Thank you, Hogan-san, and it's wonderful to be here. So I want to at least talk a little bit about Hongzhe Zhongshui, some of whose words I translated many years ago in a book called Cultivating the Empty Field. And so Hogan and Chosin kindly invited me to come and speak about it this weekend. So I want to share some of Hongzhe's words. Hongzhe lived in the 1100s in China. He was in the Chinese Soto or Zhaodong lineage, and very important teacher at that time. Dogen Zenji, who brought this lineage of Soto Zen from China to Japan, he was a Japanese monk, was about 100 years later and studied at and met his teacher at the temple that Hongzhe had been at in the century before and was very much influenced by Hongzhe's writings and quotes him a lot.

[01:14]

And Hongzhe has a particular knack of expressing this deep meditative awareness of Zazen in very poetic ways, very evocative ways. So, I love his writings and many people have enjoyed this book because of the way it resonates with something that all of you already know about, just even those of you who've come and sat Zazen for the first time today. This experience that brought us here, this deep awareness that is available to us all the time. Anyway, Hongxue talks about this in a way that's very evocative, that we can recognize something about. So I want to share a little bit of his perspective and some of his words. And this is not some text or writing that we have to try to understand, but just to

[02:16]

appreciate the tones to listen to, like listening to a symphony. I'll first talk about it in terms of this basic teaching that we have of Buddha nature. So we do this Zen meditation, this Zazen. Hongzhe called it serene or silent illumination. We do this as a way of connecting with this deep energy and resource of Buddha nature, which is always available, which is the way all things is. All beings, Dogen says later, completely are Buddha nature. And yet this Buddha nature that is always around our cushion or chair, right underneath us, right in front of us, can offer us and the world this deep wisdom and kindness. So Hongzhi says about this, the field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning.

[03:22]

You must purify, cure, grind down or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits, then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness. So Hongxia talks about this Buddha nature as a field of boundless emptiness, an empty field of awareness. And we don't recognize it, we don't realize it, we don't express it only because of all the tendencies we have fabricated into apparent habits, as he says. Because of our conditioning, because of the ways in which we have decided to see the world and ourselves, we don't recognize this deeper wholeness that is actually reality. We see things in terms of Well, psychologically, we understand in the West that from family dynamics, we have patterns of responding to what's in front of us.

[04:28]

We have habits about how we see the world and how we react to things. And we all have some combination of grasping and anger, aversion, and confusion that gets in the way of our just recognizing and expressing this deep resource that is also right here. So Hongshu says you must purify, cure, grind down or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Actually, this Buddha nature is right here. Sometimes we call it suchness or just the way things are. Anyway, our practice is not about trying to understand this or figure it out or have some fancy experience of it. Really, what's difficult about this practice is that we have to do the work of letting go of all of the ways in which we are caught by our conditioning. So Hongzhe says, then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness.

[05:28]

Utter emptiness has no image. Upright independence does not rely on anything. just expand and illuminate the original truth unconcerned by external conditions. Accordingly, we are told to realize that not a single thing exists. So this is a basic Buddhist and basic Zen teaching. If we hold up one thing, actually it doesn't exist separately from everything else. So the example that Thich Nhat Hanh made famous, can you see the clouds? Can you see the nitrogen in the soil? Can you see the logger who cut down the tree and the trucker who drove the tree to the paper mill? Each thing is like that. Each of us is like that. We are connected in ways we can't possibly track or trace to everything else in the whole universe, to everything else in the world. All of us have deep connections to each other and to all beings.

[06:33]

So this is what it means when we talk about emptiness in Buddhism, that each separate thing is empty of separateness, empty of inherent substantial existence, to use the technical words. Each thing is empty of separation. So Hongxue here says it, accordingly, we are told to realize that not a single thing exists. And yet, the whole universe is right here in this room right now and on your cushion. He goes on, in this field, birth and death do not appear. The deep source, transparent down to the bottom, can radiantly shine and can respond unencumbered to each speck of dust without becoming its partner. The subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colors and sounds. We don't need to get caught up in the objects of the world. We don't need to acquire lots of things to feel the joy of being alive and being connected with each other. He says, the whole affair functions without leaving traces and mirrors without obscurations.

