I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. better leave children. Sorry to all you John McCain fans out there.

[01:37]

Whoops. So, when I was assigned this date to give the talk, it was right around when I became aware of how strongly I was feeling about the election and I kept thinking, how can I prepare a talk when it'll make so much difference what happens on Tuesday? How can I prepare a talk for Saturday when it'll make so much difference what happens on Tuesday? And this was way back in September or something. And what popped into my mind was this phrase of Suzuki Roshi's, even if the sun were to rise in the West, the Bodhisattva has only one way. And that proved to be a very nourishing touchstone for me through the whole process, just reminding me not to get too fixated on the outcome and how much difference it was going to make, but just to do

[02:50]

what I felt most wholehearted about doing in the present time. And another Zen slogan has been occurring to me a lot during this process. I have a lot of slogans today, I don't know why, it's just my mind seems to be working. How many times have I entered for you the green dragon cave? So this is about our Bodhisattva vow and how Bodhisattvas are reborn to joyfully and willingly enter the world of delusion. That's the Green Dragon Cave is the world of delusion. I can't think of anything more like a Green Dragon Cave than the world of politics, frankly. One way to understand that is you live your life and then you die and you're reborn. You're reborn, you've worked through all your karma and the only thing that's keeping you to being reborn is your vow to help beings and bring benefit to beings.

[03:57]

So that's one way to understand that phrase and I've been thinking about that a lot. The people in the world of public service and politics trying to not get too confused and you know. And then the other sort of crossover between politics and Zen was a couple weeks ago when we did our Tsujiki ceremony and we, which is this people who don't know, it's a ceremony that we do around the time of Halloween, which has a similar spirit to the original spirit of Halloween, which is feeding the hungry ghosts. And we have this elaborate altar with all this food, and then we recite this wonderful chant, the Gate of Sweet Dew, and one line in the chant is, and all the demons of untamed lands,

[05:01]

And I, for some reason, I immediately thought of the stock market. Like, that is really an untamed land, you know? It really is. It's like the free market is freedom from any kind of taming, you know, influence. And what is our appropriate response to the demons of untamed lands? It's come and assemble here. Come and assemble here. So there's this ideal of the Bodhisattva, this Bodhisattva ideal or this image we have that we return again and again joyfully and willingly to bring benefit to beings into dangerous situations, which means we could get confused or whatever.

[06:02]

There's this question that often comes up in Buddhist literature, like, how does the bodhisattva do this? And it could be, how does the bodhisattva keep his spirits up, keep her spirits up? How does the bodhisattva keep their energy up? Isn't that a great question? Like, how? How do they do that? And one of the answers is they know how to take a rest. They know how to take a rest. You cannot do it if you don't know how to take a rest. And that's a lot of what ... well, I mean, I would say that ... I had an image that I was going to be able to hold up the book and show the picture of Suzuki Roshi when I said, how do you take a rest? But of course, I have the hardback. I forgot. It doesn't have the picture on the back. There it is. There it is. There's another one. And I think that to me, I mean, at least in terms of preparing for this talk, it seems like everything Suzuki Roshi is talking about all the time is how do you take a rest, because it's not so easy.

[07:17]

I mean, it's a nice idea, but how do you completely drop your normal way of thinking about things? For those of us who were studying on Thursday, Suzuki Roshi brought this up, to take a mental rest is not so easy. How do you do it? And so Suzuki Roshi, a lot of his talks, I think, are about how you do that. How do you do that? And so the talk I picked is called God Giving. And so he says, every existence in nature, every existence in the human world, Every cultural work that we create is something which was given or is being given to us, relatively, I should say, is something which was given or is being given to us, relatively speaking. But as everything is originally one, we are in actuality giving out everything. Moment after moment we are creating something and this is the joy of our life.

[08:21]

But this I which is creating and always giving out something is not the small I, it is the big I. Even though you do not realize the oneness of this big I with everything, when you give something you feel good because at that time you feel at one with what you are giving. This is why it feels better to give than to take." I want to go back to like the first sentence because he moves quickly into the giving side, but what I wanted to bring up was partly the receiving side. So, how we receive the world as something given to us, and I thought it was going to we try to receive what's happening right now, we try to receive it as a gift. And then I immediately thought, well, maybe not, because it might feel like when you get a present from someone that doesn't really know you, so they don't know what you like, you know? It's like, there's always this little shadow side lurking around, you know?

