fear of other persons and of their own minds and bodies all over the world. People who are experiencing fear of the cruelty that might be expressed towards them by other humans, fear of the cruelty that they might express towards other humans, and other people who are afraid of just their own illnesses, physical and mental, throughout the world. So this is the place where we live. This is the world we live in. And there's also, mixed in with this, kindness and peacefulness and patience and generosity and mindfulness and goodwill, they're also in this world, swirling around together, mixing together. This is where the teaching of this temple lives.

[01:12]

This is the world that the teaching is devoted to. This temple is what you might call a Zen bodhisattva school. Bodhisattva is beings like this, this being who is personified in the form of a monk here who is devoted to protecting all beings, particularly children, this earth store, this earth womb, bodhisattva. This is a place for educating and training sentient beings to be wise, like the little girl said. This is a place for educating people to be wise, so as to promote healing and happiness

[02:26]

and health and peace and freedom in this world, in our world. Today and tomorrow. So we set up a Zen farm to grow health and happiness and freedom and wisdom, starting with ordinary human and non-human material. So partly we grow vegetables here, which seem to be pretty good, seem to be contributing

[03:28]

to health and happiness pretty well. We also grow humans with the intention to grow wise humans, humans who will know how to make good decisions in this difficult world for the wheel of the world. And as I mentioned last week, in the Zen idiom, we want to grow iron persons. An iron person is actually a mind or a heart that bends towards and becomes one with all beings, that bends towards and becomes beneficial to all beings.

[04:32]

This is the mind or the heart which we wish to grow here. It's a mind realizing Buddha's wisdom. It is a mind which is eternal, joyful and sees this world of suffering as a garden playground full of suffering and yet a place to play with suffering beings, joyfully, wisely. We want to train people to be able to see this world as such an opportunity. So we say, and old Buddha said, in practicing the Buddha way, one must be an iron person.

[05:37]

The Bodhisattva appears in this world of difficulty in order to, excuse me, the Buddha appears in this world of suffering in order to open living beings to Buddha's wisdom. The Buddha appears in this world actually because of the wish or the desire. Sometimes people say, don't Buddhas have feelings? Some of the feelings which ordinary people have, Buddha, although empathic to those feelings, doesn't possess those feelings. The Buddha does not possess hatred and feelings of cruelty. Sorry. But the Buddha does have a very strong desire to open living beings to Buddha's wisdom.

[06:46]

And the Buddha has a very strong desire to demonstrate Buddha's wisdom to living beings. And the Buddha has a very strong wish, a very warm intention to awaken living beings to Buddha's wisdom. And the Buddha has a strong wish to help beings enter into, to become immersed in Buddha's wisdom. This desire, for this fourfold realization of wisdom, this desire is the primary cause of the Buddha's appearing in the world. So, the Buddhists say. There are those, a scholar might say, the Buddhists say, there are those,

[07:50]

but I might say, because I take refuge in Buddha, I say that there are those who have realized Buddha's wisdom. There are those who have realized unsurpassed, complete, authentic enlightenment. And there are those who yearn and vow to realize unsurpassed, complete, authentic awakening for the will of the world, for the benefit of all beings. Those who have realized this wisdom completely are the Buddhas. Those who are yearning and learning about this enlightenment are the Bodhisattvas.

[09:03]

And I apologize, as I have done many times before, about bringing up Buddhas and bringing up those who yearn to learn how to be a Buddha. Because that may be too awesome or lofty for some to hear about. I'm sorry if it seems that way, but I feel a necessity to raise this issue of such beings, because I think the world needs the very best. Needs full, complete, perfect and authentic wisdom. And lesser wisdoms would be good too, but I hope for, I yearn for the realization of the greatest,

[10:12]

most effective, most helpful wisdom. The complete wisdom of a completely awakened being. At the end of our talk here, at the end of our Sunday talks and other talks, we recite the vows of those who yearn and vow to become a Buddha. And some of you recite these vows, along with the group, and some of you don't. I see some people are not chanting, because maybe they don't feel like that's true for them, these Bodhisattva vows at the end. And even some that are chanting it may say,

[11:13]

well, I'll just say this and see how it feels. Or I'm saying this, but I don't know what it means. Or I'm saying it, but I don't feel it to the bottom of my heart. But I'll say it. I'll say that living beings are numberless. I vow to save them all. Afflictions are inexhaustible. I vow to cut through them. And Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. And the Buddha way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. I'm saying these things. Hmm. The Bodhisattva vow is, in a sense, it's to vow.