[07:42]

Very naturally, mind and objects emerge and harmonize. He says, he talks about the same pattern in a slightly different way, another place. Our house. the house of this practice and of this way of seeing the world, is a single field, clean, vast, and lustrous, clearly self-illuminated. When the spirit is vacant without conditions, when awareness is serene without cogitation, then Buddhas and ancestors appear and disappear, transforming the world. So I'll come back to this. This is not about just finding some measure of calm and serenity for ourselves. We do this for the whole world, actually, and Buddhists transform the world. And then Hongshu says, amid living beings is the original place of nirvana.

[08:45]

How amazing it is that all people have this but cannot polish it into bright clarity. In darkness unawakened, they make foolishness cover their wisdom and overflow. one remembrance of illumination can break through and leap out of the dust of many ages." So, he says, amid living beings is the original place of nirvana. In early Buddhism, they realized that the world the world we live in, the human world, the world of fame and gain and striving and the rat race world we all know, they called that samsara and they wanted to escape from it. So in early Buddhism they, the main practice was directed at purifying oneself to escape from this world of suffering that we all understand, this world of loss and anxiety and regret and so forth.

[09:48]

And the cessation of that was called nirvana. You've probably heard of that. They're also a rock band, or they were. So nirvana is The opposite, in a way, of this is the letting go of all the struggles of the rat race, of samsara, of trying to manipulate our world to get what we want from it, or trying to manipulate the world to protect ourselves from things out there, or trying to manipulate ourselves to get what we think we want. That is our usual way of being in the world. This practice and this teaching is about something radically different, and yet, Hongshu says, right amid living beings is the original place of nirvana. So in this practice, the bodhisattva practice, the enlightening being practice that Zen is part of, we don't try and escape from the world. We don't try and escape from ourselves. We actually see that this possibility of wholeness, this nirvana, is available right in the world of suffering.

[10:58]

And we try and bring our our own expression of this heart of caring for the world that we connect with in this Zazen practice into the world, into contact with the people around us and family and friends and co-workers and all of the difficulties and problems of our own lives and of the world. So again, he says, amid living beings is the original place of nirvana. How amazing it is that all people have this but cannot polish it into bright clarity. So even if this is your first time to visit a Zen center or a Buddhist temple and you've just had your first meditation instruction, still this possibility, this reality of Buddha nature, this process of awakening is part of you, it is always in front of us.

[12:01]

And yet, as Hongzhi says, and as the Buddha said before him, we can't polish it into bright clarity. We don't see it clearly, we don't allow it to be expressed in the world. He says, in darkness unawakened, people make foolishness cover their wisdom and overflow. So we get caught up in all of the distractions of the world. This is natural, this is our human life. But we can see that right in our human life, we have this possibility. So Hongzhi says, one remembrance of illumination can break through and leap out of the dust of kalpas, of the dust of many ages. So sometimes all it takes is just to hear a few words of this teaching, just to hear of this idea of Buddha nature, and we recognize something. We recognize some possibility, some yearning within us for a way to live that can express our caring about the world and our caring about how we are in this world.

[13:04]

And then we can turn and face ourselves and find this practice of just sitting upright, being present with ourselves, not needing to run away from any of it, just facing it, becoming familiar with all of our own patterns of greed and anger and so forth. And we can, by studying this, by studying the self in this way, learn to let go of our attachments. And sometimes it takes a long time, and sometimes we can just drop body and mind. So actually, Dogen later said that he talks a lot about dropping off body and mind. In a way, that's his name for zazen, for this sitting meditation. It's also how he describes complete enlightenment, just dropping body and mind. This does not mean mutilating your body or getting a lobotomy. It just means letting go of your attachments to all of the ways in which you have to think you have to protect this body and mind.

[14:13]

that actually there is this possibility of bright clarity. So one of the ways that Hongzhe talks about this in a very poetic, evocative way is in terms of nature metaphors, that this is a natural process that goes on in us beyond our ideas of how things are. So I want to share some of Hongzhe's words about the naturalness of this process. He says, people of the way journey through the world responding to conditions carefree and without restraint. Like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising in everything, they act without mind, they respond with certainty. So very naturally, when we turn towards this practice, this process of engaging and expressing our own Buddha nature, it's like the clouds finally raining.

