Good morning. Standing outside a few minutes ago, feeling the hint of rain, I realized that we probably all both want the rain and don't want to get wet. Mostly I think we want the rain. There is a dedication verse that I recite quite often at the end of doing practices or at the end of a retreat. And there is one line in the verse that goes, may all have equanimity without too much aversion or too much attachment. And it always interests me, you know, it's like the precept that says not to harbor ill

[01:08]

will. Most of us have some idea that we should never be angry or we should have no aversion or no attachment, but here are some very ancient teachings that are more modest in aspiration. Too much aversion or too much attachment. So then the trick is to figure out what's too much and what's not enough. So I've been thinking about the cultivation of equanimity and what it is that becomes an obstacle to equanimity, because of course that's how we can begin to know the detail of what we get into trouble with. Where do I go in my mind that leads to suffering that is an instance, a specific instance,

[02:12]

of disturbing equanimity? And for each of us we have to answer this question for ourselves because of course what may be the ground of suffering for me may not be necessarily, at least exactly, the ground of suffering for you. And what I've learned is that the more particular I am in attending to what is troublesome or difficult, the more insight may arise that leads to my ability to, in fact, cultivate equanimity even if it's only for a moment. I think probably most of you understand that in Buddhism there are lots of lists. I think that may be one of the qualifications for being a Buddhist, that you love lists

[03:15]

and don't mind flies on the end of your nose. Not too much aversion to the fly on the end of the nose. So one of the lists is the list of eight worldly concerns. I find this list very interesting and useful to pay attention to. There are four pairs on the list of eight worldly concerns. The first one is the desire for fame and the aversion or, yes, the aversion to obscurity. The second pair is the desire for gain and the aversion towards loss. The third of the pair is the desire for pleasure and aversion to pain.

[04:20]

And the fourth is the desire for praise and the aversion to censure. And as I've been hanging out with the list for a while now, I realized that this list covers quite a multitude of sufferings. In fact, I've been hard pressed to figure out what isn't on this list. A very broad list. In the Brahmajala Sutra, the Supreme Net Sutra, which is the first sutra translated in the collection of long discourses of the Buddha, there's a new translation by Maurice Walsh, which some of you may know, titled, Thus Have I Heard, and I recommend it to everyone. It's really, I find myself feeling inspired and guided by reading these early sutras

[05:29]

that carry not only the teachings of the Buddha, but in a way his voice, some sense of this particular historical human being who is our model for what is possible in our lives. Anyway, in the very early section of this sutra, the Buddha says to his disciples, don't get too excited if somebody criticizes me or the Dharma or the Sangha. Because, of course, if you get too excited, what will happen is really only a hindrance for you. And you will lose your equanimity, basically what he's saying, which is, of course, so true, isn't it? What do you mean? And he suggests to his disciples that, in fact, what they might do is to say,

[06:37]

this is what is incorrect here and now, and this is what is correct, and this is how it is here. And the same with praise, that if someone praises the Buddha or Dharma or Sangha, to not get too excited about that either. But to be able to simply note, and if it's appropriate, express, this is what is so, this is what is correct, this is what is incorrect. One of my favorite stories illustrating this possibility is a story. I actually listened to a tape of an interview that a woman I know did with His Holiness the Dalai Lama shortly after he was told that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She actually did her interview some while later.

[07:38]

And she said to him, how was it when you first heard that you'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? And he said, well, a little bit excited. I was a little bit excited, must have been a little bit excited, because that evening, as I was listening to the BBC News, which I guess he does pretty regularly, I was particularly interested to hear if there was any word about the Nobel Peace Prize. And he said, of course, there was no word. So I thought, oh, maybe mistake. So he said he then forgot about it and went to sleep. And the next morning, got up early and did his practices. And it was only in the middle of the day, the following day, that he received some official communication that he had indeed been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And he said, by then, you know, it was, so, I'm awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

[08:44]

I'm not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Same thing. Someone thinks I'm terrible. Someone thinks I'm wonderful. Same thing. And when I listened to that part of the interview, I thought, yeah, sure. Maybe for you. But I'm not so sure I could, even with a straight face, say that that's remotely true for me. I wish it was. And, of course, particularly when we think about praise and censure, there's a way in which we get caught by praise. We may not feel the condition of being caught in quite the way we do when we experience being on the receiving end of censure. But I think if we pay attention, we actually can see that it is as much of a kind of briar patch. Praise is as much of a briar patch, or maybe Velcro territory, as censure.

[09:51]

A different kind of trouble that maybe takes a little longer to be able to see. So, in the teachings, particularly in this wonderful sutra called the Supreme Net Sutra, there is some pointing of the finger to how critical, how important the cultivation of mindfulness is. In being able to pay attention, to notice the territory of the eight worldly concerns. We have to be present and awake, mindful, in the moment of what is so, if we're going to be able to have some accurate sense of this particular area of cause and condition of suffering. I want to do something perhaps a little unusual.

