You know, I'd love it on these Wednesday night talks if everybody would come a little closer and be a little more intimate in this group. One of the things we like to do in practice period is to cultivate a little intimacy within this group, so it feels better not to have quite so much separation. So we've been looking together at this teaching called A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, the Bodhisattva Charyavatara, and I think that I mentioned some last week, sort

[01:07]

of different flavor, different taste of the Tibetan style of teaching and the Zen style of teaching. A number of years ago, a Tibetan teacher named Taratuka Rinpoche and a Zen teacher named Katagiri Roshi gave a ten day retreat teaching at Grungalch, Taratuka Rinpoche in the morning, teaching us the Lam Rim practice, which is actually very much what is presented here, this gradual approach, the path of preparation, which the Dalai Lama speaks of briefly in

[02:08]

this chapter, the second chapter of his commentary, where he talks about, well, first he talks about the benefits of bodhicitta and then he talks about sort of preparing to make our commitment to this mind of awakening and the preparation, he goes through all this offering and purifications, this seven branch prayer, the homages and the offerings and the taking refuge and confession and, you know, these many steps of preparation and so this is what Taratuka Rinpoche was teaching us, this whole long preparation of the mind for acquiring this

[03:16]

great attitude or mind, this very fortunate and beneficial attitude of mind called bodhicitta. And then in the afternoon, Katagiri Roshi was giving lectures on Zen and at a certain point Taratuka Rinpoche said something like, Zen begins from the beginning with non-duality and in our tradition we begin with this whole gradual path and we arrive finally at non-duality. For us non-duality is a very advanced practice and I thought I would give you another example of that in the Zen teaching of Hui Hai, translated by John Blofeld and so this was a great Dong

[04:24]

dynasty Zen teacher and there's a question and answer going on in which someone approaches Hui Hai and asks him, you know, what is the entrance, by what means can the gateway of our school be entered? And Hui Hai said, by means of Dhanaparamita. Dhanaparamita, if you may remember, is the first of the six perfections of the Bodhisattva, it's the perfection of giving or generosity and the monk says, well what do you mean Dhanaparamita, I mean there's six paramitas, why do you say Dhanaparamita, you know, what about the others? And Hui Hai says, to me the people fail to understand that the other five all proceed from the Dhanaparamita and that by its practice all the others are fulfilled. Why is it called Dhanaparamita?

[05:27]

Dhana means relinquishment. Relinquishment of what? Relinquishment of the dualism of opposites. It means the total relinquishment of ideas as to the dual nature of good and bad, being and non-being, love and aversion, void and non-void, concentration and distraction, pure and impure. By giving all of them up we attain to a state in which all opposites are seen as void. The real practice of the Dhanaparamita entails achieving this state without any thought of, now I see that opposites are void, well now I have relinquished them all. Has that ever happened to you? You have some really nice insight or some moment of very settled, quiet, concentrated

[06:35]

zazen and you think, oh, I am experiencing samadhi. Has that ever happened to you? Oh, I have had a great insight. Pop! Goes the bubble, doesn't it? You are really dropping. Pop! Goes the bubble. I mean, immediately we have set up this dualism now of I and the experience. Or I and some other poor jerk who hasn't had this great experience. Or anyhow, some kind of dualism has been set up by that thought. And my experience is that when that happens, whatever that marvelous state of mind was, it goes poof. So to relinquish all dualism without the thought, oh, now I have relinquished them. We may also call it the simultaneous cutting off of the myriad types of concurrent causes. For it is when these are cut off that the whole Dharma nature becomes void.

[07:50]

And this voidness of the Dharma nature means the non-dwelling of the mind upon anything whatsoever. It doesn't say not thinking of anything. The non-dwelling of the mind on anything whatever. We don't grasp on to thoughts. Once that state is achieved, not a single form can be discerned. Why? Because our self nature is immaterial and does not contain a single thing foreign to itself. That which contains no single thing is true reality, the marvelous form, the Tathagata. It is said in the Diamond Sutra, those who relinquish all forms are called Buddhas. So this is again a kind of a demonstration of, actually this is called the Zen teaching of Hui Hai on sudden illumination.