[15:18]

So when I got here Friday, I told people that I'd been in Oregon for, oh, numbers of times. maybe 10 times before, never seen any rain. And I thought that this was just a rumor that you all spread to keep away people from California. But then I got to see rain yesterday. It was lovely. So the clouds finally rained. And he says, it's like moonlight following the current. So the image of the full moon, the round, full, beautiful moon of wholeness reflected in the stream as it flows down from the mountain. And like spring arising in everything, which we can feel these days. So when spring comes, we don't just see buds on the trees and flowers starting to grow. We can feel it ourselves in our own body. We feel it in the air. It's like that, this turning towards Buddha nature. So he says, it's like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising in everything.

[16:30]

They act without holding onto mind. They respond with certainty. So again, this non-mind means just that we don't hold on to our ideas about how things are. We are open to meeting reality in front of us. And when we are just meeting this reality in front of us, we can respond clearly. So this is a part of this practice that's turning within. So I was talking about this silent illumination. I'll talk about that a little more later, but this process of serenity or silence or calming, and then the expression of that that comes forth. Hongzhe says, after they respond with certainty, this is how perfected people behave, then they must resume their travels and follow the ancestors, walking ahead with steadiness and letting go of themselves with innocence. So this is a way in which to just act clearly without trying to get something from it, just responding to our own heart and the world in front of us and doing what we can to be helpful.

[17:40]

And it's very natural. So another way he talks about this, just resting. is like the great ocean accepting hundreds of streams, all absorbed into one flavor. Freely going ahead is like the great surging tides riding on the wind, all coming onto this shore together. How could they not reach into the genuine source? How could they not realize the great function that appears before us? A Zen practitioner follows movement and responds to changes in total harmony. Moreover, haven't you yourself established the mind that thinks up all the illusory conditions? This insight must be completely incorporated. So when we see that we are caught up in these conditions, these ideas about who we are and what the world is, we see that we continue to create this.

[18:44]

Of course, the world helps us in this creation. So we don't try and get rid of this delusion, but we see the ways in which we're confused. We see the ways in which we are trying to grasp at things. And then we can also see this rhythm of resting and activity. resting like the great ocean, just accepting all of our experience, the hundreds of streams, meeting our experience, facing it, not accepting it exactly passively. This is not about just kind of what do they call it, navel gazing or something. This is an active awareness in which we can engage and accept what's in front of us. Then we get up and respond. We get up from our sitting. So he says, freely going ahead is like the great surging tides riding on the wind, all coming onto the shore together.

[19:49]

So he says, how could they not reach into the genuine source? So part of our practice is to turn towards not the source as some creator deity in Buddhism, but the source of our experience right now. when we allow ourselves to sit upright and get quiet and not try and just crush our thoughts and feelings, but let them settle a little bit. Sometimes it takes a while. Then we can see this possibility, this great source, this great resource that is here all the time in front of us. And then we must realize the great function that appears before us. So there's this turning within and there's this response. And again, it's just like the natural world, the world around us. We are part of the natural world, in fact.

[20:55]

So another example, he says, the field of bright spirit is an ancient wilderness that does not change. So there's a wildness. Even in that which is cultivated, there's a wildness. The hills back of this temple, the river running, things don't happen according to some rational linear program. We are animals. We are living organic beings. And our life, as well as the world around us, is this, as Hongzhe calls it, ancient wilderness. It's not that we shouldn't try and understand or that you shouldn't have some understanding. We all have various understandings, and we can use that to help. ourselves and all beings, but there's also this ancient wilderness beyond our understanding.

[22:05]

And we don't have to fight that. We can actually connect with that and harmonize with it and feel the deeper awareness and wholeness that we are also part of. So he says, with boundless eagerness, wander around the immaculate wide plain. The drifting clouds embrace the mountain. The family wind is relaxed and simple. The autumn waters display the moon in its pure brightness. Directly arriving here, you will be able to recognize the mind ground, dharma field, the field of teaching and reality that is the root source of the 10,000 forms germinating with unwithered fertility, These flowers and leaves are the whole world. So we are told that a single seed is an uncultivated field. Do not weed out the new shoots and the self will flower." So if we allow our life to grow beyond our ideas of who we are and what we think we should do, if we pay attention, if we are willing to

[23:09]

just stop and sit and see this inner dignity of facing our life as it is, we can start to see the possibilities in our life beyond our ideas of who we think we should be, or who our parents thought we should be, or what our society says we should be. We can actually meet the many possibilities, the many beings that are on your Kushner chair right now. So a single seed is an uncultivated field. From one act of kindness, many things can happen, many ripples. Many things can grow. Everything we do has an effect in the world. Everything that happens is the result of innumerable causes and conditions. So each of you has this wonderful opportunity to make a huge difference in the world. Just by your calmness and clarity and willingness to respond and to care about the people around you and our society and the world around us, we can make a huge difference.

