So I spoke last Monday evening about Right Livelihood, which is one of, part of the Eightfold Path, very early traditional Buddhist teaching. So the Eightfold Path is part of the Four Noble Truths, one of the earliest teachings of the Buddha, first that there is Firstly, the reality of what's sometimes translated as suffering, dukkha, dissatisfactoriness, is part of the nature of reality, that we have things we don't want, we don't have things we do want, things are at least a little out of line and sometimes very much so. So this reality of suffering is, in some sense, the starting point. But then the second noble truth is that there's a cause for that. that it's not just random, that our dissatisfaction arises, but that there's a cause, and this cause is usually identified with grasping or craving or trying to get what we want.

[01:20]

The third noble truth is that there's an end of this suffering. There's an end of our... resistance and fighting with reality, and our dissatisfaction with reality. And the fourth noble truth, which I will continue talking about today, is the Eightfold Path. So this includes the various different ways it's translated, but right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right meditation, and right concentration. So there will not be a testimony about remembering loss. But these are an approach to how to reach this end of suffering. So again, I spoke last week about, last Monday night about right livelihood, how to find a livelihood, a way of living, way of supporting ourselves that allows,

[02:28]

some sense of dignity and of bringing our whole being to work and that right to livelihood. I wanted to talk today about right view, sometimes translated as right understanding. What is the right view in the teaching of Buddhism? And all of this, of course, all of these teachings are supports for our meditation practice and arose from the awareness of the Buddha through his own meditation practice. So all of these teachings that we talk about from the Buddha and the Zen teachers and so forth are, in some sense, compliments or expressions of our upright meditation practice. I thought I'd start, though, with talking about Right View in terms of the precepts.

[03:34]

So we have ten Bodhisattva precepts that we teach about and some people formally take those in ceremonies, whether as laypeople or as priests. But there's a version of them from the great Vietnamese teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, that I think is very useful and particularly focuses, seems to focus on this right view. So he has 14 precepts. And I think one of the things I want to do through this coming year is talk about the precepts and refer to these 14 of Thich Nhat Hanh. But the first three particularly, again, are interesting about this idea of right view. and in some ways maybe surprising. So, the first of Thich Nhat Hanh's 14 precepts. One, do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist one.

[04:41]

Buddhist systems of thought are guiding means. They are not absolute truth. So, part of the Dharma, the teaching. So we have these three jewels in Buddhism of Buddha, the awakened one, Dharma, the teaching of reality or the teaching of reality, and then the Sangha, the community, all of us coming together to express this and share this and study this in our own way, in our own bodies and minds. But Thich Nhat Hanh says, don't be idolatrous. So that's one of the first of the Ten Commandments has to do with that. Don't be But here it's not to some being or divinity, but don't be idolatrous to any teaching, to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even the Buddhadharma. So this idea of Buddhist systems of thought are guiding means, they're not absolute truth.

[05:47]

The truth is something that's alive. Buddhism is a living tradition. our way of seeing and expressing the truth, reality, our view of that, is something that has to meet this situation. So, we've just opened this storefront, Zen Do, in Northside Chicago, and we are together, as a Sangha, investigating how do we present and make available the Dharma and this wonderful practice of Zazen for people, So any particular way of expressing that, of expressing Buddhist truth, is not the point of this idea of guiding means. Sometimes we say skillful means in Buddhism is that we make available teachings to help beings to find themselves, their own deepest self, our sense of interconnectedness. We experience this, actually,

[06:51]

even for those of you who just did Zazen for the first time. There's something that brought you here and some sense of things that is valuable. And each of us has our own way of finding that. So we need to respect diversity and different viewpoints. Don't hold on to one particular viewpoint. And we use the teaching as a skillful means to help all of us. The point of all of this is, we could say, the third noble truth, to be free from suffering, to help each of us, ourselves, in our own body, mind, and also the world around us, out on Irving Park Road and beyond, to alleviate suffering, to wake up to this reality of Buddha nature that we start to glimpse in our meditation this reality of interconnectedness that is where we practice.

