Because I was here last week. So do you ever two people in a row in a week? No. I'm not supposed to be here. But I am supposed to be here because here I am, right? So I'm supposed to be here. This is the truth of what we call acknowledging the present moment. Okay? It'd be ridiculous if I kept saying, I'm not supposed to be here, and actually thought that that was the case, that that was real. I'm really not. The real truth of it is I'm not supposed to be here. See how ridiculous that is? Now, if I held on to that idea, that would cause me to profound suffering. Okay? I'm not supposed to be here, and I'm right. I really am not supposed to be here. Somebody else is supposed to be here. This is wrong. That's true, you know, in one way, of course that's true, but the truth is I am supposed to be here, of course.

[01:05]

Here I am, right? So there it is. And you think my name is Tia, still, right, as it was last week, right? But I am not the same person. I'm not. I'm, first of all, a week closer, presumably, if my death is going to be any time when it's, you know, and who knows when that's going to be, but not like tomorrow. But whatever it is, I'm a week closer to it. So anyway, completely distracted, especially with a little baby over here breastfeeding. Hi, sweetheart. Total bliss. Why don't we just all be babies and suckle? Why not? So, let's see, I was going to talk about something serious.

[02:10]

How could that be? But, you know, luckily I have art at the end, so I'll leave you with something really pretty. Rilke's, some of Rilke's writings on Cezanne. I don't know if you are... Never mind. But in the middle, we'll talk a little bit about the Four Noble Truths because I couldn't think of anything to think about this week. And this week, I've had a miserable week. We can have this talk be a little bit more personal. Every so often I have this kind of energy that really is dangerous energy, and I really know about it. And in a certain kind of way, you know, I don't exactly like it when it's there, but it's an old habit pattern, and it's a very kind of angular energy, and it's kind of like I used to. I don't even know if I used to enjoy it exactly, but I... So I used to... Let's see if I used to... Anyway, it's easy for me... Let me put it this way.

[03:17]

It's easy for me to hurt people when I have this kind of energy. It's kind of... It's slightly aggressive and a little bit speedy and it's kind of dismissive and it's arrogant or somewhat arrogant and I just hate it when I'm this way. But it's like... This morning I woke up and that's how I felt. Something just came together and that's how it was. And so I go around, usually when I'm feeling like this, I do end up, you know, hurting people, and so I spend the week sweeping up my karma. I do. So I apologize to people, and I feel bad, and I'm embarrassed, and people say, you know, mean things about me, and I hate them for it. And... So I've been doing that this last week. This last week and a little bit I've been doing it.

[04:17]

So if I've hurt anybody during this time or acted like I described, I'm sorry. What was I going to talk about? What time is it? Are we almost done? Probably. Yeah, because I did say something that was really heartfelt last week. And still, even this week, I'm still kind of involved with it. And I thought actually there would be fewer of you here today because there is a peace march happening today. I think today is the 20th? there's peace walks all over the United States today and I hope a really big one in Washington and there's one walking from Dolores Park to the Civic Center today and I hope it is like I said last week you know not divisive but neutral in its presentation I really really hope that and so I thought anyway I can't go until 1.30 and I thought I'd sort of walk on down and see if anything's left at that time but anyway

[05:21]

So... Hi. What is this person's name I'm having a relationship with here? Her name is Flannery. Flannery? Flannery? You call her... What do you call a fish? Flannery? It's kind of quick to say. It's kind of... Flannery. Cutest little thing. How old is she? She's a year and a week. That old? Oh, another one. Yeah. Am I the first one in a month? Is that me? Oh, heavens. I should say something? Huh? What? To the parents. Oh. Enjoy your babies. How's that? Enjoy it as long as you can. And you know something? Here's something for the parents, okay? Please take the love that you feel, okay, for your kids, and please don't make it exclusive. Try to really be in contact with that feeling and see if you can include certainly other kids, you know?

[06:33]

And then if you can get it to adults, that would be great, and animals, and then ultimately... Because you guys really are in touch, so you should... You know, if you make it exclusive, then it's that old dualistic thing, and it doesn't help, right? But if you make it... try to make it non-dualistic, then actually we need lots of love in the world, okay? That's my Dharma talk for today. Oh, that's it? Now you go to leave. Go to the dining room. She's quiet. Oh, we have a daddy, too. Daddy, the same thing goes for you. Okay. Okay. What's the date today?

