Quite a bit of teachings have been offered. And I wanted to give, towards the end of the day now, give you a chance for just any kind of response or feedback you want to give me. And that will help me also for tomorrow. Is there anything you'd like to tell me or any questions? I'd like to thank you Welcome. This whole thing about how you really love everyone, even if you don't know it, and everyone loves you even if they really don't know it, that's It's super radical. I guess my question would be, when some event really hits you in a very vulnerable place psychologically, with whatever has happened, causes and conditions of your past.

[01:09]

I mean, I've experienced situations where on an intellectual and even somewhat emotional level, I knew that with the person involved. But I was going to say it didn't do any good, maybe that's not true, but I still felt tremendous hatred and I felt the need to punish this other person, even though I knew that on some level there was that love there. Yes. And so where to go from there? I mean, I don't know exactly what my question is. Could you hear what he said? No. So let me just repeat now what you said. On some level you are aware that somebody does love you and you do love them.

[02:10]

Well, that's the issue, isn't it? Yeah, oh, you didn't, I misunderstood you. I thought you understood the other side too. Yeah, if you know, I think some people know their parents love them and they feel they have to destroy their parents. Yeah. They just say, I have to punish them because the way they love me is killing me. I do think they love me, but it's killing me. So I have to kill them. And my killing them is not love. I don't see it that way. This is what you're saying or what the person is saying. This is what the person is saying. I'm saying that both parties love each other and one or both sides of the relationship do not understand that fully. And then you think you have to violate precepts in relationship to this person. Bodhisattva precepts, precepts of compassion.

[03:14]

You think, I don't see how they can function here. Or it's very confused. It's confused. There's confusion. That could be viewed as a gift, like sharing how you feel. And at the same time, it's not a pure motivation. I mean, like, it's both the gift of sharing how you feel and an act that's also trying to destroy. So it gets all mixed up, and it tends to happen with me when it's just really... Let me ask you what you mean by pure motivation. Single motivation. Single? I guess hope. Like it seems to me in these circumstances my motivation would be partly wholesome and partly definitely not wholesome. Yeah. And the same action, at least in my mind, like I could go into it thinking I'm intending to offer a gift.

[04:21]

Let me say something now, okay? Okay, sure. So you have a picture now of the way you see yourself in a relationship to someone is partly wholesome and partly not wholesome. Okay, let's take that example. What I'm suggesting for number one, again, is that if you study that state and similar states, or ones where it is clearly wholesome one hundred percent or clearly unwholesome one hundred percent the more you study these different varieties the more it will become clear to you that nothing whatsoever has an independent self including wholesomeness. Wholesomeness doesn't have an independent self either because even if you like saw yourself in relationship to someone and had totally positive feelings for them, and you told your friends about it and that person, and everybody said, that sounds positive. Still, if the consequences of that were not beneficial, you'd realize, well, maybe it wasn't so positive.

[05:25]

But no matter what the intention is, because it has consequences, whatever moral intention you have, And I would say, in some sense, an unwholesome intention is moral in the sense that it has moral consequences. It's in the moral arena. It's in the part of the arena that's tending towards harm, we feel. Another part of the arena is intentions which tend to go towards benefit. But as you study this field more and more, you will see that because all these things depend on their consequences, you can't decide when they happen In themselves, their goodness is not already established because the consequences count. And the consequences are more or less endless. So when you see that, you realize that you can't really be sure of a wholesome action really has a substantial wholesomeness to it. And some people get scared when they hear that, but the more you study that, the more you'll be able to be fearless about good not having a self.

[06:31]

and evil not having a self. So you study it first, you study this is good and I think this will have good consequences, but the fact that its consequences will determine partly its goodness make me realize that the goodness is not all here in this good act. It depends on the future. Like, for example, curing a disease seems good, but what if it leads to overpopulation and then war? Whatever, you know? You can't say... Like that Chinese story, you know, the guy... You know, the horse story, right? They call it a Zen story, right? But it's just a human story that... Maybe it's good, maybe it's not. It looks good, but... It looks bad, but... The more you study what looks good and the more you study what looks bad, the more you will come to the point of realizing that good doesn't have an independent self. Bad doesn't have an independent self. When you realize that, you will realize that you want to help everybody, you love everybody, and everybody loves you.