[07:57]

So this idea of not holding on to any particular doctrine, theory, or ideology is carried over into the second of Thich Nhat Hanh's 14 precepts. He calls them the 14 precepts of interbeing. He says, for number two, do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times. That's a long one. Maybe I'll just read it over again. Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views.

[08:59]

Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life, not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times. So one of our four bodhisattva vows we'll chant at the end is that dharma gates are boundless, we vow to enter them. Each situation, each difficulty, each challenge in our life is an opportunity to learn more. So this idea of right view includes non-attachment to our view. being willing to listen to the views of others, of all others. It doesn't mean that all views are equally right, you know, and I meant to say that right view doesn't mean right as opposed to wrong exactly. These right, this eightfold path is like right effort, right livelihood.

[10:02]

It means to me upright, wholehearted view. So our, you know, we may disagree, we may have different views about things. speak to each other and listen to each other and be willing to question. So I want to talk more about this after talking about Thich Nhat Hanh's precepts, but part of this also fits with our precept about non-intoxication. We say among our ten precepts, do not intoxicate mind or body of self or other Right, so some view can be an intoxicant. If we study something very, you know, we think very well and have some view and hold onto it, that can be a kind of intoxication. This is about, so Thich Nhat Hanh's approach to right view, and I would say right view, has to do with being open to learning, to entering new gates, to learning more, to not being attached to the views we have now.

[11:13]

So this is a kind of process of lifelong learning. And the Dharma itself and Buddhism itself adjusts to the situation of people in our world and our society. How do we present the teaching? What is the most important aspect of the teaching for us here? And it's a little different for each of us. And it also has to do with how we respond to the world around us. So openness is very important in terms of right view. The third one is very interesting, interesting from maybe some other religious traditions. And again, this is a Bodhisattva Zen context, from Vietnamese Zen, about the precepts. But Thich Nhat Hanh says for number three, do not force others, including children, by any means whatsoever to adopt your views. whether by authority, threat, money, propaganda, or even education.

[12:21]

However, through compassionate dialogue, help others renounce fanaticism and narrow-mindedness. So this is very interesting. We have a couple of Sangha members not here today who have young children who are thinking about how to introduce Buddhism to their children. And he makes a point of saying, don't force others, including children, to adopt your views. So we don't try to, you know, we don't go on crusades or jihads to persuade everybody else to think the same way that we do. In fact, we're open to considering other views and thinking differently ourselves. How do we not be coercive or proselytizing even in the way that that's usually thought of And still, through compassionate dialogue, Thich Nhat Hanh says, help others renounce fanaticism, narrow-mindedness.

[13:22]

How are we open to diversity? Diversity of different kinds of people, diversity of different kinds of, bless you, different kinds of needs. How do we welcome anybody who would like to come and benefit from the practice? So, This has a lot to do with being open to questioning. How do we express our view without... First of all, how do we study what is the right view for us? This is so part of this process and practice of including meditation, but also as it's reflected and reflects our everyday activity is to look at, well, what is the right view? And we present the Dharma, the Buddha teaching as a way of kind of standard that we can kind of work around to see what is the right way to understand and see what our world is, who we are.

[14:25]

So, again, Thich Nhat Hanh in these first three very much emphasizes openness to other views, dialogue, being willing to change your view or modify your view a little bit. or say it a little differently. How can we be open to each other and to the views of the world? This doesn't mean that we just accept, we don't necessarily accept every view if we find it harmful. So there is a criteria for the precepts. One of them is just to not to kill or to support life. What is helpful rather than harmful? There's a basic Buddhist teaching of Ahimsa, not to harm. And maybe we start with ourselves. How do we find a way to be as little harmful as we can in the world? But also, how do we help others to be less harmful? How do we help to respond to harm and be helpful to others?

