A couple of days ago, I was wondering what I should talk about this morning. And I found myself asking myself, well, what's the most important thing to talk about this Sunday? So that's what I want to talk about. Suzuki Roshi, my teacher's teacher, used to often ask, what's the most important thing? And this is an important question. What's the most important thing for you? Once Sukhiroshi said, the most important thing is to find out what's the most important thing. So, intention is very important. What's important to you? What is your intention? A big part of our practice sitting and then as we try to express meditative awareness in our everyday activity is to look at what is our intention.

[01:08]

What are we up to? What's important to us? And actually in each situation, maybe the most important thing is to look at what's important here in this situation. This is what insight is about. to bring our intention to each situation we're in. What's important? So our practice is about how we bring our life to life, and to look at intention is very important. So intention is Well, it's about values. It's about karma. Our intention often is, at least initially, guided by parents, environment, culture.

[02:11]

you may have been told what you should do and what you should be and how you should do it by various people and institutions in your life. So this is also about values. What is it that we value? So this aspect of intention is very important in Buddhist philosophy, how we support In early Buddhism, a large part of the practice is supporting, and also in our practice, supporting wholesome aspects of our intention and trying to diminish maybe unwholesome aspects. What's the most important thing? We recognize this in our society too. So premeditated actions, premeditated crimes are punished more harshly, are considered more significant than accidental actions or even crimes of passion.

[03:25]

What is it that we intend? Again, we might think about this in terms of Our whole life, we might think about it in terms of this month, or we might think about it, but also please think about it in each situation. So the precepts are guidelines to how to think about what's important in each situation. How to not kill, or in other words, how to support life, for example. What are our basic values? So... you might think that you're supposed to think something, some particular value is the most important thing. So we chant the four bodhisattva vows at the end of each event. Beings are numberless, I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharmic gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.

[04:29]

The Buddha way is unsurpassable, I vow to realize it. So you might think that the most important thing is that you think that's the most important thing, to follow the Bodhisattva vows. Well, on some level I think it is, myself. But you have to think about what's the most important thing to you. So one of the most important things about asking this question is just to be honest with yourself. What's important? What's important for you? It might be art, or music, or movies, or skateboarding, or what you're going to have for lunch. I don't know. What's the most important thing? And one of the problems with this question, so maybe I disagree with Suzuki Roshi a little bit,

[05:30]

I find that when you ask, what's the most important thing, that people have trouble with finding the one single most important thing. Because there are actually many important things. So it's like asking, what's your favorite movie? People have a lot of trouble with that. But if you ask, what are your top five movies, maybe that's easier. Although, actually, I confess, I have one clear favorite movie. And if I had to pick the top five, there'd be seven or eight of them. But anyway. So I would say, what are some of the most important things? The sum can be any sum you want, but what are the most important things, plural, for you? Asking this question is very important. What is it that we're up to? What is it that we want? What are our values? This is an important question in our society, as well as for each of us individually. And in our practice, we find out what's important by stopping and just sitting.

[06:39]

So sitting upright, being present, seeing this morning what's going on on your cushion or chair in this body-mind. Apart from your ideas about what you think should be going on or your stories about who you think you are, The stories about what do you think the world is? Of course, we have all those, but what's actually happening? So we sit, present and upright, enjoying our breath, feeling the silence. And as I was talking about last weekend in our three-day sitting, before and after, we talk about taking the backwards step, turn the light inwardly and illuminate ourselves. So turning within, part of turning within is, well, what is, what am I up to? And as our patterns of thinking and grasping and aversion and so forth, arise in the process of our just being present and upright and relaxing into this dignified upright posture, you know, thoughts and feelings come up, we don't

[07:59]

try and do anything with them, but we don't try and push them away either. How do we appreciate our intention amongst the things that we see as we sit? There's the color of the wall in front of you, or the floor. There's the sounds of the zendo. There's the smell of the incense during longer sittings when we're eating. There's taste. There's the physical sensation of some itching or some discomfort in your knee or your back or whatever. And there's also thoughts that go by. And again, it's not about doing something with those thoughts, but when we see some pattern or habit of thinking, of reacting in some way to our patterns of thoughts.

[09:03]

Well, that's, you know, this is something that's ingrained in us, and it takes a while to actually see, what am I up to? What's important to me? So in asking what are the most important things, one of the most important things is just to be honest with yourself. What is it you like? What is it that's important to you? Again, this is about bringing our life to life. How do we find the reality of our life and enjoy it and act on that and respond from that in each situation that arises? What's important? So this takes some time, and of course it may change over time what's important to you. But in terms of expressing the dignity and uprightness of zazen in your everyday activity, it's important to look and see what's important to you.