[07:48]

You will see that. In the meantime, you will be just doing your best of looking at what seems to be good and trying to do good, because again, trying to do good, what you think is good, but which will turn out to be a good that has no self. And when you try to avoid evil, which will turn out to be an evil that doesn't have a self. But by trying to do good, that means you have to pay attention to your intention. In order to do good, you have to look to see, do I think, am I trying to do good? Yes, I am. Do I think this would be good? I think so. Would you be willing to check with some other people on this? Sure. That means you're willing to look at it and you're willing to get other people to look at it. You're willing to study it, to learn about it. Now, how about evil? If you're going to avoid it, you have to pay attention to it. You don't have to pay attention to evil to do it. You can do evil blindfolded. You can drive a car badly with, you know, totally drugged out and blindfolded, you can drive badly.

[08:50]

But to avoid driving badly, you have to pay attention to your driving. To avoid evil requires attention to your intention. To do good requires attention. So trying to do good and trying to avoid evil means that you have to bring your attention to your intention. It means you have to pay attention to your actions in order to accomplish that. When you do that, the early teaching of the Buddha is avoid evil, do good, and purify your mind. By avoiding evil means you pay attention to evil. By doing good means you pay attention to good. By paying attention to both, your mind becomes clear. When your mind becomes clear, you will do good knowing that good doesn't have a self, but you'll still do good. you still will realize that no matter what happens, even though I may make mistakes and be unskillful with you, I know I love you and I know you love me.

[09:52]

And I can teach you that I love you even though I'm stupid. and ugly. I can teach you that I love you and I can teach you that you love a stupid, ugly person because I see that we love each other unconditionally, always. That is the nature of life. That we are helping each other not only live, but wake up to how we're helping each other to live. In the meantime you do what you think is good But the more you study, the more you realize something's missing. You realize, I'm trying to do good, but I don't know what good, because you get to say too, and you people get to, you're in on my story of what I'm doing, whether it's good or not. And so my, whatever I'm doing is very transient and interdependent, and no one can actually get a hold of, solidly find a self to good. And again, the more you realize that, the more freedom from suffering is realized.

[10:58]

So we do make moral commitments, but we do not make moral attachments. We want to be righteous, but not be self-righteous. We have to try to be righteous. If you don't try to be righteous, you're not going to be self-righteous. That's one of the things nice about gangsters, they're not so often self-righteous. But the problem of religious people is they're very prone to be self-righteous because they're totally committed to being good, but then they think there is a self to good. And when they get a hold onto that self of good, I got the self of good, they don't want to talk to you anymore. And then we have religious wars between people who have different sense of righteousness and both of them think there's a self to the righteousness. So anybody who disagrees with them They must have a self-inherent evil. Now, do you have any questions?

[12:03]

Well, just thank you. You're welcome. That makes it easier to have courage. It makes it easier to have courage. Great. Yeah, because you just... He reacts and responds as best he can. Yeah. And courage, in a sense, also makes it possible to have the courage to show what your cards are. You can show people what you think is good because you're not terribly afraid of them questioning whether it's good. And you can also show people what you're unskillful at because you don't really think that there is solidly an unskillfulness about you, but you've got to get it out there in the open, otherwise you might think it's a solid bad, evil, You have to disclose that. You have to do the courage of disclosure in order to become free of evil and good. Okay? What's your name again? Joel. Joel. Don't tell me, Patrick. Okay, Patrick.

[13:08]

When you're talking about avoid evil and do good, I've meditated for a number of years, and I guess one of the attractions for me was that Zen Buddhism seemed to be polar opposite of Catholicism, that I was raised a Catholic, where everything is spelled out, this is a mortal sin, this is a venial sin. No, it's not the opposite of that. That's what I thought. I'm just kidding. It's not the opposite of that. What it is, what Suzuki Hiroshi would say, is that Zen is when Catholicism gets over itself. It's not the opposite of Catholicism. It's Catholicism when Catholicism gets over itself. That's Zen. But it's also Zen when Zen gets over itself. And it's Judaism when Judaism gets over itself. So if Catholicism has whatever in it, it can have whatever it's got.