[24:20]

I'm going to read just one more of these poetic passages by Hongzhe. Vast and spacious like sky and water emerging during autumn, like snow and moon having the same color. This field is without boundary, beyond direction, magnificently one entity, without edge or seam. Further, when you turn within and drop off everything completely, realization occurs. Right at the time of entirely dropping off, deliberation and discussion are 1,000 or 10,000 miles away. Still, no principle is discernible, so what could there be to point out or explain? People with the bottom of the bucket fallen out when we let go of our attachments. Immediately, we can find total trust. So we are told simply to realize mutual response and explore mutual response, then turn around and enter the world. So again, this rhythm is turning within. We say to turn the light inwardly to illuminate the self.

[25:26]

We take time to stop and sit and be present in ourself, and then turn around and enter the world. So even people who are spending months or long periods, years living at a place like this, at some point they go out and meet the world, engage the world, or the world comes and engages them. So there's this rhythm to our practice. And for people, I don't live in a monastery or a temple right now myself, so my practice is sitting every morning. And yet then I get up and there's this rhythm, even in our daily practice, or however many times a week you sit, of turning within. And then we get up and go out and meet the world. And he says, We are told simply to realize mutual response and explore mutual response, then turn around and enter the world. Roam and play in samadhi, in meditation.

[26:27]

Roam and play. Every detail clearly appears before you. Sound and form, echo and shadow happen instantly without leaving traces. So, What this practice is about is finding our way to actually be whole and fully ourselves in this world. It's not about some abstract enlightenment on some mountaintop somewhere. This is about how we can find our way to be ourselves and fully express all of what there is right now on your chair or cushion. So this rhythm that I'm talking about, Hongzhe talks about in terms of silent illumination. That's one of his names for zazen or serene illumination. So there's these two sides, we could say, to our practice. One is just stopping, quieting down, being still, sitting upright, not moving for a while.

[27:31]

out of that stillness and silence naturally emerges this illumination, this insight, this awareness, this possibility of seeing ourselves and the world freshly and responding. So this is very natural actually. It's an organic kind of process and yet it's not to say it's natural doesn't mean it's automatic. we are required to do something. We actually have to show up and sit down and pay attention to our breathing and our posture. And there are many, many tools and techniques in Buddhist meditation to help us in this settling. So one side is just the... stopping, running around and just taking a little time in our regular schedule to stop and face ourselves. And from this point of view, it's not about doing it correctly.

[28:34]

This meditation in this style from Hongzhi and Dogen is not something you can do right or wrong. Just to stop and sit and be present and face the floor, face the wall in front of you, face yourself, feel how it feels. Don't try and stop thoughts and feelings, but don't hang onto them either. Don't try and do anything with them or whatever. Just figure something out. Just to be present and to allow yourself to be as you are, to radically study the self in this yogic way, not as some analysis that may also be helpful. and we have Western psychological resources, but just to stop and slow down and feel how it feels to be in this body and mind. So this is the side of silence or serenity. And then there's the other side of illumination. When we do that, at some point, some sense of our own radiance, our own awareness and insight emerges very naturally.

[29:38]

This is totally natural process. And so then our responsibility is how do we share that with the world? So each of us has many interests and abilities. Each of you has particular gifts that you can express in the world. So in a way, this is a kind of expressive practice. When we stop and settle down, we perform this ceremony of silent illumination or zazen or zen meditation. And this connects with this deeper source of creative illumination, our deeper creative energy. So if you start doing this regularly, if you feel this rhythm of stopping and just sitting in your life, you will see All of you have some creative activities in your regular life.

