She can get her, she's got her running shoes on and she does this with her feet. So she's totally independent at the dog show with her running shoes and her wheelchair. And at Christmas she's sitting down, she's right there, nose-to-nose level with the dogs. Well, after about the hundredth love-fest with the dog, there is just this incredible, soft look on her face. Extraordinary. I mean, she just was so happy. A look I have rarely seen on her face. So it's that kind of thing, you know, that I think about. And, you know, I've been in situations where me and Night and my friends are all there in the room where we all would say, no matter what she says, this is what we think is really going on. And that's, you know, maybe accurate. But there's still that place of, am I willing to also include hearing what this person is telling me about what is so for them. So I'm not really so much saying either or as much as how do we allow that other piece of it.

[01:11]

Yeah. I would say that I have a very, very sad experience. My mother died in January. And my father was very abusive to my mother. And I always was arguing with my mother. I became very hard with my mother because in part, I guess, so that I could be divorced from all that pain. And I, you know, I was far, tried to distance myself emotionally from my mother. And what happened is that in the last few years, I only saw my mother through my own description of her perversity, to be willing to be abused over and over again, and how she wanted to get not only her life from my father, and my freedom from her, but my life, anybody's life, for my father's sake.

[02:12]

And so I have this elaborate story about my mother. All the while knowing what I knew when she died, that a very great part of my mother was very tender, childlike, sweet. And I couldn't relate to that at all because I was so hurt and so angry that she would not let me do it. And I was suffering because she allowed me to do this. And my whole relationship was started by that. So she's gone. And now I can't do it. It's not true. I don't believe it. I think you can. I think it's very powerful, actually, to... I mean, I really do believe Suzuki Roshi's instructions about do not say too late. I think you can speak to your mother even then. I mean, you know, your description of what happened for you with your now deceased ex-husband and now deceased ex-mother-in-law,

[03:25]

is a case in point. I mean, we continue to live in other people's hearts and minds, whether we are still in this body or not. Anyway, you might put her picture out and see what happens for you if you have a little cup of tea and a chat in the morning for a while. And say some of those things that you can see and would like to say now. Okay, maybe one more and then we'll move on. Something that you were saying about what's happening with your son, I think that has to do with his weekly writes and how it seems to be that part of the interaction with someone that one needs to deal with. Well, I guess I'd just like to hand it back to you.

[04:30]

Do you just acknowledge that sometimes things are not going to get any better because the other person has this need to do right? And then you just distance yourself from it? Well, in this case, I'm not willing to distance myself. But it also means... I mean, one of the questions I got to ask myself was, Am I willing to be in a situation where what I'm holding to, what I'm seeking to cultivate is staying open-hearted? Even if what I'm needing is something different. Even if I may not even feel particularly safe in terms of a certain kind of interaction that's likely to happen. Being on the receiving end of a lot of stuff. And what it brings me back to is, alright, when do I close my heart?

[05:43]

Do I close my heart out of fear? Do I close my heart out of anger? What are the moments when I begin to tighten up? When I'm not somehow willing and able to stay open and vulnerable with another person? I mean, some of you have heard me talk before about my relationship with my ordination teacher, who's been the primary person with whom I've done this practice. A teacher from whom and with whom, and as a consequence of my experience with this person, I've learned an enormous amount. Mostly about what not to do and what doesn't work. Someone who, as a result of my relationship and the dynamics between me and this person, a lot of suffering happened for me in the world. And I've learned more from this person about what it means to be a teacher,

[06:46]

and what the responsibility is with one's students. I've learned more from this person about the nature of self-deception and the kind of trouble one can get into if one keeps lying to oneself about what is said. I've learned an extraordinary amount about what happens if you're in a teaching position and you're not also simultaneously in a very lively feedback system. How you can get isolated and begin to believe all the projections everybody puts on you about how terrific you are, and pretty soon you've got a head like this, and a heart that's about like that. I mean, very important lessons. Lessons that I'm extraordinarily grateful for having had, and would love to have had some other way. And so, in a way, this person's been a great teacher for me.

[07:52]

Certainly not in ways he thinks of, but extremely important. He's also someone who, if I'm around him, I'm extremely careful. Because I know that that's what's appropriate for me. So, you know, it's fairly rich, troublesome, difficult stuff. And I imagine that he'll continue being a teacher for me while I die. So far that seems to be the case. Now heading towards 27 years. Ten of them is strange, but we live in each other's lives in a very dynamic way.