[12:19]

It's like saying, I vow to go to compassion school. I vow to go to virtue school. I vow to go to wisdom school. In order to be a benefit to the world. I also vow to be as beneficial as I can right now, given my current understanding and my current desire to be compassionate. I vow to be as helpful as possible right now, given my current understanding and my current realization of virtue. But I wish to learn more about compassion and more about virtue and become more compassionate and more virtuous. I want to learn to love compassion and learn to love virtue.

[13:22]

And I actually... I think most people that come here, although they may feel that they have not yet learned to love giving, which is one of the practices of compassion, although they haven't yet learned to love giving, they would love to learn to love giving. Or they would like a little bit to learn to love giving. Or they would like a little bit to learn to love giving. Or they would like a little bit to not be stingy, because it's painful. And they would love or like or consider learning how to be ethically skillful. And so on. How many of you would like... would love to learn to love... to learn to love giving? How many of you would... love to learn to love being patient?

[14:26]

That's more popular. How many of you would love to learn to love to be diligent? How many of you would love to learn to love to be concentrated? How many of you would love to learn to love ethical discipline? Now, there's quite a bit of loving there. How many of you would... So that's one kind of school. A school for wisdom, for compassion, and... or virtue. And I'm not too surprised that quite a few of you would love to learn to be compassionate-virtuous. Because that's my experience. People are pretty much up for that, that come here. But the next part...

[15:31]

How many of you would love to learn to love wisdom? More popular than I thought. My experience is that that's more difficult. But anyway... Huh? Yeah. Well, anyway... What I was going to talk about today is the school for wisdom. The school for learning to love Sophia. Philosophy means loving Sophia. Did you know that? You didn't? How many people did not know that? Okay, it means loving Sophia, doesn't it? Philo-Sophia. Sophia is the goddess of wisdom, right? So, philosophy is loving wisdom, or learning to love wisdom.

[16:32]

And not just learning to like it, but having a loving relationship with it. Like, always, always... Because you love it. Always, like, taking care of it. So you're practicing... You love virtue, you love compassion. So because you love compassion, you're working on it all the time, because you love it. You don't forget it, because you love it. Or you forget it, because sometimes you even forget people you love, right? But then when you forget it, you feel kind of like, that was a mistake. I want to go back to loving compassion, because I do love compassion, but I slipped, right? That wasn't compassion. I love compassion. I want to... I want to return to compassion. Well, the same with wisdom. I love wisdom. I want to have an intimate relationship with wisdom. I want to be with wisdom all the time. I love Sophie. Oh. And although I want to learn how to love Sophia, learn how to love wisdom, I need to be trained,

[17:34]

because I sometimes forget. Sometimes I forget that I want to be wise, that I want to not just be wise, but I want to be intimate with wisdom. I forget sometimes. I would like to get trained so I don't forget so much. I would like to go to wisdom school and compassion school, virtue school. Excuse me for asking this question, but do you want to go to wisdom school? Yes. How many people want to go to wisdom school? You don't want to go, Jeremy? I want to know more about wisdom school. You want to hear? I want to know more about wisdom school. You want to know more about wisdom school before you go? Okay, that's fine. Okay, some people would like to know what wisdom school is going to be like before they say they want to go. Now, when I start talking about wisdom school, that doesn't mean that wisdom school is going to be the way I talk about it.

