Today I believe is the commemoration day for the bombing of Hiroshima So I want to talk a little bit about How we create peace with ourself. How to stop the aggression or the war within our own mind. Unless we know how to stop the war or the aggression within our own mind, There's no way that we can help anyone.

[01:06]

I say that qualitatively. Even though we can't stop the war or the aggression within our own mind, we can still help people. I don't mean that we should wait until we're all perfectly enlightened before we can help anyone. But The process starts with ourself. And the person that we can help the most is the one closest to us, which is our own form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness that we call myself. In our Bodhisattva vow, we say that we vow to awaken with all beings, which is based on the original

[02:29]

vow to save all sentient beings. These two are the same, but expressed in a different way. The vow to awaken with all beings, the Bodhisattva vow, is also the vow to save all beings from what? From ignorance, suffering and confusion. So there are many ways to express this. In the Platform Sutra of the sixth ancestor of Zen, Huineng, the sixth ancestor, is quoted as saying, to save all sentient beings does not mean

[03:39]

I am going to save every one of you in some way. It means to save all the beings of my own mind. The mind of hatred, the mind of aggressiveness, aggression, the mind of sensuality, lust, jealousy, envy, indolence, skepticism, ignorance, stupidity, These are the sentient beings of my own mind and the sentient beings of the mind of each one of us.

[05:02]

In Buddhadharma, we have what are called the five hindrances. In a narrow sense, they're the five hindrances to meditation. But in a broad sense, they're the five hindrances that occur in our life that keep our mind from clarity. And they're entrances from, when I say clarity, clarity and attachment. excuse me, clarity and non-attachment. So, biggest hindrance is attachment and attachment is expressed in five ways.

[06:04]

Attachment to sensuality, attachment to ill will or anger, attachment to sloth and torpor, attachment to agitation, restlessness, and worry, and attachment to skepticism. So these five attachments keep our mind held captive. These five are our jailer, our oppressor, actually. We allow our mind to become captivated and we lose our freedom.

[07:08]

then we don't know what's right and what's wrong, because we're under suppression. So the point is for our mind to be free, and when our mind is free, then the minds of everyone is free. This is how we work. This is our task. is to free the mind. And when we are enlightened, our mind has ultimate freedom to come or to go. In the Platform Sutra, the patriarch says, our mind should be free to come and go, should not be held in any place. So attachment to sensuality is a binding to an object, to a pleasant object.

[08:32]

Binding or bonding our mind to a pleasant object first there comes interest and out of interest comes desire which becomes grasping and then clinging and and then captivation to where there's no longer any freedom to move. So this hindrance basically is the hindrance of grasping or the hindrance of clinging to objects

[09:46]

clinging to pleasant objects, whereas ill will, on the other hand, is aversion. So we have, on the one hand, grasping, and the other hand, attachment to aversion, pushing something away, distancing yourself. So attachment to ill will binds you to the object of anger, or binds your mind with anger, either one or both. And when our mind is bound with anger or ill will, our view becomes very narrow. And it's very hard to get out of

[10:48]

the binding of anger, because anger comes up as a seeming release. See, both sensuality and anger are the counterfeit of something else. Sensuality is the kind of counterfeit of love. because it always has a possessiveness as its object, whereas love actually has no object. Its real true love is freedom because it only seeks the benefit of everyone, of everything, but has no self-interest.

[11:49]

So, ill-will and sensuality both have self-interest at the base. And self-interest, although it looks like self-interest is freedom, it's actually captivity. Whatever we want for ourself in a partial way also is our captor. We become attached and we become limited through what we become attached to. So anger is a I don't even have to say anything about that because it's so obvious how anger captivates our mind. So one side is grasping, holding on, the other is pushing away.

[13:04]

We do. Sensuality in itself is not bad. having desires is not so bad, and also having a feeling of ill will or anger is not so bad. The problem is attachment to views. So this attachment or sticking is the problem. Sometimes it's appropriate to be angry up to the point where we become self-righteous. Then we're sticking to anger or sticking to something. Self-righteousness is the belief that our anger is justified and then we can

[14:10]

continue to make more anger, to produce more anger because it's justified. So it's a big trap for us. So true love is a normal state of mind. maybe you could say correct state of mind when there's no self-interest, no attachment, and our mind is balanced in equanimity. Sometimes, you know, we read poems about Zen.

