This coming weekend at Green Dragon Zen Temple, also known as Green Gulch Farm, there will be a bodhisattva initiation ceremony and some of the people in this group will be initiated in that ceremony. If you'd like to come, you're welcome to come and witness some of your classmates as they ritually and formally enter into the bodhisattva practice and receive the bodhisattva precepts. Can you hear me okay? A little louder? Okay. How about you over there, Bill? Louder? Okay.

[01:01]

And I might have mentioned this before in this class, I think I did, that I was talking with a group of people in Monterey, I don't know, in Carmel, and some of them had already gone through initiation, and I asked them, what's the first thing that the initiates do, or the first activity that the initiates do? in the ceremony. And they remembered the ceremony, so then various things that they thought was the first thing that the disciples or the initiates would do. But they weren't actually getting the first thing. So they would say these various things, and I would say, well, no, that's part of it. That's not the first thing. Yes, that's right, that's part of it. They just kept going with various things. that occurred in the later parts of the ceremony.

[02:05]

And finally one of the people said, oh, I give up. And I said, that is the first thing. So it's not actually the very first thing, but it's the first thing the initiates do by themselves. There's certain things which the whole assembly does. The whole assembly participates in an invocation. But when the initiates focus in on the initiates, the first thing they do is renunciation, which is symbolized by, in the case of what we call... lay people is symbolized by cutting a little bit of hair and for people who are going to be priests it's symbolized by cutting all the hair or shaving the head but I feel that you know whether you're going to be in a sense have the lifestyle of a priest and do a lot of monastic training and

[03:19]

and take responsibility for those rituals and those ceremonies and the transmission of them. Whether you do that style of practice or what we call lay practice, bodhisattva practice in both cases requires renunciation. I don't see in Mahayana, in the path of the bodhisattva, it seems like there must be renunciation. For a number of years actually at Zen Center we did the bodhisattva initiation ceremony for lay people without cutting the hair, the renunciation part in there. But I noticed that in the Asian tradition there is that, in the Asian manuals there is that section for lay people too, so I have added it back in. It was taken out for some reason. There is, like most practices, there's many layers of grossness and subtlety to it.

[04:33]

And... I thought tonight I'd go into some different layers or different, yeah, different forms of renunciation. And one actually kind of dynamic and kind of complicated presentation of three parts. Even three parts or three different aspects are quite a bit to deal with. So I thought I would talk about that. That way of presenting renunciation as having like three forms. The first form could be called just primary renunciation. the second form, the middle renunciation, and the third form, the great renunciation. And one way to describe the is that one is extensively cultivating many different kinds

[05:53]

of virtuous practices, but in hopes of acquiring something. And then one hears the teaching about emptiness or the the insubstantial nature of phenomena including the practices which you're doing and then attached so once again this is not talking and this is talking about someone who's actually involved in practice extensively but is hoping to acquire something or attain something.

[06:55]

And then when most people start to try to do some spiritual practice to attain something, they also usually form some attachment to what they're trying to acquire or what they're trying to attain. So as one is doing these practices, one hears that the practices actually have no, you know, substantial inherent existence. And hearing that teaching, you continue to do the practices, but now you become unattached. And you also still have some, I think, motivation or some hope to acquire something. That's part of the environment of your situation. That's the primary kind of renunciation, or the primary situation for renunciation. And I'll go back over that in detail, I hope.

[08:06]

The second form, which could be called the middle form, now one continues to do all these virtuous practices, and virtuous practices are all the practices compassion and wisdom available to you at the time, practicing the bodhisattva precepts, practicing giving, practicing enthusiasm, concentration, patience and so on. But one in this case now has no hope of reward, no hope of acquiring anything. This is second. Third, now you reach a place where you... In the second one, you understand that the practices you're doing, you're not grasping them, you're not attached to them.

[09:15]

But you're still somewhat involved in... thinking in terms of self and other. You're still somewhat involved in thinking of doing these activities, doing these projects, not trying to do to get anything anymore, but you still think in terms of you doing the activity. You're still somewhat involved in thinking about you know, what's the right way and what's the wrong way. You're still somewhat involved in trying to figure out what the path would be. But in this last case, you're no longer involved in the

[10:19]

between self and other, between activity and actor. All activity now emerges with no duality involved and the The activity is totally determined by the conditions of the moment, and everything's, all activity is spontaneous. There's no, like, buddy there trying to, like, engineer the practice anymore. And yet the practices, all these practices which are previously done, are still happening, but they're happening totally spontaneously with no deliberation. That's the... the full-scale wisdom is realized at that stage of renunciation.