[30:43]

Some people may have some very explicit creative activities, music or painting or something like that, but you might also enjoy cooking or gardening or raising your children or going for a walk. ordinary everyday things in which your creative energy is expressed. And if you do this stopping and sitting and allowing this energy to arise, you will see that it resonates with those creative activities. So that actually this sitting practice is a kind of creative expression, a kind of performance, a kind of way of expressing for yourself your Buddha nature. So nobody can do this for you. No teacher can be Buddha for you. No teacher can show you how to be Buddha nature. You have to find out yourself. And then, of course, coming and talking to a teacher may be helpful. Coming and sitting with others is very helpful. It's hard to do this all by yourself.

[31:45]

And yet, on one level, we each have to take responsibility for ourselves. The point of this, the purpose of this practice, Hongshu talks about in this way. He says when we settle, well he talks about it in this extreme way. Sometimes people here do longer sittings for, you do seven day sessions here? Seven days or five days sometimes? Ten days. Sometimes people come here and sit for seven days or ten days in the great rest and great halting and sometimes the lips become moldy and mountains of grass grow on your tongue. But Hongzhe says, moving straight ahead beyond this state, totally let go. Wash clean and ground to a fine polish. Respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky. Then you must know there is a path on which to turn yourself around.

[32:49]

When you do turn yourself around, you have no different face that can be recognized. But even if you do not recognize your face still, nothing can hide it. This is penetrating from topmost all the way down to the bottom. When you have thoroughly investigated your roots back to their ultimate source, a thousand or ten thousand sages are no more than footprints on the trail. In wonder, return to the journey. Avail yourself of the path and walk ahead." So this sense of wonder is very important. This deep appreciation of this gratitude for how amazing it is that we have the opportunity of this life. With all of its problems, with all of our confusion, with all of the confusion and corruption in our society, still, here we are. It's wonderful. And part of this practice is just reconnecting with that sense of wonder. So Hongzhe says, with a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself.

[33:55]

Wide open and accessible, walking along, casually mount the sounds and straddle the colors while you transcend listening and surpass watching. Completely unifying in this manner as simply as end practitioners appropriate activity. So the purpose of this serene illumination is simply to find each of us our way of settling down and appreciating that which we have to give to ourselves in the world, and then finding our way to step out and share that with all of the hundred grass tips, Hongxue says poetically, in the busy marketplace. So we have a big responsibility to take care of this practice, Those of you who have some experience of this, it's not that you have to figure out some way to express your zazen in your everyday activity. Naturally, that's already happening. Naturally, you may feel a little calmer.

[34:59]

You may not always react with anger in situations you might have before. You might have a little more capacity, a little more tolerance, a little more patience. Anyway, we have this possibility of sharing this serene illumination awareness in the world. So part of this practice in the Bodhisattva idea is to include all beings. We say to, as one of our 16 precepts, to benefit all beings. We are connected with everyone. So this is difficult. We know that this is, in our society, in this world. There is lots of confusion and we've all been trained as consumers in our consumerist society to consume as much as we can or to buy everything in all the TV commercials. We've been taught that if we acquire this and that and all these things that then we'll be happy.

[36:03]

Our society is very skilled at providing us with distractions from ourselves and providing us with enticements to try and get a hold of this or get a hold of that or get rid of this or that. And we live in a time now, a very dark time in some ways, in which there's lots of corruption and preemptive wars and lots of confusion. So it's a difficult time to be practicing, and yet it's a wonderful time to be practicing. By being willing to just stop and settle down and feel your own ability to respond, we can respond to the difficulties of our society, to the wars and corruption. we may not know how to do that. And yet, each thing, each way in which you respond can make a big difference.

[37:06]

And there's no one right response. Each of us has our own way of responding to the problems and difficulties of the people around us and the problems and difficulties of our society and our country and the world. And it's really important that we do so. We live in this very dangerous time. And you all know that. So how can you see your own way of responding, of not being intimidated, even when our government tries to scare us with threats of this and that? How can we be upright in the face of the possibilities that this world offers, and in the face of reality that includes also all of your illumination, your Buddha nature, and the Buddha nature around us. How can we see this possibility in those around us and in our country? Maybe I'll pause there, but I want some time for us to talk about this.

[38:11]

So does anyone have any comments or questions or responses? Please feel free. I feel a question. Yeah, that's great. So part of the practice is feeling overwhelmed, feeling the illumination of the Buddhas and all of that. In the middle of feeling overwhelmed, still, there is a way to respond. Still, right in the middle of that. We don't have to do it with words. There are many ways to respond, but just to appreciate, just to say, I feel overwhelmed. That's a wonderful response.