[08:56]

This is sort of the sudden school. You get thrown into the water and see if you can swim. Now we get introduced to non-duality from the very beginning in this tradition. And if you look at Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind with some care, you will find in every lecture Suzuki Roshi makes some reference to non-duality. Even when he's giving instruction on sitting posture, you may remember he talks about, well when you sit full lotus you put your right leg on your left thigh and your left leg on your right thigh. And when you're sitting this way, there's no telling which side is which. There's no distinction between left and right. But this is a very compassionate approach just right now to drop all distinctions and enter into the mind of the Tathagata.

[10:22]

But it's also a very compassionate approach to give some guidance about, well if we can't find a way to do that, somehow we just can't kind of jump off the hundred foot pole quite yet. Is there something we can do in the meantime? Well, yes, we can really attend to what are all of the great benefits of cultivating this mind of awakening called Bodhicitta. What are the ways of preparing our mind to arrive at this auspicious state of mind? We can make prostrations. We can make many prostrations which are an antidote to pride and arrogance.

[11:31]

We can pay homage to all of those who have tread this path before us and shown us the way. We can make offerings. We can offer flowers, incense, light, the whole vast blue sky and all of the flowers of the fields and the entire universe to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. And the Dalai Lama says, how can you do that? How can you offer something that you don't own? Well, all of it is created by the collective karma of all of us here, so we participate in all of it. So we can offer it all. And then we take refuge in the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha.

[12:39]

And in this taking refuge, the Dalai Lama points out something that I'd like to call to your attention. How many of you have been reading this commentary of the Dalai Lama's, The Flash of Lightning and The Dark of Night? I really recommend it. It's a very delightful book, as most of his writing is. He talks about concerning the refuge in the Buddha. The Dalai Lama opens his compendium of logic thus. He has become authentic and knows how to help beings. I prostrate to the Buddha, the Sugata, the protector. And the Dalai Lama says, we mean by authentic one who is free from suffering and fear, and who knows how to free others.

[13:42]

He helps all beings impartially and with great compassion, protecting all in need. He did not, however, appear spontaneously and without any cause, like an eternal creator. He has not always been authentic. He has become an authentic refuge as a result of definite causes and conditions, chiefly his desire to help others. When the Buddha himself was an ordinary being, wanting to be happy and to avoid suffering, he realized that these feelings were shared by all others. And he was moved by great compassion to free them from sorrow. And bring about their happiness. So he has become authentic. The Buddha, overwhelmed by compassion, saw how beings suffered, and knowing that the cause of their suffering was the uncontrolled turbulence of their minds,

[14:47]

he knew how to help them. He knew that their minds were uncontrolled ultimately because of ignorance. The mistaken belief in the reality of things. He knew too how to counteract this with the wisdom of emptiness. For a Buddha is one who knows how to help beings by showing them what they should do and what they should avoid, and above all, who reveals to them the wisdom of realizing emptiness. Zen And so, in the Zen school, the teacher just says, that's how it is, give up all duality

[15:52]

and recognize the voidness of all conditioned things. And in the Tibetan tradition, there is more preparation to that, and more explanation, and more logical foundation. Someone in the discussion group this afternoon was saying, even though I was reading this and he was saying, you have to be attentive every moment, and be careful every moment, and watch your mind every moment. I can't do that, and it just makes it harder for me, and this is not helpful, this is really hard. And I think we have to look at, we need to look at this advice from the Dalai Lama, or from Shantideva, or from the Buddha's teaching altogether, not as, you have to,

[16:54]

you've got to do it, you're bad if you don't do it, and just add something, just add more pain to yourself. This is just advice from people who have practiced this practice, and who have found it to be helpful, and who are recommending it to us, because they have found it to be helpful. Because the Buddha found that recognizing the emptiness of all conditioned things, recognizing the non-substantiality of the self that we cling to, alleviated suffering for himself, he recommends it to others. Because the Dalai Lama has taken up this practice

