A few days ago, I thought that is scheduled for next Sunday to talk about the day after the big election, and I had the feeling before the election that

[01:09]

the current administration would be re-elected, but then when I actually see it happen, and to contemplate the actual experience, that turns out to be a big thing. I actually really wanted to have a new administration, to see what that would be like, but it didn't happen. And I really appreciate, I really appreciate how much effort people made during this last year or so.

[02:14]

So, I really feel that it shows that people in America really do care. And the part that's a little bit difficult to open to is that 55 or 60 million people cared a lot, and they voted for the continuation of this administration. And 55 million or whatever cared a lot and voted for a change. But actually, all together, 110 million people really cared, plus many people who can't vote, really care. People really do care about their families, and this country, and the world. But we have really different views about how to express that care, and what really benefits the world.

[03:20]

Thank you. And also, about today, my mother died. So, many things come together at once, and they kind of relate, everything kind of relates to this ceremony on Sunday. The ceremony is about how to relate to loss, how to relate to impermanence, and how to help people, help beings who are kind of having a hard time relating to impermanence.

[04:20]

There are so many issues involved in this country's activity, but I heard a person on the radio today who I have met before, he used to be in the Koan class, at least came a few times to the Koan class. He's a very sincere academic linguist and philosopher at Berkeley. And I heard him say several years ago, and I heard him say again today, that people do have kind of like deep feelings and deep values in their body and mind. And depending on our background, we have somewhat different values. And he said he feels, and he said this ten years ago, he feels like the Republican Party has tapped into a certain value that exists in the American psyche, the American society.

[05:41]

And they found a way to express that, in kind of an organized way. Although they have a lot of difference in the party, they found some place where they can agree, a certain value that they can agree on. And not everybody in the country has that value. As a matter of fact, probably most people in the country do not have those values. But there hasn't developed a political voice, an organized political voice to express this other type of value. And it would be natural for the Democratic Party to speak this other deep value. And what he characterizes the value as, is family values. And one type of family value is the family value of the strict father. It's the family value of the Roman Empire, actually.

[06:45]

Rome was built on a very powerful head of the family. But there's another family value, which can be called the family value of nurturing parents. So if you have boys, you nurture them. If you have girls, you nurture them. If you have Republicans, you nurture them. If you have Democrats, you nurture them. If you have homosexuals, you nurture them. You also can adopt children from other countries. So now, California is a place where gazillions of Chinese and Korean girls are being brought from Asia, because somebody wants to nurture these girls who aren't theirs, who aren't of their race, and they want to nurture these babies.

[07:49]

And in a nurturing family, you let people be different. You may disagree with them, but you nurture them anyway. And that value, actually, is shared by many, many people in this country. A lot of people share it. But the political voice to express it, according to this linguist, George Lakoff, has not been developed. It's not an organized message. So that's what needs to be done. This is a big job that we can all help to develop. Without that voice, the Republican, the strict father, the strict father voice is out there. Certainty. Resolve. Not wavering. It's done this way.

[08:52]

Not apologizing to the kids. That's a certain family value that a lot of people grew up in, and they like it. Even though they disagree with the father, they like that. Rather than somebody who is expressing something else which isn't clear, which can sound like flip-flopping, wavering. But it's possible for someone to stand up, man or woman, and say very clearly, very strongly, I'm here to protect beings, and this is how I'm going to do it. And I'm going to protect all beings. And I'm going to listen to the beings. And I'm going to let them disagree with me. And so on. That voice can get clear, and it can come out of the mouths of politicians, but they need help. Anyway, that's a job ahead of us. And now we have this very dangerous situation

[09:54]

of having in the eyes of somebody, somebody acting from the gut, which is fine, but with a head that thinks that it's divinely empowered. That combination is extremely dangerous. about half the country is very concerned that we may be heading for a disaster. And, so, in some sense, some people who care for something have been successful and victorious, and some people care about something have been defeated and lost. And to a great extent,

[10:54]

it's the people who live in cities who lost and the people who live in the country who won. Like in Ohio, the whole state is red except for all the cities, all the big cities except for Cincinnati. And all the major, all the parts of the country which are basically one huge city, they all, you know, in California, we know we have to nurture diversity. We know that we have to protect Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and Confucianists and Daoists and Christians, but in the middle of the country it's not so clear that everybody shouldn't just line up