[14:11]

And you can have different branches of Catholicism. Each one has their own stuff that they've got. Zen's not the opposite of those things. Zen is when those things transcend themselves and get over themselves. And Zen is when Buddhists get over being Buddhists. Zen is about when all world religions are friends with each other. Not the opposite of any of them. It's the freedom of all of them from themselves. It's the freedom from isms at the end of all the religions. It's Catholic. It's Jewish. But it's not Catholicism or Jewishism. or Buddhism. So all those things, whatever it is about Catholicism, we can use those things and if we study those things, whatever they are, all those things you mentioned, if we would be looking at those things in our mind and study them, we will realize that none of those things can be found independent of everything else.

[15:21]

And then we will get over that. That's Zen, which of course is very attractive. So me getting over me, you getting over you, Catholicism getting over Catholicism, that's Zen. It's the same. It's called freedom and peace. I guess my... I hear you say, and I appreciate it, that there's still a part of me that wants to ask questions like, when you talk of good and evil, would you make a list of the things that were considered inherently evil and the things that were inherently good, or would you leave that up to you to discover for yourself? Well, he didn't make up lists of things that were inherently evil, but he did make up some precepts which he recommended people follow. But he didn't even tell people about these precepts until the group got kind of big.

[16:29]

Because when the group was small and they were just like face-to-face with the Buddha all the time, these problems didn't even occur. But when people started doing certain things, he said, no, we shouldn't do that here in this group. Like, we shouldn't be killing. But when the group was small, nobody was killing anybody under Buddha's nose. I mean, if you're with Buddha, you're too busy like enjoying Buddha to be... It's more like, well, we've got nothing better to do, let's kill something, you know? Like, if I see somebody killing something, I would go up to them and say, hey, I've got something more interesting for you to do than that. Let's go study some very enlightening teachings, shall we? Breaking precepts is for people who are kind of like at a loss for where to apply their life. So anyway, Buddha did offer guidelines for people to practice, and he recommended them in a sense of, don't do these things. He did, but he didn't say that they were inherently good or evil.

[17:30]

He just said they're evil or good. But he didn't say they were inherently evil. He just says they're evil. I'll call them evil. Is that called situation ethics by some people? I don't know what those people mean by situational ethics, but it's called giving people guidelines to help them wake up. That's the point of it. It's not to get them to do those guidelines. It's to get them to do these things to help them be able to see what's going on. So again, like I said before, in order to avoid killing things, you have to pay attention. He gave them these precepts to help them pay attention, because if they pay attention they'll become free. He wanted them to become free from the world of good and evil. Regular people live in the good of evil. Gangsters live in the world of good and evil. Everybody lives in the world of good and evil, in the world.

[18:33]

Buddha wanted to free people from the world of good and evil. And the way to become free was to practice good and avoid evil. But isn't it that practicing good and avoiding evil was the point? Because that would go on forever, and it gets tiring. In the process of practicing good and evil, your vision becomes clear, and when your vision becomes clear, you become free of the world of good and evil. And then you do good, but you don't do good in the world of good and evil. You do good in the world beyond good and evil. You do good in the world beyond Catholicism and beyond Judaism. Beyond the rules and regulations. And beyond the violating of them. These rules are for people who can't see it. If you can't see that everybody loves you, you need rules. Which are, don't treat people cruelly. You don't see you love this person if they love you?

[19:37]

Well then, Don't say anything against them. Don't take anything from them that they don't give you. If you can't see that they're giving you gifts all the time and you're giving them gifts all the time, don't take anything unless it's been certified and notarized that it was a gift. If you can already see that it's giving, that everything's giving, if you have that vision, you don't need these rules anymore. You don't have to practice good and evil. All you see is good. But not the good that's the opposite of evil. You see good everywhere. And you see people who don't see it. Because there are people who don't see it. And you care for them, and you want to teach them. So then Buddha taught, hmm, let's see now. First of all, he tried teaching them, you know, and they didn't know what he was talking about. You know? So he said, try it another way. He said, okay, there's a truth of suffering, origination, and so on. He said, okay. That worked on some group. Then some other group They couldn't even understand that teaching, so we gave them this moral teaching.