[17:57]

of carefulness and attentiveness, and watching the mind constantly, so as to not entertain negative emotions when they arise. And to do it so carefully that in the long run they don't even arise. Because we've seen through the basis of them, which is self-clinging. He's not saying you have to do this, do it because I say so. As a matter of fact he says, don't do it because I say so. Don't do it because you respect the Buddha. Try it and see if it alleviates suffering. Try it and see if your mind is more calm, and if with this more calm mind your life seems more joyful.

[18:59]

Ed Brown tells the story of going to Suzuki Roshi and complaining about the shortcomings of the people who were working with him in the kitchen. He was the first Tenzo at Tassajara. And Suzuki Roshi said, why don't you try to see virtue in the people that you're working with? And Ed says, how can I? We're now always doing all these dumb things. And he said, Ed, to see virtue you have to have a calm mind. So I think what we're being taught in this text is to alleviate suffering you need a calm mind. And for that reason we're attentive and careful

[20:03]

and guarding our mind. Not because somebody says it's good. You know, those negative emotions are called negative because they result in suffering. Not because of any narrow judgment on them, they result in suffering. I was talking last week some about patience and taking care when anger arises. And the Buddha in one of the earliest teachings, the Dhammapada, says, what we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow.

[21:06]

Our life is the creation of our mind. If one speaks or acts with an impure mind suffering follows as the wheel of the cart follows the beast that draws the cart. What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is the creation of our mind. If a person speaks or acts with a pure mind joy follows as his own shadow. He insulted me, he hurt me, he defeated me, he robbed me. Those who dwell on such thoughts will not be free from hate. He insulted me, he hurt me, he defeated me, he robbed me. Those who dwell not on such thoughts will be free from hate.

[22:09]

For hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal. Many do not know that we are here in this world to live in harmony. Those who know this do not fight against each other. And in the Chronicle last week there was an article, there was a column John Carroll was on vacation and Donna Britt wrote wrote in his space. How many of you saw it? Forgiveness begins with disarming rage. It's a very, very impressive column

[23:12]

and in spite of the fact that I was told not to read I'm going to read it anyhow. Last week I was moved and challenged by two black women's extraordinary forgiveness. I mean, what would you do if the condemned prisoner who murdered your child and your cousin was facing the board that could spare his life? What would you do if your transgressor wasn't a person but an entire race that you believed had grievously wounded not only you but millions like you? For many, both answers are simple. Anything but forgive. Constance Mitchell, mother of a young murder victim would disagree. For author Patricia Rabin who silently raged for years against white people forgiveness was the only sane choice.

[24:15]

In 1981 Mitchell's son Albert Pearson, 20 and her cousin Willie Fred, 54 and four others were shot to death in Rockville, Illinois by Ray Lee Stewart during a six-day killing rampage. Days before Stewart's September 18th execution Mitchell told officials he should be spared. She explained to the Chicago Tribune that she had to forgive Stewart for my own sake. For her sake. It's the only way you can be healed, explained Mitchell, 63 whose correspondence with her son's remorseful killer led to her conversion. You have to find that peace that was taken from you. Nobody wants to deal with forgiveness. Daily we try and often fail

[25:20]

to pardon imagined slights, hurtful words just imagine forgiving as Mitchell did is exhausting. But as shocking as it might be to white people doing what Rabin did, forgiving them may be just as hard for some blacks to imagine. Once Rabin couldn't imagine it herself. In her book, My First White Friend which has sold 20,000 copies since its May publication the journalist turned college professor describes the hatred of white people that simmered beneath her smiling facade. It was an itch I'd picked at so long I was bloody in my soul, she said. Millions of blacks are so bloody from, as Rabin puts it, knowing the names and dates and numbers of white folks' crimes. From reliving curses, spiteful stares

[26:22]

and stolen opportunities. From fuming about generations-old lynchings and some folks' current denial of racism's very existence. But while people in this country of every shade can respect a mother's grief and her heroism in forgiving can anyone who isn't black fathom black rage? Can they imagine its relentlessness the time, health, and peace of mind it consumes? Can they understand how laughable forgiveness may look in the face of such rage? Rabin, 47, understood. But in a recent phone interview, she said she could no longer bear hating people with whom I share a nation. It wasn't hurting them. It was killing me. I literally got on my knees and prayed. God, I can't see a way out, she recalled.