[15:26]

In the Xin Xin Ming, the oldest Zen poem says, When love and hate are both done away with, then the mind rests peacefully. But it's easy to misinterpret that, to think that there shouldn't be love. Love is not the love of love and hate. Love is the love that has no opposite in this sense. And we can call it anything you want. You can call it Buddha nature, the normal mind, true nature, whatever.

[16:28]

When we sit Zazen, Zazen is an expression of true love. It's complete, total offering of yourself without holding anything back and without expecting anything to come, with absolutely no self-interest. just a complete offering of yourself to the whole being. It's a wonderful expression of pure, true love. Nothing to gain and nothing to lose.

[17:47]

No, not getting something for yourself and not pushing something away. People say, what benefit will I have from sitting Zazen? This is the wrong question. That question will never be answered. Zazen is not an activity that we do for some kind of material benefit. It's just an expression. Sitting comfortably in true love. But if you try to define it, then it's no longer true love. So it's beyond our ability to put it into a box or put it into some words.

[18:55]

Although, whatever we say, we can express it in words. Sloth and torpor and Restlessness and agitation are also opposites. Sloth and torpor are characterized by dark feeling. And the antidote to sloth and torpor is seeking light. looking for light, always keeping the feeling of light in our mind. And we just call it laziness, sometimes laziness or inability to move, inability to

[20:09]

put ourself out there in ability to get up energy. We may start something and then... So it's a big hindrance. And the opposite is restlessness. The inability to settle. We see people a lot, you know, they're always running from one thing to another without being able to settle. And if they sit down for a few minutes, they're back up again. I think maybe we're all like that. That's a characteristic that all of us have. But when we become captivated by restlessness and worry, sometimes we have to worry about every little thing.

[21:35]

And there are many things that we do have to worry about, but we easily get attached to some object, or it doesn't need to be any particular object. It's just that our mind is in the mode, a worrisome mode. Just like our mind gets into an angry mode, it doesn't need any special object. When we have attachment to anger or attachment to worry, our mind gets in the angry mode or the worrisome mode. And we just keep looking for an object for either anger or worrisomeness to attach to. So someone will snap at you. You say, God, what did I do? Why are you angry at me? And there'll be some rationale, but the rationale doesn't hold because the person is just looking for some way to be angry, some outlet.

[22:41]

for angry mode, because their mind is captivated by anger. And in the same way, our mind becomes captivated by worry. Worrisomeness is our mode, so we need something to worry about, so we worry about every little thing. And if we can't find something to worry about, or if we're not really worried about something, we try to find something to worry about. Because if we don't have our freedom, if we're not settled in our true freedom, we have to hold on to something. And in this restless world, people have to hold on to something. So if we can't find a way to be settled in this constantly shifting moving world, we grab onto anything.

[23:49]

And worry is a really good, real, I mean it's right there, you know. It's a real good mode to settle yourself on. You can settle yourself on worry, You can settle yourself on restlessness. You can settle yourself on anger. You can settle yourself on sensuality, lust, grasping. You can go to the department store every day and spend all your money on things you have to have, you think, because your mind is captivated by what you think you have to have. So, we must have some sympathy for this kind of captivation.

[24:51]

We can be critical, and critical is another thing that our mind can sit on. Oh, that's a very good one. Good mode. Critical mode is real easy attachment for our mind to rest on. But these are all traps. So the fifth hindrance, of course, is skeptical doubt. And doubt is not bad. Matter of fact, doubt is necessary, just like anger is necessary. But attachment to doubt, when we have attachment to doubt, it becomes skeptical.

[25:58]

Our mind takes on a skeptical mode, and we can't ever give ourself to anything. That's not good enough for me. Well, it's all right, but sorry. And so we can never really... It's the opposite of faith. We can't have faith in anything. And our whole body and mind yearns to have faith. But, you know, if we get burned, too much by what we have faith in, then we develop skeptical doubt. Doubt in itself is good because it balances faith. Faith has a naive quality and easily gets attached to anything and will go along with almost anything without thinking too much.