[10:21]

And again, the process of this is stopping, sitting, and just observing this body-mind. But then also observing as we get up. So we have various forms of more active meditation, like the walking meditation that we just did. Not that active. Or the temple cleaning we'll do a little later. Mindful cleaning, as a kind of practice, for those who've been sick. So there's this turning within, and then expressing that in our activity, and how does that work? And all through it, oh, what's important? What do we care about? So all of you are here in some way. We're fortunate to have several people who were here for the first time this morning. But all of you are here because in some way you care about the quality of your life and this world.

[11:27]

and how to take care of that. So I would say that's very important. And so part of that caring is to look and see, well, what's within that? What is it I really care about? What's important? And in terms of making life decisions, of course, also. So there are various aspects of that. What are your abilities? What are you good at? Usually you know that better than anybody else, but somebody else might say to you, oh, you're really good at that. Okay, so we all have the, have responsibility, we have an ability to respond in certain ways to help take care of our life and our world. So part of asking what's important to you is just to see what do I do well.

[12:31]

Now it happens for some people, this isn't true of everyone, but I know of some people who are very good at something, but then don't really like it. So you may have some great talent and it may not be important to you. Well, okay then. There's that movie Good Will Hunting where there's this kid who's a math genius, but it's so easy for him. He's a world-class math genius, but he doesn't really care about doing that. So that can happen. But it's important to look at, well, what am I good at? When you're looking at what's important. Then another aspect of the question is, what are the things that are important to you? Or what am I interested in? That can change over time. So it happens sometimes that people who start a regular meditation practice are not interested in things they once were very interested in. Like some people, when they start sitting regularly, are no longer interested in going hanging out at bars and drinking a lot.

[13:38]

Maybe they were before. Now, you might start sitting and still find that very interesting. You know, it's possible. So, okay. But the point isn't that you should be interested in, you know, the Bodhisattva vows or whatever. That's not what this is about. Although, you know, I would encourage you to consider those. But how do we, you know, what's important? What's the value? What do we care about? So to think about what you're interested in. People here have different interests. I like movies, but some of you may not ever go to movies or care about them, for example. So it's not just kind of important, heavy things that you might be interested in. What do you like doing? So part of the question about what is it that you're interested in What is nourishing to you? So what are the things that are important in terms of sustaining your awareness and caring and kindness?

[14:45]

What helps you to be more fully open and honest and flexible and steady with your life? And really, you know, you might, you can make a list if you want. Some of us like to make, some of us find it important to make lists, some of us don't. How do you, but think, but to consider what is, what is important? So again, Sugrush said, what is the most important thing? And I would modify it. What are the, what are things that are, what is important to you? What are the things that are important to you? It doesn't have to be just one. Although, some of you may find it most important to find one thing that's most important to you. And if that works for you, great. What do you care about? How do you express your practice in that way?

[15:49]

So, again, part of this is about values. We hear a lot about that, you know, election seasons. But for you, what are your values? Of course, Buddhism has Buddhist practices, courage is a whole set of values. But again, you may disagree with that. And you don't have to be a Buddhist to practice here. Some of you are Christians or other things. And you can be a Buddhist and those things too. some of you are artists, or teachers, or anyway. It's not just one thing, but sometimes we can find the one thing that cuts through all the different things we're interested in. So that's another interesting way of asking the question. What is it about all the things that you are interested in that, what's the thing that includes all of those?

[17:01]

So in terms of values, the value of Sangha, we have Uddha, which is awakening awareness. We have Dharma, which is reality and the teaching about reality and to actually be willing to face reality in all the different ways that it appears as we face our life. And then we have Sangha, which is community. So we're building this wonderful Sangha here. It's an ongoing project. And it makes me very happy because there's all these wonderful, some of you I have not met before, but all of you who I know are very talented and interesting and good people. Now it's okay, we accept bad people here too. So if you're a bad person, please, welcome. It's good that you come and sit with us. You don't have to be smart or have advanced degrees like some of the people here do.

[18:18]

It's okay. So one of our values is to benefit all beings, that we include all beings. Everyone's welcome here. So this is part of the value. So looking at this, what's important? So look at what are the values for you. But as a Buddhist teacher, I'm going to speak towards what are the values that Buddhism encourages. So one is cooperation rather than competition. Sangha is about harmony. How do we work together? Each of us in our own way. Each of us has our own interests. Each of us has our own abilities. Each of us has our own way of expressing Buddha. And I can't tell you how to be Buddha. And I don't want to. It's something you should enjoy finding out for yourself. But how do we then, each of us, in our own way, cooperate and work together in various ways towards things that we value together and care about?