[20:42]

But these are teachings to help people develop their insight. Once they have insight, they'll realize that these rules are not something that they do, it's just that it's really true that we don't kill each other, we don't steal from each other, we don't lie to each other. This is really an illusion. Only when your eyes are blind do you think you can lie. So if you think you can lie and you don't see, then don't. If you think you can steal, then don't. But not stealing means you have to pay attention that you're not stealing. And when you pay attention, you will be able to see that you don't steal. Eventually you'll be able to see you don't steal. Until then, when you get to the place where you think you're going to steal, well then don't. And when you don't, you're going to start looking now, what am I doing? And as you look at what you're doing, you will gradually see, oh, I don't steal. Then you don't have to stop yourself, you just don't. And nobody else thinks you do either, pretty much.

[21:45]

However, I take that back. Even though Buddha sees that she doesn't steal, and other people don't steal, still some people might think Buddha was stealing. Just like Buddha sees that she loves everyone and everyone loves her, some people do not understand that she loves them. So even some people might think Buddha was stealing. Like some people thought Buddha was stealing other people's disciples. When the historical Buddha was a living, some people might have thought, he's stealing all these other people's disciples because all these people were like leaving their teaching to go study with the Buddha. They could have thought that he was stealing them. Because when they came, he said, okay, you're welcome and your teacher's welcome too. But the teacher might have thought, this guy's stealing all my students. And some of them did think that and got angry at him for swiping everybody's students.

[22:48]

But he wasn't stealing them. But that's what some people thought. So what do you think now? Is that getting clear? No, but I'll get over it. This is a special religion called not being clear, which is going to get over it. Would you go back to, I thought I understood you at one point to say that we don't make our intentions. Yes. And then in the same kind of sense, you talked about the vows. Yeah. So I'm imagining there are intentions that we don't make, but we can intentionally make. make a vow no you don't make your vows either no like like for example uh i read a you know i read a book one time okay and send stories in it all right i read these stories when i read these stories i thought i want to be like that but i didn't make myself want to be like that

[23:51]

It's that when I read those stories and saw the pictures of these people behaving that way, that story interacting with me, here I am this person with an intention. My intention is to read the book and to do various things. I have various intentions that have arisen. Now I read this story and a new intention arises called, I want to be like that. The story didn't make me do it. I didn't make me do it. But my body and my mind interacting with those stories, this vow has arisen. Somebody else was walking along the road, you know, in the time of the Buddha. Buddha was still alive, I think. Somebody was walking along the road and he saw a Buddhist monk, one of Buddha's disciples, urinating. And the way the guy was urinating, the person thought, I want to be a disciple of Buddha. Just the posture of the guy doing this normal, kind of ordinary human act, in this case of male urination, this intention to study with Buddha arose in the person.

[24:59]

So the intention to, for example, we have this thing called bodhicitta, the thought of enlightenment, which means the aspiration to attain enlightenment for the welfare of the world. So I want to help people. I want to help all people. And I want to attain enlightenment so I would be able to do that most effectively. That thought can arise in a person. That thought is not made by the person. The person doesn't make themselves want to be enlightened for the welfare of the world. Buddha doesn't make the person want to be enlightened for the welfare of the world. Otherwise, why wouldn't Buddhists go around and make everybody want to do that? Buddha can't do that. the thought of enlightenment, the wish to attain enlightenment, to help the world, to be most effective in this world, it arises in the communion between Buddha and living being. That's where it arises there.

[26:02]

You don't make it. Somebody else doesn't make it. Nobody else can do it for you. You can't do it by yourself. It arises in the communion between you and all things, including all enlightened things. It arises. That's how it arises. You don't make it, I don't make it, it arises in communion. But that's the way your consciousness arises too. You don't make your consciousness. You're a body, a sensuous body. When your sensuous body interacts with the world, consciousness arises. and also your past consciousness also. You have past consciousnesses, present body, and now present body stimulated by world, consciousness arises. You don't make that happen. The world doesn't make it happen. Your past consciousnesses don't make it happen. Your past consciousnesses, the whole world, particularly the part that's impinging on you now, and your sensuous turned-on body, that combination

[27:06]

supports the arising of your consciousness, and then your consciousness arises with an intention, which might be a vow. But you don't make that by yourself. If you meet a nice person, they're beautiful, they're inspiring, you want to be like them. Did they make you do it? No. Because some people they meet, it doesn't happen. We don't do anything by ourself, ever. And one of the things which, it's getting late now, I'll just say this and you can, we can work on tomorrow. Although you don't do anything yourself, by yourself, you are responsible for everything you do. You do do things, it's just that you're not, you don't do them by yourself, you do them with everybody. But you're responsible for the things you didn't do by yourself. However, Everybody else is responsible for what you do too, because they contributed to what you do.