[11:54]

and be Christian. So we have this real difficult situation. As I've been stressing so far in this practice period, when we enter into the practice of Buddha, we enter into practicing together. As the person enters the practice of Buddha, the person enters the practice of practicing together. So it is normal in Zen practice, although it has not been emphasized very strongly, at the beginning of any religious practice it is normal to invoke, to invite the presence of the Buddhas and ancestors to come and be present

[12:57]

and then enter the presence of all the Buddhas and sit or walk or chant or work or meditate or bow or study or make offerings within the understanding of the invoked presence of unlimited nurturing spirit. But the practice is done in an invocational space. It's not done by a person by himself in the world. That's what most people innately think the world is, is a place where they exist by themselves and where they're trying to get other people to help them rather than already we live together and we act

[13:57]

in the midst of that understanding and in the beginning of the ceremony on Sunday the beginning of the ceremony at the beginning of the chanting we invoke the presence of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas and then the the basic practice of the ceremony I feel it is the practice of giving. We invoke the presence of the Buddhas and ancestors all the Bodhisattvas to come and be with us and then we actually then we invite in particular we invite any beings who have some resistance to impermanence to death to change any beings

[15:00]

that are addicted to distractions from truth and in particular beings who you know really want to receive the truth but are resisting it really want to receive the truth of interdependence and impermanence but are resisting it and we try to find some way to encourage them to come and then we basically give them we give them we give we feed them we feed them but basically the spirit we feed them we don't know exactly what to feed them but the feeling is we'd like to give you whatever you can accept we understand that you're having trouble accepting

[16:00]

everything we understand that you're suffering because it's hard to accept everything it's hard to accept the truth but we want to give you something that you can accept we're kind of like groping in the dark to offer you things you might be able to accept we have some hints from tradition about sounds we can make or smells we can offer or food we can offer and tastes we can offer and touches we can offer that maybe you could accept but the main thing is we want to give you something you can accept so you can open your mouth open your mind open your throat we're invoking the presence of the Buddhas

[17:01]

and ancestors to guide us to make a good offering an offering which will work for all of you we don't know what it will be but maybe then since we don't know what it can be since we're not telling you what the offering is maybe it will be just what you want in the confidence if people can start opening up and receiving something then they can receive something more so this is a concentrated ceremony but actually all of Zen Center is a little like a big ongoing feeding spirits Zen Center Green Gulch is a kind of feeding spirits Zen Center we have the garden for people who can't accept the Zen Do they say

[18:01]

oh Zen yuck looks like strict father yikes got to do everything right to a no black sticks all day give me a break but they have a really nice garden and they have organic farm when they make you know wonderful salads you can go there and eat this wonderful salads and wonderful bread it's so good and they come and they open to it and they let the bread in they let the salad in they let the flowers in they let the landscape in and they let they let it in and then they think oh maybe the Zen is not so bad maybe I'll go in there someday and Tassara too you know the guest season making really good food what do they say

[19:04]

the fastest way to a man's heart is through his stomach they don't say the fastest way to a man's gut is through his stomach the heart actually the heart but it's not so much through the stomach it's through giving the fastest way to people's heart is through giving if we can open people's heart through giving then we can open then their heart can open to the Dharma which is the best medicine the best food but if their if their throats are tiny they can't open to the Dharma we have to help them give them something they can something they can go through and open it a little bit and then later we can start putting a little bit of Dharma in there we don't go up to people

[20:05]

who are sick and say the first truth of Buddhism is suffering we don't go to people who are dying in the hospital and say everything's impermanent we go first of all and we give them something we bring them sweet flowers and sweet smiles and pizza or nice books children we bring them something and then while they're in the hospital maybe they do open to impermanence and the Dharma starts flowing but we start with what they can receive and then they trust those who give and if those people are have Dharma too they say could you tell me a little Dharma do you have some Dharma too and yeah as a matter of fact they do it's right here in my heart here here's some Dharma also

[21:06]

thank you and I was just thinking today you know usually in the ceremonies in Japan and also Zen Center in San Francisco we used to do a [...]