[18:35]

This is just my presentation. Somebody else might present wisdom school to you, and you might say, oh, that sounds great. I want to go there. But maybe the way I present it will not be so attractive. And if so, then I'm ashamed that I'm not very skillful. I don't have skillful means. Skillful means are part of the virtue practice, which make people want to practice the practice. So maybe I won't be very attractive today when I describe wisdom school. But don't give up on wisdom school just because I don't present it in an interesting way. Please. So the third vow that we say here is Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. And Dharma gates... Dharma, in this case, means teaching. And gate means gate,

[19:39]

but it also means a school. Dharma schools are boundless. There's no end to them. I vow to enter them all. Actually, it says I vow to master them. But anyway, enter. Some schools, some Dharma schools you might enter, in other words, some schools which teach you about wisdom, you might enter and you might say, I've seen enough of this school. I'd like to see another one. It doesn't mean you need to become a devotee of every Dharma school, but it means that these bodhisattvas, they're going to check out all the schools, not just the Buddhist schools, but the non-Buddhist schools. They're going to learn about all the schools. And some schools, they might not actually practice those wisdom methods of that school, but they would know about them because those methods might be helpful to someone else. So, but let's start today with the Buddhist schools for learning to love wisdom. Shall we? So, what is a Buddhist school for learning wisdom?

[20:46]

There's actually, there's a variety of Buddhist schools for learning to love wisdom. For learning to realize wisdom completely. There's a variety of schools. But before I get into the variety of schools for learning to love wisdom in the Buddhist tradition, I want to mention what they all share. So these schools of philosophy, these schools of loving wisdom within the Buddhist tradition, they also teach how to practice the virtues. They also teach ethics. They also teach yoga practices and all kinds of compassion practices. But in particular, they are schools of... Ultimately, they are schools of wisdom.

[21:49]

Schools to help people see and understand the truth, which is the final cure of suffering in this world. The final cure of ignorance. The final cure of ignorance and the suffering which comes with ignorance. The cure of the suffering and ignorance which are the source of cruelty and so on, and bondage. So what do all these schools of philosophy share? They all teach that all things that are composed, that are put together... I'm laughing because one of the ways of putting it is saying, all products. Our entire product line. Is impermanent. All the things we make are impermanent.

[22:55]

All the schools of Buddhist philosophy, all the schools for teaching and learning about wisdom, agree that all composed things fall apart. That's the first point they share. Second point is, all things that are impure, and what they mean by impure, literally is, all things that have outflows are misery. And by outflows what is meant is anything that's confounded or contaminated with issues of gain and loss. Anything that's contaminated by issues of existence and non-existence. Anything that's contaminated by issues of permanence or annihilation.

[23:58]

Anything that's infected by these views is miserable. And the look on your face makes me think some amplification of that might be good. I'll come back to it. I'll finish the list. The next thing that all the different schools, all the different bhuls share in Buddhist philosophy is that they all share the view that all phenomena are impermanent. All phenomena are selfless. And the last view they share is that nirvana is peace. Going over this list of these four seals,

[25:03]

or these four characteristics of all schools of Buddhist philosophy, going over this list is part of learning wisdom. Do you want me to go over the list? How many people want me to go over the list? Not so many. I don't know what to do. For those who don't want me to go over the list, what do you want me to do? Go home? Just hit the high points. Question and answer. Question and answer. Yeah, okay. Well, I can understand that this is kind of like, you know, like I said, I'm not too skillful,

[26:04]

so when you actually get into wisdom school, people sometimes get kind of like, well, I don't want to, I don't like this school. It's not that interesting, going through this list of four characteristics of all Buddhist schools. Yeah, I don't want any more. Some people are making faces because they don't want me to stop. But I don't want to coerce the people who don't want to hear more, so maybe I'll just stop. Selling to Jeremy? Well, I don't know, but everybody else doesn't have to stay here while Jeremy gets converted. You know, some people already want to buy, already want to enroll in wisdom school, Buddhist wisdom school. Some people want to find out what Buddhist wisdom school is going to be like before they enroll, and some people maybe don't want, they already know they don't want