[39:14]

Comment. Yes. The writer whose words you translated and read to us was very, very beautiful, very eloquent. And he seems to be sort of a Dharma mentor of the person that brought Zen to Japan. I'm just curious as to Did he represent some change in view of some kind or just a very, very eloquent spokesman for it? Very good question. Did you all hear him? So, he's asking about Hongzhi and what came before him. So, one of the things that's a great joy to us is the sense of time. So, I'm reading the words of somebody who lived 900 years ago. But he didn't invent this.

[40:16]

He articulated it in a very beautiful, eloquent, evocative way. So part of what I was talking about this weekend was some of the background to him. So we have this idea of lineage and ancestors in Zen. So he's part of a line of teachers that go all the way back to the Buddha. who lived 2,500 years ago in northern India. And we say that the Buddha kind of discovered this awareness. But actually, the Buddha said there were Buddhas before Buddha. This is this timeless practice. And Hongzhi is one of the people. In each generation, there have been people continuing this practice. So the actual practice of just sitting upright and facing ourselves, that's available. It's available and there are other wonderful spiritual traditions in which with somewhat different language and way of talking about it, they've found that too. I think in South America, they found pre-Columbian little figures basically sitting like Buddha.

[41:22]

So, this is a human potential and not just human actually. So, we say Buddha nature is the nature of all things. I don't know how, Dolphins do Zazen. They don't have legs, so they can't sit in these positions. And they have the advantage of not having opposable thumbs, so they don't have to worry about taking care of buildings and things. But they have bigger brains than us, so they're doing something with that. So I'm sure that they have their own way of expressing Buddha nature. They have their own way of practicing and developing and fostering this seed. It's this available possibility everywhere. And specifically, Hongxue was echoing words from, echoing practices that are described in writings from, I talked about two of them this weekend, Xuetou, who lived in the 8th century, and Dongshan, who's the Chinese founder of this lineage in the 800s.

[42:26]

So, he was part of a tradition. And one of the, gee, this is a large group to do it in, but maybe I'll just pick on the front row, the two front rows. One of the ways to see the richness of time itself is to see that we have many ancestors, not just Dogen and Hongxue and Bodhidharma and the Buddha, but many people that we respect and look back to. Let's try this, and I don't mean to exclude the people in the back row, but it might take a long time. Can we just go around the front row and say the name of a famous person, someone we'd recognize who's dead, but who you respect? It could be somebody who did something to help the world, or somebody in the arts, or somebody who you feel inspiring. Please, sir. Gandhi. Gandhi. Anne Frank. Anne Frank.

[43:27]

Mozart. Good. Thomas Edison. Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa, good. William Butler Yeats. Great. Sir? George O'Keefe. George O'Keefe, good. William Blank. William Blank. Ram Dass. Ram Dass. Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein. So we have many ancestors. Did you hear them? So part of appreciating this practice is to see that many people help us to turn towards our Buddha nature. So Mozart and Gandhi and William Butler Yeats and many names, Mother Teresa, all wonderful names. we have many lineages. So we don't have to hold on tightly to one lineage, and yet we really appreciate this practice lineage that has come to us through Hongxia.

[44:33]

So thank you all. Other comments or questions? Yes. You mentioned consumerism, and you made reference to politics a couple of times, and I know that you're quite politically involved. And there was a question raised this morning in the final session about Zen in America being watered down. And I think that one of the things that happens when, or has happened when Zen has been brought to America, is that the watering down comes from it being turned into a commodity, selling Dharma. Yes. So we have these, big retreat centers, people pay lots of money to do retreats. We try to make it all inclusive, make sure that everyone's comfortable, warm, has their blankets, their special zen clothes, their expensive cushions.

[45:36]

And I think all of that contributes to watering it down. So one of the things that I'm curious about is how we can preserve the integrity the forms of practice and yet share it with other people? Yeah, that's the question. And one of the safeguards we have in America is that there now are many places like this, some of them much smaller, much simpler. My groups in the Bay Area and in Chicago rent church spaces. and you can come and sit and you don't have to pay anything. But to have large retreats, especially if you have wonderful buildings like this, it takes some upkeep. So we need to pay the rent and pay for the electric bills. So there's a range of what's happening. And I think that's very healthy.