[22:08]

a [...] more like a table, and then there's memorial plaques to all the people that we want to specifically relate to, people we know, people that we've known, their name plaques are in the back on their altar. But there's a central plaque which means to all beings in the three worlds of world, known and unknown, of conditions and beyond conditions, they put that big plaque in the center. But usually there's not pictures of bodhisattvas back there. And I thought well but in our Zen dojo we have Jizo back there and I don't want to move Jizo for this ceremony. Is it a problem for Jizo to have that there? And I thought well maybe not because Jizo is the bodhisattva that goes to hell, and goes to hungry ghost land, and goes to animal realms, goes to all the realms of woe to help people, so maybe it's okay. And the point

[23:16]

of not having the buddhas there, bodhisattvas by this altar, it's not because the buddhas or bodhisattvas are offended by these kind of below average Zen students, below average dharma students, the ones who aren't really open to the dharma, it's not that they're offended by them, it's rather I think that we don't want to scare these beings by having the big buddhas there. It's more to protect them from the immense kindness of the buddhas which they kind of like, I don't want that, don't give me the big kindness, I want a little one, just a little candy please. They don't want the buddha's whole love. So I hope that Jizo doesn't frighten them. We're going to put the big plaque in front of Jizo so that some got hidden behind there. And the names of the big tatagathas are up on the walls

[24:21]

but not pictures of them, not statues of them, just the names. These beings aren't into reading Chinese at this time. But this is who is really here, really the buddhas are all here with us. We kind of downplay that at the start and just give them what they want and then if they want to open to this huge presence that we invite to come to the ceremony, which is happy to come to the ceremony, that's their business, but they don't have to meet the big buddhas when they come, they don't want to. So in that way I feel okay about having the offerings made in front of the big bodhisattva. I hope it's okay. But I wanted to show you so I was kind of concerned about that. So all of us can have that feeling of we don't know what you need, we don't know what you want, we don't know what you can accept. We would

[25:26]

like to give you whatever you can accept, whatever would help you open up your throat and be less afraid of the truth. And if sugar helps you be less afraid of the truth, if a teddy bear helps you be less afraid of the truth, if funny sounds help you be less afraid of the truth, if sweet mantras help you be less afraid of the truth, we offer you these things. But if you don't like what we're offering, just know that really we'd like to give you something. You can all feel that way and share in that feeling of generosity. I heard that the beings are even kind of afraid of the eyes, if our human eyes are open and they extend so much light that it's already like intimidating for them. So are you suggesting sunglasses?

[26:26]

Looking down. And also, of course, one can mention that in our own hearts, any part of ourselves that feels a little bit, well, like now, you know, I think a lot of us just can barely stand what's happening in this country. It's very hard for us to feel. But, you know, I think it's hard for us to stay awake now. If things had gone differently, we might feel like, I'm awake, this is fine, I can be awake for this. But it's hard to be awake for this situation, it's hard to be awake for this danger. So, is there any way we can help each other be awake? And basically, my feeling is, can we get up off the ground, dust ourselves off, and go back to work? The very work which we hoped the government could help us with more

[27:36]

but continue with the same work of finding a way to protect and nurture life. So part of what's going on too is that, you know, the origins of this ceremony is that the Buddha's disciple, the Buddha had two chief disciples. One was Shariputra, and the other one was Madgalyayana. And Madgalyayana's special ability was supernatural powers, psychic powers. And his mother died, so he actually could see his mother in states of woe, and he could see that her particular problem was she couldn't receive any nourishment because she had come to be in a situation where nothing would satisfy her. So she couldn't open to

[28:44]

what was nourishing. And he told the Buddha about his vision, and the Buddha said, yes, your mother is in this hungry ghost realm. And so then, in conjunction with their spiritual power, the ceremony we did a few days ago, the monthly Upasata ceremony, or Fusatsu, Fusatsu is Upasata, Japanese way of saying Upasata is Fusatsu. So we do this ceremony, and they did it back in the Buddhist times. So in connection with the Fusatsu ceremony, the Buddha did a ceremony to help Madgalyayana feed his mother, send his nurturing intention to his mother. And then that ceremony has now been transmitted along with the other

[29:47]

ceremony to the present. So now my mother has died, and I do not yet, it is today, so I do not yet see what her situation is. She had a stroke on Monday, and then she went to the hospital, and she was not accepting. She was really not accepting the situation. And she kind of knew that the next step would be now that she wouldn't be able to go back to her apartment. And you know, she was still having a pretty good time, because she liked to eat and smoke. She's 89 and she likes to smoke. She has emphysema, but she likes to smoke. And she likes to watch TV, and she likes to read books. She was having

[30:55]

pretty good time. But when she got to the hospital, she really didn't like being there, and she got really angry. And she waited until my brother came to visit, and then she decided to pull out the intravenous stuff and create a big bloody mess for my brother to watch. And I don't know exactly what the response to that was, but then the next day she was calm. The next two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, she was calm, very calm. And yeah, my brother had a nice time with her. And I said, did she say goodbye? And he said, yes, she did. And she said, tell Rabbi, I love him. So at the end, that's pretty good. So maybe she won't