[15:29]

This is a kind of criteria for view. Again, how we see that and how we express it, we need to be open to listening to others. Another criteria is in Thich Nhat Hanh's fourth of his Fourteen Precepts of Inner Being. And this isn't exactly about right view, but I think it's very relevant. He says, do not avoid suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering, including personal contact, visits, images, and sounds. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world. So one criteria for right view is that we remain open to suffering.

[16:35]

that we don't try and deny the realities of suffering in whatever realm it may appear around us. In meditation instruction, you heard, some of you heard this morning about sitting with eyes open. Part of that is to not fall asleep, to be relaxed but aware and alert. But also I say we sit with eyes open the way we sit with ears open, even though in our formal meditation practice we're focusing on what is our experience on our cushion or chair, this body-mind, for this period of time? Instead of our ideas of who we are and what the world is, and what our mind is and what our thinking is, to see what is there, to be present, to pay attention. And we also offer many particular guiding means in meditation to help settle, focusing on breath or focusing on sound, But part of the point is even as we focus in some sense our attention on ourselves and our experience and this presence of whatever is arising in our awareness right now, sensations, sounds, our breathing, thoughts and feelings, sometimes lots of them, sometimes they slow down.

[18:05]

Through all of that, we keep our ears open, we keep our eyes open, not focusing on any one point, but just aware of the world around us. In the same way, in our lives, we don't avoid suffering, as Thich Nhat Hanh says. So this idea of right view, the way he talks, may seem very strange to our Western ideas about finding some right view. Our ideas, Western religious ideas, also Western ideas of education, to figure something out and understand it and kind of get it down. This idea of right view that Thich Nhat Hanh is expressing realizes the reality of impermanence, the reality of suffering, the reality of selflessness, that we can't define ourselves in terms of some particular view. And who we are and what the world is, is constantly shifting and changing.

[19:08]

So it doesn't mean there's no view or that all views are equally okay. It means how do we examine our view? How are we open to listening to others? How can we uprightly reconsider our views, be open to change? So this is very demanding in some ways. It's maybe more comforting to have some particular view and say, oh yes, I understand my spiritual truth, or however you want to put that. I understand what Buddhism is, or whatever. I understand what it means to be a citizen of our country, of our world, in 2009. We may have lots of ideas about how things work and hold on to that. And Thich Nhat Hanh is saying that's kind of idolatrous, a strange word to use maybe.

[20:16]

But I think we do get attached to some idea as a kind of icon, as something that we may idolize. So what this leads me to is to talk about, oh, what is authority? What is true authority, true spiritual authority? And to talk about questioning and the importance of questioning. So I remember this old bumper sticker, maybe it's still around, question authority. And I like that very much, that we need to question the authority of, you know, whatever authority there is. But also, I read it, I've come to read it as a kind, the question is an adjective rather than a verb. It's also a verb, but there is an authority in questioning.

[21:19]

There's a kind of right view that emerges by openness to questioning, openness to the questions of others as well as our own questioning. Part of our meditation practice is to be open to our own questions. What's important? What's important to me? My Dharma grandfather Suzuki Roshi used to say, what is the most important thing? And he once said, the most important thing is to find out what is the most important thing. So, part of our practice, both in our meditation formally, and as we see how it expresses itself in the world, is this... This doesn't mean we have to be kind of vague and indefinite about everything and not have any opinions.

[22:36]

Of course, well, maybe some people have less opinions than others. I tend to be opinionated. But I try and question my opinions. But part of that means that I'm going to express them and hear the questions. How do we remain open to question? How do we not hold on to some fixed view, some intoxicant of, oh, this is the perfect understanding? So, you know, conviction and dedication are very admirable. But sometimes that gets turned into a kind of fundamentalism or a kind of unquestioning belief in something. Real conviction, real dedication is open to question. Real spiritual authority is actually based on doing a lot of questioning for a long time.