[09:03]

Who knows how much of it has to do with reality. But you know, to the degree that what we're talking about is mind training, to the degree that what I'm trying to do is to cultivate my capacity for patience, for open-heartedness, for seeing what happens with the patterns of judging and learning. Who are the people that help me with these things? More often than not, they're the pains in the neck. They're not my beloved ones. The open-heartedness that so many of the teachers were just describing, it's not like cultivating open-heartedness in reality. It's dangerous. No, I don't think so. I feel enormous concern and care for this person. I think I actually am quite open-hearted. I also understand that I need to take care of myself when I'm around him.

[10:10]

Because of the nature of his mind stream this week. To the degree that I really see clearly what his patterns are, and what his nature is, and what his tendencies are, I don't walk around here with my chest open. Here, my heart's right here. Aim the arrow here. I put my flak vest on. Which means my heart can stay open, but I'm also not walking into the room vulnerable, leading with my chin. What can I do to help you take a pot shot at me? So, you know, how to be happy with things as they are, including open-hearted, is very tricky. It doesn't mean not having boundaries, and it doesn't mean being a professional doormat.

[11:16]

Are you talking about your relationship with your team? Well, both, actually. It doesn't do either of me or my son any good for me to participate in letting him be a tyrant. It's not useful for me to cooperate if he's being abusive towards me. It doesn't help me or him. But can I do that with kindness, with gentleness, with some sympathy, and sometimes some toughness? Which is, this isn't okay for me. So, yeah, I would say in both cases, actually. Sounded like it when you did it. Yeah, yeah. Isn't some of what your son is doing to you totally okay? Yeah. Like it or not.

[12:20]

Yeah. I just never thought of myself as a mother anymore. It's a humdinger of a role. Okay, well, let's move on. Anyway, it's rich territory, isn't it? And it's such a far-out idea, you know, my so-called teacher, my so-called enemy as a teacher. Good old Shani Davis says, well, who else is going to teach you patience to nearly the same degree? The Dalai Lama. I just read an article where he said, you know, the people who we really have trouble with are actually quite few and far between. We need to treasure them. Those we get along with, they're plentiful for the most part. Well, you see, Shani Davis is one of his major texts. He takes Shani Davis' articulation of the way it is quite seriously.

[13:22]

So, to listen to him, for example, talk about the current Chinese regime in this way is really extraordinary, hard to imagine. At the same time, he doesn't say that he's going to just, you know, lie down and say, here, walk all over me. So... Okay, so let's spend a little time talking about our relationship with the world and to talk a little bit about some... I guess what I'd like to do is to raise some questions where the process of asking ourselves certain kinds of questions is itself a practice. Because I think this is quite appropriate in this particular realm. Now, what I did was to actually think about this topic, if you will,

[14:26]

in relationship to the five kind of core precepts in Buddhism, because I think it's a way of sort of organizing the areas of our lives. The five root or core precepts in Buddhism that you find in every school and every era are not to kill or not to take life, not to intentionally take life or harm, not to steal, or the translation I like very much is not to take what is not given, to not lie, or as it sometimes is said in some translations, not to abstain from false speech. Isn't it interesting that the precept doesn't say to tell the truth, it says to abstain from false speech or not to lie.

[15:29]

I think it's very... that's not an accident. Not to engage in sexual misconduct, that is, sexuality which is harming, and not to intoxicate mind or body of self or other. It really has to do with the whole central focus on the cultivation and tending of the clear mind. So, intoxicants as anything that causes delusion. So... I think that thinking about the vow not to take life or not to engage in whatever causes violence or harming,

[16:32]

not to destroy or cause to destroy or sanction the destruction of any living being. So what comes up is our relationship with all beings. One of the places I think this comes up immediately is what we eat. And I don't think that this precept necessarily is a direct instruction to not eat meat. For example, in the part of the world, particularly in Southeast Asia, where the tradition of Buddhism known as Theravada Buddhism is practiced, where part of what the monastic communities do is to go out with a begging bowl, and in having your life sustained by whatever you're given in your begging bowl, it means you eat whatever anybody gives you.