[10:58]

But, as some of you know, I'm very interested in what I call Western Dharma texts. That is, evidence coming out of our own culture. Writings, poems, artwork, etc. That is an expression of some of these insights which we receive and work with coming out of the Buddha Dharma. And I have two Dharma texts, if you will, that I want to reference this morning. One is the Natural History Magazine, which often has wonderful essays in it that I find very illuminating in this ongoing inquiry into the nature of the mind. And in the September issue there's an article called the Infrequent Flyer, which is short enough so that I'm going to read it to you,

[12:01]

because the author of this short piece is actually talking about the territory called the eight worldly concerns. So let me begin with that. I think one of the reasons I like the Natural History Magazine is that the editor must have a sense of humor. Frequently. So this is the piece. A friend of mine who knows Mel Brooks once felt obliged to tell him how awful he looked. Brooks shook his head and rolled his eyes and replied that things were not going well at all. A couple of nights before, he explained, he was in bed reading Plato and ran across a passage in which Plato reported that all men are mortal. It's a very central teaching, isn't it? Brooks said he hadn't been able to enjoy a cup of coffee since.

[13:05]

Hard to imagine a more unlikely circumstance, Brooks reading Plato in bed. A more unlikely innocence, needing Plato to tell him that men aren't mortal. That man is mortal. Or a more unlikely consequence, a loss of joy in a cup of coffee. But realizations of one's own mortality rarely seem so funny. I once found myself concerned, cornered into considering the uncertain nature of my existence, alive or dead. I was in Jamestown, North Dakota for a conference. I flew into town on one day, presented my paper, and went back out to the small airport to fly home the next day. I stepped up to the ticket counter and presented my tickets. The young man behind the counter looked over my papers, poked at the computer a couple of times, handed me back my ticket envelope, looked me straight in the eye and said,

[14:07]

Sorry, sir, but your ticket has been canceled. Wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-huh? Since you didn't use the first half of your ticket, the second half was automatically canceled. But I did use the first half of my ticket. I flew in yesterday morning. No, sir, I'm sorry, but our records show you did not fly in, at least not into this airport. Jamestown, North Dakota is a nice place, and I wouldn't have minded staying there another day or so until I got things straightened out. But like Brooks, I was shaken by the prospect of not being. As I stood there looking at that ticket clerk, I realized that it was his contention that I was not there. And it was up to me to prove that I was. I had never had to do that before, so I really wasn't prepared to face the charge, absent until proven present.

[15:12]

How can I be standing here in front of you if I didn't fly in yesterday? I have no idea, sir, but you did not fly in. Look, here are the tags on my luggage from yesterday's flight. How could I have gotten the tags without being on that flight? I have no idea, sir. If it's difficult to come up with a way of verifying my presence, when all six foot two inches, 270 pounds of me are standing right there, mortality and its consequences take on new importance and uncertainty. I'm not the first person who has considered this problem. Philosophers and writers have devoted lifetimes to the task. You know, being and nothingness, to be or not to be, cogito ergo sum, I never think of that last quotation without also thinking of a variation I once read on some newlywed's car, coito ergo sum.

[16:17]

You see what I mean about the humor here. What are we really? In the Western world, we seem to think that we are what we have. But once we are gone, so is all that. So is all that we have. So, Plains Indians hold that we are what we give away. But once we give it away, the Vikings believed that what endures of a person and therefore what is important in life is reputation. And they may be close to right, since some of them remain with us in their reputations as reported by millennium old sagas. Interesting, isn't it? Quite different from what this teaching on the Eight Worldly Concerns suggests. But we're Westerners, after all. Is our existence then embodied in the least tangible part of us, our reputation? Where does that idea leave us? Not long ago at the American Museum,

[17:23]

I had an unpleasant recall of my Jamestown experience. I have only been in that wonderful place twice, both times to visit the office of Natural History Magazine. The first time I entered the museum through the south entrance, which meant that I was only a few steps from the Natural History offices. But I saw enough during my short walk in and my longer stroll out that I knew I wanted to see more. So on my second visit, I entered the museum through the main east door, the entrance farthest from the magazine's corner. I walked in, approached the information desk, and explained that I was on my way to Natural History. The woman at the desk called the editorial office to get me a pass. She handed the telephone to me so I could explain that it was going to take me some time to get there because I was taking the long way through. The editor on the line asked me, Are you here? Maybe I'm dense, but I didn't know what to say.