[27:04]

to enroll in wisdom school, plus they don't want to hear a sales pitch from the recruiter. Pardon? Can you have the cliff notes? You're interested in the cliff notes? Definitely, this is definitely going to be cliff notes. This is just like a little, a tiny little peek at a very big project of study. But part of the reason why I'm willing to just tell you practically nothing, just give you a tiny little peek, is because you have to start with a tiny little peek. So, I think it's good for people to know a little bit about what the Buddhist wisdom schools are doing. And then later maybe you want to sign up. Like when I first came to Zen Center, you know, yeah, when I first came to Zen Center,

[28:05]

this is called Zen Center, right? Did you people, did everybody know this is called Zen Center? Anybody not know that? Not notice the sign? But there's also a Zen Center in San Francisco, did you know that? And there's also a Zen Center at Tassajara. They're all the same organization. When I first came to Zen Center, I went to Tassajara. In the mountains down near Big Sur. And I went there. And when I got there, to this, actually this place, which many people consider to be very beautiful, in the deep mountains of the Los Padres National Forest, I got there, but you know, I didn't like the place, and I was happy to leave. I didn't like that place. I don't know if it was a wisdom school at that time or not, but anyway, I didn't particularly like the place. I didn't like the flies, a lot of flies, and I didn't like the smell of the hot, the sulfur baths. And also the mountains were like

[29:06]

a little bit too high for me. I like something, I like Green Gulch. I like, you know, something more like Green Gulch. I'm from Minnesota, you know. And a valley in Minnesota is more like Green Gulch, or even less. Tassajara is very sharp, tall mountains. It's like, that's more like a canyon. Or a gulch. And so I didn't like it so much. But after I left, somehow, after I got a chance to get used to the experience, I decided I want to go back and live there for the rest of my life. More or less. So a little sliver of wisdom school, you're getting a little sliver of wisdom school by hearing about these four characteristics of all the Buddhist wisdom schools. The first one, I think, may be easier for you, because it's more common to hear that all things are impermanent.

[30:06]

That basic teaching of Buddhism, you know, like I'm impermanent, and you're impermanent. We're changing all the time, and we're going to keep changing and keep changing and keep changing, and we're going to change into, eventually, probably a dead person. And then some of us, like the dead person that we change into is going to get cremated, and then the ashes are going to get scattered all over the place. And this is an example of some of the impermanence that we go through in this process. So you're already familiar with that one, right? The next one, about how everything that's contaminated or confounded with these things I mentioned, is suffering. So what did I mention? Do you remember what I mentioned? Anything that's... Gain and loss. Yeah, so if you're meeting, if you're talking to somebody at a cocktail party, and you're into gain and loss,

[31:08]

you're uncomfortable, right? You're afraid, you're talking to somebody, you're afraid you're going to lose more time talking to them. Right? Have you ever had that happen to you? Or you feel like you're not worried about losing time talking to them, but they look like they were worried about losing time talking to you. They're standing in front of you taking up your life, but they're really looking around the room who else to talk to. So you're indirectly involved in this person's idea of not wanting to lose any more time talking to you and wanting to gain some time with somebody else. And you also would like to talk to somebody else and get a better conversation too. So this is called a miserable. So that's why you want to drink some cocktails. Because if you drink the cocktails, you won't care that this person is trying to get away from you. You won't care you're talking to the most distracted person, the person who is talking to you but doesn't want to talk to you.