[32:03]

be going to Hungry Ghost, I don't know. But she will be honored in the ceremony on Sunday. My brother was the one who really took care of her, because he lived right, he teaches in school, the school is right across the street from the hospital. So he went for a while there, he was seeing her every day for a while, for years, many years. So he's the one who really took care of her. But it was hard for her to not take him for granted, which of course is not good, to take somebody for granted who is being devoted to you. But she kind of couldn't keep up, she couldn't stay on the beam of appreciating him. So not too

[33:05]

long ago, he talked to my wife, and she doesn't remember this, but she suggested to him, he thinks, that he just visits her less often. So he started doing that. And then she told me that he was doing that, and she didn't like it, and she didn't understand why he was doing it. But in fact, she didn't take him for granted anymore. Every time he came, she realized, oh my God, this is great, my son, how wonderful. And they had nice meetings. She could stay on the beam of, oh my God, this is my son, wonderful. You know, once or twice a week, but not every day. And also, when I visited, I visited not for very long, and she said, one of the nice things about your visiting is you don't stay long enough for me to get bored with you. It's kind of like, oh my God, he's here, he's here, how wonderful. I was kind of what he called the candy son, because when I went to see her, I kind of,

[34:11]

you know, that's all I had to do, was be with her. I wasn't carrying on the rest of my life there. So when I came to visit, it's kind of like me with my grandson, whatever she wanted to do, she could do. All the things that nobody else would have time to take her to do, I could take her, she could do. She could go all these places that otherwise she wouldn't be able to go to. And yes, that's what I did. And it was, I had my own, I had to feed myself too, so I could open to that experience. Just last time I went to visit there, she had quite a few things she wanted to do that she hadn't been able to do. One of them was to go to this grocery store, where usually she orders things from this grocery store by the telephone, but this time she got to go with me and see the place. So I took her there. This is a long story, but this is part of the ceremony of my mom. So we're walking,

[35:35]

we get near the store and she's walking with me, I'm supporting her with my arm, but even that gets to be too hard for her, so she sits down in a chair outside the store, and I go in and get a cart, a little electric cart that they have in the store. And I'm going to the store, you know, me going to the store, right? I'm going into the grocery store and I go over to this guy and I said, actually first I go to this woman and I said, do you have these electric carts? And she said, yeah, they're over there. So I go over there and I see this guy and I said, can I use this cart? And this guy looks like, really scared. I say, can I use this cart? And he says something, I don't know what he says, and I said, can I use the cart? And he says, what are you asking me, sir? And I said, I'm asking you if I can use this cart. And he says, yeah. So I get in the cart and I drive

[36:40]

out to get my mother, and she gets in, and then she drives the cart, and we drive in, and then we drive into that area where that guy is, and she's driving and she makes some comment to him. And what she says to him was, you know, he's working in the vegetable section, she says, this is really a nice display you have here, she says. But all this guy sees is this 89-year-old person driving this cart and this other guy who he's already afraid of, and he kind of goes, what? And I said, she says you have a nice display. And he goes, okay. He was terrified of me, plus her, is quite a combination. She's motorized, indoors, and she has a tendency to speed on these things. Then we go to another section

[37:42]

where they have all kinds of like, the delicatessen, where they have like various kinds of jello dishes. This is like, this is Minnesota, right? And the person who works in this place is not afraid of her. This woman's not afraid of her. And she's like, she's going to feed my mother and no matter what, she's going to like help my mother eat. She's not afraid. And it's very nice. My mother gets a lot of stuff. And she's very happy. And then we go get some other stuff and some other stuff. And finally she says, stop me. I'm getting, I'm getting, I've gotten enough. She said, if I try to stop again, don't let me. So then we're driving along and she starts, let's go over there. I said, you told me to stop. No, I shouldn't have told you. She keeps trying. We didn't get that much, but she was really

[38:48]

happy to get all that stuff. And so we got home and she really liked it. And then other things happened, you know, but for me, it was me, my ceremony of feeding me was doing that and then doing other things. And little by little I could open up more and more to her world, her world, which includes going out and having smoking dates with other people. After a while, I was actually like, I wasn't resisting. I was out there, you know, on the smoking dates. And I was like one of the, one of the, not I wasn't smoking, but I was like one of the group, you know, I wasn't, you know, it was great. I finally got my sea world of old people who smoke cigarettes. And this is a book, which is not my mom's book.