[11:30]

And another, so that's, and I'll go back over these, but basically before I do, I want to say these three levels are interdependent. The second, the middle one, has to arise on the basis of the first one. The third one has to be on the basis of the second one. The second one purifies the first one, and the third one purifies the second one. But also, the second one is at the basis of the third one and it purifies the third one. In certain ways, the third one could get off. Even the great renunciation, the cryptic wisdom practice, that style of renunciation could get off if it wasn't grounded in the second one. And the third one,

[12:35]

purifies the second one, which then becomes the third one. It purifies the first one. The first one also purifies the third one because the test of the third one is being able to come back to the first one. And coming back to the first one purifies the first one, but also purifies the third one by not keeping the third one separate from the first one. So they're very interpenetrating. And again, I'll try to make that clearer by some examples. Okay? So now it's a little bit more detailed. Is that right? So the first one. Sometimes... There's a tradition of teaching worldly affairs in the form of eight thoughts or eight emotions.

[13:43]

So the eight emotions that come through have to be like four pairs of two, or four pairs. The first two is to be happy or being happy. when you acquire something, and being unhappy when you don't acquire something. That's the first two. That's pretty familiar to most people, right? That sometimes you're happy when you acquire something, and sometimes you're maybe unhappy when you don't acquire something. Second two is Well, I forgot. The third pair is to be happy when you become well-known and to be unhappy when you're not well-known.

[14:59]

In other words, known well. In other words, have a good reputation. The last one is to be happy when someone speaks well of you and to be unhappy when someone speaks well of you. And the second pair, which is hard for you to remember because I'm never into this, is to be happy when you feel good, and to be unhappy when you don't feel good. So those are examples of a certain basic kind of, in some sense, of course there's grosser forms of worldly . But in some sense, those are the basic worldly thoughts.

[16:06]

So, in one sense, the first renunciation involves being, you know, standing upright or being neutral and free of those kinds of emotions or those kinds of thoughts. To somehow be able to stand neutral in the midst of getting something or not getting something. Of course, also losing. To be able to stay free in the middle of getting something or losing something. Which of course, last week I was talking about birth and death. Getting life or not getting life. and be able to be upright in the middle of receiving. In other words, to not be seeking to get life and not be holding onto life and afraid of losing life.

[17:15]

So this is a very basic thing. We're not saying that there aren't these, there isn't the situation of acquiring something or not acquiring something. There is, there's still that kind of thinking that it still seems like you're acquiring something and not acquiring. The highest level of renunciation, you don't even see things that way anymore, that you're getting something or not. But in the beginning of our practice of renunciation, we're still thinking like, oh, I got something or I didn't get something. I'm born or I'm dying. We're still into that. But the renunciation is to be neutral there and free and balanced. It's apparent comings and goings. And then again, feelings come. And they're calculated by the mind as pleasant or unpleasant. So usually, people are happy when they feel

[18:19]

and unhappy when they don't feel good. This is the usual worldly way of thinking about feeling good and not feeling good, is that I'm unhappy. And of course, black people say, well, of course I'm unhappy when I don't feel good. Well, yeah, of course we are. Of course we're worldly people. ...on to those thoughts, but we're talking about becoming neutral to that. Not that you don't have... Not that you don't feel good, and not that you don't feel bad. You do. That's part of what's given to you. That's part of what's dealt to you. We're talking about being balanced and neutral with that deal. We're talking about learning how to renounce being involved in in feeling good or feeling bad.

[19:23]

And if you do feel happy when you feel good, that's okay. But you're not concerned with that. And actually, after a while, you don't start getting happy when you feel good. And if you just feel good, then you're more likely to be able to not feel unhappy when you feel bad. So feeling happy when you feel good is very similar to feeling unhappy when you don't feel good. And both are actually not necessary. You can just feel good and not feel good without getting into, like, being happy because of that or unhappy because of the other. You don't have to feel unhappy when you have pain, for example. But if you're into being happy when you feel good and you're attached to holding to that, then you're pretty much, like, going to be unhappy.

[20:35]

You're going to get into being unhappy when you feel bad. So that's the second pair. Next one. when not somebody's talking to you directly but you know the words out on you and the word out on you is is it's a good it's you're you're well known you're famous you got a big name so happy about that being happy that you got a big name is one of these things to become free of? How can we become free of being happy that we got this great reputation? Next is to be free of being unhappy when you have a bad reputation, when the word out on you is getting bad. You hear rumors And the last one is when somebody's talking directly to you.