[46:39]

So I'm not worried about Americans, and in fact, I feel pretty good about it. mainly because there's so much trying to make it work in different contexts and different teachers have different ideas about how to do that. So, we're all trying things and we're all learning from each other. So, I'm really not so worried about that watering down or that part of watering down anyway. This basic practice is simple. Please do try this at home. This is something you can do on your own. And then come occasionally at least and do this with others because there's a kind of attunement that happens when we do it together. But I, you know, so some dharma centers, you know, the retreats cost more than others. Anyway, there are places where all of you can find a place to practice or to try that on. So actually I'm not, I'm more worried about the other end of it, people looking to

[47:46]

want to have the flashiest, best teacher, to go to the, you know, people who can afford it wanting to go to the most expensive Dharma retreat. So I think you should appreciate the range of possibilities, and I understand even in the Portland area there are several Buddhist meditation centers, and actually all around the country. I've been to, I don't know, a few dozen of them. There are places now. And some of them are very simple, and some of them are much fancier than this. And that's good. I think that's healthy. But don't be fooled just by, don't think that the most expensive one is the best one. So find some, Sangha, for those of you who are looking, who aren't already at home somewhere here or elsewhere, find some place and some teachers who you feel connection with.

[48:55]

That's what's important. And it's an organic process, like a relationship. And then whatever the circumstances of that center and of those teachers, try and support them in a way that works for you. And that's enough. So I'm not so worried, actually. And some teachers in some places are more traditional, and some are more experimental. And that's probably healthy. Yes? With our country so actively involved in various activities, when you think war and this sort of thing, how do you address that in your practice? Well, okay, I'll respond to that since you asked how I address it. And this isn't how anybody else should. So I think it's really important, particularly in terms of how we are engaged with the world around us, to find your own way to respond.

[49:58]

But I'm quite unhappy with our government. It's not exactly politics. It's not Republicans or Democrats, because they're both contributing to this. I think the war in Iraq is a terrible thing. It's made the world much more dangerous. The people of Iraq are in much worse shape than they were under Saddam Hussein, as bad as he was. Life there is just hell. And our government is, at this point, unashamedly, openly torturing people, horribly, in places all around the world, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Afghanistan and many others, or arranging for other people to do that. So the people in Guantanamo, many of them are there because their neighbors didn't like them and named them to somebody who picked them up, you know. So this is my understanding of what's going on in the world and in our government and in our country and by our political rulers.

[51:03]

So one of the things I do is try and share information about it. I have an email list where I send out news stories and commentary. And again, I'm not asking any of you to agree with me, but this is my way of trying to speak the truth, which is one of our precepts. And sometimes we can write or call our congresspeople, or we can go to demonstrations. What I believe in is awareness. I don't know how we're going to change this government, which I think needs to be changed. And I don't know how that's going to happen. I don't put so much faith in either party or in elections anymore. This is just my own response. But I do believe in awareness. So Buddhism is about awareness. And the more people are aware of what's going on, change will happen.

[52:10]

We don't understand how change happens in ourselves, our own transformation, or in transforming the world. And yet, this possibility of transformation happens with awareness. So the examples I like to give are the apartheid ending in South Africa relatively peacefully, or the Berlin Wall coming down, or the Soviet Union relatively peacefully collapsing in ways that several months before nobody could have foreseen. We don't understand how our own hearts open. We don't understand the transformation that happens in our own body and mind, and the world is the same way. But awareness is central to it. So it's almost time to stop. But I'll just mention one other thing that I've been doing, which is that I live in Berkeley and teach at the Graduate Theological Union, which is connected with UC Berkeley. And there's a professor in the law school there named John Yu, who's one of the prime architects of the torture policy and Bush's policy of

[53:18]

issuing signing statements to be above the law. So you asked about my own response and I'm getting very specific now. So I started a vigil and teach-in. outside the law school where he's a professor once a week. Not so many people come, but we gather and we're starting to have an effect in the university. Not to try and get him fired or curtail his academic freedom, but just to allow people to speak out against the torture that's happening. Each of you can find your own way to respond to what's going on. And I believe that our responses together will make a difference. Again, Sam, did you have a comment or question?

[54:04]

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