[19:19]

And sometimes there are some people in a sangha who are interested in certain things, and that's great. We don't have to all be included in everything that a sangha does. But how do we cooperate rather than compete? So this is a basic problem in our world. We have a society built on competition and consumerism and, you know, you have to... whoever dies with the most toys wins and, you know, so we're... influenced by that and we're told that you have to obtain all the things and all the advertisements and commercials in order to be a real person. What is it? Real men smoke Marlboros or something like that. Anyway, we can see through a lot of it, but it's subtle, the ways in which we're told to acquire and compete with others and do unto others before they do unto us and all of that.

[20:25]

So part of the work of Sangha and Buddhism, I would say, is to encourage cooperation and collaboration rather than competing. So that's one Buddhist value. Another basic one is gratitude rather than grasping. To be grateful is very subversive of the warped values in our society. Just to be grateful for being here, being who we are, the things that we have to be grateful for, to appreciate those, rather than to grasp after more and more and other and, you know, to think that it's not okay to be the person sitting on your cushion or chair right now. That's not what this is about. This is not a practice about becoming some other person or realizing some higher state of being or state of mind or something like that. How do we really just settle and meet this body mount on our cushion and chair?

[21:32]

But with this question about intention, what's important to me? And as we ask the question, we might change. We might think, well, you know, that's been important to me, but maybe it's not so important anymore. But anyway, to be grateful for what's important to us. To be grateful for the things we're interested in and what's nourishing for us as part of this. So, Again, one of the basic values of what's important in a Buddhist context is just to be inclusive of all beings, that there are not certain types of beings over there who are evil or the enemy or we have to have another war against. But that somehow to hear and listen to and find a way of interacting with even the people who we find difficult.

[22:33]

the people in our work life, for example, who give us a hard time. How do we find a way to be patient with them and see the positive sides of them and interact from not finding fault with them, but seeing how we can help them to see something that they may not see about how they're causing harm, for example. And then another very fundamental, basic aspect of what's important from Buddha's perspective, you know, we talk about this lineage and the tradition of teaching and practice, going back to the Buddha who lived 2,500 years ago, more or less, and all the great teachers who I sometimes talk about, Suzuki Roshi and Dogen and so forth. So it's not that we have to follow some tradition slavishly or, you know,

[23:39]

copy it exactly, but how do we bring that alive to our world? And part of this is how do we share what's important to us with our world, and especially with children? So I'm really happy that in our sangha we have quite a few teachers and parents and caregivers. So taking care of this world for beings of the future I think is an important Buddhist value. So again, I'm talking about more than one most important thing, many most important things. And especially in our society now, which is so massively corrupt where, you know, we value, we want to benefit all beings, not just the 1%. And when we have the inequality in our society that we have now, For me, it's important to note that, and so I speak about that sometimes here, just the massive corruption and the ways that billionaires control our government and our media and so forth, and the effects of that in terms of war.

[24:55]

pollution and damage to our environment. That's important to me to speak of, so I just did. I can speak more about it. But all of this is based on looking at, well, what's important? And again, what's important to us as a sangha? What's important to us as a society? What's important to us as people in Chicago? What's important to each one of us sitting on a cushion or chair? What do I care about? What ways do I want to express my care in the world. So I could say much more about what's important, but part of what's important to me is that this be to some extent you know, in the limits of time we have, a way for other people to express what's important to them. So I'm going to stop and ask you, each of you, any of you who wish to express anything about what's important to you or what's important to you about asking what's important to you.

[26:03]

So please feel free. Quezon. What's your favorite movie? Oh, no question. It's easy. Casablanca. I mean, there's many other movies I like, so if I started to list my top five, like, you know, Men in Black, and The Big Lebowski, and To Kill a Mockingbird, and 2001, and anyway, there'd be many more. But as a former filmmaker, it's just, it's perfect anyway. But that doesn't mean that, you know, you might dislike it, and that's fine. Hey, Josh. So I was thinking, asking this question, what's the most important thing? It's possible to then get to a place where other have relevance for you no more?

[27:10]

So I wondered what you could say about that. Well, large and small is not so important, I would say. And it's important to see through our habit of making distinctions. That's what our minds are discriminating consciousness does distinguish things. So I'm encouraging, to some extent, this morning, distinguishing things. But first, it's important to stop and see how we're all in this together. So maybe the most important thing is not to ignore the things that aren't the most important things. That's an interesting dialogue response. How to, again, that's benefiting all beings, or considering all beings, But still, to know what's important to us and what our intention is in terms of how we take care of our life and the world, I think it's important to ask what's important.