[21:39]

And they're saying, you know, blah, blah, blah. They're speaking well of you. And to be free of being happy because they're speaking well of you. And also, now they're speaking ill of you. And to be free of feeling unhappy because they're speaking ill of you. As many of you know, one of the stories of a Zen... monk that turned me towards buddhism was a story about a person a monk who was being spoken ill of not only through the things being spoken ill of the evidence was not collaborating this this accusation and he you know he didn't try to get in there and And get the person to, you know, change from speaking ill of him to, you know, speaking well of him by giving them, you know, arguing his case so that they would switch from speaking ill of him to speaking neutrally or well of him.

[22:47]

He didn't get into that. He just said, when they spoke ill of him, he just said, in Japanese, also desu ka? Or, is that so? Oh, it's Tuesday? Is that asodesuka? Sometimes Japanese people tell Japanese people on Tuesday, which is called, what's it called, it's called, let's see, on Mondays, getsuyobi, kaiyobi, fire day. So on Kayobi, they say, somebody says, you know, it's Kayobi, and they say, ah, so desu ka? Japanese people talk like that sometimes. You say, it's Tuesday, and they say, oh, is that so? So desu ka? To something quite obvious, you know? They don't just say, they don't say, I know.

[23:51]

They say, is that so? And actually, if you don't know Japanese very well and Japanese people are talking, you don't understand what they're saying, you can just sit there and say, And it works pretty well, you know, because you're basically saying, is that so? Whatever you're saying, is that so? I mean, I suppose it is. So, you know, and they probably feel like, yeah, that's right. It's correct. What I'm saying is like that. But anyway, they were criticizing him severely, speaking ill of him, and he said, Is that so? And then the evidence was overthrown, and they were shown that he wasn't actually guilty of the charges against him. And then they came and apologized and then said all kinds of positive things about him. And then he said, I saw this guy is that so and I thought yeah I just thought that just looks so cool to be like that kind of balance in the midst negative energy coming this negative insulting language coming at you you just stay you stay bouncing you don't run away from it you don't fight back you don't talk him out of it you don't laugh it off you don't demean it you don't promote it

[25:16]

If you fight it, you promote it. If you laugh it off, you promote it. Anything you do other than be free, if you play the same game, the insulting game, you're caught by the game of insulting. And then also praise. Are you caught by the praise? So you say, oh, wow, me, or whatever. Keep it up. Don't stop. No, just... That kind of flexibility and neutrality in the midst of the outrageous slings and arrows encouraged me to look further into Buddhism or Zen practice. If we can't be this kind of balanced way in the midst of feeling good and feeling bad, if we can't be that way, not fighting or attaching to the kind of situation, number one, it makes it very difficult not to get in big trouble.

[26:57]

In other words, to get into misery, in order to become free of raw, gross misery, we kind of have to learn how to do this. And then, in addition to, in a sense, freeing ourselves from intense misery, this kind of renunciation also sets up the possibility for spiritual practice. It's the ground man of the next one. So it protects us from real heavy duty misery. So for example, again, if you're being insulted, if you fight it, it can get really bad. I mean, like you could fight back, you can insult back, right? And then you can get in really big trouble. Like, you know, if a policeman insults you, you know, wrongfully, and then you lift off, then you can get, like, really big trouble for that.

[28:10]

Even though everyone agrees they're wrong, still, if you fight back, you have to wait, you know, for more trouble then. So in many examples like that, if you're not free of negative and positive stuff, like you meet someone and you feel really good when you meet them, but you're not free of that feeling good, you're really into how good you feel being with this person. So then you kind of like cling to them and try to control them. And this, of course, can get into your difficulties. So the negative side is that it makes it very hard to practice if you don't do this kind of practice, plus the positive side, if you do it, then you can start to move into more spiritual practices.

[29:16]

Another aspect of this level of renunciation is that you start to become free. You're still dealing with practices as practices which you do. You're still in that realm. of thinking that way at this point. But once you, once you become unattached, practices what you're doing with some kind of idea of gain, you start, you start to become free also, not just of pleasant and unpleasant, acquiring and not acquiring, having a good reputation and so on, you also start to become free in terms of practice themselves.