[27:27]

Right away, I began to get clarity. From forgiveness lessons I'd learned as a child. Love your enemy. Don't repay evil with evil. Put away all bitterness. Soon it was clear. All my life, I'd pointed at white people saying you need to fix you. But to change your world, you start with yourself. Reacting with love means acknowledging white people as individuals, good and bad. Reacting with love, Rabin says, can make you a really good racial warrior, such as King, Mandela, and Gandhi. Warriors who conquered impossible odds. Forgiveness isn't letting people off the hook. Forgiveness isn't letting people off the hook, she says. It's saying, I'm not going to judge you now by the hurt you did to me in the past.

[28:30]

Rabin still gets angry. But most days, quote, I look on the world with the understanding that through my willingness to forgive the shortcomings of others, I begin making peace with my own. In truth, it's the only way you can be healed. So this for me is an example, you know, that in Christianity as well, there are all of these teachings of patience. Turn the other cheek. Turn the other cheek. And we look at these teachings and we say, that's too hard, I can't do that.

[29:34]

She must be kidding. It's not serious. This is what I remember very distinctly feeling when I first read Shantideva's talking about you should really cherish an enemy because only by having a good enemy can you cultivate the practice of patience, the paramita of patience. And I thought, he's got to be kidding. And when we read about Jesus saying, turn the other cheek, we say, well, he's got to be kidding. Not all the time. Not this time, surely. He didn't mean it about this. And this is the conversation that we had at the monastic inter-religious encounter at Gethsemane about, well, surely anger is appropriate in the face of injustice.

[30:34]

I think I spoke of this conversation last week where there was quite a conversation about well, there must be times when anger is appropriate and the Dalai Lama and some of the other Buddhist teachers saying no, no, anger is always an affliction. It's always a suffering. It's never helpful. And I talk about this and then he handed the microphone to Maha Goswami Nanda who was there and he said, when you know suffering, you know Nirvana. And this is how I read this story. It's the earliest way to get back the peace that was taken from me. I mean, here are these women who are

[31:37]

who have to, you know, who are driven to extremis by their suffering, by their anger, by their rage, by their wanting revenge. And it's not killing them, it's killing me. And then they turn to what they learned in Sunday school. Then they turn to what the Buddha teaches in the very first teaching that we know of, the Dhammapada. In your own experience, look at your own suffering. Stay close to it. Don't turn away from it by blaming others. Look at your own suffering

[32:40]

and see what you need to do. Use your own experience. And try out the advice of those who have gone before. See if they're trustworthy. In in Karagiri Roshi's book, Returning to Silence, he speaks of Dhanaparamita. He speaks of Dhanaparamita. He said, well, a monk doesn't give material things.

[33:47]

A monk gives fearlessness. And I think there's a close there's a close association to giving up our self-clinging and giving up our clinging to dualities, to looking at the world as self and other, as good and bad, as right and wrong, but mainly as me and not me. That duality in particular is very potent. There's a great connection between that and fear or fearlessness. Generally speaking, in my experience,

[34:47]

when fear arises, it has to do with protecting this substantial separate being that I call I from some real or imagined danger. Often fear, more often for me than not, fear has to do with some imagined danger, some what-if kind of thought. In the face of real and immediate danger, my own experience has been that I act without thinking about it. And the fear comes later when I think what might have happened. I don't know if any of you have a similar experience of meeting a real and immediate danger

[35:49]

with just kind of total concentration on what's happening and just doing what's necessary, and then what's all over, just kind of breaking down and falling apart. Very often, I don't know, I mean, I don't know, well, I must say all the time, but very often fear is about projecting into the future some possible danger or some possible fearful outcome. But if we're staying very close to our present moment experience, fear is not so likely. to encumber us and cloud our judgment. So another way of looking at Dāna Pāramitā is the giving of fearlessness.

