I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to welcome all of you to the Earthly Zen Summit. And I'm very happy that we're able to host Ikenosha It's nice to see all these familiar faces from both the present and the past, and also the unfamiliar faces. Rinki Roshi is here just visiting the mainland this time. The last time, or one time, when we were trying to get the Maui's into, together.

[01:11]

the rest of their work. I don't want to talk too much. I want to let Aiden know she can talk, so you're welcome. I will. Let me say it now, get the business out of the way. There are envelopes like this on the shoe rack and on the book table. There'll be some of Eikin Roshi's books for sale in the community room. It's going to be hard for us all to mob in there, but they will be available. And we hope that you'll take these envelopes with you and consider their contents and make a donation for the building of the Palolo Zendo. It's a long trip here from Hawaii in the wintertime. It's probably nicer in Hawaii in the winter than it usually is here and we really appreciate Heiken Roshi coming all this distance to bring us the Dharma and

[02:38]

we'd like to see this sendo completed. So with your help, we can do that. Just pick one of these up and send in a check. Thank you. Excuse me. Mel, is there going to be a place that we can make a deposit? Yes. We'll have a basket also out either on the porch or the community room after the lecture. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Albert Mel. Thank you, Alan, and thank you all for coming. It's a delight to be here once again. I'm going to read a paper tonight. I hope you'll excuse me. It won't take the whole time. It'll only take about half the time. It's a draft of a paper that eventually I will present this summer at a conference in Basel, Switzerland, a Buddhist-Christian conference, and I'm to present the Buddhist perspective on the subject of peace.

[03:52]

I found myself writing at a time where I was very conscious of the egg on the face of Zen Buddhism. So this paper is one of self-examination, the larger self of the Zen Buddhist. I look forward to the question period because I would like to have your comments. You can be very helpful to me in presenting a good paper eventually. Zen Buddhism is by definition indefinable. And in the context of Zen study, nothing, not even nothing, can be defined. The Diamond Sutra The inspiration of Zen students is devoting to destroying all concepts, even the concept that concepts must be destroyed.

[05:01]

We are told that there is no formulation of consummate truth. The Buddha himself or herself cannot be distinguished by any characteristic, whatever. Yet the sutra goes on to say that because the Buddha has no characteristics, we use the expression characteristics of the Buddha. I understand this to mean that the vast and fathomless emptiness that is essential to our being is itself a certain unspecific quality which we call Buddha nature. The Buddha realized the inherent form of the incoherent but incredibly potent void as harmony and conveyed it to us. We, as his followers, realize its form and harmony and convey it again. Guixiang asked Yangshan, if a monk suddenly asked, all beings are in a disorderly karmic consciousness and with no base to rely upon, how would you treat him?

[06:15]

Yangshan said, if a monk asked that, I would call out to him. I would wait if he hesitated. Then I would say, there is not only disorderly karmic consciousness, but there is no base to rely upon. Guishan said, good. Everything is disorderly and unstable. Yet Guishan and Yangshan realized its perfect harmony and equilibrium in their dialogue. Like the world-honored one walking the dusty roads of the Ganges Valley, they turned the Dharma wheel of realization and accord right there in the untidy and unreliable context of coming and going, of dying and being born. As sons and daughters of the Buddha, we turn that same wheel in our Sangha work within the temple and in the home, workplace and community halls.

[07:23]

For some of our ancestors and contemporaries, however, the Dharma is something static, like a potted plant. So long as it is not hindered, it can flower and bear fruit, anywhere. The eminent scholar D.T. Suzuki is open to criticism on this point, where he writes, Zen has no special doctrine or philosophy, no set of concepts or intellectual formula. except that it tries to release one from the bondage of birth and death by means of certain intuitive modes of understanding peculiar to itself. It is, therefore, extremely flexible in adapting itself to almost any philosophy and social doctrine, as long as its intuitive teaching is not interfered with.

[08:27]

It may be found wedded to anarchism or fascism, communism or democracy, atheism or idealism, or any political or economic dogmatism. It is, however, generally animated with a certain revolutionary spirit, and when things come to a deadlock, as they do When we are overloaded with conventionalism, formalism and other cognate isms, Zen asserts itself and proves to be a destructive force. The spirit of the Kamakura era was in this respect in harmony with the virile spirit of Zen. Is the social responsibility of Zen limited to this destruction of convention? To the destruction of convention? Of course it is important not to get locked into formal propriety.