[23:39]

Questioning oneself, questioning the teaching, questioning the world. This is a lifelong questioning that is spiritual authority. So I carry this teaching stick that I received as authorization to be a dharma teacher in my lineage, Sakya Rishi lineage. And I've said at times that when people ask, well, what it represents to me is that I remember the lineage of teachers going back to Shakyamuni Buddha. We don't know all of the right names of all of them, particularly in India, but that I'm carrying forward in this context. And all of us are, even if you've come here for the first time today, we here now are expressing the Buddhist truth together here in the north side of Chicago, in this place and time. But that authority is based on being open to question, being willing to question, receiving question.

[24:46]

So again, there's this idea of faith that I think in some religious traditions and in some of the West is understood as belief. I have to believe this dogma, to believe some scripture very literally, only to try and find some answer to our world's problem based on some literal interpretation of a text. The real authority of any text is also understanding it metaphorically, questioning it, bringing our awareness, our questions to it. So how do we not grasp after views? Grasping after views is like any other kind of grasping, a kind of source for suffering. So our temple is called Ancient Dragon Zen Gate.

[25:53]

Again, how do we see the practice as a gateway to maybe an endless refining of not just view, but of our way of expressing that and our various ways of expressing that? The idea of diversity of guiding means is that each of us has our own way to express zazen heart and mind, to express the teachings as we've heard them and to ask each other and ask teachers, what is this about? How does this apply to me? To be open to question, to not settle for some easy answer. But if some response feels right to you, okay, sit with that. So Dogen says in one of his, the 13th century founder of Our branch of Zen in Japan says, to study the way is to study the self. This studying of the self is not just, it may be helpful to do some analytic or therapeutic study of the self, but also, what is it like to just be present for 30 minutes or 40 minutes, sitting upright, this body and mind?

[27:07]

What is happening, really? Without our ideas, or not holding on to our ideas of who we are. This is why this is a very challenging practice. To be open to question is not always so easy. So, in terms of Sangha, I don't want everyone to agree with my view or my view of views. We each have our own way of expressing right view. and the other parts of the Eightfold Path. So this idea of guiding means and diversity is very important. What a Sangha is, a community, is that we are looking together to see how do we express the way here in this place, here at this time. So part of this is discussion, and I welcome questioning.

[28:09]

and I welcome open discussion. There's no topic that we can't talk about. We have to be open to hearing each other, to seeing how it is that each of us, in our own different ways, sees the suffering of the world, sees the teaching of responding to that. So one of the guidelines for how we do this questioning, this discussion together is respectfulness. We respect Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. We respect each other. We may disagree, that's okay. In fact, a healthy Sangha should have different kinds of people who have different kinds of attitudes towards things and different particular ways of focusing on responding to the suffering of the world. We have both psychologists and social activists in our Sangha.

[29:11]

That's a healthy thing. To have a variety of different responses to how do we help beings awaken, each in their own way. How do we welcome people and invite them in? So I wanted to, and there is time for some discussion, and whatever comes up for you, please feel free. How do we talk about our practice and the world and our experience with each other respectfully. And I wanted to mention a few of you. I've been around a little while. I remember Casimir, who passed away about a year ago, who was great because he asked tough questions. He was always probing, asking sharp questions, and I loved it. He was always respectful, though. He wanted to know the truth. He wanted to know the view.

[30:11]

He expressed different opinions, and it was great. So, we can invoke the spirit of Casimir and open Sangha discussion. So, thank you very much for listening. I welcome your responses, comments, questions, views. Please, feel free. Well, I'll take a shot if you want.

[31:14]

Thank you, Douglas. I think Tignac is really good on this because, at least for many of us who have spent an awful lot of time in school, a certain kind of temperament, We've always been, the whole point of school, or an awful lot of it, was to have the right answer, to know the right thing, to have the right accurate information and the right view of how it all fits together. involved in is trying to reduce the suffering in the world, in ourselves. And you can find that sort of thinking not really helpful, however accurate the ideas are.

[32:17]

and that's the way it is, or for people to have a real sensation, a real feeling of having the right answer is a huge comfort, a real support for somehow, I've never dared wrong, and I'm right, I've got it, to have a real sense of superiority about that. And that not only causes conflict, But it just, it does have a, it does. Well, it made me think about, you know, the tentativeness of, like, all experience.