[07:34]

It's the 20th. It's not the first Saturday of the month at all. Okay. Oh, because it's the third Saturday of the month. That's why. So this time it was going to be the third Saturday of the month, and next time it's going to be the first. I think that's it. Is that right? Oh, another daddy. Meditation for children, starting early. Okay. All right. Today is Earth Day? Oh, then I have to say this other thing. Parents, forgive me, okay? This is the other side of how I feel about parenting. This is Earth Day today. And in my opinion, this is just my opinion, so you can take it with a grain of salt, but in my opinion, a lot of the problems that we have in every way about what's happening to the Earth and how people are

[08:40]

relating with people and so on and so forth and not enough whatever it is anyway whatever your pet problem is i really do feel that a lot of it has to do with how many just plain old numbers you know how many people we have on the earth so um For the earth and for all the little beings and the big beings and us on the earth, people would consider carefully when they, you know, please, if you want to have a child, really want to have that child. And if you have one, then really consider the millions of children already here who don't have love. okay you don't have anybody to take care of them and i think if we can connect somehow how many people are already here with all of the kids already who need help and connect that then i think that will be really helpful that's my two cents about that so this is my talk today what i wanted to talk about today about um

[09:44]

I was going to kind of get into this smoothly, but I'm losing time here. And maybe I'll just clunk right into the middle of it. I don't know where to start exactly. I'll start with a story. Last night, I have a foster son named Juan. Someone of these days is going to come to my talk. And... Last night, he went out last night, and he looked really good, and he was wearing these gray pants and kind of a nice kind of cream-colored sweater, and he put on this coat that he got from the Goodwill at Zen Center, which was a big, long, white, kind of cream-colored, actually, coat, and the inside is red lining. It has a really red lining. It's very wan, right? and the thing that made the outfit was that he put on these enormous boots with you know like seven buckles on each boot big thick you know boots and um he was ready to go out you know he was excited and blah blah blah he got to the door and then we take off our shoes when we come into the house and so he had to put on his shoes right of course i guess everybody takes off

[11:17]

Does everybody? No. Oh, well. So anyway, we take off our shoes and we walk around the house. So he had to put on his boots. And of course, he was like halfway out with his friends. And I stood there ready to say goodbye to him, of course. And I stood there watching him. put on his boots. And of course, he was just massively frustrated and getting more and more, right? Because there he was wanting to go out and still, one buckle, two buckles, three buckles. And so I was watching somebody who, instead of really being present and enjoying the process of putting on his boots and being there for his life, he was completely frustrated because actually he was three quarters out the door. So for me, he teaches me all the time like this. He embodies, you know, these... The other day, we were in the house. I got mad at him. I don't even remember what it was for anyway.

[12:22]

And when I got mad at him, he doesn't respond when I get mad at him. It's terrific for me because my family used to respond, and there we were. So he doesn't respond. So he was there, and I was kind of in my frustrated kind of voice, energetic voice. And he was standing by his desk, and I was to his side over here. And then very quietly he said, you know, it doesn't work getting angry. Very quietly. Really quietly. And I heard it. I hear everything he says. And I thought, yeah, you're right. It doesn't work at all. So I left. It does that all the time. It's really great for me. All right, so I just can't get into this talk. It's not interesting. It is. You know, what I wanted to do... Okay, let me tell you what I wanted to do. I wanted to tell you, first of all, that meditation is really important.

[13:24]

I tell you that all the time. I told it to you last week. I'm going to tell it to you this week. I will tell it to you if I talk again. You can't do the... How many people are completely new and don't meditate? You don't. Okay. Okay. Okay. And for those of you who do meditate, please feel encouraged by my saying this. You can't really understand anything if you don't sit. And sitting, the reason is, is because sitting is the only way that's easiest to actually stop the usual involvement that we have with conceptual or karmic mind. It's the easiest way to actually stop and watch what's happening in the mind rather than being caught by it. So I was going to give you this morning the three... people I talked about last time a little bit, Bush, Arafat, and Sharon. And the interesting part of these three people to me lately is I've been watching them recreate their selves.

[14:31]

And because it's delusive in how they're doing it, And because they have power. Their delusion is just exactly the same as our delusion. I'm not saying that they're worse than we are. We join them in their madness, right? We are dangerously mad most of the time. But they have power. They have power. And they're actually acting out on the backs. They're not the only... Anyway, let me just say it this way for starts. We can see how they constellate self and other and hold on to those ideas, confirm those ideas over and over again. And because they're in leadership positions, help to certainly exacerbate the situation. So in meditation, if we sit there and not hold to the content of our mind, of our karmic mind, we can actually give these conditioned thoughts a chance to actually release their energy, their karmic energy, and their gaps begin to appear.