[09:35]

But is breaking out our only function? Surely there are particular social standards and political and economic structures which are in keeping with the Buddha's vision of harmony. Is there really something to be called Zen that can accommodate itself to fascism? In all respect to my dear old sensei, I would step down from my podium, abandon my heritage and my sangha, and wander as a rootless pilgrim if I agreed with this perspective of Zen Buddhism. My teacher, Yasutani Hakuun Roshi used to begin his orientation to Zen practice with an account of the pilgrimage of the Buddha Shakyamuni, who exclaimed upon his great realization under the Bodhi tree, Wonderful, wonderful, now I see that all beings are the Tathagata.

[10:39]

That is, all beings come forth as the Buddha himself, herself, itself. And he continued, only their delusions and preoccupations keep them from testifying to that fact. The Buddha remained under the tree for a week, consolidating his realization, then arose and sought out his five disciples in Benares, thus beginning his long career of teaching. If all beings are indeed Buddha, And if we follow the way of Shakyamuni and encourage others to realize and testify to that fact, then it seems to me that the Zen Buddhist, as a successor of the Buddha, is going to take a stand in compassionate protest of fascism and other repressive systems.

[11:44]

and to find alternate structures for the application of the Buddha's experience, our experience. Dr. Suzuki himself spoke out against the violence of nations and the destruction of the earth. Let us credit him with ambivalence, at least. He did not adapt himself particularly to the imperialist aspirations of his country during World War II, so far as I know. He was not the first, however, to declare Zen to be something which can be used for authoritarian ends. The Kamakura shogunate was very impressed by the Zen teachers who had taken refuge in Japan from the turmoil in China at the end of the Song dynasty. The Chinese teachers and their immediate Japanese successors in turn accommodated themselves to the samurai.

[12:46]

Here is the advice of Takuan Zenji, which Takuan Zenji offered to one of the warriors in his sangha. Do not let your mind get stopped with the sword you raise. Forget what you are doing and strike the enemy. Do not keep your mind on the person who stands before you. They are all of emptiness. but beware of your mind being caught up with emptiness itself. I submit that Takuan himself should follow his own advice. Surely it is in his own attachment to emptiness that he declares the other fellow is empty. So, in effect, it's okay to kill him. This deadly notion has even more venerable roots, extending back to the pre-Buddhist Bhagavad Gita, where we find Krishna advising Arjuna that there is no killer and no one to be killed.

[13:57]

We can find it flowering in the words and deeds of samurai after Takuan's time, as for example, Miyamoto Musashi and Yamaoka Tesshu. The International Zen Dojo, founded in Japan by Ōmori Sogen Roshi, which has centers in the West, maintains the tradition of samurai Zen. Tenshin Tanoe, a teacher at Chozen-ji, the International Zen Dojo in Honolulu, writes, From the first experience of tranquility to living in maturity is a long way. In Zen, after you go through your koan training, at the end, we ask you, what is your shinkyo, your frame of mind going through life? Miyamoto Musashi said, it is like a huge boulder rolling downhill.

[15:06]

I say, if you like to ride your Honda bike through life, that's OK. but I'm riding my tank. Out of my way. This is indeed a long way from tranquility. That notorious assassin, Miyamoto Musashi, rolling downhill like a huge boulder, declared that he too based his life on the void. My loyalty is to the lone figure in Tiananmen Square, standing with empty hands before an oncoming tank. It's one thing to base your life on vacancy, but as even Takuan knew, or said that he knew, you cannot allow yourself to be caught up there.

[16:12]

Your successors will divert to the path of antinomian domination, mowing down everybody and everything with their impervious egos. This danger was evident to the great teachers of the past. The venerable Yen Yang asked Zhao Zhou, what if one has brought not a single thing? What then? Zhao Zhou said, put it down. Put down that not one single thing, or your successors will use it to enhance and support imperialism. When you cling to nothing as something, then you yourself are not truly empty, and you cling to emptiness as a concept. You can be persuaded that the homeless are an illusion. The rainforests are not being destroyed.

[17:16]

There are no traditional peoples to die out. There is no one freezing or starving in the former Yugoslavia. When you run over a child with your tank, there is no child after all. Compare tore zenji, whose Bodhisattva's vow we recite as part of our service in the Diamond Sangha. We can be especially sympathetic and affectionate with foolish people, particularly with someone who becomes a sworn enemy and persecutes us with abusive language. That very abuse conveys the Buddha's boundless loving-kindness. It is a compassionate device to liberate us entirely from the mean-spirited delusions we have built up with our wrongful conduct from the beginningless past.