[32:09]

You won't care because you're like anesthetized to the misery of being involved in a gain and loss relationship. Do you know what I mean? That one's easy, right? The other one is existence and non-existence. We can stay at the cocktail party if you want. But any kind of situation where you're meeting a person or you're sitting by yourself with an experience, if I get involved or you get involved with the view that what's happening actually exists, okay, you're miserable. And if you get involved in the view that what's happening doesn't exist, I mean like really doesn't exist, if you get involved in that, you're miserable too. It's probably, and generally speaking, it's better to be miserable in the first kind than the second kind. Because most people

[33:10]

have an innate tendency to think that what's happening now really exists. We have what's called a naive realism or we have an innate tendency to make things, to think things are more real than they actually are. And this is misery, that we make things more real than they actually are. So we make their existence more real or we switch to the other side and say they really don't exist. And we make that non-existence into something that's more real than it actually is. Being involved in that kind of thing is miserable. And then the next one is thinking that things last is miserable because it violates the first principle. You're going to, like trying to live forever or be young forever or be smart forever or be queen forever or king forever. This is very miserable. You get very defensive

[34:11]

if you're into like forever something. Can you see that that's miserable? Can you see that you've sometimes got into that and you were very unhappy when you did that? Or you're still into it a little bit and it's kind of like grating you? The other one is things are annihilated. That's an extreme too. If you get into the view that when you change or when you die you're totally annihilated or when something goes away it's totally annihilated. If you get into that view you'll also be very unhappy. But just the thoughts of gain and loss if you don't get involved with them if you don't cling to them then you won't be miserable. Yes, Jeremy, do you want to come to school? Perhaps. I may be remembering correctly but I thought I heard you say earlier in your talk that the Buddha mind was eternal, joyful, playful? Eternal, yeah. Eternal does not mean

[35:13]

lasting. Phenomena that come together are impermanent. The Buddha mind is eternal but doesn't last. In other words it's the way of being with whatever happens that's joyful. But the way of being with whatever happens that's joyful is to not have what's happening last. To not be caught in the lasting of what's happening. And there's always that possibility in every situation there's always the possibility of being that way the Buddha way. And in that sense it's an eternal opportunity. Never will be lost but doesn't last for more than a moment. And doesn't even last for a moment it just is with all the things that only last for a moment. Okay? See he likes that part

[36:14]

of the school. You can't tell but he's smiling now. He's considering matriculating. When we grasp these views like when we grasp gain and loss in the midst of a cocktail party or when we grasp gain and loss in a loving relationship or when we grasp gain and loss in a difficult relationship or when we get into annihilation and eternalism in a relationship whenever we grasp these things we create these outflows. In other words all kinds of turbulence and agitation starts to swirl us around. So that's one of the characteristics all the Buddhist schools agree on that basic point. And they also agree that you know we're born born

[37:17]

born to be deluded. I mean we're born we're born ignorant. We're born with a tendency to make too much reality of what's happening so we're born with a tendency to to suffer. The next point is that all things are selfless. And the fact that all things are selfless is the good news because if we could understand the truth of the selflessness of all things that would cure the disease of making too much out of things. All things are ultimately not available for conceit not available for exaggeration. The way they are you cannot actually when you see that you will no longer be ignorant you will no longer ignore the freedom that's possible in this world and the love that's possible in this world. All the schools agree

[38:17]

that if you could understand selflessness of all things including the person that you are that's the cure. And the different schools have different versions of what selflessness is. So part of going to wisdom school is to learn the source the sources of misery and the sources of healing. The sources of misery are not accepting impermanence of phenomenal things not accepting I should say not accepting but getting involved in exaggerating the reality of things and going with that those are the sources of misery. Understanding the selflessness of yourself and others and all things is the cure. And there are different schools of what that how to understand that selflessness. And learning about selflessness is the key ingredient

[39:20]

in the wisdom school of Buddhism. And I just might say a little just one more thing about the wisdom about these wisdom schools about these different teachings of selflessness and that is that they for different people different teachings of selflessness might be appropriate. And the different types of selflessness might affect us differently. And we have to get the kind of selflessness that still allows us well first of all the kind of selflessness

[40:21]

that will cure us of suffering pretty much and at the same time won't make us not care about the world of suffering. We need to understand the selflessness which is the deepest release of our suffering without erasing our confidence in the teaching that what we do that our karma our karmic actions have consequence that what we do really matters. If you take on a selflessness that's too profound for you that means that you might be you might slip into thinking that what you do doesn't matter. And there's in the spiritual world of Buddhism and other religions too but particularly in Buddhism some people have understood a selflessness which was too advanced