[33:50]

You know, like, science. Science is a pretty powerful thing, but things that people thought were true, you know, two minutes ago. Our founder, you know, a hundred years ago, if you look at how things change, and I just think that's really a humbling kind of aspect of right view of, like, I really don't know. wants to go on. I try to do whatever's happening. Yes, the great modern Korean Zen teacher, Sung Satsang Rinpoche, talked about not knowing mind, just not knowing. And our Zen founder, Bodhidharma, when asked by the emperor, who are you?

[34:51]

He said, I don't know. That's right for you. We may have all kinds of ideas about ourselves, but if you really look, you don't know. There are more possibilities. This is about being alive. This is supporting a life in openness. Aliveness and openness. Not knowing. Or not settling, not holding on tight to some view. It's okay to use your intellect and discriminating consciousness to try and see what you think about something, but then, Can you hold it lightly without beating up, beating up other people with it? It seems to me that the comfort is in having an answer. It doesn't even have to be the right answer. In the moment that you've decided that you have an answer, then all the other possible answers have been shut down. Right.

[35:53]

Right. Reality is... complicated, part of right view is recognizing complexity. That to have one simple view or answer about something, about anything, has to be ignoring something. How do we have, we might have an answer, but how do we have it kind of a little fuzzy, a little open to modification at least? Yeah. I'll get to it. So I was at an instruction this morning, someone had a question, noticing that I was sitting in Sasan Mudra with my hands, and said, now, should we always be in this position during drama talks, things like that? And I was like, well, I don't know. I come back to home base. It's sort of something that I've been trained to do. But I don't think we're trying to legislate here. Okay, answer?

[37:01]

I think so. I mean, I think when I'm listening to someone else give a dharma talk, I'm usually holding my hands like this, but I might do this, right? You know, and some of you have your hands on your knees. The point, so maybe this has to do with right form, in terms of the forms we use in the meditation hall are just ways of harmonizing together. Don't worry about getting it right. And how do we, They're expressions of respect. So, yeah, it's okay to sit like this during the Dharma talk, but if your hands get tired, it's okay to do this, too. We do have these forms, and they're useful. They're like, you know, guiding means, like Thich Nhat Hanh talks about. So we do this when we're walking in the zendo. This is for the position, hand position for walking meditation. And, you know, it's kind of nice if we, whenever you're walking in the meditation hall, going to your seat or leaving, if you hold your hands like this, but don't worry about some idolatrous idea of right form.

[38:15]

Follow what other people are doing. The point is to be upright and relaxed in all these forms. support that. So yeah, we don't have to be rigid about the forms. At the same time, part of what we're doing in establishing this meditation hall and this new temple is trying to pay attention to some of these forms a little bit. It helps to support the energy of the space, that's all. But thank you for your question. Would you talk a little bit about the relationship Good, good idea. Yes, so I said before that right action, right livelihood, right effort, right view is not right as opposed to wrong. It has some of that meaning. So maybe there are, you know, wrong views that would be, you know, what Douglass said about ignoring some aspect of suffering or supporting some aspect of suffering intentionally for personal gain.

[39:26]

There are, you know, so in that sense maybe Wright had, you know, to do it helpfully. But I think the idea of, so and I was also saying, I'm gonna try and get back to what you were saying, John, about useful, but right also has to do with a kind of something that's, you know, that's true, like a line that's true is straight. You know, if you're in carpentry, you know, a true line or right line. And we sit upright, not rigidly, because each of us has a different, you know, spine and our spines are naturally curved. So the idea of upright in our sitting is to be relatively upright, chin tucked in, back of the neck straight, relaxed and alive. So upright is not perfect, correct, true upright. It's alive.