[15:46]

And you can begin to see, if I may suggest, the emptiness or the transparency or the ungraspability of what we can call emotion thought. So because this is such an important thing and because I talked last week, I thought this week I would just go over the basic. the basics with you. Basically, the point in a certain kind of way of all spiritual practice is to, you can say, either deconstruct or dissolve the sense of separation, or you can call it expanding the self to include everything. Either way, what we're doing is we're trying to see through our habit way of recreating self and other. And it's a very, very clear process, and Buddhism happens to talk very clearly about it. So I thought I would just kind of go over the basics. So, of course, the first thing that happens is we believe the emotion thoughts that happen in us.

[16:50]

That's the way usually everybody walking around is living their life. Basically, unconscious in a sleep, just reacting from the habit energy of... thought emotion thought something happens it comes in you've you know registered it in a certain kind of way before or you find something in your past your mind is this really quickly in your past that fits it a little bit it comes out with that idea of what's happening or you know or an energetic response to what's happening and boom right away there's a constellated other and a constellated you and then you just go blah whatever it is The first step in spiritual practice is to take responsibility instead of blaming, which is a very powerless place to be in and a place that creates and recreates conflict in the world. That's what's happening in the Middle East. It's everybody else's fault.

[17:52]

That's why they can't stop bombing each other back and forth. Blaming in our personal relationships is a very powerless position because you have nothing to do. Somebody else is doing everything and you're the victim or you're the recipient anyway. So the first step in spiritual practice is to actually get that how you respond is totally your responsibility. Completely your responsibility. I don't want to go into the details, but If you haven't gotten this far, that's what you need to look at right away. How you respond to anything is your responsibility. That's the first part. The second part is, if you take responsibility and you're committed to staying present, what happens is you begin to see that you don't have to grab onto these habit, karmic, reactive emotion thoughts that come up in you.

[18:53]

And then what happens, there begins to be a little space between you and that automatic response, and you can begin to see patterns of behavior. and patterns of thought. And you begin to see especially, this is what meditation is really good for, because nothing is happening around you and all of a sudden there you are thinking the same kind of habitual habit pattern hundreds of times. You know, it gets really boring, and boring is a good moment. When you finally are tired of listening to them over and over and over again, and you're just kind of bored stiff with them, and you just finally let them go by instead of grabbing on, this is a real step. Boredom is a good step in the process of spiritual development. I want to say that this process of really looking at your patterns is kind of a gross, really, level, this whole thing. But it takes really a long time to work through because we have a lot of resistance letting go of the first level of defense of the ego, which this is.

[20:01]

We have a lot of trouble with it. First of all, because in the first stages of it, you believe it. It's real hard not to believe your basic fallback pattern of survival. And that's what this stuff is. And then, after you do it for a while, another difficulty comes in when you say, you know, I've built this self. It took me a really long time. It really has helped me survive. I am not letting it go. That's a real moment. It's a real moment when you finally understand that the whole thing is changing. There's nothing to grasp. It's useless and painful when you do it. You might as well let it go. And then this little voice comes up in you and says, absolutely not. And so it's kind of interesting to hear yourself say that, even though it causes, and you know it by this time, lots of suffering. But at some point we really do see through this kind of level of ego building, rebuilding and creating.

[21:07]

And I suppose at that level you can say that this is an experience of no-self. Because you see clearly that there is nobody in there running the show. This is just patterns and habit patterns that come up. Then what happens is kind of interesting because then you spend the time, you're resting now in the awareness of this stuff rather than the content of your emotion thought, but you know that that's what you're doing. So who's that? Right? Who's that one? Who's the knower of all this stuff? Who's the watcher of all this stuff? Am I losing some of you? You won't understand this unless you sit. You have to sit. There's this watcher person back there or the knower of all this stuff. And that, too, we identify with. We say, that's me. It's a thought. Okay? Awareness is me. And, of course, ultimately, it is not. You can have awareness without identifying that as you.

[22:16]

Period. It's just awareness happening. Nothing, you don't have to identify with it. It's a very important step. I think eventually, although it's not my experience, that there is such a thing, because I've read it in the sutras and still, and the Buddha says that the pin or whatever of the creation of the sense of self really eventually does break away, and then people walk around truly with no feeling of separation, although the form world definitely is here, and distinctions or discriminations are still there. But then what happens is, and all of this stuff can happen, you know, all along. It's not like it's bong, [...] bong. But what happens is you begin then to not so much identify with me as the center of the universe anymore. You know, whenever, this is what we do. Whenever you're walking through the world and everything that happens relates to you.

