We're always faced with the question of how to practice. When we come to the Zen Do, there's a form, or there are forms of practice. And when you walk into the gate, you walk into the atmosphere of the Zen Do, of the Zen Center. You come into the zendo and you bow and you sit on the tan and you cross your legs and there's incense and there's a figure of Buddha on an altar. There's priests and zen students and everybody's coming here for the same purpose, more or less. This creates the atmosphere of practice.

[01:05]

So in the atmosphere of practice, one's attention turns toward practice. And then, after zazen, we go out the gate and enter into the world, enter into a different atmosphere of the world. And there's no structure in that outside the gate for how to practice. So each one of us has to create the structure of practice out of the raw materials outside the gate. So The entrance to Zen is called the gateless gate. Which side of the gate is practice on?

[02:10]

And when you enter the gate, are you going into practice or out of practice? Or are they just various forms of practice? Actually, every event that you meet is a gate for practice. There's no way that you can avoid practice except by forgetting what you're doing. As long as you remember what it is that you're doing, there are only opportunities for practice. opportunities for practice. So this is the most important thing to remember. When we bring practice into the world, we create forms of practice.

[03:25]

So this is most important. When the sixth patriarch, Huineng, in China, sixth patriarch in China, Huineng, was given authority by his teacher, the fifth patriarch, the teacher said, you should just go out into the world and mature yourself, mature your practice. So he spent 15 years in the world cooking for hunters. That was his job, got a job cooking for a group of hunters. The story doesn't tell us what he did exactly, but it says two things. The story says, he used to take the vegetables out of the pot in which he cooked the meat and eat the vegetables.

[04:40]

And the other thing that he would do was, when he found animals in the hunter's traps, he would let them go. He would open the traps and let the animals go. So you can look at these two practices metaphorically. The fact that he picked and chose what he ate from the larger pot means that he decided how he was going to live, how he was going to act according to what rules of conduct In order to have a practice in the world, one must live according to some standards of practice. If you have been at Tassajara for five years and then come back into San Francisco or Berkeley, you should know how to set up your practice.

[05:54]

You've been doing it for five years. And you don't do it the same way you would do it in the monastery, but you set it up according to the spirit of practice. Spirit of practice is to have some standards and to be able to say yes to this and no to this. And to keep the standards of practice as high as you can. That way you benefit yourself and you benefit others. The other thing that he did was to let go of the animals that he found in the traps, which metaphorically you could say when he found sentient beings suffering, he helped them to get out of their traps. Because what it is that causes our suffering is our own entrapment.

[06:57]

entrapment in our emotions, in our feelings, in our thoughts, and in our delusions. I was talking to somebody the other day. I'm going to wait for the airplane to go by. I was talking to somebody the other day about, this person was asking me about practice. How do you practice? He said, I don't know how to practice in the world. I come to Zazen and there's the atmosphere of the zendo and then when I leave I just, I'm always angry and always,

[08:03]

lustful and I'm always deluded. And I'm always angry at people and judging them. And I said, well, you have to be compassionate with people. I said, as a teacher, if I'm not compassionate with people, then I can't be a teacher. There's no way that I can be a teacher because I'm just mad at everybody for what they're doing wrong. He said, I'm always judging people. I said, I don't know how you can do that. He said, I'm always judging people. I'm judging everybody all the time, just comparing one person with another, comparing hierarchies.

[09:08]

How can you do that? Everybody wants a fix. Tell me how I can do this. Just give me the thing that I can use, the little stone that I can put in my pocket, and when I'm angry, I pull it out. But that doesn't work. If we want to deal with anger, we have to practice not being angry all the time. Not being angry is a practice. It's not something that you can turn on and off. That's why we call practice, practice. In our Buddhist practice, we have the Brahma-viharas that we should all be practicing.

[10:25]

Brahma-viharas, as you know, are the four unlimited abodes. A vihara in India was an abode. A vihara was a practice place. You could say, this is a vihara. And it's the place where you live, where you have your practice. And of course, the real vihara is right here. This is the place where you live and where you have your practice and your true abode. And the Brahma viharas are called the unlimited abodes, the unlimited place to be, the place where there are actually no limitations. And loving kindness or love, loving kindness If I say love, that means different things to different people.