[18:17]

With our response to such abuse, we completely relinquish ourselves, and the most profound and pure faith arises. At the peak of each thought, a lotus flower opens, and on each flower there is revealed a Buddha. Everywhere is the pure land in its beauty. We see fully the Tathagata's radiant light right where we are. May we retain this mind and extend it throughout the world so that we and all beings become mature in Buddha's wisdom. Tōre Zenji was a prominent successor of Hakuin Zenji, the 17th century Rinzai master who is the ancestor of all modern Rinzai teachers. Other Rinzai streams have died out.

[19:20]

Hakuin admired the samurai for their neatness, deportment, and discipline. and his adversarial and achievemental approach to realization carries over to the present time. Tōre Zenji himself could be a severe teacher, judging from the stories I heard from monks at Ryutaku-ji, the temple near Mishima, which he founded in Hakuin's last years. Hakuin, on the other hand, could also be soft, creative, and humorous. but father and son brought forth very different descendants who treasure very different qualities in their heritage. Tōre Zenji, with his gracious and generous vow, and Tanoe Roshi, rolling through life in a tank, are both heirs of Hakuin Zenji, but they don't fit under the same parasol.

[20:22]

So we have two parasols called Zen, Indeed, both are called Rinzai Zen. Thank heaven for Todai and his sisters and brothers, his parents and his children. They are my family. Their Zen is my Zen. I am convinced that the Buddha was right. All beings come forth sacred in their suchness, and it is my responsibility to make this clear. The adversaries, the enemies, as metaphor, and as folks out there in opposition to me, are not merely empty. They are the Buddha. When I myself am an empty Buddha, I am large, a boundless container that includes multitudes. The challenge is to really forget myself. to let my body and mind drop away and to encourage the body and mind of others to drop away, and to continue this dropping away endlessly, as Dogen Zenji has said.

[21:33]

Then my practice of including more and more others will be endless too. Recently, an accomplished Zen student said to me, The experience of profound emptiness is at once the experience of great compassion. That's right. And the samurai people are wrong. Do you say there is no right or wrong? Wrong. On the traditional Zen Buddhist altar, Shakyamuni occupies the center seat. Manjushri, the incarnation of great wisdom, sits on one side. Samantabhadra, the incarnation of great action, sits on the other. These archetypes and their positions can be profoundly meaningful for the Buddhist pilgrim.

[22:37]

The great wisdom of Manjushri is the realization that everything is totally empty. void. Nothing abides, not the body, not the soul, not the self. With this realization one finds vast and joyous liberation as we learn in the Four Noble Truths. In her great action, Samantabhadra wields skillful means of demeanor, words and deeds to turn the Dharma wheel among all beings. We devote ourselves to uncovering her talent for encouraging others to liberate themselves. The position of these images on the Zen Buddhist altar recalls Shakyamuni beneath the tree, realizing the vacancy of all things and arising to seek out his old friends.

[23:43]

We embody these archetypes as his sons and daughters by our experience beneath our own Bodhi tree and by the action we take thereafter. In the context of wisdom and compassion, Tenshin Tanoi and his colleagues present a broad target for critical grenades. But how about others who might be more subtle in their attachment to emptiness? Philosophers of the Kyoto school, which arose from the writings and teachings of Kitaro Nishida, make the locus of nothingness their point of departure. A good start, but I feel uncomfortable with the cerebral nature of their course thereafter. The Kyoto Zen Symposium for 1990 was devoted to religion and ethics

[24:45]

in the contemporary world. But the scholar assigned to summation, Professor Shizuteru Ueda, took his colleagues to task for not getting down to cases. Remarking with obvious restraint, I was left with the impression that the ethical side of the issue was not accorded its full weight. Indeed, I find no studies of the ten grave precepts by Kyoto scholars, though the precepts are examined as koans in the Rinzai school, in the Rinzai sect, as well as in the Soto sect. I find no reference to the paramitas, no reference to the Eightfold Path, and only passing rather elliptical allusions to the tragic state of the earth and its beings. For example, the distinguished philosopher K. G. Nishtani shows clearly how the practice of switching roles in Zen dialogues is a matter of emptying oneself and filling it with the other.