[30:22]

You start to become free because of hearing the teaching of insubstantiality. You start to become free of thinking that such and such practices are relevant to the welfare of beings and other practices are not relevant. So this level of renunciation, you start to see more possibilities for practice. Because you have been practicing, you've had some kind of gaining idea. But in the midst of practicing, there have been all this stuff going on that I mentioned, but you're not becoming free of this, of all these concerns. And part of the reason why you're becoming free of them is because you hear the teaching of the insubstantiality. And also you hear the teaching of free of these things but you're hearing in addition the teaching of the insubstantiality of the practices so you stop clinging to certain forms of practice so you start to see that other forms of practice might be relevant so your your limits on what you think might be relevant to this practice of liberation

[31:48]

starts to get pushed back. You start to give up limits on what might be helpful, what might be appropriate. It doesn't mean that everything's appropriate. Even inappropriate things are relevant in the sense of being able to be understood as inappropriate. That's a practice too. So one of the great teachers in the Buddhist tradition, Ibn Agra, said, for those who understand emptiness or inner dependence, everything's relevant. For those who do not understand emptiness, nothing is relevant. And the nothing is relevant seems a bit severe, but I don't want to spend too much time on that one to try to justify him saying that.

[32:54]

But basically, when you understand emptiness, everything is relevant to the bodhisattva practice. When you understand its substantiality and that things don't have an inherent nature, then you don't grasp them. And not grasping, you see much more relevant, much more possibilities than before. Now, I could go now on to the more detailed discussion of the second, of the middle form of renunciation, but I also could stop now and we could discuss the first one more if you'd like to. Do you want to discuss it for more right now before going on to the next one? Yes? Do you think there's ever a time that it's appropriate to defend yourself? To defend yourself? Well, I mean, in terms of, you know... Definitely.

[33:57]

When you said, no, it's not so, you didn't say... Definitely. When it's appropriate to defend yourself. So then how do you know when it's appropriate to say, is that so? Well, it seems to me that if you're going to defend yourself, generally speaking, it's probably good to start with, is that so? But I'm not saying it always is. In other words, if somebody is insulting you, I think it's good to listen to it. Is that so? I am being called such and such, huh? Okay, I got it. So starting with that, so it's probably a good idea generally. But I think the main point is, do you feel like you're upright in the middle of this, you know, garbage flying at you? You know, or do you feel kind of like, yuck-o, I want to get out of here and go someplace else. Or I'm unhappy that I'm being called a...

[34:59]

If you can hear insults to you and be free of being unhappy about that, then you probably can see that whether or not it's a good idea to defend yourself. In this case, the story I was talking about, he knew when he got insulted that if he would like to stay cool, that a few hundred years later, people in America would be inspired to practice by this story. What did you say? Yeah, is that so? Right. Sure, you can tell. If he, you know, he could have been bounced, you know, and as he was being insulted, he could have been, like, not worried about it and not unhappy because he was insulted. Like, it's kind of like, he could have been that way. Like, here he is, you know, it's Tuesday, and somebody comes, and he doesn't get unhappy about that. It's like... This harsh stuff hits your face, you know?

[36:07]

But that doesn't make you unhappy. It's just like, whoa, that hurt. It's not like, oh, that hurt, and I'm unhappy now. Or like, oh, it's, it's like, it's, you know? And I'm unhappy. It's kind of an insult, the way there can be an insult, right? I was, you know, I've had enough of this. I do not need, or you see somebody's face, you know, somebody's unhappy face. It's kind of like, it's an, it's a challenge. But anyway, it could be direct insult like that, and you don't get unhappy. And if you're not unhappy about the insult, like if you come to me and you say to me, or I come to you and I say to you, I better do it this way. You come to me and you say, you're really a lousy, selfish, stupid. Disgraceful person you say that to me and I kind of like even let's say I just you say it to me and I say Wow, that's fantastic.

[37:10]

I mean that like just That just like happened And then I might say hey guess what when I'd like to defend That might be I might want to defend myself might be interesting I that I might not want to defend myself. The important thing is that I do not feel unhappy that you're insulting me. This is not like... I may be worried about you. Like, what's the matter, Gwen? And that's what you might do. You might say... What's the matter? That might be what you could do when the person's insulting you. You might realize it's not really they're talking about you. It's something about the way they feel, probably. and because you're not like thrown into this state because of this harsh towards you you then can respond and sometimes it might be that defending yourself was a good is a good idea it sometimes might be the case however you know from a long distance away a story of somebody defending herself when she's insulted doesn't necessarily like go

[38:19]

will not be remembered very long. Because it's so common. You'd have to defend yourself in some really unusual way for it to be, you know, get in the history books. Because most people try to defend themselves when they're insulted, if they dare. So, but sometimes it might be interesting and helpful to defend yourself. It is possible. And the way you know If you're still operating at the level of trying to figure out what to do, at this level of renunciation, you might still be trying to think, well, should I defend myself or not? If you're not deliberating, then one of the ways you would deliberate in this case was, are you now free of being unhappy about being insulted? It is possible. Now, maybe when you're first insulted, you feel like, oh, God, I just can't go on, you know? Then maybe somebody tells you, you know, and maybe you express that and say, you know, I just, I just can't take one more insult.