[18:25]

Of course I'm here. I'm always here. The question was not my existence or presence, but the nature of here. I took too long to answer, and the person on the telephone tried again. Are you here? Yeah, I'm here, I guess. Then it won't take you long because you're only a couple of steps down the hallway. No, I'm not there. I'm here. So you're not here. No, I am here, but I'm at the big door in front, not the little door on the side. Here is wherever I am. On the other hand, I'm never there. The Lakota holy man, Black Elk, once took poet John Neihart to the top of Harney Peak in the Black Hills to pray. Neihart asked Black Elk why it was necessary to go to Harney Peak. Black Elk explained that Harney Peak is the center of the world. Neihart asked Black Elk why he thought Harney Peak was the center of the earth,

[19:29]

how he came to know such a thing. Black Elk chuckled at the white man's innocence, and with studied patience explained that on a ball like the earth, every place is the center. I guess that's the way we move through this world, always in the middle of where we are. Maybe it comes down to what the old-timer said when he first saw a steam engine. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, there she be. Anyway, that's the sort of unassailable logic I needed to get out of my jam at the Jamestown Airport. I stood there in front of the stern ticket clerk trying to figure out what I could show him to document my Jamestown reality. My business card wouldn't do any good. Anyone could have my business card. My driver's license shows only that I have a driver's license. My visa card demonstrates that someone else believes I exist in a financially abstract sense,

[20:31]

but not necessarily that I exist right here at the Jamestown Airport at this very moment. Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to move so I can help other passengers, the clerk said. I turned and saw that six or seven would-be flyers, all probably able to demonstrate their existence, were standing behind me lined up at what was the only counter in the airport. Sir, can I ask you to step aside? And then I realized that the best proof of my existence was my existence. Pay no attention to me, I said. You win. I'm not here. I had him cornered. Even if he believed I wasn't there, even if he knew I wasn't there, circumstances were increasingly requiring him to act as if I were there.

[21:32]

And finally, that's what he did. I got home that afternoon considerably less confident than I had been the day before, but considerably more confident than I had been that morning. If I could talk with Mel Brooks, I would suggest the same course of action for him. Drink your coffee, Mel, and thereby demonstrate that at least for the moment you are here, not there. Now, it's amusing, but it's also wonderful how many of the eight worldly concerns he's concerned with. And I think that being able to hold our inquiry into this list of concerns in a way that's light, that isn't so deadly serious, is part of what allows us to actually pay attention to the stickiest places, that there is a kind of generosity in being able to laugh about this piece

[22:37]

and at the same time say, there are some points here that are serious, deadly serious, if you might allow me. The other Dharma text I would propose is a book that I've actually had on my bookshelf for several decades. I'm not quite sure how it's been there as long as it's been, and I had not read it until a few days ago. It's a book called Dibs in Search of Self by Virginia Axelan. There may be something about serendipity. We read or hear or accept what we're ready for. So when I read this book a few days ago, it struck home in a very deep, deep way for me. For those of you who don't know this book, it is written by a woman who is a therapist,

[23:39]

and it is her story of her work with a very troubled little boy. He must have been around five or so when she first started working with him, who, as it turns out, was indeed extremely intelligent, but whose parents kept saying that he was mentally retarded because he wouldn't speak or respond. And in fact, when they put him into the school where he was in attendance at the time that Virginia Axelan first met him and began working with him, he would spend all of the school day under a table or in a corner away from all of the other children, never speaking, sometimes having temper tantrums and acting out in very difficult ways. And what Virginia Axelan presents in this book is the story of her experience with this boy. But for our purposes, she's also writing about

[24:40]

a way of being with ourselves and with another that I think is deeply in the spirit of the teachings of Buddhism, deeply in all of the literature that teaches us about the powerful and healing aspect of being witness, being present with what is so. What is wonderful about her book is that she gives you a very specific, detailed description of how to do that. By talking about how when dibs would, in their sessions together, say something about a particular toy or the dollhouse in the playroom where they worked, and she would be dying to ask a leading question to try to bring him out. And how she kept holding herself to the position, if you will,

[25:42]

of being a fair witness, being completely present, listening in a way that was active and engaged so that he knew she was there with him, but letting him take the lead, letting him always take the lead so that he was the one determining the pace of their work, what they would focus on, what he was ready for. So what she is modeling in this story is a way of being in that posture of deep respect and understanding that allows us to not be an expert about someone else's truth or reality. And, in fact, I would argue how to be present with ourselves, not even to be an expert, a so-called expert about ourselves either. Because, of course, so much of our expert mind is informed by these eight worldly concerns.

[26:46]

So much of what we think of as the way we are has been handed to us on a platter with our mother's milk and through the accumulation of experiences through the time of a lifetime. So what Virginia Axeland is also talking about is how to be present and awake, willing to be surprised, willing to see things as if for the first time. There's a commentary that I've been reading on, basically a commentary on the Abhidharma text about this way of seeing that's called clear seeing, what I think Suzuki Roshi meant when he used the phrase beginner's mind. And what Axeland is modeling is how to be with oneself or with another

[27:51]

completely and utterly with beginner's mind, not pulled around by yearning for fame or avoiding obscurity. Not being pulled around by desire for gain or fear of loss. Going for pleasure or trying at all costs to avoid pain. Or my favorite for this week, going for praise and avoiding censure. I think one of the reasons that I find such delight in finding a story or an essay or a poem which carries the Dharma teachings that I know and treasure from Buddhism,

[28:55]

finding those same teachings in expressions that come out of our own culture is because there's always a certain aspect, a certain tone, a certain hue to the expression of insight that comes out of our own culture that helps me wake up in the life I'm actually leading. Helps me be present in the United States, in California, in Marin County, in Muir Beach on Sunday morning, sitting in this tent together with all of you, paying attention to what is actually so in my life right now. Not trying to force myself into the model of some 8th or 9th century text that comes from the teachings at the time, at that time in North India, for example, or in Japan or Korea or China or Tibet.