[26:00]

His discussion of ramifications of this mutual decanting involves Western philosophy, Japanese poetry, and Zen stories. As Frederick Frank remarks, it is a delightful essay with a musical, even fugal, structure. But it barely alludes to the ethical implications of containing the other, though it seems to me they cry out for development. Another distinguished philosopher of the Kyoto school, is Masao Abe, well known in the West as a teacher at a number of American universities over the past 15 years. In a landmark essay, he set forth the complementarity of another dichotomy, emptiness and suchness. Here I find allusions to human restlessness

[27:02]

and the importance of accepting one's lot and becoming free of self-attachment. This too has obvious ethical implications, but they are not unfolded. The uniqueness of each thing gets its due, but not its magic and sacredness. Shunyata, nothingness, comes forth as the Tathagata. Wonderful, wonderful!" the Buddha exclaimed. Earlier, I quote Tore Zenji declaring in Bodhisattva's vow that the abuse by someone who has sworn enmity against us conveys the Buddha's loving kindness. The first section of that poem reads, When I regard the true nature of the many dharmas, I find them all to be sacred forms of the Tathagata's never-failing essence.

[28:07]

Each particle of matter, each moment, is no other than the Tathagata's inexpressible radiance. With this realization, our virtuous ancestors, with compassionate minds and hearts, gave tender care to beasts and birds. Among us, in our own daily lives, who is not reverently grateful for the protections of life, food, drink, and clothing? Though they are inanimate things, they are nonetheless the warm flesh and blood, the merciful incarnations of Buddha. If the experience of emptiness comes forth as compassion, then so does the experience of its form. With that experience, we give the form tender care, whether beast, bird, plant, pancake, orange juice, undershirt, or fellow human being.

[29:18]

With that experience, we stand forth in loving opposition to people and their systems that wantonly rape the earth and perversely destroy its beings. Sadly, the world is becoming a nasty place. The first world, with its wealth and leisure, is alive and well among the prosperous classes of the old third world. The third world, with its poverty and disease, burgeons in cities and farms of the old first world. Ancient memories of grievance are reified and exploited by dictators for their own power. Bloody crusades are reenacted century after century, millennia after millennia. Multinational corporations, underwritten by great financial institutions, flush away the human habitat and the habitat of thousands of other species far more ruthlessly and on a far larger scale than the gold miners who once hosed down mountains in California.

[30:36]

International consortiums rule sovereign over all other political authorities, Presidents and parliaments and the United Nations itself are delegated decision-making powers that simply carry out the higher agreements. Citizens of goodwill everywhere despair of the political process. The old enthusiasm to turn out on election day has drastically waned. in the United States, commonly fewer than 50% of those eligible cast a ballot. It has become clear that governments are ineffectual, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, the power is elsewhere. If we are to have peace, if we are to take responsibility for our lives, then what is to be done?

[31:43]

great action, certainly, to the limits of our power and beyond. But what action? It seems to me that the way of the future for Buddhists and their friends lies at three levels of re-empowerment, the personal, the communal, and the global. At a personal level, you and I can put aside dependence in our religious practice and take up the way personally of emptying ourselves that we may fill ourselves with all beings. And we can encourage this ancient, authentic practice among others. This is rigorous exacting work. and requires the guidance of someone who has traveled the path before.

[32:45]

I wrote once that the Buddha was a great autodidact, but really he wasn't. He lived with the best teachers of his time before he experimented with asceticism and meditation. I am sure that when he was able to stand on his own feet he drew on the wisdom of his old masters in conveying his own teaching. The good teacher is necessary for two reasons. She or he will encourage you and offer you guidance. She or he will also deny you the satisfaction of a plateau, urging you on to the peak of your potential and even beyond. Too often I meet people who have the confidence that come with a natural spiritual experience.

[33:47]

When I check them and tell them, not enough, they tend to become angry and to argue. Sometimes they disappear, which is too bad. So faith in the teacher is important. If she is worth her salt, she knows, and you must swallow hard and accept the fact that you probably don't have it yet. The human tendency is to be satisfied with a milestone, but there are milestones after milestones without end. Even when the student can say with great satisfaction, there is absolutely nothing at all, I will quote Zhao Zhou, put it down. One of the great contributions of Zen Buddhism to the world can be summed up with the world words, not yet, not enough, not yet enough. The level of community is the Sangha.

[34:52]

In the Buddha's time, the Sangha was the community of monks. and it is clear that the Buddha considered the Sangha to be the only possible mode of universal realization. In his day and in his tradition down to the modern times, the lay community has supported the Sangha and thus encouraged the growth and spread of the Dharma. But here we appear as Mahayana students in modern times The lay community is the Sangha, mostly including spouses and children. How do we translate the Sangha into our own situation and use it to turn the wheel? I suggest that we find our model, we can find our model, in the base community movement which has evolved from 19th century

[35:55]

anarchism, through the Grupo de Afinidad of Spanish peasants, through the affinity group structures of the recent peace and social justice movement, and through liberation theology movements in Latin America and the Philippines. I submit that with the Sangha as base community, we can take charge of our lives economically and politically. In small groups of perhaps 12 to 18 people, we can gather as selves that network with other selves. We can practice our religion together as part of our meetings. We can study our religion and find sanction there for our communal self-reliance and our networking. We can encourage each other as parents, Sangha members, and citizens. We can work with other groups and form alternate savings and loan societies, stores, social welfare agencies, and schools.