[39:28]

I'm like, I can't go on. I'm going to commit suicide if people keep talking about me this way. And maybe you express that and maybe somebody says to you something about, well, that wasn't really what they meant. That's not really what they're talking, they're not really talking about you. But you might be able to do that yourself. And then in that way, even though you initially felt unhappy when they said that, you regain your balance. And then somehow it drops away. And you still remember how they said that, but it doesn't really make you unhappy anymore. It's just like, you know, one more little scratch on this process of a bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas need to be scratched, need to be gouged, in order to come up with this mind of renunciation. If you get insulted, how are you going to become free of that habit of defending and feeling unhappy when you're insulted? Because that's well-established genetically-culturally to defend and feel bad when you're insulted because we kind of want to have a good reputation for our survival.

[40:45]

that have become free of that, and if you're free of it, then from that position of freedom, you may be able to say, well, I think in this case I should defend myself. Let's say you're a minority, and someone's criticizing you sort of because of you being a minority. okay so it's not for yourself but for the minority that's being abused that you're a member of you might be the self but this minority but if you're already caught by feeling bad about this you're going to be less able to like defend the minority and again ask the person what they're talking about maybe like did you really mean that you know what you're talking about tell me about what this is about some cases it might be good to defend against the insult but again if you're if you're in the grips of feeling unhappy about you being if I'm in the grips of being unhappy about me being insulted then it's going to be hard for me to be very skillful in helping this person who relating to me through this prejudicial view in other words to help them start in the process of their reconciliation

[42:08]

To come back with something surprising like that may not do the whole story, though. It may not do the whole trick, because in this case I told, he was insulted and he didn't fight back, and that the people weren't instantly converted by that. It took a while, but they had to get more information to realize, and finally they realized, not only did he not do this, but when he was falsely accused, he didn't defend himself. And not only that, but they then told him to take this baby which he was falsely accused of being the father and he took care of it. So all that accumulated for them, for the big punchline of them coming back and realizing that not only did they falsely accuse him, but when he was falsely accused he didn't defend himself and he also took care of their grandchild. They saw all that and were overwhelmed with delight at his virtue. and his non-attachment, then they also got to see that when they finally praised him, it was pretty much the same.

[43:13]

So that makes this a very nice theory. Yes, Danny? It's pretty much the same thing. And non-attachment can have levels of subtlety. So you can be, well, like you can be unattached to your car, but still attached to your house. You can be unattached to your car, but still be attached to your boyfriend. You can be unattached to your house, your car, and your boyfriend, but still be attached to your children. You can be unattached to all that, but still be attached to thinking of yourself as separate from others. And so on. There's different levels of subtlety. The deepest level of subtlety, the most subtle, is the idea that, you know, I'm separate from my actions, that there's action and actor, that there's self and other, that there's actually inherent existence in my feelings and ideas. And then there's the grosser levels of attachment about material things, and then more subtle things about physical things, and then there's also attachment to spiritual things.

[44:23]

So there's all these different layers, and non-attachment is applied each time. Renunciation is sort of like when you enter into the non-attachment when you you previously were holding and now you renounce you give up something you have been holding and now you're in a state of non-attachment vis-a-vis what you just renounced for what has just been renounced some levels of renunciation you're not even doing it anymore but this level you renounce things You're still there, being exalted, being praised, having feelings, you know, getting things. You're still seeing things in terms of getting and losing. Put pain and pleasure coming to you. You're still in that realm. So at this level, you now start to get over that. There's also this, you know, the first one is like all that stuff, you know, houses, cars,

[45:24]

grandchildren all that all that stuff in the first category so of course you know you get a grandchild you feel very happy maybe so you know some of us have grandchildren now we're very happy about that it's very nice how can i be free of the happiness i mean free of the of this of this happiness thing that happens with that how do you be free of that and i think if i can be free of that that helps me be with my grandchild more but this is a very strong thing very strong test to your equilibrium that i i do i do actually i'm actually working on that with him to try to like to see and to see how that actually helps me uh not get drained by being helped my energy be more you know, balanced and flowing if I watch that tendency to, like, attach to getting something from being with him.

[46:33]

Because you do get something. You do get something. And then you do not get something. It does come and go at this level of practice. But how can I be unattached? Like Saturday night, my daughter wanted to work, so she asked me if I would take care of her son. So I went over and took care of her son. And, you know, well, to make a long story short, the next morning when she got up, you know, it's like I was his new mother. which wasn't that hard on me. I hadn't seen her all night, you know, because she'd been with me. And then she... And you know how sometimes you're holding somebody's baby and their mother comes up and they go to their mother, they want to get away from you to their mother? Well, he was doing that to me. She says, wow, you're his new mother. And it was a little hard on her, you know, I felt sorry for her.