[40:03]

It's called mom's. This is called a little big book, a little big, a little big book for moms. It's what the book's called. And it's, it's a book for moms to read to their kids. So it's got Jack and the Beanstalk. Want to hear it? It's got Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella and it's got poems and nursery rhymes. So my, my wife has given me a special dispensation to tell you not only, not only tell you something that she told me, but to tell you that she told me and also to tell you that she gave me a dispensation. It's a triple special dispensation. And she was talking to her supervisor this morning and they were talking about this situation and they were, you know, they're very concerned,

[41:07]

she and her supervisor. My supervisor, by the way, grew up a couple blocks from me in Minneapolis. I didn't know him at the time, but he lived just up the street from me, about six years older. So they were talking and, and then he just said, while they were talking, he said, quoted this poem called If by Rudyard Kipling. It is the most popular poem in England. And of course, so therefore it's a little bit, you know, not the greatest, right? Because it's so popular. And it's something of a cliche. So excuse me. But anyway, he quoted it. Anybody have any reading glasses? I do. Thank you. You're welcome.

[42:07]

So what he quoted was. Well, he didn't quote this whole thing, but maybe I'll just, I'll just say what he quoted. He said, watch things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools. If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.

[43:10]

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait, not be tired by waiting or being lied about, don't deal in lies or being hated. Don't give way to hating and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise. If you can dream and not make your dreams your master. If you can think and not make your thoughts your aim. If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.

[44:22]

If you can bear to hear the truth spoken by, spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools. Or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools. If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss. And lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone.

[45:25]

And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them hold on. If you can talk with cowards and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch. If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you. If all men count with you but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distant run. Yours is the earth and everything that's in it. And which is more you will be a man my son. The ceremony on Sunday is to help everybody be alive and fresh.

[46:34]

Help everybody be alive and fresh including each of us. To help us let go of anything that hinders our full self expression. And help others have the same full self expression. And to be patient if we feel hindered and find something we can open to. The power is not distributed the way it seems best to some of us. But it's the same practice for all of us.

[47:40]

It's the same practice of offering what can be offered to help people open to the truth. And to receive what can be received in order to open to the truth. I think we're all, not all of us, but I guess many of us are in a state of grief now. And opening to the grief is good. That will help us become ready to meet our life anew and fresh. I don't know what as a group or individually we need to do our grieving now.

[48:48]

And perhaps like at the time of 9-11 we feel, what we call, we feel our connection to people who experience violence. And now I think again we can feel our connection to those who stood in line in big cities after work yesterday late into the night. Because they wanted to have a change but are now perhaps feeling defeat and frustration and apathy and maybe wanting to go to sleep and wake up in four years. There's any way we can accept all that and find a way to be awake and experience the difficult to experience.

[50:21]

So part of me imagines we just would like to just get together and wail and that may be good to do. But I went ahead and gave a talk tonight anyway. I hope it was alright. My mother said she did not want a ceremony.

[51:35]

She didn't want people to get together and cry. She said she just wanted people to maybe get together and go out to dinner and have fun. That's all she wanted. I said, okay, we'll do that. And she didn't want people to talk about her and I said, well what if it's fun to talk about you? Can we tell funny stories and enjoyable stories? And she said, oh, maybe that's okay. So when my brother and sister are ready, we'll have a party for each other and my mom will feel okay about that. And the ceremony this week, it won't be all about her, so she can join her friends on Sunday.

[52:45]

Her great-grandson doesn't know yet about this, but tonight I'll tell him, see what that means to him. Last night I took care of him at his house in San Francisco because his mother had to go to Los Angeles to look into some schools for him. So he may be moving away from me. Last night he said to me, granddaddy, are you old?

[53:57]

That's what we were talking about, that when people are 100 they die. So when people are 100, do they die? And I said, usually, yeah. So then he turned to me and said, are you old? I said, yeah, I am. Please take care of yourself so that you can take care of everybody. Please get the nurturing that you need so you can nurture others.

[55:06]

So in some sense, yesterday or today was the end of a possibility. But tomorrow is another day. And the Sufi poet says, the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You have to say what you really want. Please say what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. I know it's hard, but don't go back to sleep.

[56:26]

People are walking back and forth at the threshold where the two worlds meet. Is that the Republican world and the Democrats? The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. Good night, Mommy's book. I am

[57:36]

a true way. I love you. [...]

[58:19]

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