[17:36]

So that means you eat meat, if that's what's given to you. With the exception that if the monks think that the donor has killed or caused an animal to be killed in order to feed them, that then in that instance they don't eat meat. And I think that thinking about what we eat and how it contributes to violence and destruction in the world has gotten pretty complicated because we now don't know where it comes from. I mean, our food source production has gotten so global and so complicated. The whole connection between, well, if you eat at McDonald's, you're destroying the rainforests. It's a very complicated chain of events that tie us through the food that we eat. And I'm bringing this particular territory up because more than anything else,

[18:45]

I think being curious about, being interested in, having some sense about, oh, what I eat has some effect somewhere else. Just knowing that is extremely useful. There's a real connection between hunger, politics, economics, and power. And it's getting to be that way more and more and more. As we now have significantly dropped trade restrictions between here and Mexico, but even before this, a lot of the food that we eat in this area comes from Mexico. What do we know about the politics of the food that we're eating that comes from Mexico? What do we know about the effect of what we eat here in terms of, are the people who are growing the food that's feeding us, are they eating? In so many parts of the world, the very people who are raising the food are so poor they don't have anything to eat.

[19:52]

And it has much more to do with power politics and economics and that stuff. It's not a simple chain. And of course, for a lot of us, we get very overwhelmed with this kind of thing. How can I deal with the suffering of the world and not just lose my mind? Jorna Macy talks about this very powerfully in the work that she does. She has a whole little list of focuses and practices so that you can stay open to and experience your connection with the world and the suffering of the world, but not go crazy. It's a very good thing to have in mind. Yeah, I'll pick you up right there again, exactly. You know, there is a sect in India called the Jains, who, you know, they brush the walk before they take a step so they won't step on too many critters,

[20:55]

and they strain their water, and the really hardcore Jains don't eat, because of course, the minute you eat something, you are causing some killing. Of course, they are not a very long life, flourishing sect. So one of the, you know, how do we do this? Well, you know, to the degree that there is a real connection between what's happening to the rainforests and McDonald's, apart from anything else you think about McDonald's, that seems to me a pretty good reason not to eat at McDonald's. You know, now there is the whole thing about staying alive and not eating. It's not McDonald's, it's Jack in the Box. I can't keep it straight. One of the things I discovered, and I suppose this makes a difference from community to community, but one of the things that I began paying attention to actually some years ago,

[21:57]

when I began taking this precept and trying to apply it to the details of my daily life, I noticed that to the degree that I was buying local food and eating things in season, I had a chance to know something about the context from which the food was coming, and was I supporting a wholesome and balanced and caring cycle or not. I don't know if any of you have ever gone to any of the fosters, farms, chicken ranches, but if you did, that would be the end of chicken for you, for any of you who eats chicken. Some years ago, when Gringotts had chickens for eggs, there was a problem, you know, what does a Buddhist community do with old, non-laying chickens? They were used for food, but they also had some sort of soup kitchen, so it was part of where they would get food for their soup kitchen.

[22:59]

But they would kill the chickens in a way that didn't freak them out. They were trying to take care of, to the degree that a chicken is a mind, the state of mind of the chicken. They, in fact, had some care for this being. And practices for gratitude to this being whose life was ending in order to feed them. Very much like the Native Americans, and in fact, indigenous people all over the world have practices very much like that. So what I've noticed is that I'm not so careless, and I have a sense of connection to the degree that I know more about where the food I eat comes from, whether it's vegetables, or meat, or fruit, or whatever. And that there is a way in which I have some sense of my connection with all beings by being more careful in that way.

[24:02]

It takes time. And for a lot of us who already feel like we're up to here with things to do, we think, how can I do this? And I would say, in terms of the things I'm talking about this evening, we have to pick one thing. We can't do it all. I mean, it's a good way to drive ourselves crazy. Pick one thing that actually I'm drawn to do. I think I may have mentioned this to you before. At one point, I was really on a rampage with the garden snails. They were in there munching all the most beautiful and tender, lovely things in our garden. And I would go and collect them, and then I would kind of jump up and down on these piles of snails. And one day, a friend of mine who was a student with my teacher said, you know, Tara Rinpoche wouldn't like this snail business. I don't want to hear about what Tara Rinpoche would think about this snail business.

[25:09]

And the minute my friend said this, I thought, oh, shit. I mean, I was not thrilled. But there was also a way in which I was relieved. There was a way in which I knew there was a cost in my state of mind with what I was doing, and I just was turning away from it. So when I got nailed, I was also grateful. No, I didn't get a goose, although I thought about getting a goose. And I realized that what this stomping up and down on these piles of snails was like my version in my garden of the Vietnam War. There I am, you know, acting out kind of violence, jumping up and down on my boots. So what I discovered was, if I keep the garden clean and I keep the litter and debris collected, there are not so many snails and sloths.