[40:30]

It's questioning. It's rebalancing. So the idea of right and the idea of useful, I think, are related, that what is right is what is, well, another criteria, supportive of awareness. So these forms that we use in the meditation hall are right forms in the sense that they help support our mindfulness and our awareness and our attention. So right livelihood, What is useful livelihood? That's what I was trying to talk about Monday night. How do we see that in all of the complexity? So, I don't know if that's a little bit on that. Thank you for the question. Yes? I'm just sort of thinking about, you know, I unfortunately can't really remember what anybody said, but

[41:31]

I'm kind of trying to go back to what Doug said about working with suffering and ending suffering and how questions can, or even answers, can block out one piece of that. I don't really know what to say about this, but it seems like even asking the question, asking a question, kind of misses the mark. And I was thinking about how Just along the lines of what diminishes ourselves and others and what kind of supports life in ourselves and others. You know what? I don't even know what to say. But what did you mean by a question diminishing? Because I didn't understand. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know. It's OK. That's always an okay thing to say, you know what I'm saying?

[42:34]

But I think there's more, I feel like there's more to it than just questioning. There's a way of finding your way that's beyond, like you were talking about in the precepts from Thich Nhat Hanh, there's a way of finding your way that's beyond thinking or, you know, thinking that you have the knowledge or even having an idea and recognizing that everything is kind of a process and it's continuing, you know, as Higetsu was saying, knowledge is tentative. But what I find myself wondering is, sort of, what's behind that even? You know, are we, we can get, you know, cut off in traffic and instantly feel like I'm so unimportant, I'm just nothing, I'm insignificant and, you know, that person is out to get me And then, you know, is that, while we can be aware of that, you know, is that the truth or is there some deeper truth in which, you know, everything really is more in perfect balance and it's just, you know, needing to be sort of brought back into balance?

[43:40]

I think, or what I'm hearing anyway in your comments has to do with, for me, with this idea of having some criteria for a right view, that just questioning everything equally isn't the point. And so again, this idea of being open to suffering, this idea of supporting life and vitality, there are criteria in the precepts for supporting awareness, for mindfulness. So it's not just that every view is equal. That goes also back to what Douglas was saying about using some view to have some understanding and then ignore suffering. And that's part of the point, is that as painful as it sometimes is, and sometimes we need maybe to take a break from wallowing in suffering or being too close to suffering, but to be open to returning to face that reality in ourself, in our own lives, and also in the world.

[44:48]

to try and shut off some aspect of suffering because, well, I've got some of these answers. That's not the point. The point of maybe the ultimate criteria of Buddhist practice is simply awakening. The Buddha was the one who woke up. How do we pay attention to being aware and awake in our world? How do we not shut ourselves off from others because they have different views? So obviously, you know, so much of the wars and problems in the world are based on these kind of ideological religious disagreements where people are willing to kill each other or kill many of the so-called others because they have some different view. We need to be open to hearing other views and questioning our view but also we could have standards and we could try and we may have different standards.

[45:51]

Some people may think that this is a better way of bringing awareness and attention to people and that. So we have to be open to dialogue and conversation. That's what this is about, that we are willing to talk about these things with each other. And so I try to encourage stronger discussion after On my talks, sometimes there's less time than other times, but this isn't a discussion, just like our Zazen practice doesn't end when we get up from our cushion. It continues to be expressed in all the creative activities in our everyday activity, and those continue to reinforce this practice of sitting, whether we do it here, and you're all welcome to come here in our events, or sitting at home, even for a little while. They echo and resonate with our activities in the world. In the same way, I would hope that this upright aspect of right view of looking at, what do I feel about this?

[46:56]

What does somebody else think? Not just to accept all of them. So it's not just a matter of accepting reality. Acceptance is not just passively going along with whatever. It's actually using these criteria, what's helpful, what helps people to awaken, what helps relieve suffering. In terms of how we see what's going on, practice of patience is not just passive acceptance, it's very dynamic and attentive and available to respond when we can help. looking at all of this, refining this, and continuing to question this. And if you have people to talk about with this, continuing to do that, not just in the context of Dharma discussion. This is all part of our practice.

[47:47]

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