[28:12]

And you're responsible for everything everybody does, because you contributed to that too. We're responsible for George Bush, Dick Cheney, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong, whatever it is. We're responsible for all the beings on this planet and beyond. and they're responsible for us. This is part of you love them, they love you, and it's part of you don't make your consciousness by yourself, everybody supports it, and you support everybody else's consciousness. There's no limit to your responsibility, and also there's nothing which you are solely responsible for. You are uniquely responsible, but not solely responsible. The way you're responsible for your being is different than the way I am responsible for your being. But you're not responsible by yourself. I'm responsible with you. All people are Buddha's children.

[29:19]

Buddha feels responsible for all her children. If you feel responsible for all beings, you're like Buddha. If you don't feel responsible for all beings, you're not like Buddha. If you want to help all beings, you want to help all beings but not be responsible for them? Forget it. Want to help your children without being responsible? No. Want to help your spouse without being responsible? Won't work. Want to help yourself without being responsible? Of course it won't work. And also, other people have to be that way towards you, otherwise you won't be fully happy. So you are all responsible for me, and I am responsible for all of you. And you're responsible for each other. And none of you makes yourself. You don't make yourself. The one difference between the situation is you do not make yourself at all. Only other people make you.

[30:21]

and nobody else makes themselves, you make them. You make them and they make you, but you don't make yourself and they don't make themselves. So one person who doesn't make you is you. And still you're responsible. You're responsible although you didn't contribute to the making of you, you're responsible in the two meanings of responsible. One meaning of responsible is you're able to respond. You're made a responsive being. So once you're made, you can respond to what has been made. And you will, and you do. And all of the beings you contribute to, you can also respond to them. So towards other people you're doubly responsible. You're responsible because you contribute, and you're responsible because you can respond. And you will. And you're responsible for living beings and non-living beings. You're responsible to the rain, to the sun.

[31:24]

In other words, you contribute to the sun and you contribute to the rain. And you do not make the sun by yourself or the rain by yourself. All of us together make the sun. And each of us individually respond to it. And we do the same thing with all living beings. This is another implication of interdependence. It's another implication of mutual, inconceivable love between all things. Does it make sense to you that Buddha cares for all beings? Does it make sense to you that Buddha feels responsible for all beings? So if you wish to become a Buddha, try that on. That's part of it. To gradually, gradually get used to being responsible for everybody. And if you can't quite accept that yet, just chalk it up to karmic hindrance and be patient with yourself.

[32:30]

Because karmic hindrance means you can't quite stand the idea of being responsible and loving to all people yet. And you can't quite believe that they're that way with you. And most of them will tell you that they agree, that they don't think they love you. But they're wrong if they say that. However, they're not wrong saying that they don't... They're wrong to say that they don't love you, but they're not wrong to say they don't feel that they love you. They're right that they don't feel that they love you because their feelings are what they, you know, their feelings are the feelings. But your feelings for things are not the fact of your relationship. Any other feedback for me today? Yes. Fear? Okay. Remind me to bring up how fear works with this.

[33:32]

Yes, that would be good. Anything else? I have something for tomorrow maybe. I just still am having trouble with that whole concept of this love existing even though people might deny it. I mean, to me it seems like there's the potential for it, but I don't see that it exists. I think that warring parties, for example, have the potential to make peace. Yes. but to me that's different than saying that peace already or love already exists between them. Okay. So he's saying the difference between love actually going on between us now and that there's a potential for love to be going on between us. Right. For example, in a family I can see that love exists even though there's conflicts, but in persons who don't, that have a more distant relationship, between each other, say ethnic differences, religious differences, and they're in conflict, I see the potential for peace or love.