[09:28]

But some way we receive, we receive what's happening as it is, as an offering, or trying to find some way to say it. So some of the slogans that I thought of when I was trying to think about this was like Chief Crazy Horse said, today is a good day to die because all the things in my life are present. So something like that, receive everything like all the things in my life are present. Or that, quote from Thoreau, you need only sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns. You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all of its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns. So how do we receive?

[10:31]

And I think this is how we take a break. We take a break in the way that we receive the world. So when we sit Zazen, we wanna just receive the world. And so like he's going, he's gonna go in, a lot of what he's gonna be talking about is the giving side. And I'll get to that. But what I really feel I'm resonating with is in terms of us taking a rest is the receiving side. To take a rest in the way we receive our life moment by moment which is to just receive it as it actually is with open arms. He goes on to say, we have a saying, dana prajna paramita. Dana means to give, prajna is wisdom, and paramita means to cross over or to reach the other shore. Our life can be seen as a crossing of a river.

[11:33]

The goal of our life's effort is to reach the other shore, nirvana. Prajnaparamita, the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached. to reach the other shore with each step of the crossing is the way of true living. Dana Prajnaparamita is the first of the six ways of true living." Of course, now we know a lot more about Buddhism than the people he was talking to, so we know about the six perfections and we have our own, you know, all this. So giving is the first of the six perfections, but I love that translation, six ways of true living. And so he's saying kind of the normal way to think about our life is like it's a journey or to cross over to the other shore but the Prajnaparamita way, the transcendent way or the true way of living is that you give everything away each moment and you cross over the other shore every moment. And then you come back joyfully into the world to bring benefit and then you give it all away and cross over.

[12:41]

and then you come back. Okay, so he goes on. Dogen Zenji said, to give is non-attachment. That is, just not to attach to anything is to give. It does not matter what is given. To give a penny or a piece of leaf is dana prajnaparamita. To give one line or even one word of teaching is dana prajnaparamita. So this, I think that he's, I have a feeling that he's commenting partly on this, Dogen Faskel Shishobo, the four, Bodhisattva's four methods of guidance and the first one of those is also giving and in that he says, well what I am remembering from that is he says, to give the flowers on the distant hillside to the Tathagata.

[13:47]

So I mean and what I think about that is like, what does he mean by that? But it's like, well what can you give wholeheartedly? If you think you own it, it's hard to give it. So at least the flowers on the distant hillside should be no problem. I think sometimes on a cold or rainy or stormy night, I'll think about homeless people for some reason. I won't do anything for homeless people. month after month, but then when I'm going to bed and I'm laying down and it's the time of the storm, I'll suddenly think, oh please, I hope every homeless person has a dry place tonight. So at least I can do that. At least I can think that. And it'd be good if I could do more, but at least I can give that. Suzuki Rosha goes on, according to Christianity, every existence in nature is something which was created for or given to us by God.

[14:59]

That is the perfect idea of giving. But if you think that God created man and that you are somehow separate from God, you are liable to think that you have the ability to create something separate, something not given by Him. For instance, We create airplanes and highways, and when we repeat, I create, I create, I create, soon we forget who is actually the I which creates the various things. We soon forget all about God. This is the danger of human culture. So again, I think this is where he's getting back a little bit, starting to get back to the receiving side, that first we receive everything as a gift from God or, you know, great spirit or emptiness or however you want to think about it. And I lost my thought.

[16:01]

And I was thinking, as I was thinking this, I thought again, this little niggly voice creeped in, you know, like, I want to be encouraging. So the one thing that Sojin asks us to do when we give a talk, really the beginning, middle, and end is to be encouraging. And it's not easy. It's really not easy, because as soon as you think, like, what to one person may seem like an energizing exhortation to another person might feel like a way to beat themselves up, or they might want to, you know, oh yeah, I'm so bad at that, you know, like, oh yeah, I never receive what I, like, oh yeah, Lori said, Lori's right, we should receive everything, but oh, I never do that, I'm so bad at that, you know. So like, cringing, you know, what am I introducing here? So, you know, I just want to say a word to those of us with the self-critical voice. So, if you have that, if that runs, you know, like, oh, I'm so bad at this, that's okay, then receive that, right?