[29:57]

To be able to understand the teachings of the Buddha Dharma in a way that is relevant in the lives we actually have. So for any of you who haven't read Dibs, please, I recommend it to you. And if you have but haven't read the book for a long time, you might enjoy going back and looking at the book from the standpoint of being a teaching text about how to cultivate our ability to understand, to be respectful and understand, to be deeply respectful of things as they are. What interferes with our ability to be deeply respectful and understanding of things as they are? All our ideas about how it should be or how we wish it was

[31:01]

or how we wish it wasn't. I think each of us has to ask ourselves those kinds of questions, not in general but in particular, moment by moment. So this morning as we sit here together and in the time between now and lunch, can each of us bring that quality of mind called respectfulness and some commitment to understanding, actually some openness to being taught by whatever arises in the moment? But most importantly, can we also be interested in what is an obstacle to that way of being? Thich Nhat Hanh in his wonderful book, Miracle of Mindfulness, has a section early on in the book where he talks about

[32:04]

the meditation that reveals and heals. What can I do to sponsor the revelation before me of things as they are? First of all, I have to be open, if I can be, to what obscures my ability or willingness to see things as they are. And if what is obscuring my ability to see things as they are is fear, can I be respectful of that quality of mind that arises called fear and let myself know about it? You shouldn't feel that way. That's the antithesis of respect. Because, of course, in each moment what arises,

[33:05]

there is some cause and condition. So if fear arises, there is some cause and condition that leads to fear arising. And only if I have this willingness to be present with that fear, some interest and curiosity about fear, for example, or a fear, for example, about being unseen, oh, no one will notice me and maybe I'll disappear. Only if I can know the detail of what the fear arises about can I begin to be present, fully present with what is so. Thank you. So after finishing reading Dibs and going back to this list of the Eight Worldly Concerns, I realized that what I had so enjoyed, what I had found so inspiring in reading Axelon's book

[34:08]

was some inspiration about the particularity with how to be present with myself as I hang out with the list called the Eight Worldly Concerns, as I hang out with noticing when I'm caught by one or the other, hanging out with my discomfort when I notice where I'm caught. As a friend of mine says, oh, how embarrassing. In a text that my husband has been reading that is the recording of teachings by a quite famous teacher who lived in the early part of this century who was in the teaching that Bill is studying, was speaking primarily to monastics. And he said, fame may be the worldly concern that lingers the longest.

[35:13]

Even for a great monk who has given up the world and taken on leading a radically simple life, it may be there in his cave meditating that fame, the desire for fame may linger when all of the other worldly concerns are gone. Isn't that interesting? And how is a desire for fame connected to the desire for praise? They're a little different, but maybe friends. How do I not only let myself be interested and curious about these matters as I see them unfold in the world I live in and with the people that I live and practice with, but most importantly, how do I allow myself to pay attention

[36:17]

to the way this list gives me some language for talking about the places where I get caught myself? Because it is, of course, only my mind stream that I can attend to. That's what each of us can do. Tempting as it may be to try to be fixing up each other's mind stream. So far it doesn't look like it's much of a success. We can, of course, keep each other company in doing our work. So I would invite you to join me in carrying the eight worldly concerns in your hip pocket.

[37:18]

Putting whatever you do, whatever I do or say or think through the sieve of that list with some willingness to notice when one or the other of the worldly concerns describes a place where I can feel myself having been stuck or caught. And that in our practice of noting instances of concern for these matters, that we remember always to do it with generosity and kindness. To not do it with a big, wagging, stern finger. And if the big, wagging finger comes out, to note that. And to please not forget that we can laugh as we practice.

[38:29]

Thank you. Thank you very much. May our intentions equally... This young man asked me a question after lecture which I think lurks in the backs of our minds as a kind of fear. So I asked him if he would mind if I waited to make a stab at responding with more of his fear. Maybe you could restate your question so I'm not bumbling around. What is the fear with the idea of living with an equanimity? What is the passage of living within a structure? Something like that, right?

[39:57]

And, you know, one of the great lists that actually is, in a way, an articulation of the path is the list of the six perfections. And farther on down the line is enthusiastic perseverance. Now that's not quite passion, but there is definitely in the qualities of a Buddha, the qualities of a Bodhisattva, the capacity for some real engagement and vividness with life. The trick is getting stuck.