[27:10]

But doubt says, wait a minute, don't go over there. Go to the left, or go to the right, or leave this alone. So doubt is a big help to faith. And without it, faith just gets lost, goes over the cliff. Doubt is like the rudder of the airplane or the ship. It says, turn this way, turn that way. Keeps it going in the right direction. And faith is like the engine or like the direction. Effort is the engine. Faith is maybe like the eyes, the big heart. But skeptical doubt is pitiful.

[28:19]

I've seen so many people who couldn't quite do it because they couldn't quite bring themselves to actually fulfill themselves, to allow themselves to be fulfilled. Some holding back from being wholehearted and I've seen people go through their whole lives kind of wastefully because they couldn't enter into something wholeheartedly. Never being able to quite do it. And they go from one thing to another. And when you get into that mode, it becomes a habit. and a hard habit to break. But we say, it's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all.

[29:31]

I think that's, you have to take a chance. And we all learn something from our experiences of hitting bottom. Diving through the hoop and hitting bottom with our head. But we learn something. It doesn't mean we shouldn't dive again. But every time we hit our head, then we learn how to go. And doubt forms, but it doesn't hold us back. So when doubt and faith are really in good equilibrium, you move along very well. When faith becomes a little too strong, we have to be careful that we don't get carried away. And when doubt becomes a little too strong, we have to be careful that we don't hold ourselves back.

[30:35]

So keeping the balance constantly is our practice. So these five hindrances, the qualities themselves are beneficial, but the attachment and the sinking into them and being captured or captivated by them is a hindrance. And our practice is to be constantly aware of when these qualities of our mind and our emotions are being captivated.

[31:43]

to let go so that true love will be our constant state of mind. In the Platform Sutra, the patriarch is quoted as saying that our practice should be like the practice of the sun in the sky, always shining in all directions, without any partiality or any hindrance. so that objects are not a hindrance, and ill-will is not a hindrance, backing off is not a hindrance, and coming forward is not a hindrance, so that we can feel that we're complete and whole and easily

[33:18]

understand our true being, which includes everything. so that our true state of mind, deep mind, is not hindered and is constantly expressing itself. Do you have a question? It's better to drive off the cliff than never have driven at all.

[34:30]

That's only if you want to drive off cliffs. If you think it's okay to drive off cliffs, then you should do it. There's one psychologist, I think she actually studied Zen, who talked about the hindrances in a very simple way, saying that there were three ways to be acting in a way that was confused. Moving towards objects, moving against objects, and moving away. And it came up because As infants, we know that we're with, but sometimes we figure out physically that we're separate before we know again that we're with. So that terrible fear has to be taken care of in some way. Yeah. So we find a way. Yeah.

[35:36]

That's where we get stuck. For a while. Yeah. I think the thing that confuses me, maybe I'm just confused, is Well, where is healing this century to all of us? To me, I've always felt that being human means having anger, having love. It's like we are all these things. I didn't deny that. I know you didn't, but a lot of times when I read a lot of Zen quotes and things, it just seems like that's a utopia, and not that we shouldn't be working in that direction, but maybe to be human doesn't mean to be able to be beyond those things. You know, lust and all those things, I think that's all part of the way God made us. Well, lust and all those things are natural to us. Buddhism is a little unnatural. Does that mean we have to become more unnatural to being a Buddha?

[36:38]

It depends on the extent of your suffering. Okay? Whatever you can suffer, go ahead. You can suffer as much as you want, And it's up to you. And when you get tired of it, then come and knock on the door of Buddhism. If you allow yourself to be totally human, that means you're going to suffer a lot. Well, whether you're human or not, you suffer. There's suffering. But some of us like to be attached to our suffering. And some of us would rather not be. Right? So if you like being attached to suffering, please. It's not a matter of whether we're human or not. There are humans who are completely lost in their own suffering.

[37:44]

And there are humans who are not attached to their suffering. So when you say human, there's a large spectrum of what is human being, right? And so one way of being human is to just be completely caught by everything. And another way of being human is to not be attached to anything. One way is to be hot, the other way is to be cold. And in between hot and cold, you know, you have the whole spectrum of life. So, you have to know how to adjust the flame. Right? And our practice is how you adjust the flame. How you, that little handle, how you deal with that.