[11:27]

This is one of the most misused or widely, most widely, the word that has the most attributes of almost any other word except shit. In this sense, love is not our usual possessive kind of feeling, but unlimited, indiscriminate love, which is your desire for the welfare of beings. Sometimes people come and they ask me about their girlfriend or their boyfriend. And they say, well, how can I love so-and-so when they're attracted to somebody else, or when they're leaving me, or when they're so mean to me, or something like this?

[12:39]

And this really challenges your love. And at this time, what is love? At the time when you really want to bash them over the head, What is love? So, strictly speaking, love is your desire for the welfare of beings, regardless of how they are acting toward you. But we tend to equate it with our desire for something. I love so-and-so so I expect something in return. This is selling your love or having a string attached to your love. There should be no strings attached.

[13:43]

This way you have your freedom and you give others their freedom. So love is actually the desire to free all beings. a desire for your own freedom and a desire for the freedom of all beings. And this is how we should practice. We should practice this all the time. So when you're in the workplace, how do you practice indiscriminately love for all the beings around you, even though they don't understand you? Or even though they're not particularly attuned to you, or care about you or mean to you. Very difficult. Difficult practice. But we get caught up in our reactions. Emotional reactions, mental reactions, and our feelings.

[14:53]

And we react to people the way they act toward us. So practice is not the practice of reaction, but the practice of response. Response is coming from a place within yourself where you know who you are, and you know what it is that you want and what you're practicing. If you are biting, in this place of metta. If metta is your abode, then this is where you come from. And this is how you respond. You respond to all actions with metta, rather than with reaction. Because reaction, an action causes a reaction.

[15:56]

And when you react, you become part of the thing that you are reacting to, and that's called getting caught. So the whole world is caught in reactions. You say, the world's a mess. The world, killing each other, everybody's killing each other because we're all caught up in reactions. Vengeance is one of the most startling reactions. Not being able to let go It's being caught by the need for justice. Justice is wonderful, but it's also an entrapment. Justice itself is not an entrapment, but what passes for justice is revenge. And that's the false aspect or the imitation of justice, the need for revenge. And it keeps generations fighting each other.

[17:04]

Whole groups of people are fighting each other over 2,000 years, thousands of years of revenge for something that happened so long ago. So this is entrapment. The world is entrapped. in its emotions and feelings and partiality and need for retaliation and revenge. It just goes on and on and on and on. And somewhere it has to be cut off. So somebody says, well, how can I cut it off? You can't cut it off, but you can practice it. And when you practice it and And you can't control your anger. You can control anger and emotion to a certain extent, but that's not the way we want to live. We don't want to live our life controlling our anger and controlling our resentments.

[18:11]

So we have to turn it over. And instead of abiding in anger and resentment, We abide in metta. And that's our practice. And then when something happens, you respond rather than react. Buddha says in the Dhammapada, one of the first sentences in the Dhammapada, anger does not cease. through anger, it only ceases through love. But it's difficult, difficult to face anger with love.

[19:16]

Gandhi did it. Also important is Karuna. Karuna means feeling the pain of others, being sympathetic to the pain of others.

[20:34]

to actually realize that the pain that you feel is the same pain that everyone else feels. And to know how to be sympathetic to yourself. There are three types of a response that people get into. One is the response of judging others, the response of judging yourself, and the response of judging others and yourself. And so often, you know, absorbed. we become so self-absorbed with self-judgment, which in a way is self-pity, overtones of self-pity.

[21:54]

And sometimes I just say, just stop doing that. I know that the person cannot stop doing it, but I just say, stop doing that. There's nothing wrong with you. Why are you doing this? But we carry something from the past with us. And it keeps building up and building up and building up. And we use it as a kind of hindrance. Because if we don't hinder ourself, then we have to do something. And so it makes a wonderful kind of stumbling block that we put in our path. And someone says, see, I can't go any further than this. And then there's the judging of others.

[22:58]

Everybody's so bad. Oh, why doesn't... This is looking outside of yourself and projecting all of your fears and feelings of inadequacy on others. So either side, you know, it's somewhat egotistical because it's obsessive, obsessive self-interest. So we say, you know, there's a meta-meditation In the metta meditation, we first offer love to ourself. If you can't accept yourself or love yourself, then it's very difficult to extend it to others.