[41:01]

Now, in a lot of the texts we use the word attachment. And there's a lot of talk about cultivating a capacity for detachment. I actually think a better English word would be non-possessiveness. So it's that passion which has the quality of possessiveness, maybe, that gets us into difficulty. Some years ago, monks from a Tibetan monastery came to visit us and sleep over for a few months. A few months. And during the stay, they went around and picked up and looked at every single thing in the house.

[42:17]

I actually think they probably picked up and looked at every book which in our house is saying something. And then we got a lot of stuff. They were interested in all of it. But they were interested with such a high level of energy and joy and curiosity and sympathy. I stopped worrying about having to be a dried-up pram. I mean, there was real vividness in them. And ease and spontaneous joyful quality. So it's that whole complex and you begin to get a very different picture. Equanimity is not in a vacuum by any means at all.

[43:26]

I was just going to list the four measurables. Which are love, loving kindness, compassion, equanimity and joy. So it's multicolored. It's by ages. And when you think about what's the picture when you've got all those qualities present. Very different than if you just say focus on equanimity. I'll just say that again. The four measurables. Love, loving kindness.

[44:28]

All these. Which gives rise to the condition which generates compassion. And regarding all things as the soul is situated. It is conditioned by the soul in equanimity. And in the presence of that state of mind. Supported by those feelings or experiences of joy. These are potent lists. These goodness lists. Fame and obscurity.

[45:38]

Gain and loss. Pleasure and pain. Praise and censure. And I'll bet you at least one if not two from the list. Has a kind of zing to it for one or another. And knowing which is the one that has my name on it. I think is in itself really useful. And sometimes tender. More painful. I've heard them called the worldly whims.

[46:49]

The worldly whims. Whim. [...] Oh. Oh, that's great. I like that. Yeah. You know. You know I have a blast of avoiding censure going my way. You know, at least in Japan. I remember when Dr. Morisensei was living here. One of the worst things she could ever imagine was getting caught in the wind. One that we'd have windy days and would kind of freak her out. It's kind of like what it gets being caught in the wind. Yeah. Oh, interesting.

[47:52]

So the language of the lists is also. I mean I think that's part of what makes these lists so interesting. Is that it's a way for us to begin to have some language with which to talk to ourselves about what we're noticing, what our experience is. I think it's not just us. Yeah, right. And we have some more amongst us. There probably was one other person if this list. There's one other person. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. The date.

[49:01]

The date and name. The girl priest. The girl priest. So me, I would be a worldly consumer. Let's make one other thing which is different. The wind watcher. The wind watcher. Yes. Yes. Name straight up. The book that you mentioned. Thus have I heard. Translated by Maurice Walsh.

[50:07]

From wisdom class. Tell them I sent you. I'm trying to get on their good side. I actually think the Greenbelt's office has it or will shortly. It's a fine translation. I really admire what Walsh has done. It's very lively and contemporary. Contemporary language. The introduction is really useful. He also has, in fact, a friend of ours who is one of the founders of wisdom. The western press.

[51:09]

Said that he sent a collection of essays. By Lama Govinda. To Maurice Walsh. To get some feedback from Maurice Walsh about what he thought. Should we get these translated? Maybe think about publishing them. Six weeks later, he got them not translated. I mean the guy must be a hell of a maniac. He's like Tom Clary. Just chokes through material. And it was apparently the collection of essays that wisdom wasn't able to print because they couldn't afford to. So they sent it on to Shambhala.

[52:14]

And it's the collection that was published as Living Buddhism for the West. Anyway, I think Walsh is really good. I hope he has a very long and productive life. He's not a kid, so we all have to pray for his long life. Anyway, it's a fine, fine collection of sutras. And what he's done is to eliminate a lot of the repetition. And the translation reflects some of the really fine scholarship that's been done on the sutras.

[53:18]

One thing he said in the introduction, he said that there are some additions to the sutras, clearly added to the Buddhist teachings, that are self-serving arguments on behalf of one or another well-meaning monastic commentator. He's eliminated some of those. He was very kindly, but he said, there's some self-servingness to some of these passages,

[54:19]

which historically don't really belong, they're not really part of the sutra, they came much later. But I think particularly, out of the concern for systemic bias, in so much of the early literature of Buddhism, that kind of sensitivity is helpful. Okay. There's a book out there that's kind of circulating now, something about the shadow, it's a collection of essays, by the Middle Union. Somebody mentioned this book to me a couple days ago.