[36:50]

And the Dalai Lama characterizes the Buddha as one who is without fear. How many of you... It happened that... Well, I guess most of you who were here at the tea did not see the Jim Lehrer news hour tonight, but there was a 15-minute segment on this Ghasthamini encounter. I've asked somebody to tape it for me so maybe I can pass the tape around. It's mostly of the Dalai Lama and Brother David Standelrast, I'm told. Somebody here heard it this afternoon, I guess. It's on NPR at three o'clock in the afternoon. But one of the things that gives me confidence in the Dalai Lama and the Dalai Lama's teaching

[37:58]

as it gave me confidence in Suzuki Roshi's teaching, as it gives me confidence in what Maha Goswami has to say, is the presence that I see in these people. The fact that I really don't see anger arise, actually don't see anger arise, and I don't see any effort at suppressing it. It seems to not be there. It's quite remarkable, but it seems to not be there. And when someone asks the Dalai Lama, what is his religion, he says, my religion is very simple, my religion is kindness. Well, in the Theravada tradition,

[38:59]

the practice of love and kindness is the antidote to anger or to aversion. This is the practice that is recommended in the Theravada tradition to people who are burdened with aversion. So what my recommendation is, don't take anybody's word for it, but do try it out. Do practice with it for a while, and see how it affects your state of mind. One of my teachers said once, your first priority is your state of mind. And I thought, what an odd thing to say.

[40:02]

But the more I study, and the more I practice, the more I sit, the more I appreciate this teaching that taking care of our state of mind is our first priority. All of our actions flow from our state of mind. As it says in the opening of the Dhammapada, your thoughts of yesterday have made your life of today. And your thoughts of today will make your life of tomorrow. So this practice of attentiveness and carefulness in watching our mind, and in not encouraging the arising of negative states, has an effect on how our experience will go.

[41:12]

We talked a little bit in the tea again today about this business of karma, and one of those things that I did, when you say that, my thoughts when I was young, my actions when I was young, so I'm going to have to live with the results of all of that, so that's kind of discouraging. And I think we have this notion that if I do act A, somehow, inevitably, sometime in the future, result B will follow. And there's this kind of one-to-one relationship between an action and its consequences. It is certainly true that actions have consequences, and all of our volitional actions of body, speech and mind affect our life. But my understanding of this teaching

[42:15]

is that in any moment, in each moment that arises, in this understanding of codependent arising, in the arising of each moment, all of the causes and conditions of the past affect that moment. All of the causes and conditions of everything that's gone before together, in combination, produce this moment. And again, taking up this simile, metaphor, this Tassajara Creek thing that occurred to me when I was watching Tassajara Creek and trying to figure out what is Tassajara Creek? Is it the water? Is it the rocks?

[43:18]

Is it the bank? The water is constantly flowing, it's never the same. But whatever, at any moment when I look at the creek, at this point, that is affected by everything that happened upstream from the creek. This is how I understand it. And what happens downstream depends on what happens here, at this point. So it makes sense that you don't want to throw garbage in the creek. It's going to affect the creek. So we don't want to pollute it. So we don't want to pollute our mindstream with negative thoughts because it's going to have an effect on the mindstream. But we can't say that this particular action is going to have this particular effect at this particular time.

[44:21]

It's not a kind of a one-to-one correspondence like that, I think. So please continue to look at this guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life and the Dalai Lama's commentary on it. Continue to pay attention with care to your mind and take care of your state of mind. And try this practice of patience. Try it, you might like it. Check it out. See how it affects your state of mind.

[45:25]

Thank you.

[45:28]

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