[47:35]

She'd made this fantastic effort, and I'm just a one-night guy, you know. But that does sometimes happen, you know. So I have to be careful not to, like, get caught out of, you know, me being almost as popular as his mother. And she has to be careful not to give it to him when she gets home, you know, after... How could you betray me for my father? You have to be careful of this stuff. This is the first level of renunciation, to watch out for this kind of stuff. And it's all the time we're getting these opportunities. It doesn't mean you don't love completely. As a matter of fact, it means that this non-attachment, this renunciation makes your love more steady. We don't get pooped out by the loss of energy that comes from grasping, from the being happy time with this person.

[48:42]

Okay? Patty and Jeff and Elena. Any others? Yes? Am I talking loudly enough for everybody? A little louder? Patty should talk louder too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so this is... So there you are, right? This is the practice you're doing, which is appropriate for you right now. And again, I think many other people could sympathize with you that this is really a big challenge. Like, I got a headache. How can I keep practicing with a headache?

[49:43]

You know? Even a headache, kind of like, okay, I got a headache, and now I feel bad that I have a headache, rather than I just got a headache. It's pretty subtle. There are more subtle forms of practice, but it's pretty subtle to find how do you avoid, how do you become free? I shouldn't be avoiding. How do you stay balanced and free when you have a headache? How do you become free of that impulse and like, what can I do to get, you know, to get this non-headache? It's possible to, you know, go take some medicine, but to do it from the place where of neutrality versus the pain. Of course, very intense pain is going to be more likely that you're going to go into spasm and tense up. So again, renunciation is to relax with the pain. If you don't, okay, sorry.

[50:44]

But most people have enough. So now that we have enough pain, most of us, at least right now we do, this isn't the end of the pain story, but for the moment I feel like I got enough pain. Well, okay, isn't that enough? Do you have to make it stronger by being happy about it? Why not? Maybe being happy about it is perverse, maybe too much. So I wouldn't say be happy that you have pain, but rather be happy that you can practice with the pain. So you can be quite happy that you have a headache and that you can relax. And now you might be happy that you can relax with the headache and that actually the relaxing with the headache, maybe the headache goes away. But sometimes the headache doesn't go away, but still you're relaxed with it. And you can be quite happy that you can relax with the pain. That there's some freedom from the pain.

[51:45]

Rather than when you have pain, then you go to hell. Because you have pain and you get angry and you resist and you tense up and you blame somebody. Then you get in bigger trouble. But if you can relax and stay balanced, then you're practicing renunciation with that pain. In the same way, if the pain goes away and then you feel good, to relax with feeling good rather than, wow, now I, you know, we're... really get excited about the fact that the pain ended. Sometimes that happens to me, like I have some kind of disease, a little, maybe some small disease, and I notice that it's over, and then I get excited about it, and then, bam, the next one comes, you know? It might have been better just to not get so excited in between those two. I think I had this case on my hand, you know, I had this wart on my hand.

[52:52]

Warts aren't that bad, really, for me. It wasn't a bad wart. It was a wart. And it had been there for a long time, you know. For years it had been there. And one day I looked down and it was gone. And I thought, wow, it's gone. And I looked over at my thumb and my thumb was out of joint. This knuckle kind of like had popped out. It's kind of like, oh! So it's kind of like, it's kind of embarrassing, right? Kind of getting that excited about a wart going away. I mean, really. The more serious story is I used to work in a rehabilitation clinic. A Sister Elizabeth Kenny clinic, which was originally for polio patients, where I was a patient. 20 years before, when I was a baby, I was a patient in this hospital when it was for polio people.

[53:56]

But now, of course, not so many people have polio. So, clinic for people who have accidents and strokes. So, the floor I worked on most of the time was with the young men, almost all men, who have broken necks and broken backs. So I was working with this one, one of these guys was like, he had a broken neck and he was, I really liked him, but anyway, he had a broken neck. And so what they, what they do with, uh, well, just let me say that he got, they come around and give people haircuts. People come to the hospital and give haircuts and he got this haircut. And back in those days, the haircuts that he got, I remember it cost $1.75. I gave him the haircut left. He really was bitching about the haircut. He didn't like it. He's paralyzed, you know. He's got a broken neck. He can't move his arms or legs. And he got this haircut. He didn't like it. And he was upset. And I thought, I really felt bad that he was upset about that haircut.