[24:03]

And if you feel that you've been beaten up or abused and going off in various wrong tracks. We hang on to this stuff, you know. And then we spend our life trying to reconstruct what happened. But you can just cut it off. You can cut it off by changing your base. It's like in practice, we say, just go straight ahead and practice. And so we start to practice. And then when we start to practice, all these hindrances come up.

[25:10]

Self-hatred, other hatred, doubts, diversions. And then we say, well, I'll come and practice when I get rid of all this stuff. When I get rid of all this stuff, then I'll be able to practice, which is wrong. You have to practice with all this stuff. All this stuff is the place where you practice. You stand up in the middle of your delusion and practice. And you drag it all along with you. You drag all your anger and resentments and inadequacies, you just drag it with you. Oh, practice so hard. And little by little, things fall off. Little by little they fall off. And little by little you find out how to turn and

[26:15]

Find the right basis. Find yourself. It's called finding yourself. Finding the right foundation for your life. Anger becomes transformed into metta. Because the energy is exactly the same. The energy of anger is the same energy as metta. It's just that the direction is different. And so we always have this opportunity to change our direction and to change our base of operation. And then there's sympathetic joy. Sympathetic joy means that we really find we're happy with the success of others.

[27:22]

So often, you know, we're so unhappy with the success of others, especially when they're competing with us. And we, you know, find in any hierarchy, there's always jealousy and envy and, you know, you want to be at the top and so-and-so is coming up and, hey, So we have a precept about that, you know? Don't raise yourself up and put others down. Sometimes if, the way to get, the way to get higher, even though you can't get higher, is to keep pushing others down. And if you push them down, then you'll be higher, right? So we tend to degrade others in order to, if we can't get any higher ourself, because that puts us into a higher position. So this sympathetic joy is very important. It means even though so-and-so got the job that you wanted, you're happy for them.

[28:27]

Even so, somebody got the girl you wanted, you're happy for her, for him. You actually can enjoy others' success. And this is like giving up self-centeredness. So happiness comes with giving up self-centeredness. False happiness comes with trying to build up self-centeredness, trying to get so much for ourself. But it's really letting go of the burdens. The other night, I saw this movie about this destroyer that was in the Second World War that was bombed by a torpedo.

[29:32]

And suddenly, you know, this torpedo from out of nowhere smashes into the boat. And one of the survivors, he said, Water was rushing in everywhere. Everybody's rushing around. I sat down in a chair. When I sat down in the chair, I said, well, this is it. I'm going to die. And he felt so relieved. I just felt so wonderful and relieved. But he escaped. But for him, that was a very significant moment. He realized that he could just let go of everything and he was still alive. And life took on a whole new meaning for him. Then there's equanimity.

[30:36]

Equanimity is to not let anything upset you. No matter what happens, you don't get upset. You always find your balance. You're always able to... Because you are here, when things go this way, the finger doesn't move. The hands move, but the finger stays steady. And this is equanimity. No matter whether things go down or things go up, you're always steady. You don't lose yourself. And this is big help to people. This helps to balance the boat. Thich Nhat Hanh said that when the boat people were coming from Vietnam,

[31:44]

The boats were so loaded, and the water was about this far from the gunwales, and people were shaking. But one person who had equanimity could step into the middle of the boat and calm everybody down. And when this one person had this quality, It affected the whole boat and it moved off safely. So this is a very important quality to practice in your life, to practice in the world, to practice equanimity. This is what we practice in Zazen. We don't get upset by anything, no matter whether things are going high or low, painful or wonderful.

[32:48]

We're always in the same place. That place is immovable. We have to find that place. That's what you're always looking for in Zazen, that immovable place. or that place that's not moved by anything, happy or unhappy, good, bad, painful or pleasant. If you have this kind of equanimity, then you can practice metta, you can practice sympathetic joy. You can practice Karuna.

[33:57]

They have great patience. Cultivate patience and practice these unlimited abodes. And you will know what to do all the time. And you won't have this question, how do I practice? This question will come up, but you will know what to do with it. Do you have a question? Yes. This is almost a how do you practice question. But if one sees in oneself a feeling or a thought that is disturbing, fear, something that really gets you to your center.