[26:12]

There just isn't so much place for them to hang out. I also noticed that if I collect them at a certain time in the morning and at dusk, when they start coming out and being around, I can get a whole bucket full of snails in not very much time. And I go for a little walk in the alderwood, and I leave them in the alderwood, and probably about 25 minutes later, they're all back. But I have the illusion of sustaining a certain balance. Now, I have actually thought about making a cornmeal box and cleaning them up and eating them, but that seems a little problematic also. My motivation is to get rid of them. I haven't done it, and I probably won't. No, I just carry buckets of them out into the woods. And I don't have chickens either. What would I do with the chickens? I'm not going to kill them.

[27:14]

I suppose I could have a chicken just from the snails. The dogs would eat the chickens. The chickens will eat the snails. So there's also a way in which what I realize, being in the garden, is there's this great food chain, and I'm part of the food chain. And munchers are munching munchers are munching munchers, and that's how it is. There is this cycle. So to that degree, at least once a day, with one item of food, I do a meditation on where the food came from. Out of some acknowledgment of being part of that great chain of munching, munching, munching. And that my life is absolutely happening, is continuing, is sustained, because of other life in me, whether it's carrots or cows. I read recently a quote from Alan Watts. I actually heard this from the gardener of Gringotts years ago. The difference between carrots and cows is that cows scream louder.

[28:18]

But if you spend much time in the garden, you get to the point where you hear the carrots. The other piece of this particular precept that's been really operative for me is actually related to the one about intoxicants, in terms of what contributes to a clear mind. And I have a particularly intense response to violence. It leads to a very unclear mind for me. So there are certain practices that I have around not rehearsing or getting used to violence any more than it's just part of the world we live in. So I don't watch movies or things on TV that have violence in them, which means I don't go to the movies much, and I watch virtually no TV. I certainly don't watch the news. I tend to read the newspaper after it's quite old.

[29:26]

I love newspapers that are two weeks or more old. I kind of skim through, not look at the violent part, because it's not fresh and new. It doesn't read quite the same way. There are certain kinds of books I don't read because of that. The images stay in my mind for such a long time that it just isn't worth it to subject myself to them. And I think that we as a culture have an enormous amount of what we're used to, certain kinds of violence. It doesn't register in a certain way, except with us. Now, the reason that I've taken on this particular practice is because I am very interested in cultivating nonviolence in my own mind stream.

[30:28]

So I'm keeping an eye on whatever it is I can do that will help me do it. Getting used to violence is not in service of that anymore. And it's interesting, because my husband loves football, and will watch the most amazing movies. If I'm going to be gone for the evening, who knows? I'll come home and I'll see Terminator 7. Last night I walked into the kitchen and he and my daughter were watching a comedy. It had been announced. We're watching a comedy. So I thought, oh, it's safe to walk in the kitchen. Just about that time I watched this guy beating somebody on the back. I just turned around and left the room. But that one image is just right, like, burned into my mind for hours. I'm not particularly interested in getting used to violence.

[31:30]

And Bill and I have had very interesting conversations about why does he like to watch football games, and why does he like to read certain kinds of mysteries. It's a conversation we'll probably continue having for some time. You know, it's interesting. I just saw a movie, A River Runs Through Hell. And that movie had a certain amount of things in it, including one scene where violence was simply being described. And I felt it heightened my sensitivity to it. This particular one seemed to have the opposite effects in that film. Yeah, I had that experience too. But I had to send my sentinels out to see things before I was arrested. Maybe I'm just being a big winky, and this is my problem. But, you know, I remember some years ago being in Japan for a few months

[32:35]

and reading a Time magazine describing what was happening in San Francisco. It was a time when there was a lot of violence in particular neighborhoods. And I kept looking at this Time magazine article and thinking, this is where I live? And I realized, yeah, this is where I live, and when I'm in the middle of it, this is just life as usual, and I don't even pay any attention to it. And it wasn't until I was outside of the situation, and I thought, this is amazing, this is what I get used to. And I think we don't pay so much attention to what we get used to. I just had an experience about a month ago of someone very close to me getting attacked and mugged in this very violent way. I had spent so much time not reading the newspapers, avoiding thinking about the violence that we live in in this culture that that experience has just been really hard for me to...