[23:20]

Something happens and it's about you. We're always self-referencing. How does that relate to me? How does it affect me? Who am I in this situation? How do people think about me? You do some kind of neutral activity and right away you're creating a story about it so you can tell somebody what happened to you. So usually what happens is everything is like pointing to me, [...] me. But as you begin to loosen up this image of self, then you no longer have to have this me as a reference. for whatever you do. You're just walking around, participating in life with everybody else. And so very naturally at that stage, what happens is you want to live to benefit all beings. You want to be there to help people because you're not so preoccupied with yourself all the time. Very obviously freeing. Kind of there's space there.

[24:23]

There's a lot of space. And joy, ultimately, because we can experience this. Like when you're creating, that's why I brought Wilco with me. Oh, darn. Now I'm really getting into it. When you're creating something, there is not self there. When you're truly creating, there is not self. And there's joy there. There's space for joy to come up. It's a natural part of all of us. So I think we really have a chance as people who are kind of interested, they must be otherwise you wouldn't be here, to doing this kind of work. And it's work. You have to kind of slog through it. You have to pay your dues on the cushion. You have to actually do the work. It doesn't happen by itself. You have to first understand the teachings. You have to kind of really want to understand the teachings.

[25:27]

And then, this is the important part, you have to want to practice it. You have to want to put them in your life. You have to want to be present. You have to want to renounce barriers between... Whenever a barrier comes up, arrogance, I'm better than that other person, I'm smarter than that other person, I'm prettier than the other person, I know more than that other person, whatever it is, or I'm less than the other person, I'm not as good as the other person, I'm uglier than the other person, whatever it is, right? Whatever barrier comes up between you and even a flower, any concept is a barrier. You renounce over and over and over again. That's the commitment to practice. And you have to, on your own, find whatever motivation you can muster to simply keep going and keep doing that. And then out of that being present and continually digesting and embodying as best as we can our understanding, all along the way there are little realizations and hopefully some big realizations that also get put back into your practice and embodied in your understanding and in your behavior.

[26:44]

of how you live your daily life. This is a spiritual life. That's what it means to be committed to spirituality, to vow that this is how you're going to live. So I brought, I want to read this for you. So a really good motivation for doing this is to completely pay attention to when you suffer. And I don't mean just, you know, regular old, regular kind of suffering like, ow, you know, my arm is broken or I just lost a relationship or whatever. Not having, just not having what you want is suffering or having what you don't want is suffering, right?

[27:49]

But I mean really the kind I say a lot when you go to bed just before night and you're kind of lying there and kind of drifting off and then the thought comes up like, you know... just not quite enough. Life's just not quite enough. I have everything I wanted to have. My list is kind of happening or done. I'm not distracted right now by my new relationship or kids even, or whatever your latest job is. But just my life all by itself, is it enough just the way it is? Just the way it is. Well, Buddha says, if you really listen carefully enough, and Katagiri calls it thirsting desire, and it's a natural thing because of separation. we have just a little feeling of it's not quite good enough. It's not quite enough. It's just slightly dissatisfied.

[28:50]

This is the suffering that the Buddha is addressing. So paying attention to your suffering is a terrific motivation, because if you're really face to face with it all the time and you're tired of it, you will practice. And Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, just a regular guy, you know? a religious genius, but a regular guy in all other respects, a regular guy. He must have been great to know. Basically what he studied was suffering, and what he taught when he awoke was what suffering is and the end of it, how to get to the end of suffering. Turns out the way you do that is to dissolve the ego, the sense of separation. But that's what he taught, suffering and the end of suffering.

[29:51]

And this is his first, this is the first talk. The first part of the talk is about not holding to extremes, but we can just say not holding to any ideas, not holding to points of view. That's the first part. And the second part, he presents the four noble truths. So I will read them. monks or... I can consider us all monks right now. Okay? You're monks. You're all monks sitting in a hall listening to the Dharma, listening to his words, Siddhartha's words. It's hot. You're in India. It's really hot. Kind of humid. You're wearing few clothes. The air is... You can feel the air, sweet, on your skin.

[30:52]

It's a very fragrant... situation with lots of tropical like, you know, humid type flowers around. And here comes this guy who just woke up. Just woke up and he's full of light and presence and joy. And he wants to go tell his friends what just happened to him. He wants to help his friends. Because he saw the suffering in the world, he wants to teach. He doesn't have to. He could just enjoy his state if he wanted to. But he doesn't. He comes back into the world to look for his... He walked 150 miles to find five of his friends that he started out studying with.