[37:05]

We can realize the ideal of the international workers of the world and build the new within the shell of the old. We can build beside the shell, too, or piggyback. The acquisitive system is not all pervasive, only almost all. If we in little groups find niches and then network, our very presence and enterprise will meet the need of folks who know in their hearts that the old system is fueled by greed, hatred, and ignorance. They will turn to us in relief, exclaiming, At last we can be clean. At last we can live honestly. At last our earnest efforts to feed our children will not also contribute to the destruction of life. New base communities can take root and new networks can find new links.

[38:10]

Finally, we can take responsibility as citizens of the world. by finding within ourselves the seeds of other religions and cultures, and then nurturing those seeds and encouraging them to grow and bear fruit. The mullahs and patriarchs in the former Yugoslavia do not generally speak to each other, and this exclusive kind of silence is surely one cause of the terrible civil war that rages there, on and on. With inter-religious encounter and dialogue, with inter-ethnic and inter-cultural encounter and dialogue, and with follow-up by mail, telephone, fax, and modem, we will surely find ways to create together create peace together across formerly impenetrable frontiers.

[39:15]

I trust that we will not be working for some kind of millennia in the future. As we labor together, using the most skillful and compassionate means we can find, our engagement itself will turn out to be our goal. The way itself will turn out to be peace. and the milestones we reach, one after the next, will fulfill the Buddha's vows more and more fully and truly. Do we have some time for questions, comments, corrections?

[40:20]

I have a question about what you said about working within the Sangha. You said something about giving up dependence. Oh, I said that not with reference to giving up, not to working in the Sangha, but as individuals. You see, looking historically, we can see a process of laicization down through the ages, of becoming lay. Now, this includes the priests too, you know. The priests in Japan started to marry in the Kamakura period, in the 13th century. Previous to the Kamakura Reformation in Japan, Religion was something left to the priests, who did everything. Gradually, gradually, we as Buddhists, from Japan and then into the West, we have come to take responsibility more and more for our own religious practice.

[41:34]

And that's what I mean. Not to be depending. on a structure or a guru. Certainly we need guides. Certainly we need good teachers. But as the Buddha said, be a light unto yourself. What is the egg on the face? What is? The egg on the face. Oh, the egg on the face. emptiness has been treated as a concept. It's all empty, so what the hell? It's the Buddhist antinomianism. You know, the antinomianism is the doctrine that developed with Anabaptists in the 15th and 16th centuries in Germany.

[42:40]

the doctrine that we're all saved, so anything goes. Well, the Buddhist antinomianism is the doctrine that it's all empty, so anything goes. And there's too much of that. It works itself in two ways. One is that it's all empty, and so I can stay under the tree here. or that it's all empty, so my conduct in the workplace and in the marketplace can be the ordinary conduct that is involved in acquisition. That's the egg. Now, that's true, and that really should be brought out, that we need to examine Takuan in context of his culture.

[44:07]

Just a minute, let me make a note of that. This is the kind of thing I hope for. Now, the point is that not only Takuan, but even Hakuin, who took the lord of his province to task for the suffering of the poor farmers and artisans and fishermen and their families. He never questioned the system itself. He couldn't. No more could Takuan. But we are in a position to do that. And this is a point that should be brought out in this paper. Thank you. What you do is a choice.

[45:32]

Yes. Good and bad. Yes. One or the other. Yes. And so what is it like from the point of view of compassion from total emptiness to make those choices? Our problem as human beings is that our talent gets in our way. Our human talent is the talent for thought. And we allow our thought to be caught up in self-preoccupation. So that in our minds, in our brain, there is this loop, this tape, that keeps repeating how I am, how I was, how I will be. You know, in the Enmei Jikku Kanon Gyo, it says, thought after thought arises in mind.

[46:42]

Thought after thought, not separate from mind. But this tape tends to suppress real inspiration. The virtue of our Zen is eventually everything gets quiet. What a delight it is for a teacher to see, to have a student come into the room and say, it suddenly has become quiet. That quiet, that rest, that peace, where there is no coming or going, where there is no self-preoccupation, know, is the place of peace and rest where the options become clear, where you can say, I will do this and I will not do that.