[33:38]

I had to go through all these layers of believing it, accepting it, wondering what the motivation was. It's almost like if I had been more aware of the violence, it would have been better. In the sense of you being more protective? Yeah, I think I would have been less vulnerable had I been more in touch with the reality of the world. It's an interesting question. I mean, how do we live with the fact of violence in a big urban area like the one we live in? Which, you know, this whole area where we all live, this is what we get to live with. But what is producing the violence that is in big urban areas in the United States now? And in particular, what's happening in this particular area? And it seems to me that part of our practice is to try to understand

[34:38]

what are the causes and conditions that are leading to this violence, and what are the things that I can understand about this to help me participate in the community that I live in in some effective way that addresses the fact of this violence that we all are seeing. My experience is that my ability to do that is not enhanced when I'm watching movies or reading a video or even reading the newspaper. None of that helps me do that other thing which has to do with how do I live in the community I live in and actually have some understanding about what's going on in this community such that this kind of violence is happening. So I'm not talking about not having anything to do with the violence in the world, but I am talking about not getting used to it so that I think, oh, this is just life as it is, and I just go along. And I think there's a difference.

[35:41]

So part of what I'm bringing up is being willing to have difficult questions which we together have to think about. What do we do in this situation? How do we rethink the society we live in? Driving over here, I was listening to a Fresh Air interview with this doctor whose field is medical ethics talking about the whole issue around doctor-assisted suicide. He raised a lot of questions, very challenging questions about our health care system. I mean, these are the questions that come up in our lives that we have to somehow figure out how to rethink what we're doing, and we're going to have to do that both individually and together. And they're not questions that are going to go away. They're not easy to think about. And a lot of the process is being willing to let the questions come up because we're so uncomfortable sitting with the questions,

[36:44]

and yet none of us will collectively or individually be able to answer them if we can't let the questions come up. So the question that you're bringing up, I think, is a really good one. It's a very important one. How do I really know the world I'm living in and not be dulled by thinking of it all as a form of entertainment? What's the difference between the news and a TV cop show? Pretty hard to tell the difference sometimes. Yeah? Something very violent happened in Southern California yesterday, and it happened in a place that my building works. And when I first heard the news, my first thought was that my brother was in there with me. And I had this terribly horrified, terrified feeling,

[37:45]

even though the person who told me about it said that he had called my brother and my brother wasn't there and he was coming. And I still couldn't shake that feeling. First I had to talk to him. I talked to him and I told myself that he wasn't going to be there for me. But I was amazed how after I listened to the news a couple of times and reported it over and over again, how thoroughly I remembered what people said to me in California. And, you know, there's a way in which this takes us completely away from that sense of interconnectedness. Because, of course, the situation in Los Angeles yesterday affects everyone. And one of the ways we're able to tolerate increasingly escalating levels of disintegration and violence

[38:50]

is that during process of distancing. It's the way we stand it. I think that the precept about taking what is not given brings up incredibly complicated issues for us in terms of, particularly as the world has gotten smaller and as everything we buy comes from, you know, multinational corporations, the kind of industrial complex where what I buy here made somewhere else. What do I know about the connections? Again, it's the thing I mentioned about the relationship between hunger and food sources and power and economics. It's very similar with everything that we get involved in in a consumer economy,

[39:52]

which is certainly more than we know about. Questions of, you know, economic justice and right livelihood come up. I think it's one of the things that happens for people who take on a spiritual practice is that questions about how we earn a living, how we support ourselves, come up for scrutiny very, very quickly and almost very consistently. It's the first area that comes up for focus. How is what I'm doing congruent with this inner life I'm trying to develop? And I know lots of people who actually end up changing their jobs because they just hadn't gotten around to a certain kind of scrutinizing about what am I doing, what's the effect of what I'm doing on myself and on others? And that's, of course, the territory of the consequences of how we support ourselves.

[40:57]

It's right under our noses. It's much easier to have access to what's so there than where'd this spoon come from. I've been gathering things to make eating bowls that you wrap in cloths for meditation retreats and I've been looking for wooden spoons. So one of my students said, oh, I know a good source of some wooden spoons. So she sent one to me. Nice little, it's actually a bamboo spoon made in China. Am I going to buy a bamboo spoon made in China for meditation retreats? No. To the best of my ability, I'm not going to buy anything from China. Will China see my lights? Record changes. It's too bad because it was a really nice spoon. It's a great price.

[41:58]

It's just the right size. It's exactly what I was looking for. But because I read Asia Watch and I've been reading Asia Watch, I can only read it in the morning. I can only read limited amounts of the Asia Watch reports. I can't read more than two or three histories at a given time or I just sink. But I've been reading Asia Watch for long enough, I know too much about the labor source for the things that are produced, that are cheap, that come to this country from China, like toys. Virtually all of the toys that are imported from China into the United States are made by slave labor. Prisoners, almost entirely political prisoners. This is where the connection between what's right under me and the threads that go out there.