[31:53]

At first they thought they didn't like the guy because he had left him before, right? But when they saw his countenance, they thought, I don't know, something happened here. Let's listen. And this is what he said. Monks, there is this noble truth about dissatisfaction. Aging is hard. Dying is also hard to bear. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are all painful. Association with what you dislike is unpleasant. Being apart from what you like is unpleasant. Not getting what you want is unpleasant. In brief, the five grasped aggregates are unsatisfactory. Monks, there is this noble truth of the origin of suffering. It is grasping, which gives rise to fresh birth, bound up with relish and passion, running here and there, delighting in this and that.

[33:08]

In other words, sense desire, desire for existing and desire for extinction or merging. But monks... There is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering. It is the complete fading away and cessation of grasping. It's abandonment and relinquishment, the freedom from and discarding of grasping. Monks, there is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering. It is the noble Eightfold Path, namely right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness,

[34:10]

and right samadhi. Thus spoke the Blessed One and the group of five of his friends were gladdened and they approved of his words. Now while this discourse was being delivered, the untarnished and clear insight into Dhamma arose in the venerable Kadana thus, Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease. Therefore, you might as well not grasp it because it'll be suffering. When Siddhartha saw that Kodana understood the Blessed One uttered the great exclamation, Truly, it is the good Kondana who has understood. It is the good Kondana who has understood.

[35:14]

He was happy. It made him happy. It's great. Thus it was that the name of the venerable Kandana became Anakandana, Kandana who understands. And of course I skipped around, but the whole thing is only like a page and a half. So if you're interested in reading the whole thing, there's plenty of places you can find it. And also the Eightfold Path is, you know, lots of commentary. I think the Dalai Lama just came out with a book on the Four Noble Truths. So if you're interested in going into it more deeply, you can do that. But I wanted to save some time to read a little bit from Rocha. Because, you know, just like I was noticing when Juan was hurrying to tie his boot buckles, he was grasping after the future. And just as the Buddha recommends not grasping future or past, the place of growth, spiritual growth, is in the present moment

[36:32]

completely in the present moment, which kind of is the truth anyway. It's just now, [...] all the time. And this is where art is created from. So I thought I'd read you a little bit about what it's like to be present from the point of view of an extraordinary poet and eventually talking about an extraordinary artist. This is just how he experiences. Never have I been so touched and almost gripped by the sight of Heather as the other day when I found these three branches in your dear letter. Since then, they are lying in my book of images, penetrating it with their strong and serious smell, which is really just the fragrance of autumn earth. But how glorious it is, this fragrance. At no other time, it seems to me, does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth.

[37:41]

and a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more than honey sweet where you feel it is close to touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost, and yet again wind, tar and turpentine and Ceylon sea. Serious and poor like the smell of a begging monk. And yet again, hearty. And so on, so on, so on, so on. I'm going to read you three short parts. The good conscience of these reds, he's talking about Cezanne, these blues, their simple truthfulness, it educates you.

[38:50]

And if you stand beneath them as acceptingly as possible, it's as if they were doing something for you. You notice a little more clearly each time how necessary it was to go beyond love also. It's natural, after all, to love each of these things as one makes it. But if one shows this, One makes it less well. One judges it instead of saying it. One ceases to be impartial, and the very best love stays outside the work and does not enter it. It is left aside, untranslated. That's how the painting of sentiments came about. They'd paint, I love this, instead of painting, here it is. Do you understand? It's great.

[39:51]

This is the last one. We compute the years and divide them here and there and stop and begin and hesitate between both. But how of one piece is everything we encounter? How related one thing is to the next? How it gives birth to itself and grows up and is educated in its own nature? And all we basically have to do is be. but simply, earnestly, the way the earth simply is, and gives her consent to the seasons, bright and dark and whole in space, not asking to rest upon anything other than the net of influences and forces in which the stars feel secure.

[40:53]

So this is our life, this interconnectedness, and this presence, this day-to-day, eternal now. And it's in that that we can touch a little taste of the mystery that is beyond conceptualization. We can't thank God we can't know it. We are, by nature, concepts, by their nature, are limiting. They cut things up. So it's simply beyond concepts that we can know this, and all of us do. It's just a matter of paying attention to it, preferring it over misery. So that's my talk today, and I hope you guys go out and enjoy the Earth Day and also maybe the Peace March and the ocean and the view and whatever it is that you do today that you just let yourself, give yourself the gift of just for a while really saying yes to this.

[42:24]

Yeah.

[42:33]

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