[54:59]

I really felt bad. I just felt like, oh, please, don't let that get you down. You don't need to. You can have really weird hair and it's no problem. And the next morning, they put him on a bed where they tilt him up because they're lying down all the time. The blood doesn't circulate. So they have to elevate them a little bit to help their heart be able to pump the blood up into their head. They tilted him up a little bit. And he died. He died. And I just thought, and he was like worried about his haircut. And that was his last day, you know, that he was worried about his haircut. So, you know, we have headaches, we have all these bad feelings. They hurt, you know, we get that.

[56:00]

It's not, you know, we don't, we lose our nice haircut, we lose our hair, we lose our teeth. These things happen, right? But, you know, don't waste the time worrying about it and feeling upset about it because this may be your last moment. I mean, don't waste the time being worried about, like, feeling good or not feeling good. You only have a little... This is an opportunity. And then to use that opportunity, even though you still have a headache, even though you're not feeling good, to use that opportunity, there's a joy there. There's a joy in like, hey, I got a really ugly haircut. I don't care that much. It's not that big a deal that I got an ugly haircut. I'm paralyzed, and now I got an ugly haircut too. Yeah, well, so what? I mean, you know, like, I can practice. I can practice even though I'm a quadriplegic and have a lousy haircut. And that's wonderful.

[57:02]

And if we have lesser problems and we get upset, well, it's even more ridiculous. But we do it. We get upset about little things, like my reputation's slipping. People are saying bad things about me in Chicago. Or you're talking mean to me. You're insulting me. And I get caught by that. Well, that really makes it worse. How about, like, not getting caught by it? That makes it a lot better. Plus, it doesn't mean you're not listening. And maybe you really understand what's being said to you when you relax with it. You understand what the conditions for having the headache. Maybe you realize, oh, yeah, I drank all that coffee, or, you know, blah, blah. And maybe you don't do that, and maybe your headache goes away, but... Maybe it doesn't, but maybe it does. The point is you're doing the best pain, which is that you're not getting unhappy about it. And then when the pain goes away, the best response is you don't get happy about it.

[58:08]

You just say, okay, it's gone. Is that so? The pain's gone. And then what's going to come next? You're ready. What's next? More pleasure? Okay. More pain? Okay. I mean, I accept it. I'll work with it. Because I'm here. practice to put yourself away and not, I'm not here to like feel good, to manipulate my condition. That's not going to work. Being attached is going to send us to misery and block the next level of renunciation. Was Elena next? Who was next? Was it Elena? Maybe? Really now? Oh, no, Jeff. That's correct. Well, I'm kind of struggling with something wrong with me. A car will never end. I know it's just a car, but it's more that me being scratched to the end of my car.

[59:11]

And what people wrong with, what are your thoughts on renunciation? I mean, there's a lot worse things people can do to me, but yet I don't want to, you know... but I don't want to hold it either. Right. I'm not holding on to vengeful thoughts or anger. Right, right. Yet I'll have to take on a small claim to court or whatever. Yeah. I don't want to be beat up or attacked, but yet I don't want to hold these feelings. Mm-hmm. What are your thoughts on that when we're attacked or people do wrongful things to us? Well, that's similar to being insulted, I think. Yeah. And, you know, the French, you know, in the old days, they used to slap each other in the face in France with the gauntlet, slap them in the face. And then they'd say, challenge, or something like that. Challenge, you know. If you tell French people that the word challenge has a French origin, they think it's an English word. But the origins of it is insult.

[60:13]

So you got a car, the guy scratches it. You feel insulted because you identify with somebody who scratched you. They're challenging you. You're challenging your car, you're challenging you. Challenge my car, challenge me. It's quite typical of car owners. Okay, this is a guy. Anyway, that's an insult, that's an attack, okay? This is a long story which some of you have heard, but anyway, I love this story. It's something that happened to me. I was going to go into a seven-day retreat. Before the retreat, my wife said to me, that she needed to have her car repaired. She had an old BMW.