[43:07]

Now I only know that because I took on reading Asia Watch. Partially that came about for me because of my love for the Tibetan people and my knowing something about what's happening to them. So that's one kind of place where there's some restraint or some practice about what I'm doing. But that's what I can do. Anyway, I think that the precept about not taking what is not given is focusing on that in terms of the way we do our lives. It's a real nudge towards voluntary simplicity. Living in some way a little more simply. Even if it doesn't look simple, it may be a little more simple than if I hadn't brought that up for myself. I remember one time Thich Nhat Hanh said, if the United States, people living in the United States

[44:08]

consume half the alcohol and half the meat, he had some extraordinary statistics about the amount of food that would liberate more. That's as much as it would take to have the great food resources in the world be completely available for all of the hungry people in the United States. I'm not saying, although I know he'd like everybody in the United States to stop drinking alcohol. I actually agree with him. My reasons are maybe a little different than his, but maybe not. But he's not even saying, give up all alcohol. He's just saying, cut it in half. If every American cut their alcohol consumption in half, this is what we get. Pretty interesting. The Buddha is much tougher. He says, no alcohol. I went back and I looked up all the references about intoxicants.

[45:12]

It's very tough. We've ameliorated it a little bit. When I was making some notes for myself for this evening about, I vow to abstain from sexual misconduct, I thought, boy, as I've gotten older, this has gotten so much easier. This is not the hot precept it used to be. How about when you're in your twenties and thirties? Terrible. But of course, because I'm a priest and people come and pry on my shoulder about one thing or another, I still get to see the consequences of sexuality, which is out of the context of thinking about, if I do this, something happens.

[46:14]

And how much of sexual behavior arises out of some consideration about, is what I'm doing going to cause harm for another woman or for myself? Not even a man. I'll never forget the day I was doing a workshop with a group down in Carmel, and the whole question of sexuality and, among other things, abortion came up. And this one man, the man and his wife were in the workshop. They had young children. And I was saying something about, you know, sexuality and making babies, having some connection with each other. And it was sort of like he went... He never thought of it in a certain way. The idea that maybe if I am sexually engaged with someone in a relationship where there's a context, where there's some commitment,

[47:17]

where if one of us gets pregnant, it's not the end of the world. It was like Mars. And I thought, this is a guy who was in his early 40s. He had family. I mean, he had children. It was like... I was amazed. But I thought, we've so mechanized sexuality that we don't think about sexuality in the context of how this powerful aspect of human life affects us. But I also have to admit that I know it's much easier for me to say that now that I'm not in my 20s and 30s. I'm creeping towards older middle age. She says yearning. 60 is sort of where I began. One commentary I read recently about this particular precept

[48:26]

from a practitioner from Thailand. It was interesting to me that he talked about sexual misconduct in terms of the cultures where girl children are killed or either aborted or killed. And he talked a lot about the connection between patriarchal societies and violence. And I think that it is a focus which comes out of really deeply considering this. Thinking about whatever is conducive to the cultivation of individuals, both men and women, who are balanced and integrated. That where the society we live in doesn't skew for what's best

[49:26]

for one gender or the other. Power politics. So what in our own daily lives allows us to go for a mini-culture of our family or in our circle of friends that sponsors that kind of balance. What's good for me will be good for you. And not reinforcing a kind of separation or division or animosity between men and women. It's a real issue in our culture these days. I vow to abstain from false speech. I think this really, it's just so interesting to think about this precept in terms of the media, advertising, newspapers, how we get information.

[50:31]

What would a world be like that was, what would a community be like where there was some shared commitment to, I vow not to be engaged in false speech. In the Vimalakirti Sutra, which is this wonderful sutra in which the Buddha takes on the form of a very tough, not to be messed with layman, named Vimalakirti. He says, devote oneself to all the sects of the world sects of the world, in order to convert devote oneself to all the sects of the world in order to convert to ecumenical elements, those trapped by dogmatism.

[51:39]

And I think that this whole notion and in fact my experience in this whole path of mind training leads to holding one's views a little bit loosely. Understanding that what seems to be so today may tomorrow from a different point of view, with more information, look different to me. What Roger Fisher in his book Getting to Yes on Negotiation Theory talks about, don't hold to outcome, go for process. Because, of course, what we think is true keeps changing depending on the situation, the circumstances, the individuals. But this adherence to abstaining from false speech, that's, I think, much more than that. So to what degree do I rely for information about the world I live in

[52:47]

on resources that are committed to exaggeration or false speech and what so ever. So I think this particular precept, at least for me, is in a way one that has the most kind of opportunity for practice. Because it means I have to make a certain kind of effort to find out is the information I'm getting about the nature of the world accurate? And I have to look around to figure out where I'm going to get good information. It's not so easy to do. It doesn't just show up on the front doorstep every morning with the cathunk of the paper, or however papers are delivered to you. As those of you as small boys riding on bicycles. Think about this precept in terms of everything that bombards us about what we need to buy to make us happy. All of the consumer tricks. You know, I have to drink Bud Light to have that girl or boy kiss me.