[47:45]

But if the tape is going to choo, [...] you can't see those options so clearly. Are you saying that the preoccupation is worse than the bad choice? The preoccupation gives rise to fuzziness of choice. You can't see clearly if there's all this static. I mean, if you've made the choice already. If you've made the choice already, then you still are not able to see clearly how and what way it was wrong or mistaken. It is with the quiet mind that is at rest, which is at the same time the confident mind, you know, the mind that can acknowledge this very mind, this very body is the Buddha.

[48:55]

With that mind you can say, wow, I really miscued there. And I am going to have to go back and fix it as best I can. Yes? Coming over here tonight, well, first of all, I sat some time in here, and then I went out and had a sandwich. Then I came back, and on the way back, about seven people asked me for some change. Is that Ken, by the way? That's Ken, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hi, Ken. So I, yeah, about seven people asked me for some change. Now, I'm, this son used to always say, never go on the street unless you have a bunch of change in your pocket. Well, I started to run out of change, and then I began You bet.

[50:19]

You bet. I mean, what dilemma is more difficult? Indeed. I don't know. I really don't know. Maybe somebody else has some wise words on that subject. I mean, it's a phenomenon. one encounters in Berkeley more than in Honolulu. So, at least in the part of Honolulu where I live. So, you're more familiar with it. You've had to grapple with it more than I have. How do you do it? Yes? I know that a few homeless people I've spoken with say that they feel gratified just to be recognized. So sometimes I give nothing, but I say, you know, good afternoon or something.

[51:21]

I think a lot of homeless people feel like they're just invisible people. Yes. Yes, indeed they are. Yes. That's an important point. Anybody else on this point? to look at, you're being compassionate and you're really helping someone, or you're reinforcing a bad lifestyle that the person should be reconsidering. Assuming it's a choice. Yes, assuming the person has a choice. There must always be choices. But the choices for the present homeless person were in the past, pretty much. Pretty much. I mean all we have is now. Yes. So we have to act on now. I work for a social agency and I have a business card that I do hiring.

[52:26]

I won't mention it. It's a non-profit organization and I usually when I meet homeless people on the street I never as a rule give money but I do give them my business card and I tell them please come down and I'll help you find a job. Uh-huh. There you go. I just this afternoon went for a tour of the homeless shelter in Concord, which houses... I was trying to figure out how not to just do something around the holidays. How can I plug in or do something on a regular basis? So I thought I need to go and see what it's like, see what's up. So the woman there brought me around. There's 70 people in this convent shelter. But they run four. One in Richmond, one there, one in Martinez for families, and one in Pittsburgh.

[53:27]

And it was amazing what she said. I teach at a college, so she said, I have six illiterate people who cannot read or write, so they can't apply for jobs. How can you get somebody where you work to come over and help them with their letters and their math. So that was one thing. The other thing was if we could get food from a group one night a week, they get all their food from the Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff's Department supplies them like they do the jails. Oh, wow. That's $250 a night. Wow. So they said if we can get one group help us get food, in other words, bring it, because they have no servings, they have serving facilities like tables, but no sinks or kitchen, you know. Wow. If a group can come in and deliver a meal to the 60 to 70 people we have a night, that saves us $250 that we can put towards books and job training and etc., because the budgets are so limited.

[54:40]

I'm simply raising this because I was just sitting four hours there. And all you need to do is call up and say, I'm just out here in the street. I don't know. It's hard for me to pass people every day. What could I do, or what could a group I know do, even on the littlest level? to on a day-to-day basis try and help. And there's ways, they have very specific ways to do the littlest thing. It's not little, nothing's little. That's very helpful. I know that there are other topics that we need to take up, but let's go on with this for a moment. Go ahead. I think the other important thing to consider is that homelessness is not just each individual homeless person's Indeed. And we not only, in some ways in our lives I'm sure, contribute to it, but we also benefit from it.

[55:42]

So another important thing we can do in our lives is take a step back, look at what the actual sources are, which isn't just economics, it's also racism, it's also sexism, and see how we contribute to that and see how we benefit from that. Good. Okay. Are we still on homelessness? Yeah. Okay. Okay, another topic? Just to recognize that as a human being.

[56:54]

There but for the grace of God go I. Yes. All right. Go ahead. Yeah. Roshi, it's about your talk earlier. I want to know if I was understanding you correctly. I got the idea that you were saying that some of these Zen teachers and Zen students whose activity is not, that you don't approve of, perhaps don't have a complete realization or a deep realization that would give them the compassion that they need. Is that what I understand to be true? Not necessarily, but how they use it is the question. You know, one can have a deep experience, but, quote, deep experience is not a thing, you see, it's an open door. How do you use it? How do you walk through? Or do you walk through? There's no doubt in my mind that these great teachers and scholars that I quoted all had deep experiences.