[55:22]

You don't remember this, or else there's... Well, I mean, I'd really like to think about it. I think it's a great question. It certainly, I know for myself, what makes this list very potent, is that it gives me access to my own shadow stuff, which is of course so difficult to have access to. This is why we need our friends. So I think that's certainly part of what we're talking about. I think one of the indicators may be the degree of discomfort we feel about whatever begins to show up

[56:26]

in the way of information about what is so about ourselves, and what we get excited about, or what we're afraid of. I think one of the things that's quite interesting is to think about the list that has to do with aversion, having to do with that form of aversion that manifests as fear. Which I think is often the case. Miriam? A lot of that list, and maybe you do this parallel, is me worrying the fear that I don't exist, looking for outside validation. Sure. So all of this is in service of, goes along with, all the practices that have to do with meditations on wisdom, on emptiness. But very important and necessary companion pieces. One of the reasons I wanted to read that piece from Natural History

[57:28]

is because along with it being very funny, there's also some real bite there to what he's talking about. And that, what is the precise territory of fear that I disappear, or I'm not really here, or I might not be? And how does it come up for us in our lives? I think you can't... I was very interested in that piece that you read because I feel like you can't really take it out of its social and political context. I think that piece was written from a very privileged position that I don't really relate to because I think it's not no accident that these men, these probably white privileged men, have never felt this kind of invisibility, this kind of, oh my God, I don't exist. Whereas a lot of other people from less privileged positions deal with that daily. And so it's a thing about ego

[58:30]

that cannot be separated from its social context, I think. But you know, if you read, is it Ellison's The Invisible Man? Where he's talking about that experience as a black man in this culture. And if we dig deep enough, what's really underneath this has to do with self-clinging. And it's very difficult to talk about self-clinging with somebody who doesn't in their life experience have the experience. You know, there was an essay that was being passed around a long time ago that was titled something like, you have to be somebody before you can be nobody. And all the teachings about the emptiness of inherent self-existence are very... they're not even on the screen. If you're someone who has in their life experience the sense of not being here.

[59:30]

So yeah, I think you're completely right. You have to look at our culture and the social context and absolutely all that comes up behind what this guy is saying. So do you feel like if your identity is not validated and if you're constantly feeling disenfranchised, you're actually farther away from detachment in a way? Yeah, I do. I think that it's one of the things that we maybe need to remind ourselves of is the extraordinary gift of having the causes and conditions that allow us to study and practice. And that it's no accident that we have so few people of color, for example, in our sangha. That there's a kind of privilege that comes from a substantially less worry about literally daily survival, for example.

[60:32]

And that's a very important piece in what makes it possible to be able to do a spiritual practice, for example. That's what in the sutras, for example, in certain translations of the Heart Sutra, the language of son or daughter of good family isn't talking about nobility, isn't talking about being from the aristocracy, it's talking about being the son or daughter of a family where the circumstances are conducive to your being able to practice the Dharma. And that has as much to do with the practicalities of the kind of life that makes that possible. If I'm scrambling to pay the rent and have enough food to feed myself and my kids, that's what I'm doing. That consumes absolutely all my energy. But the other things that come along with a privileged class background can completely obscure, also obscure, kind of... Of course. Of course. Absolutely.

[61:34]

So someone may be from a very high-born family from the standpoint of class and wealth, and not be in the category of the son or daughter of good family. Absolutely. Therein lies the worm or the twist. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. You talk about fame as being the thing that maybe lingers the longest or the longest. You gave the example of the monk. Well, I was actually quoting my husband who was quoting a teacher in a teaching he did in 1924, to be exact. Well, anyway, that references... I've also often thought of fame in that way as being the thing that sort of lingers the longest or has the most enduring kind of power. And there's an obvious component to it about some kind of fear of death and wanting to have yourself go on beyond death. But I've also thought of it in terms of something about

[62:37]

needing to be loved. And there's something about that that I see in the power of the desire for fame. Well, you know, the person that I know the best who is of my people that I've been close to in my life has suffered the most from a kind of being caught by a desire for fame. And certainly in this particular person's case it has a lot to do with a yearning for love. But I don't know how true that is across the board. But I haven't spent very much time thinking about or looking into fame. It interests me, but it's not... On this list, it's not yet the hot spot. And I tend to sort of... I'm slowly plodding along here.

[63:41]

One worldly concern at a time. I have a little bit of fear around my potential for desire for fame having watched someone I love and care about go down in flames over fame. So I think I have a little of this. And I also wonder... Anyway, I have a lot of wonderings about fame. But they're all pretty half-cooked still. So I don't really have a lot I can respond to. Isn't there a form of acknowledgement? It's kind of halfway between love and fame. Well, but if you think about a kind of continuum, it seems to me that acknowledgement may be way over here and with fame over here.