[61:15]

And it cost quite a bit of money for us in those days. It was quite a bit. And so I said, okay, let's spend it or whatever. I can't remember exactly the sequence, but anyway. And then... And during the Sesshin, one of the main topics that I was talking about was a scripture called Mountains and Rivers Scripture. And one of the parts of the scripture that a Zen master named Yuen Lin said to his group, he said, Where are all the Buddhas born? And he answered the question himself. And he said, Eastern mountains move over the water. that's where the buddhas are born is the eastern mountains moving over the water and i talked about that during the session and eastern mountains moving over the water is renunciation the mountains of our experience okay that they can move over the water of emptiness this is the first level of renunciation that's where the buddhas are born is when the experience move over the water

[62:43]

So I understood that, and I still understand it intellectually. But then I got some message from my wife that sometime, I think during the session, that turns out the car was going to cost more to fix the car. So then I said, I said, okay, I have. So I gave her all my savings to fix the car. I was having a little trouble adjusting back anyway. And then And then I got another message that it was going to cost more. But I didn't have any more money from my father. And when I got a sashin, I found out it was going to cost more. So I was thinking, you know, well, who do I blame? Do I blame me? Do I blame the car repair guy? Well, I could try. Do I blame my wife?

[63:47]

Poor thing. Why blame her? It's not her fault. Who am I going to blame for this car bill, which is much more than the cars were? But now it's done, you know? Can't back out. Who am I going to blame? For this info. For this challenge. For this you know, situation. It just happened that during that session, my wife's sister gave birth to a little girl. But the little girl had a rare and deadly malfunctioning of her heart. When babies are born, I don't know exactly, maybe some nurses or doctors here know, There's a kind of a way that the blood circulates when they're in the womb that has to change when they're born. There's a sort of pulmonary artery that has to close off to recirculate the blood in a certain way.

[64:53]

And if it doesn't close off, they're losing all this, they're hemorrhaging in a sense inside. That was happening with her and she was turning blue. It just happened. that at UC Medical Center, at Moffitt Hospital, for five years, they had, just for five years, they had developed this operation where they can correct this situation. So after she was two days old, she had open-heart surgery. Little tiny baby girl. And they fixed it. So she was okay. And she's still, you know, alive. And they said she probably couldn't be an Olympic athlete, but basically she's fine. But anyway, we went to see this little baby in the hospital. And we went in to see her, and she was lying, you know, sort of spread out. They have, like, they have the babies with the heat lamps on and stuff. And with a big scar across her chest. And she was under sedation. You know, so she was kind of, like, conked out. But she was kind of conscious.

[65:53]

And you could see... that she was trying with her whole being to scream and cry. She couldn't. You know, and it was in some way that was even stronger that she couldn't cry than if she had been able to cry. You know, because you could feel the force of it through the medication, through the anesthetic. She was trying to... Poor little thing, you know? And I thought... That's what the eastern mountains moving over the water is. Now I see. And I didn't care anymore about the car. I wasn't irritated by the bill. Perspective sometimes, you know. And we think, you know, I'm getting abused here. I'm getting, you know, I'm going to fight back. Well, Jeff, we're going to take your head off now, so... Maybe you should rent a bunch of car.

[67:01]

Because there's something bigger than your car. Then, when you get back, you know, and you're not irritated by the situation, maybe then you should go talk to somebody about it. Maybe there's something to say. Maybe you should go to small claims court. I don't know. But the thing is, if you... You know? I mean, in some sense, when I have a car accident, I always think, oh, that's what the car's there for. The car can get dented rather than me. The car can get squished rather than me die. When something like that happens to you, it's basically having it not happen in the next thing. If you can be there and see something bad, it's pretty good. The bad things are the things which you can't even be conscious for. They're so bad. So if you can, like, have a big bill or a scratch in your car or a sickness, it's much better than if it didn't happen that way. And when you snap out of this resistance, you can see that and say, thank God it's this.

[68:10]

Thank God I still have my mind. And I can practice. Thank God I'm practicing. Or thank Buddha or whatever. Thank you. Not so much thank you for my car getting smashed, but thank you that I can practice with this. And then maybe there's something to say to the guy. But is it coming from skill and not from renunciation? Or is it coming from really holding on to like there really is real, true insult? Yeah, it's trivial. And if you can feel like that and relax with it, then maybe there's something to do about it. But maybe not. And maybe you can see there's nothing to be done about it. Whereas before that, if you tense up, you think you tried to, and you find out, I couldn't, you know, I just made it worse. Now, in addition to all the stuff that's going on, I've got another new problem. I'm having this problem with this guy now, having hurt him in some way because he hurt me.

[69:16]

So this is what helps, you know, some things help us wake up to the importance of renunciation, of letting go and letting the eastern mountains move over the water. And this is where the Buddha is born in his renunciation, which is wonderful. and my content would be a practice opportunity. Teach us a little bit about what Buddhism's about, what Buddha's teaching is about. And how much is that worth? $30,000? I guess so. I guess so. Well, it's past 9.15. So maybe you could... Can you write your question down for next time? Sorry, I need to stop now, I think. Thank you very much.

[70:19]

Thank you very much.

[70:23]

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