[53:53]

I had an interesting twist on that just this morning. My partner had a message on his answering machine. And he was actually a little bewildered by it. From a CPA whom we had consulted a little bit about a tax question earlier in the year. And they had made him an appointment to talk about his taxes and sent him a card a couple weeks ago to confirm or not confirm. And he had ignored it thinking, well, I didn't want to, and they'll just cancel it. And now they've called him with a reminder of this appointment that he has this afternoon. And he was sitting there saying, what should I do? And I got surprisingly angry. I said, that's a really dirty form of marketing. Call them and tell them where to put their money. But my reaction was pretty strong to it. Very interesting. I was quite offended. Well, I think if you start to pay attention to advertising. If you start to pay attention to the messages about what will happen to us if we buy this or that.

[55:01]

With the reflection on this false speech thing, it's very interesting. And it makes one much more willing to just drop out of that particular form of information. I know this is probably an unpopular stand, but I'm going to express it anyway. The one about intoxicants. My own practice has to do with or grows out of the suffering in the world as a result of the abuse of drugs and alcohol. And for me, for no other single reason than that, I feel compelled by the teachings about intoxicants. When I read about the cocoa farmers in South America who are raising cocoa.

[56:05]

Because that's what they can grow to support themselves. And how hard it is in certain parts of South America for people to figure out how to grow a crop that they can sell that will support them. And then, you know, you see, I don't know, there's some mail order catalog that sells socks or sweaters. That is made from wool or some fiber from these cocoa farmers to try to give them an alternative way of having a crop. Of course, the socks cost a fortune. But they don't cost a fortune when you think this is instead of the whole cocaine trip. I suspect it's not that simple. That my buying some socks or a sweater isn't going to be the end of the cocaine trip. But, you know, I begin to think this is really complicated.

[57:08]

The one thing I know I can do something about has to do with my relationship to intoxicants in my own life. Because that, my life affects a small circle of people. That much I can do. And of course, in addition to not being so sleepy after dinner, if I don't have a beer with dinner, I also notice that I have a certain kind of energy when I wake up in the morning. That this thing about having a clear mind is one of the gifts. It's true, I do, although it's bothering me that I'm drinking coffee. The Dalai Lama doesn't drink tea or coffee. Doesn't drink any dark tea. Because of the conditions for the people who grow and harvest those crops. He does drink herbal teas. No, I don't think so. I think he just drinks hot water.

[58:18]

So, you know, and it certainly, in terms of the effect on one's mind, the clarity of one's mind, alcohol, tobacco, coffee, sugar, chocolate, all those things affect different people. But they all have the capacity of being mind-delivers. Well, I think that's a reasonable alternative. I mean, you know, in the spirit of what Thich Nhat Hanh was saying about if we drink half as much alcohol in this country, what would be the effect of that in terms of feeding the rest of the world? I think that's a viable option and it certainly is the one that I followed for a long time.

[59:22]

But I think partially because in the last few years I'm spending more and more time listening to people talk about the effect in their lives of abuse of drugs and alcohol. It's more and more difficult for me to have a glass of beer and not think about the suffering for those people. When I've seen the effect on someone who is in recovery from alcohol addiction and how fearful she becomes to go to a practice center where there's a New Year's toast of sake. And then the sake that's left over goes to the kitchen and there's, you know, people kind of drink it all and get a little drunk. And that is no longer a place she feels safe to go to. I feel like there should be places in the world where there's just, there's no alcohol and there's no question about it.

[60:27]

It's not a big deal, there just is no alcohol here. For those people for whom suffering has happened in their lives, not out of some kind of puritanical thing, but just because that's what, for anyone for whom drug and alcohol abuse has brought suffering in their lives, it's very palpable suffering. And that there's something, there's a kind of relief in having a place where that's just, that's not what's happening here. I think our world can use those kinds of little enclaves, if you will. So I'm not suggesting a kind of, you know... And I think that one of the differences between your life and my life is that my life is not entirely private. The place where I live with my family is also a place where the people I practice with come for retreats.