[58:04]

No doubt. I have another question. Go ahead. Related, what is love? Lots of meanings. Lots of meanings, right? There's sexual love, married love. There's compassion. There is mercy. We can distinguish between compassion and mercy. But I like I like the definition of love that would imply being together. Yes? I have two questions.

[59:08]

One is about your talk. Could you say more about Yes? Do you have a concrete example of that in your own life? Concrete example in my own life? When I look at my own life I realize that I haven't always been so good at that. how to respond and not merely react, you know.

[60:20]

That is the ideal. If someone were to strike me from behind, for example, I might respond in is three ways. One would be to ignore it. See, didn't happen. One would be to react in kind. Hit back. And one would be to turn and say, why did you do that? You know? To engage. with the other. Surely, engagement with the other is the appropriate response to abuse.

[61:25]

There's a story in the Shoyoroku, in the Book of Equanimity, about the monk Shisho asking Hogen, you have, you are the founder of this temple, whose dharma did you succeed to? And Hogen said to Jizo. And Shisho said, you have betrayed our late master Jokei's trust. Hogen and Shisho had both studied under Choke, and then Hogen had gone on pilgrimage and found the teacher Jizo and stayed with him and received Dharma transmission from him, leaving his old teacher. What did Hogen do in that circumstance?

[62:34]

He said, well, you know, There's one point that Chokei made that I don't quite understand. And so Shisho diverted, says, oh, why don't you ask me? In the myriad forms, a single body is revealed. How do you understand that? So Shisho waved his whisk, his hosu. So, Hogen said, well, that's what you learned from Chokye. What is the head monk's own opinion? What is your own opinion? And Shisho said, nothing. And the dialogue goes on. But you see what happened there? Hogen was attacked for leaving his old teacher and betraying his old teacher. But he didn't say, You know, it's okay. The old teacher gave his permission and there's plenty of precedent for this kind of change of teacher.

[63:36]

It's all right. Didn't even offer that much defense. He used that chance to turn the Dharma wheel. So, each one of those occasions, each one of those incidents, is an opportunity to turn the dharma wheel. Can you handle that without dropping the ball? That's the question. Yes? In your talk, when you went as far back as the Gita to, you know, where Arjuna and Krishna are talking and he says, I've always wondered, is it that those who have suggested that in these religious traditions, or not suggested, but been silent about that, or said, you know, it's nothingness, it's OK.

[64:40]

I mean, isn't the bottom line in all the religions, even Hinduism, that all life is sacred? Everything is sacred. Everything is part of God, or what So I don't know how whoever wrote that got away with it. That's what I'm wondering. You see, the point is, the same point that was raised about Takuan Soho, you see, that culture is all pervasive. And what we are seeing, thank heaven, what we are seeing is a growing responsibility to ourselves and to the Dharma and to the perennial truth. that really all beings are sacred. So you're saying that their culture is muted. That lesson that Buddha, I think, says so well by his life. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And we're all of us creatures of culture, you know.

[65:42]

But culture itself is evolving, it seems to me. And this is the hope. Yes. In some of my more despairing moments, I think it seems to me that the engaged Buddhism that's emerging here nowadays is perhaps relative to I mean, is it really any different? Well, I think there's a qualitative difference. I think there is a shift going on now, just as significant as the shift in the Kamakura period, just as significant as the shift from classical Buddhism to Mahayana.

[66:45]

I think we're seeing the evolution of a new Mahayana, and we are all caught up in it. So it's not completely clear to us just what is happening. Just as, say, in the time of, say, in 1787, it might not have been clear to everybody in France that there was a revolution going on. You know? We're in the throes of it. We're in the thick of it. But I think with a dispassionate eye, you can see that there is a real shift happening. There is a really a new sense of shared responsibility for the Dharma and for all beings. And that when we say that we vow to save the many beings, we are not merely talking about the butterfly effect. You know? that the butterfly effect, that the single wing of a butterfly is going to affect everybody's actions everywhere.

[67:52]

Bell's theorem, you know, is going to apply to our Zazen, that when we find peace, then the whole world finds peace. It's true in a very real sense, but it's also true that our task is to get out there into the dusty roads and turn the Dharma wheel of the Buddha. And we're coming more and more to see how we can do this, really, as a Sangha. Yes? You said the Buddha, he or she, and I thought that the Buddha have had past lives as a woman, that when he became Buddha, he was a man. Yes, but you see, I'm not speaking about Shakyamuni here. I'm talking about you. Yes? What thoughts do you have on non-attachment?