[64:44]

So maybe there's some connection there. But how much of that has to do with what happens when we really have the experience of being seen and understood? It takes me back to what touched me so about reading Dibs. And I think about this actually a lot because in the work of Winnicott, the famous English psychiatrist who was the person who really talked about how critical having a witness is in the healing process. And I think about it a lot because in practicing with people, when I'm sitting in the teaching seat, how do I understand what my job is? And a lot of it, I think, is the job of being a witness. And that witness in the sense that Axlan is talking about being present in a way that's respectful and understanding, but radically staying out of the way,

[65:47]

not succumbing to the temptation to get in there and direct traffic and just be there. So my experience, particularly living in the Zen Center community, is that when we talk about acknowledgement, I think very often what we're really talking about is that sense of the experience of feeling seen. Yeah? You know, it seems that so much of what we get into in those eight points, particularly, are out of a desire to experience ourselves, like a constant reminder that I exist. Drugs and sex and food and fame and adoration and all that. And it does seem to me that as I sit more and validate it for myself, I unhook from all those other sources

[66:53]

that say, yes, you exist, yes, you're okay, yes, you're going to continue to exist forever and ever. You know, I don't know what exactly made this get sort of piqued for me again, but a very important teacher for me, periodically, before he died, would periodically wag his fingers about, well, have you written a commentary on, where is your commentary in the Heart Sutra? And I sort of thought, you must be kidding. And more recently, I've been feeling like, yeah, where are the commentaries that come from us? Those of us who are, all of us sitting here in this room who are practicing now, talking about, commenting on the practices and the texts that we're studying. And how does that process begin?

[67:54]

How does that, the confidence to begin to say, this is what my experience is, this is what I understand. So in the spirit of that, that's been coming up for me a lot the last, I don't know, maybe a year or so. But it has to be perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't it be interesting if a group of us like this took on hanging out with the Eight Worldly Concerns. And we just did and shared with each other what we notice about, what seems to be motivating my desire for fame? And is it the same for you as it is for you? I bet it isn't. We begin to get a whole range of description of what is so for each of us, but which would illuminate the territory for all of us if we got to see what that range was. Because it will be very different for us

[68:56]

as Americans living in the 1990s than it was for, you know, whoever, I don't know, whoever spoke and wrote Polly. William, you have a little quivering thought on this subject? The key word there is motivation. Because the teachings about the Eight Worldly Concerns normally are presented in discussions about motivation. So if my motivation is grounded in achieving or avoiding one of the concerns, I can look at things that way. Maybe if I start to recognize it, I can begin to ask, well, what alternative motivation might there be? But what worries me about reading the texts about motivation and reading this list in that context is that it may keep me from paying attention to the motivation I actually have, which is what I have to start with. Because that's where all the dust and shit and pus

[69:57]

and trouble is, if you will. And it's that part of the process of coming to or being able to write some commentaries that I think is really interesting. It's why it's so likely for a group of people to practice together and to have a way to talk together about what is so. And to find a way to have some ongoing dialogue about what shows up. Now, of course, that depends upon our feeling safe enough in our conversation with each other to be fairly self-revealing about that. But that's a different problem. Yeah? Dr. Ron Kuru. Dr. Ron? Kuru. Dr. Kuru. The author of Folk Crimes of Change. Very well. 72-year-old man who spoke last night. He answered a question in this context here. He asked, he said, the question was essentially what makes you a better parent? Does certainty in a better person?

[70:59]

And then he spoke about in terms of being a better activist by being more ambitious. He asked the question, being more ambitious at it. In other words, being able to influence more efficiently that way than others. In other words, he was talking very much about motivation. But on the other hand, he always said everything with grace. It's kind of like, instead of his publishers, he would say, well, I'm a very good publisher. Or always giving allegiance to something else. I guess basically what I'm trying to get at is what you just said, kind of a burning flame, fame. There's always a check and balance there. You get slapped, you know, at some point out there. And it depends how sensitive you are on the inside level to be able to recognize that. And you know, to the degree that I have really good blinders and eye patches on, I get a very big slap before I feel it. You know, and it seems to me

[72:02]

that what meditation practice is about is helping us be able to take off the blinders and the ear pads, whatever. Yeah. That's the first time I ever saw somebody use that stove for a seat. Is it comfy? It feels very good. Yeah, you look like you're on a horse. I even have foot support. Yeah, that's great. I feel like I'm riding a horse. I missed the last title and author of a short title book of two or three words that you mentioned. Dibs in Search of Self. No, that's not the one. You mentioned it. Thus have I heard the long discourses of the Buddha, Lama Govinda's Essence, The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

[73:03]

I could just sit here spouting out book titles. You mentioned it in the tent. I mentioned it in the tent. Oy vey, you expect me to remember back then. Come listen to a tape. No, no, no. There was nothing to dance for. I don't know. Thus have I heard the long discourses of the Buddha. I'm sorry, I have no idea. If you get another clue. It seemed like it was helpful in dealing with the eight winds. Oh, The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. Say it. If that's not the one you think of, if that's not the one you thought of, try it anyway.