[17:11]

That's the thing that's happening. That's the thing to receive. And, you know, with the spirit of come and assemble here, you know, self-critical voices, come and assemble here. I'm not going to make you president, but you have a place at this big round table with me." And I don't know, I've noticed, I've never done a scientific study of this, but it seems to me like women struggle more with the self-critical voice. Men maybe more with the gaining idea. I don't know. Again, I'm just tossing that out there. It's okay, that's fine. Just come and assemble here. Take your place at the table, old friend. Now, here's where Suzuki gets to the real heart of the resting, to me. Because we do forget who is doing the creating and the reason for the creation, we become attached to the material or exchange value.

[18:20]

This has no value in comparison to the absolute value of something as God's creation. Even though something has no material or relative value to any small I, it has absolute value in and of itself. Not to be attached to something is to be aware of its absolute value. Everything you do should be based on such an awareness and not on material or self-centered ideas of value. Then whatever you do is true giving. Dana Prajnaparamita. So in the course of our day, we have to do a lot of relative value, you know, we have to evaluate things based on their relative value, we have to make choices all the time, we make decisions. So that's why it's really important to find a way to take a rest from that. And how do you do it?

[19:22]

It's a habit of mine to do that. And so, yeah, if you need to vote for which couple on Dancing with the Stars is going to win, yeah, you need to decide, well, I like this one better than this one for whatever reason, or this one's better than this one. But when you come to the Zendo, we set this up for ourselves so that we can take a rest. take a rest and come back, you know, with renewed energy and joy. Speaking of joy, the first thing I want to say, I totally forgot, which was in terms of this whole election thing, the most colon-like moment for me was seeing Condoleezza Rice get up there. She was just glowing. I mean, she looked like I felt, you know.

[20:24]

She just was totally glowing and I thought, you know, if she can do that, I can wear sequins to give the talk. Okay, so Suzuki Roshi goes on, so he's talking now about zazen. When we sit in the cross-legged posture, we resume our fundamental activity of creation. There are perhaps three kinds of creation. The first is to be aware of ourselves after we finish zazen. When we sit, we are nothing. We do not even realize we are there. We just sit. In other words, we take a total break, such a total break that we're not even there anymore. But when we stand up, we are there. That is the first step in creation. When you are there, everything else is there. Everything is created all at once. So when you take a break, everything takes a break.

[21:24]

Everything takes a break. And then we all join up together again and enter the world, the green dragon cave. When we emerge from nothing, when everything emerges from nothing, we see it all as a fresh new creation. This is non-attachment. And then he talks about these other two kinds of creation. The second kind of creation is when you act or produce or prepare something like food or tea, and the third kind is to create something within yourself such as education or culture or art or some system for our society. I didn't quite understand these three kinds actually, but somehow what popped into my mind this morning during service was maybe it's like the difference between when I'm chanting during service, I'm creating something, I'm bringing forth something, I'm expressing it, I can do that however I want, so it's creative.

[22:26]

But then it's different from what I'm doing right now where I'm talking and really making up something. And the other analogy I thought is maybe it's sort of like with bluegrass music that you could play bluegrass music, right? So like Alan. He's creative, he plays bluegrass music, but then Bill Monroe actually invented bluegrass music, which is kind of a different order, so maybe it's something like that. Anyway, what he says about these three kinds though is, so there are three kinds of creation, but if you forget the first, the most important one, if you don't take a break, the other two will be like children who have lost their parents. Their creation will mean nothing. So this is another way to understand this thing about the green dragon cave is not so much that it's these bodhisattvas who've worked through all their karma and are only coming back lifetime after lifetime, but that actually after every period of zazen we take a rest and then we come back into the green dragon cave of our everyday life.

[23:39]

And yeah, it's not like we work through all our karma, but that's not what's driving us. Somehow. What's driving us is our intention. So Suzuki Roshi goes on. Usually everyone forgets about Zazen. Everyone forgets about God. They work very hard at the second and third kinds of creation, but God does not help the activity. How is it possible for him to help or her to help when she does not realize who she is? That is why we have so many problems in this world. When we forget the fundamental source of our creating, we are like children who do not know what to do when they lose their parents. And this made me think of the Psalm, the 127th Psalm. I don't know why I knew about it, because I don't know the Psalms or anything, but I flashed on this, so I wanted to read this to you. Except the Lord build the house, their labor is but lost that build it.

