who listened to her, who, you know, not people who, you know, you understand, and all sorts of other things like, this is one example I remember, the sound of the teacup hitting the saucer, you know, that little, she has this nice, that little click as it sits itself down, you know, the relentless pursuit of pleasure, you know, finding those things you love, and doing them, she, she realized this because she was in terrible pain, couldn't move, and she was brought by a friend out to the beach for a day at the beach, hauled, kind of thrown in the back seat, and said, you're going to this picnic, you know, and there she was in the sun, and just enjoying herself, and there was a party,

[90:30]

and people who loved her, and they brought her food, things she usually couldn't eat, like cake, and she was pain free for like two days afterwards, and realized that she was, she had to do these things for herself, and in fact, she makes, she schedules them in, you know, those are the, she gets, she does river rafting for disabled people, she's gone to all these rivers, and she's in ecstasy, she loves it, out in the wind, in the water, so these are, and then she has all this energy for other people, she works out, she's a body worker, you know, she doesn't feel like, oh, not another person, she's,

[91:12]

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