[61:29]

So I think about, well what do we do here in this place that will have this be a place where a whole range of people can come and feel safe about whatever is difficult or troublesome for them. But I'm very interested in what is a place that is indeed safe for all of us. But I think, you know, a stance of moderation is a completely honorable position. And what's been interesting to me is that coming from that place over the years, slowly... I mean, I remember one day Tarle Boucher saying, this is crazy, you Americans want to be enlightened and you can't even give up a beer, an occasional beer. Enlightenment takes a lot of work. This is a tough path. Giving up a... if this beer is no big deal, then how come it's such a big deal to give it up?

[62:30]

He was not impressed with our arguments about moderation. He just thought, well it's not a big deal, so what's the big deal about giving it up? Well that sort of ate away at the back of my mind for a couple of years. I mean, the position I've come to, I've come to over a lot of, you know, thinking about it and struggling with it. So, you know, what you're suggesting is... Because I've faced, you know, working with people, you know, drugs and alcohol, and being concerned about, you know, cigarettes, and I'm very, very pleased that I've become, in the right mind, extendable to follow that. And having become, you know, working to at least some degree of guidance, you certainly see the care of the consequences of it. It hasn't driven me to fully abstain from these things

[63:37]

because I've always felt that I've had a sense of moderation, and a very strong sense of self-control, and that I'm not doing it because I'm not doing it. And it's always been a source of pride, I guess, that I could do that. But it's never been anything I've been fearful of. I've never lost control. But I certainly see it among other people, who fear that they're losing control, and lose control of love. People look at drugs and alcohol, and... And that, I got that.

[64:39]

That's what moved me. That was really what moved me. And for me, my affection for this person, my concern and care for her well-being, is far more important to me than having a beer in the refrigerator. I mean, it just doesn't, it's not that much of a... And the degree to which drugs and alcohol cause suffering, to an extraordinary degree, in the world we live in today, is really stunning, really stunning. Can I say something? I was just in a call. Maybe this... I'm just wondering how much of a role meditation has been, ultimately, in helping some of these things. I mean, it seems like a lot of your decisions are intellectual. If you meditate for a long time,

[65:41]

do you think you just stop thinking, and stop going to violent meetings? Oh, my decisions are not intellectual. At all. They are based almost entirely on my observing the effect of certain things on my mind. I mean, to the point where I notice if I eat my main meals at breakfast and lunch, and eat lightly at dinner, it makes a difference in my state of mind when I wake up in the morning. But, you know, that's totally because my state of mind has gotten to be much more important to me than it was, you know, 20 years ago. Yeah, I think meditation makes a huge difference. I think doing any kind of a mindfulness practice makes a huge difference. And I think that to the degree, particularly in this culture where we have access to a lot of information about how we're connected to the rest of the world,

[66:43]

what we have much more... This particular group of us, we have much more access to the information about what we do here, how it affects others there. So that's a more intellectual thing. But I think that it doesn't become possible to really think in that way if I'm not really paying attention to the life I'm actually leading today. Okay, we are now late. Let me just quickly go through a list of practices which I've sort of alluded to. But let me just run through the list. Okay, so the first thing... This I've actually been doing for maybe 20 years. To eat what's locally grown and in season and simply. To recycle. We're all recycling everything, right? I actually pay some attention and have for some while and I imagine that this is also much more widely done,

[67:47]

especially in Berkeley. I don't buy things in containers that I can't recycle. And that's gotten to be easier, hasn't it? I find the little bumper sticker about Think Globally, Act Locally very helpful. There's a way in which it just helps me... Oh, that's the way I need to think of what can I do under my nose that has maybe some potentially bigger impact. But what I actually do that will count is what I do in this community. So, you know, no McDonald's hamburgers. No violent movies. Do what I can do. Subscribing to Asia Watch in 2020, which is this organization that sends you information about what bill is before Congress and which Congressperson you need to write to and gives you information on which to spend 20 minutes a month writing effectively

[68:53]

because they organize it so that one crucial senator is bombarded with letters. I found all those people you're supposed to write to for good causes, I never do it. I get overwhelmed. This way I agree to do a certain amount of that kind of letter writing for 20 minutes every month based on some information. So that's an example of, you know, do what I can do. To speak carefully, to pay attention to the way I speak is a form of pollution, mind pollution, mine and somebody else's. Particularly in terms of the cultivation of nonviolence. To think about the world I live in, not in terms of us versus them.

[69:44]

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