[41:21]

for them and they thought when they understood that selflessness that what they did wouldn't matter or put it another way they can do whatever they want. Now being free in a sense you can do whatever you want but at the same time although you can do whatever you want you also remember that whatever you do has consequence and really matters. So how can we be free and yet live in the world where everything we do and everything we say and everything we think has consequence really not ultimately but really really where? Really where? Really where? In the world. In the world of suffering being where there really are suffering beings in the world there really are suffering beings and there what you do really hurts or really soothes. But if you just stay there and never understand that all these things that really are there and really hurt and really help and really don't help if you don't understand that all these things

[42:22]

are selfless you won't be free. So how can we be free have the wisdom which understands selflessness in particular the selflessness of me for starters and live in the world and still care. This is like the balancing act and this is what you learn in wisdom school. You learn how to be free without dissociating from the world of suffering. In other words you learn how to like see it really is true that what you do counts and that there are suffering beings. It really is true in this world of suffering beings it really is true and you don't forget that even though you realize hey this is freedom this is peace but also there's a world where there's not peace. So anyway this is and there's different stories in different schools about how to do this and then there's different stages of learning the different schools which we'll get into

[43:24]

anon. But since Jeremy what is it? May I call you Doubting Jeremy? Doubting? Doubting Jeremy. Akin to Doubting Thomas? I don't know. Definitely akin. You can call me whatever you like. Okay. Would you like me to call you Doubting Jeremy? I don't actually particularly have a preference for you to call me Doubting Jeremy. Okay. I don't mind. You don't mind. Okay. How about how about Faithful Jeremy? Do you like that one? You can call me that if you like. Do you like it? Do I like Faithful Jeremy? Yeah. It has a certain ring to it. How about Jeremy? Jeremy's good. Jeremy. How about Confident Jeremy? How about how about Iron Jeremy? Iron Jeremy? That's pretty good. Or Jeremy Irons? Okay. Mr. Irons? Yes? Did you want to say something before we depart? Oh, I well I was noticing

[44:26]

internally like when you were talking about it really is true blah blah blah blah blah that sounds like existence and I know that's not what you mean but I just noticed that I part of me went that, you know really is true kind of sounds like might sound like it exists certainly to some people. Yeah, right. So in the world things in the world where things are reified okay in that world there are people who are suffering really you know, it's really true in the world and we have and we shouldn't lose sight of that. So the brackets around this really is true? Well, in the world conventionally in the world of convention there are persons and if we lose track of that then the realization of selflessness is well you can give it all kinds of bad names like insanity irrelevant a waste of time a dangerous pit it's much worse to be caught in selflessness

[45:27]

and forgetting the conventional world of birth and death than to be caught in the world of birth and death because in the world of birth and death you're amenable to instruction whereas if you're caught in selflessness it's very difficult to teach you because you're free in a way but you're you know you're missing the whole point of the Buddhist wisdom school which is to benefit the world. So maybe that's enough right? On a scale of one to ten how would you how would you rank this talk in terms of heaviness? Like how many people would say it's above five? How many people would say

[46:28]

it's above three? I mean people of five should also raise their hands. So not real heavy, huh? Ten being the heaviest above five on the heavy side? Was it on the heavy side? Seven. I'm just sort of asking for some feedback so just say the number that you think it would be the ten would be the heaviest and zero would be the lightest. So between four and seven? Are most people included within four and seven? Any threes? A few threes. Any nines or tens? No. No nines Eight nines or tens? Eights. Eights and eights. You forgive me for the heaviness?

[47:31]

The execution was heavy? And she forgives me for the heavy execution. Well anyway in question and answer I'll tell you about the next thing I was going to say. I'm going to give you a minute

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I'm going to give you a minute Okay

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. . It is in the world of confusion, of peace and violence and cruelty and kindness that we set up our practice here. . [...]

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