[24:46]

Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is but lost labor that ye haste to rise up early, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness, for so he giveth his beloved sleep. Except the Lord build the house, their labor is but lost that build it. except the lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain it is but lost labor that ye haste to rise up early and so late take rest and eat the bread of carefulness for so he giveth his beloved sleep i like that the bread of carefulness that reminds me mindfulness practice and i think what so what that means to me is that It's the same thing Suzuki Roshi is saying, that knowing that it's all being created by God or by the universe or by emptiness before you do anything, that's how you take your break and then it's this worthwhile effort to do these, to wake up early like we do and eat the bread of carefulness.

[26:00]

So I got this great, I think it was last night, I got this email. Did anybody get that one from Alice? It's like an open letter from Alice Walker to President-elect Obama. It's great. I would search for it. It's all about this. It's like, please take a break. Please rest. Please find ways to rest. We don't want to see you. go in that green dragon cave and not come out, right? We don't want to see your family get chewed up by that situation. So please, for our sake, find a way to take a break. So how is he going to do that? How can he do that? Anybody watch West Wing? It's like they never took a break. They never took a break. There's no break. I mean, he seems to have some way, it seems like he kind of has some inner way that he does, but maybe that won't work in this new conditions.

[27:12]

So I would like that, as good Buddhists, our prayer for him. Let's have that be our prayer for him. That'll be our little piece of the puzzle, to remind him always to take a break. That'll be a good break, we hope, at least maybe. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. And so I'm just going to finish up with Suzuki Bush here. By the way, right in the middle of this fascicle is this page with blank page in there really taking a break in the middle of the book. But if we are aware that what we do or what we create is really the gift of the big I, then we will not be attached to it and we will not create problems for ourselves or others or our society. So to do something through and through is to resume our true activity of creation. This is why we sit. If we do not forget this point, everything will be carried on beautifully.

[28:16]

But once we forget this point, the world will be filled with confusion. And then I just had one last slogan-like thing. I love the theme music to Jurassic Park, which, you know, in my house, to admit that you like pop music is really a courageous act. And I don't admit that I like all pop music, but I like some pop music. And I really like the theme to Jurassic Park. And I especially love that. And for some reason, I don't know why, I decided to download it from iTunes this week. I don't know, I haven't thought about it in a long time, but it just popped into my mind. Maybe I heard it somewhere or something, I can't remember. But I downloaded it on iTunes and then it brought back my favorite scene in the movie. And so I put the tape in and watched my favorite scene in the movie. which is at the very end, you know, where they escape, they escape the theme park.

[29:19]

I don't know how many people have seen it, but I assume a lot of people. They escape the theme park and they're in the helicopter and, you know, what's so funny? And then the guy who's sort of like helped save everybody. He's sort of like collapsed there in the helicopter and everybody else kind of, the kids are dozing, kind of cuddling with him, dozing. And he looks out the window of the helicopter and the pelicans fly by. And then the theme, the most sweetest part of the theme music comes in right then. And what it says to me, and I feel like that's his Ken show where he thinks, oh, just the ordinary is extraordinary. Just thank you for just these pelicans. I don't need dinosaurs. I don't need amazing creatures. Just give me these plain pelicans. And I thought, like, that's where we are. I mean, to me, that's where I am in this whole election cycle.

[30:20]

It's like the helicopter hasn't landed yet. But it's like you look out the window and there's just the plain, finally, we're out of the... And there's just the plain, ordinary pelican, the plain brown pelican, you know, it's just so beautiful. So... You didn't produce this thing, the music anybody? I wish, I wish. You know, if you think of a folk song or something, you can sing it, but no, I can't even whistle it, I don't think, unless maybe somebody else could. What about the Carole King Dylan contest? What's that? Oh, there's this big controversy going on now. Who's the better songwriter? Do we have to choose one or the other? Let's not go too far into the relative value here this morning.

[31:24]

So, I'd love to hear what you have to say at this point. Linda? Well, I was encouraged, first of all, by your bright dress this morning. I thought that was very charming. That's not my question. This taking rest is really how to be encouraging and not discouraging and recommending it is also a good point. So I thought I'd just kind of draw that forth a little bit. If we hear you say, take a rest, and then you try, and we just see ourselves just worrying and obsessing and, you know, then we say, great, I failed. You know, I can't even take a rest. Help. Yeah. So. Hmm.