[38:47]

how sensitive you are to that. And the analogy is a smoky lantern. When you don't trim the wick and you turn it way up, you know, and if it's too down, you can't see. How do you keep it clean and right and adjusted so it's not stinky, smelly, and functions right. I really relate to that. I've been in Tassajara and worked with the lambs. How we use our suffering is a big topic, and Buddhism is a big topic. Hiroshima Day is a big topic. And Buddhism is so big.

[39:50]

One can talk about Hiroshima Day in terms of our own interior's enemies and how we handle our smoky land. And one can also talk about Hiroshima Day in terms of interdependence and different people who talk about in different ways. And how we use our own suffering and how we live, how we adjust our own suffering to the world which is I guess I'm feeling I've had occasion to meet a number of people recently whose inner demons are pretty forceful and who have, because of the force of those inner demons, done a great deal to dedicate their lives to clarity.

[41:13]

and made very impressive sacrifices sacrifices to their own bodies, to their own lifestyles and are very clear and I'm very grateful to those people seeing also their own distress but seeing how somehow their perception of it has really pushed them into a kind of action which is a very helpful one. So, I just wanted to say that. You mentioned about not being attached to suffering, about those who are not attached to suffering.

[42:22]

Those who are not attached to suffering, are they still suffering? How could they be suffering if they're not? Are they still suffering? Suffering is a condition of our life which is constant, even when there's enjoyment It's like a deep river, you know. You look at the ground and you see the trees and everything, and then there are streams that go underground, and some are shallow and some are deep. But suffering is a deep underground stream that's always there, no matter what's happening on the surface. we recognize it and if we don't recognize it and accept it then we're always means that we're trying to escape from it to get out of it you know and we think that there's a way to get out of it but

[43:45]

the only way to get out of it is to accept it. And that's non-attachment. Yes, there it is. But if I try to escape from it, then I become attached to it. Just like I have to accept my anger, I have to accept my lust, I have to accept my sloth and torpor, and my agitation and worry, and my doubt. and whatever. But my effort is not to be attached. Let everything come and go. One attachment is this, and aversion is that. We do have this and that, but if we grasp or push away too much then we get caught.

[44:48]

Do you think that depression is a way of, for a lot of people, of recognizing that that is their state? Their state is suffering, you know, underneath everything, the ups and the downs of that suffering. Do you think that that's where depression comes from? Well, I think depression is the recognition of suffering, but the inability to rise above it. to come up. In psychology, they say that depression is a good thing. Well... It's not something you want to be attached to, but they say that it's a recognition. It's a recognition. But when we say a good thing and a bad thing, everything is relative. Right? Anger isn't a good thing or a bad thing. But in this situation it's good, in this situation it's bad. So, depression, I don't think it's a good thing in itself, but it's a good quality when it helps us to realize something.

[45:56]

I just think that maybe for some people it's like a beginning of an awakening on some level, recognizing a real state rather than being an illusion all the time. Well, it's leading to the recognition. It's not necessarily the recognition, because if it's the recognition, then Once you realize something, you have the ability, or the, not the ability, but the potential to have the ability to come do something, right? If I am way too attached to one person and it doesn't seem to come and go, it just seems to stay, is there a specific practice? Yeah, practice love. which means that you have more... that... non-partial... love is non-partial.

[47:00]

It's really good will toward that person without partiality of ownership. Hard. You are. I won't tell you any more than that. When I figure out how to do it, I'll let you know. The other part, go right into it, get married. And then you'll find some detachment. Well, in that attachment, you can find non-attachment. As long as there's still the yearning, there's attachment. When you come together, then, oh, you're just you. Gosh.

[48:00]

What do you call the opportunity to come together and find out you're just you? Well, then you have the illusion, which creates the attachment. The illusion is what creates the attachment. And you can break the illusion? I mean, there is hope to break the illusion. Well, if you become disillusioned, then you can walk away. And the process of becoming disillusioned is the practice of non-partial love? Non-partiality. I mean, you know, you have to figure it out yourself, but... I don't give advice on this. We should quit.

[49:14]

Thank you very much.

[49:15]

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