[28:16]

Thank you. Good point. Yes, Alex, hi. Hi. I was thinking about cooperation as one of the I think it's important to me and it drew me to Buddhism, I think. I feel like there's probably a deeper reason why, but for myself, I think I kind of struggle with how to operate within a world where the same values aren't at play in much of the world that I live in. So that's one of the things I kind of struggle with, is how to support my values and bring my values of cooperation to situations where that's not valued and then actually puts me at a disadvantage in a lot of circumstances. Wonderful question, thank you.

[29:19]

Yeah, so the reality of our world or our society is that at least the people who seem to control society, I think there's a huge difference underneath the surface, but the people who seem to control our media and our government and our policies and so forth, value tax breaks for the most wealthy or whatever, having more wars, things like that, privatizing all of our common resources. But I think it's important that we see that we are part of that, this continuum. It's not us and them. So I've said before, I'm very happy that there are meditation groups at the Pentagon and in large corporations. And of course, not all large corporations act harmfully.

[30:22]

And even within any given large corporations, there are probably more harmful and also helpful things. So it's not... So our practice then as... cooperators, as those who value cooperation and awareness, who have a meditation practice, is how to work within what's possible in such a situation, just to encourage a little bit, just in your way of interacting with people. You may need to compete on a certain level to be valued in that culture, in that context, How do you do that with a kind of flexibility or spirit of respect? So that's another word that I didn't mention, that one of the, I think, most important values of Buddhism is just respectfulness. So to respect the possibility, the Buddha nature of all beings, that the people who

[31:30]

oil company and gas company executives who are destroying our environment for personal profit have the capacity somewhere to wake up and to see that what they're doing is not helpful to their children and, you know, that having, you know, that if you have hundreds of millions of dollars, it's not so important to have more. So I respect that capacity in all beings. and how do we act in a way that's respectful to everyone, that allows people the opportunity to see what's really important for them and to reconsider that. So to work in such a situation is a very advanced practice and requires flexibility and you have to cooperate with the what's going on in that world, and at the same time, how do you do it with a kind of respectfulness and patience and flexibility that loosens things up a little bit, maybe?

[32:36]

So it's an important question. But it's important for us to not, so the Bodhisattva idea is that we don't withdraw from the world. We get right in there, in the middle of all of the difficulties. So thank you for doing what you're doing. Hi, I'm John. What's important to me is an easy question to answer to my children. But that puts me in the situation of there's one class of beings that's extremely important to me, and every other class, and some of that class I So how do we, yeah, so part of benefiting all things is protecting beings and protecting the beings that are important to us.

[33:49]

So yeah, it's biological to want to protect and care for children. Absolutely. That's, that's I think that's a very important thing, and to know that that's important. And then, you know, if you think you have to harm other children to benefit your children, that's a little funny. So, you know, I don't have an answer. You have to look at that. But maybe it's not necessary to harm other beings. to protect your children. But, you know, I mean, some people, it may be important to protect them from themselves and put them in jail. That's, you know, that's possible. Or do things to, you know, so this isn't easy. How to practice in the world isn't easy. But I think being honest about it and seeing is there some way to protect your children that's not exactly harming others

[34:57]

So not harming is a basic Buddhist value, going all the way back. How do you be helpful to, so again, our mindset is competition. To help some, I have to harm others. How do we see a way of encouraging cooperation? It's difficult. So what I'm talking about, implementing these questions in our life is not easy. And then you have to keep asking what's important. How do I take care of my children? As things change, because they always do. So good luck. Hi, Ken. What came to my mind was recognizing and fulfilling your responsibilities. Yes. Seems that way to me.

[35:59]

Yeah, so because of all of the situations and karmic effects and intentions and so forth of our whole life, we each have certain responsibilities. And we have an ability to respond to them. And so how do we take care of that? Yeah, if everybody did that, that would take care of a lot. So I think that's a good answer. But it may not be everybody's answers. Or how we look at or how we define our responsibilities may be different for each of us. Good, thank you. Hey, Steve. In terms of the most important question, what I was thinking of for myself, I think of especially as I get older, what kind of a statement have I made with my life and am I going to make with my life?

[37:03]

And so that becomes, it really goes into the appropriate response again. And I think that's another way of asking the question, what are the most important things?

[37:18]

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