[74:06]

It was a great book. In speaking of these eight winds that blow us around, I'm thinking of myself and the one that blows me around the most. To be really interested in the situations where the whole question of loss comes up. Oh, this is very interesting, rich, tender territory. How much of my fear of loss is because I don't feel like I have had enough of something? I mean, I can imagine that you might ramble with yourself in that way quite usefully, quite usefully. Just recently I've been thinking a lot about Vietnam and a friend of mine

[75:10]

published a book called Her Experience as a Combat Nurse in Vietnam. Oh, I heard a reading from that. Right. I came home on a long drive. I sobbed. She was a mother in the nursery school for two years where I teach. She was writing the book at the time. Recently she called and asked me about shamanism. Shamans in Northern California. A friend of mine who's involved with painting Native American knows a lot. He said the difference between the Native Americans just say what it is that happened and they don't try to hide what happened. They're not secretive about it. They just say, well, they made a mistake. And they ask for forgiveness from the Great Spirit. And she said, we wouldn't have had to have a hundred new lives if we could have just said we made a mistake. And the woman over there said,

[76:11]

what about having to be perfect in writing down, and it's like the Native Americans, it's just, they're not on the appearance level. It's just their relationship, say, with the creator rather than with each other. And we're continually trying to hide one lie built upon another lie built upon another lie. And I wanted you to comment on that in terms of your practice. I don't know how, but I just wanted to bring that in for you. That's interesting. Somehow Vietnam does seem to be up again, doesn't it? It's partially because it's up in such an unhappy way with the politics around the election. Well, for me personally,

[77:14]

working with the precepts has been very important ground of practice for a very long time. And I hope always will be. I actually wanted to say something about this because today is the new moon, and traditionally in the Buddhist world for many centuries on the new moon and the full moon one renews one's commitment to the precepts. And in fact, more and more people are taking on the practice of actually renewing a commitment to the precepts as part of one's daily practice. And I don't think you can practice living your life guided by and inspired by the precepts without at some point fairly early on turning to the practice

[78:15]

of confession and regret and renewal of vows. And I always think the language of confession is so old-fashioned. I grew up in a Catholic convent, and so I have a lot of the culture of a Catholic convent and the Catholic church around confession mixed. So I think I came to the practice of confession late and reluctantly. And I've been stunned by the power of the practice of confession. You know, every three months I do this ceremony for aborted and miscarried fetuses and children who've died. And right now I'm reading a book that the University of Pennsylvania has done on what's called

[79:17]

the liquid world and the practice of this particular ceremony as it's done in Japan and the whole thing of having to do with abortion. And a very important part of the ceremony is some acknowledgement of what is so, which is in a very real sense what confession is about. And there's a lot of evidence to the practice of confession for a variety of reasons. And, I mean, I think you're right. I think that somehow for us, maybe in our culture, we have a particularly hard time with confession. But it's such a powerful practice. And if you look at a number of different wisdom traditions around the world, the practice of confession is very important. Well, I just saw Ishii, too, that was playing at Pensacola

[80:17]

in the city. And the not wearing clothes and the wearing of clothes, the covering up and the uncovering and being totally related to nature, which Ishii was. And when he went in the water back to his place where he had come out from the last Northern California Indian, he was in ecstasy, almost like being back home again, his whole face you could see in the photograph. And then the faces of the white men who felt very justified in the massacres and all their clothing and their hats and their guns. But, you know, if I bring this back to what I do and don't do, acknowledging, telling the truth to myself about what I've done that has led to some harming is painful, and I have to practice doing that if I'm going to enhance and increase

[81:18]

my ability to do that. And the opportunity for lying to myself about what is so in order to avoid the suffering is big. I mean, you know that lying has arrived when it arrives on the cover of Time magazine. I mean, when I saw that issue of Time recently, I thought, well, it finally got on our collective screen. That's actually, I think, very encouraging, that the issue of lying, that noticing the fact of lying for us as an issue in our society is focused in ethics and morality and something one might describe as the cultivation of virtue. One isn't quite as embarrassed to speak with those words these days as we used to be a decade or two ago.

[82:20]

The embarrassment doesn't seem to be there for the Native American in their culture, at least the way it was. Well, but that's true in a culture which is balanced and healthy. I don't view our culture today as being in that condition. I may be wrong, but it looks to me... Andy was asked what he thought of Western civilization and said it would be a good idea. Well, I had a conversation last week with a friend who's a Buddhist teacher who has periodically spent time studying and practicing in Asia. And we were talking about what happens when one's resonator with the suffering of the world that you live in is very high, where you're registering

[83:22]

the suffering of others in a way, and how you take care of yourself in that circumstance. And he was commenting on how much of what we were talking about is registering a kind of palpable level of suffering in our society right now, and how much it registers when you've been out of this society, when you go to Asia, which, you know, I go to India, and India is hardly the same. It's different. It's different from here. And when you step off the plane and come back into the culture of the United States, it's a kind of shock. It's sort of, oh, so we're not comparing cultures or societies that are intact and balanced and wholesome in the same ways.

[84:23]

And it seems to me that that's part of what we're looking to in recognizing the loss of indigenous peoples and their cultures around the world. You know, there's this tribe in the Amazon.

[84:36]

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