[34:35]

But I don't know that that actually exists. Okay. We can look at that more. Yes? And also on that... Remind me, would you? I'm Carol. I'd like to ask you for tomorrow. My husband, your father, and I were discussing at lunch about about this little seed of perhaps feeling superior when you know that they love you, but they don't. Yes. There's a little one-up in there. Yes. So, put that into tomorrow. I think I can address that quickly. Well, I'll just quickly do it now and see if you want to do more tomorrow. In this work of looking at your own intention, and as you look more and more deeply, Okay? And finally you realize that you really do intend to benefit all beings and you feel like they do actually deeply intend to help you. You see that? But you see that they don't see that?

[35:36]

There's a precept in there which said, do not praise yourself at the expense of others. Yeah. So if in this, like, again, when I look at my grandson who does not think he loves me, even though I see he does, if I think I'm better than him because I see that, then I don't really understand that yet. So that precept is, you should check on that precept to see if you think you're at all better, superior to those who don't understand what you understand yet. In some sense, it often is the case, in a way, that the teacher understands certain things in math class that the student doesn't understand. And the teacher could think the teacher is better than the student. But the student also understands things the teacher doesn't understand. Like the student knows the teacher has bad breath. And the teacher doesn't know. Which is most important? Knowing math or being aware of bad breath? But if the teacher just knows the students don't understand how to do this, they don't see this yet, and I want to teach them this,

[36:43]

That's good. And the teacher loves for the students to see this. And the teacher has seen this. And the teacher knows that the students can see this. And the students sometimes don't think they'll ever be able to see this. And they're wrong. The teacher sometimes is right. And then they do see. And it's wonderful. But if the teacher thinks they're better than the students, this is not so good. especially in the area of mutual love. If we think we're better than those who don't yet see, this is self-righteousness. And therefore, we don't really see yet the mutuality. We don't fully realize it yet. Yeah. So the precepts help you check on yourself as you're doing this work. Yes? Being responsible for the person who doesn't see it I'm trying to help my wife, and she doesn't appreciate that. Well, that will take more discussion. We'll do that tomorrow. In the meantime, be very gentle with each other tonight, okay?

[37:45]

So that you'll be able to come back tomorrow. Yes? I think that same is true with reincarnation. And I haven't attended a retreat yet where the Dharma teacher was willing to talk about reincarnation. Having had a family member die recently, I'm really spending a lot of time thinking about that, and I'd really appreciate hearing it straight from the horse's mouth, what Buddhist concept we're thinking about reincarnation. Even if you want to just talk about it briefly and refer me to resources I can read. Uh-huh. Okay. I will say one thing, which is simple. If you want to, I do have a karma and rebirth reading list, which you can get from me by contacting my assistant, okay? And if tomorrow... Excuse me.

[38:52]

Yeah. I've got, like, maybe we should, like, finish the retreat and then have another retreat separate on karma and rebirth, you know? So it won't ruin this retreat by talking about karmic rebirth. Because people just love to talk about karmic rebirth, and they get so upset about it that it kind of can distract them from the more practical work. It's true, but it's also frustrating. Can you appreciate? I mean, I've done it for five years, and no one's willing to talk to me about it. Yeah. I have given classes on karmic rebirth. I have given retreats on karmic rebirth. And when that's what it's all about, and people are up for it, we can get into it. But I didn't want to derail the practice aspect of this study by getting into somewhat things that people can't see yet. But I will be willing to do it a little bit tomorrow at least, if you all evince a sufficient level of understanding. But I just want to make sure not to get you derailed from the basic meditation by this discussion.

[40:07]

But there is something I could say about it, probably, that might not be too problematic. And how do we contact your system? Do you have a website? Yeah, it's like, you know, it's called... I think it's like, what is it called? Zen Center. But isn't it, is it rebanderson.org? There's rebassistant at sfzc.org. And there also is that other one, too. Anything else for today? Well, for tomorrow, Rev, if we could talk about vow, intention and vow. That was part of what I think what Judy was always bringing up is when you're looking at the empirical state of consciousness which has an intention in it, which is a kind of vow at the moment,

[41:14]

How does vow-taking interface with your empirical state of consciousness, which has an intention to it? So I'll talk about that tomorrow. Is that enough for today? Let me say at the end, may our intention equally extend to every being in place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Thank you all.

[41:43]

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