[35:01]

And then you have your critic that says, oh dear, I'm experiencing fear. And then you let it go. Of course, the fear is still there. Where do you apply it? Compassion and equanimity. It's okay to feel fear. Here is fear. Oh, that's okay. Let's just feel it. That's very compassionate. It's compassionate to the fear. Be compassionate to the fear. Oh, you know, when we say, I have fear, I shouldn't have fear, or I should get rid of my fear, or something like that. Fear is very important. You know, it tells us something. Fear is a messenger. is telling us something. What is this fear telling me? If you let the fear be there, then you can use it. It can be very useful. What is it telling me about myself? Is it necessary? Is it just a delusion? What should I do about this?

[36:07]

But just to feel the fear, And calmly, calmly feel the fear. We'll show you a direction. If you cover it, then it's hard to find the direction because you're not letting it speak. So if you let it speak, and then you are going to let it go, do you think between the process of letting it speak trying to practice equanimity, not reacting to it, and letting it go, do you apply the compassion in between? No. That is compassion. Compassion is not a separate thing. By letting it arise, that's being compassionate to yourself and to the fear. But don't think about letting it go. Don't think, oh, now I should let it go. Because you can't let it go if you don't want to let it go.

[37:12]

That's why it's fear. It's fear because you can't let it go. So just let it be. And then let it leave by itself. Let it leave by itself. Treat it with metta. And then it comes up. I have this fear, but put the fear, treat it with kindness, but don't let it push you around. Not the fear pushes one around, or the reaction to fear. The reaction pushes you around, yeah. Would you say the same things about anger?

[38:15]

Let the anger come. Let the anger be there without acting it out. And say, what else can I do? This is taking a backward step. The anger comes up, it's anger. And the reaction is to punch you in the nose. But the response is, what else can I do? Or, how can I use the anger rather than the anger using me? That's the point. When we react, the anger is using me. Anger is in control. I'm not in control. But if I step back and say, how can I use this? Anger is a strong emotion and if one is developing skill, then you can use the anger in various ways because it's just energy.

[39:28]

You want to teach the person a lesson? What do you want to do with it? you can bring it up to a different level. But once you get caught by it, then it's hard to, you feel sorry afterward. So better to see how you can use it. Sometimes it's good to just yell at somebody, you know, and then let go of it. It's over. to do that. Somewhat skillful. Or at least free enough to do that. But see, it comes up and catches us. So we don't want to be caught.

[40:30]

But at the same time, you can't get rid of it. It's there. But maybe you can use it to explain something. you know, use that energy to explain something to somebody, or use that energy to skillfully, you know, it's possible to talk to somebody when you're angry, and if you use that energy to be convincing, How can I convince this person without hitting them? Then it can be very powerful because it drives you deeper into yourself and brings up something from a deeper place. I can't explain it, but that's possible.

[41:36]

It's not, because it's not if your basis is metta, then the anger is something that just comes up. It's just an emotion that comes up. It's not the steady state. The steady state is metta. And so that when anger comes up, it doesn't have the same kind of control over you as it would if metta was not your steady state. So you don't have to take it up. Not necessary to do it. But it helps to mature you. Anger can help to mature you. It helps to mature your metta, actually, if you don't take it up. Because it makes your metta stronger and stronger. feel that to be compassionate is to be compassionate to the self?

[43:04]

Just compassionate, period. Why is it, then, that in Vietnam, the monks emulated themselves? I can't understand. Emulated. Emulated. If compassion is for the self and for others, Well, they did it to draw attention to the problems. They sacrificed their life in order to draw attention to the problem. Big problem. That's why they did it. It's not something that women ordinarily do. It's something out of the ordinary. Something done in an extreme situation. People are not supposed to kill themselves in that way. Just kill the ego. But they're not supposed to take their life. But this is an extreme situation.

[44:06]

So, the extremity of the situation and the extreme means did bring attention to what was going on. Everybody remembers it. That was around then. And I think it did have an effect on people. Is not fear a reaction to anger or pain? Is there such a thing as pure anger itself? Pure anger? Yes. Pure anger is anger that has no object. So it's not even anger. It's just energy. They're all polluted.

[45:12]

They're all just a band-aid on top of something more painful. Yeah, that's right. A way of expressing pain, actually. It's just a way of expressing pain. So how can you express your pain? without expressing it by hurting somebody else. Say, I want you to feel my pain. That's what anger is. I want you to feel what I feel. And that's, there's no end to that. Oh yeah, well then you feel what I feel.

[45:49]

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