[68:56]

Oh! You know, the old story, which many of you have heard, so forgive me if I repeat myself, but some of you haven't, is about Mr. Sekida, Katsuki Sekida, who wrote Zen Training, you know, that book? He was our teacher on Maui for several years. And this was during the late 60s. when there was a lot of talk about non-attachment, and there was indeed a lot of non-attachment itself. You know, the clothes, food, and that's all. He got so sick of it that one day, in the course of his talk, in response to a question, he cried out, Non-attachment. All I hear is non-attachment. If you weren't attached, you'd be dead.

[69:57]

Yes. The point is that in your heart of hearts, you are at rest, you are at peace. There is no coming or going. So, for all the tribulations, for all the sorrow, for all the self-blame, for all the regret and everything, in your heart of hearts you are at rest and at peace. This, it seems to me, is non-attachment. I'm attached to a number of things. You know, my eye shade, my wife, My books, my computer. But, you know, think of Ryokan's poem about the thief who took everything, but he left the moonlight shining in the window.

[71:18]

That moonlight shining in the window is your peace, your rest. Yes? Would you say that that's by faith? You say in your heart of hearts. I wouldn't call it faith, I'd call it experience. It comes back anyway. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to say. When I see a homeless person, I'm sure that I see my own homelessness. And sometimes we can't even help ourselves.

[72:22]

We can't even find home. Yes. Yes. Yes. In ourselves. Yes. Shakyasena Zenji said, Zazen is not a difficult task. It is a way to lead you to your long lost home. And this is why we're here, isn't it? To find our home, to find our long lost home. Toza, is it? Yes. Is it Tozan? No, not Tozan. Anyway, the poem is, everyone wants to leave the eternal flux and return to sit by the charcoal fire. Yes, yes. This is the human longing to find that home.

[73:26]

I want to acknowledge that. Yes. Well, I don't think it's either or. But what are those men doing to their own bodies, you know?

[74:29]

They are getting ulcers at best. They know that things are out of control. And in driving themselves in the unnatural way that they do, they are making themselves sick, shortening their lives and deepening their suffering and the suffering of their families. they may get cancer and recover, but if they go back into the same work, the cancer will come back. So certainly, the work of people like Bob Lucas and others, with the CEOs, trying to help them,

[75:42]

to find a way of life and to encourage a way of life in their workplace that will be easy on themselves and easy on their co-workers and their subordinates and with a business mission that will be of service rather than of acquisition. That this is the way of healing. I admire the work that he and others like him are doing with these magnets. So it's a healing effort with many prongs, many thrusts, and that's certainly one of them. Yes? I mean, I'm not blaming you for that.

[77:01]

But I think it is generally true that the that the magnate who is ruthless is also, maybe he's, you know, pouring out the drinks in Mallorca and Mallorca and all of that is, but what's going on really inside? I can't believe that such a person is really very liberated and very happy as a result. And that this kind of false health, if you would, deserves our compassion and our help.

[78:15]

There are some people who are oriented toward helping those folks, just as there are others who are oriented to helping the overtly homeless. So we can make it an effort that reaches out in many directions. Maybe a couple more. Sorry to take so long. Yes, back there. I do know some people who have reached out to magnets. starting to have that impact.

[79:24]

And I'm very impressed with the grassroots organizations that allow people like myself to start learning how to write letters and go lobby and make that difference and see the difference that one person makes because we don't see the difference we make voting. And I think it has to go beyond that. And when you can find immunization or when you can choose to fully fund WIC or Head Start or some programs that do make an impact, you know, you can start to feel close to your government again. Yes.

[80:24]

A consummation devoted to be wished. One more question. And I guess my question is, what do writers mean when they say, beyond good and evil? Oh, what is beyond good and evil? True peace, it seems to me. The abstraction, of course, is the void. But the void, personally speaking, is peace. Peace, rest, security, in the sense of the Emejiku Kanon-gyo again.

[81:31]

Jō rakuga jō, it says. Jō rakuga. What's that Ga? That Ga is the self, you see. It's supposed to be empty. But the empty self, you see, is the self that is quite content to be ephemeral, to be transitory, to be void. It's okay. And with that, with that sense, that experience of the boundless container one finds oneself, like Guan Yin, to contain all. That is certainly beyond good and evil, right and wrong, and all the dichotomies.

[82:34]

Thank you very much everybody. Beings are numberless.

[82:45]

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