[32:27]

Well, I don't know. I don't know if this is helpful, but what popped into my mind was to just reassure that, yeah, it is really hard. It's hard for everybody. And that's why we have a whole religion, you know, which is a prop. It's basically like a whole fantasy world designed to point you towards that moment. And it takes training. And you keep moving forth, so you take a much better rest now than you did before, right, I'm sure. And we'll just keep deepening, moving more deeply into that, and part of what it is is I don't know, you got to feel the muscle that you're holding somehow. And then often when you feel the muscle that, I have this experience, I don't know if you do, when you feel the muscle that you're holding, even if it's a mental muscle, you know, like keeping the bad things out and the good things in, when you feel it, then you can, it often will let go by itself. Like, and it's true, you can't make a muscle relax because it's there for a reason, you know, like that's, it's got a reason to be there.

[33:37]

So somehow there's that, there's that moment where it's like, oh yeah, this muscle's tight, that's the being that come and assemble here, tight muscle, you know. That's what I thought of today. Can I just add one thing to that? It's just that key word of acceptance, of accepting whatever it is, can give us that one second of rest. And we should value that one second. Definitely. One second is a lot. Not feel crushed by the other 20 minutes. Yes, Martine, is that your hand up? Did you have your long cigarette holder up there with you? First of all, it's hard to take a break. Then, how do you kick things back on?

[34:53]

Once you finally get to a place of rest, it feels so damn good. Then, why? That's good. That's a good problem to have. You put yourself into, like, saying, okay, well, the rest has been long enough, now you've got to get back to it. Right. That's a question. How does the bodhisattva You know, so I guess it's two-part, how does she take a rest and then how does she summon the energy to plunge back in? But it's, we live, you know? I mean, we've got life force. I don't think you need more than that, really. Just your life force is going to get you back in. I feel a horrible resistance. You're talking about going back into the... Green dragon cave. So I finally stopped standing there, I finally got out, and then, like, oh, I need to go back in now?

[35:56]

And how do I get myself to want to go back in? Not just force yourself to do it, but want to. I'm going to use one of my lifelines. It's like speaking someone else's language, being willing to speak someone else's language.

[37:23]

That was great. I mean, I totally, I love what you said and I totally agree with it, but I do think that until you get to that place, that movement, you have to train yourself.

[39:47]

You actually have to train yourself. That's why in this election session you have the Zazen and then you go out and do it and then you go back to Zazen, you know. Sonya? I really experienced this. light to my case. No matter what's going to happen with this decision. I made this decision. I'm taking that risk. And I'm going to be in peace and in joy. And today I have everything right and I have a peace issue today just for myself to practice this not to let this take me back to where I was even though I lost everything.

[40:59]

There are no hands because we're all done. Oh, Jake? I just heard about Barack Obama and how he... I heard that he plays a lot of basketball. In fact, before he gave his talk at Grant Park, after the election... I know, and the next day, he took his kids to school and then went to the gym. That's what me and Ellen do. It's like, he's so normal! Oh, thank God! I should say that's what Alan and I do. Denise? Yeah, and even if he can't, which I'm guessing he can't, that's his intention.

[42:17]

He's going to keep renewing that intention. Yes, Alan? Well, thank goodness art is in the eye of the beholder. For me, it's a complete movie with a complete moment and a complete ending and I never saw Jurassic Park 2. Co. Can I tell one more Obama story?

[43:47]

I'm sorry, this was on frontline, so I think it's okay to tell it. It's my favorite Obama story. I know we're done, sorry. So his first day in the Senate, did you see this thing? He went to his committee, he's like a low man on the totem pole in the committee that he was in, and the head of the committee and it's like very status, this is a whole status game, the committees and who's the head of them and all that. The junior senator has to kiss, you know, has to whatever. So he said he was in this first committee and he started scribbling something on a piece of paper and he gave it to his aide and the aide was thinking, oh, this is my first important note that he's giving me from what he wants to do about this committee work. Did you hear that story? The aide looked at the note and said, kill me now. Kill, period, me, period. Beings are numberless.

[44:46]

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