I just wanted to mention that today is the birthday of Abbott Tinch and Rev. Anderson. So, happy birthday. Okay. In the little chant that we just chanted, we're reminded to taste the truth of the words. This chant is not only chanted before lecture, but before one opens a book to study or opens a sutra. So, the idea or the practice for the chant is to settle yourself and open your mind

[01:19]

and open your ears and allow the words to come in with more of a zazen mind than the mind that wants to grab information and get some new information to take home. So, you might try in the lecture just listening in a different way without trying to understand anything even, just allowing the words to come in and whatever happens, let it happen. So, you can just sit quietly, settle in your seat, just breathe. And the wisdom that comes out of, that arises from hearing words and hearing the dharma spoken or also reading it is called,

[02:24]

it's one of the three wisdoms, it's called, prajna is wisdom and sruta is from the Sanskrit, which means to hear. So, there's three kinds of wisdom, srutamaya prajna, which is the wisdom that arises upon hearing explanations of the dharma, hearing the words, cintamaya prajna, which is reflecting on those words and bhavanamaya prajna, which is the power out of your meditation, the wisdom that comes out of your meditation. We have another birthday, kind of birthday today, which is the reemergence of this figure. This figure is in Japanese, it's called Jizo Bodhisattva, Jizo Bosatsu

[03:28]

and the Sanskrit name for this figure is Kshitagarbha Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is an enlightenment being and Kshitagarbha means, well, it's translated as earth store Bodhisattva or also earth womb Bodhisattva. And this figure, for those of you who used to come here years ago, used to be right next to the main altar on the floor and when we'd leave, people would file past it very close and it was a little precarious where it was placed before. We thought it might get bumped or something happened to it and during the renovation of the Zendo, we took it out, we took all the altar figures out of the Zendo and this was just reinstalled yesterday with a special ceremony

[04:29]

called Opening the Eyes, the Ceremony of Opening the Eyes. Some of you were here for that. So this Bodhisattva, I didn't know so much about Jizo or Kshitagarbha Bodhisattva, what attributes came with this particular practice figure. There's four main Bodhisattvas that you often see in the Zendo. We actually have one, this on the other side of you, which is Manjushri Bodhisattva and that's the Wisdom Bodhisattva. And then there's Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva that we talk about quite a bit, the enlightenment being of compassion. And then there's another one, Samantabhadra, who's the Bodhisattva of meritorious deeds and shining practice. And Kshitagarbha is the Bodhisattva of the great vow.

[05:33]

And there's a sutra called the Past Vows of the Earth Womb Bodhisattva, the Earth Store Bodhisattva, which talks about how these vows were made and how they operate in the world or what it is about this energy. So I thought I'd tell you that story. The sutra starts out and there's many people who have come to listen to the Buddha and the Earth Store Bodhisattva is there, Earth Womb Bodhisattva, and they tell the story of a woman, a Brahmin woman, who was very pious and religious and she loved her mother very much and her mother did not believe in or respect the three treasures.

[06:38]

The three treasures are the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. And her daughter tried to teach her and read her sutras and get her to change her mind. The mother would for a while, but then afterwards she would make disparaging remarks. So when her mother died, this woman was very concerned that she would go to some evil destiny, some state of woe, and she was very concerned about this out of the love for her mother. And so she sold her house and bought flowers and offerings and incense and she went to a temple and asked what had happened to her mother and is her mother all right. And the Buddha of that time spoke to her just out of space and she kind of leaped and fell down and broke all the bones in her body.

[07:43]

But even so, people around her helped her, and this is a good story, and she was able to ask her question, where has my mother gone and is she all right? And this Buddha told her to gather herself up and go home and recite the name of this Buddha over and over and over again with fervor and something would happen. She did that even in her pain. She just forgot about that and single-mindedly did this practice. And she was visited by a being who took her to these states of woe and she saw all these beings suffering in myriad ways and her heart was very grieved by seeing all these people. And she asked about her mother.

[08:45]

Is her mother there in this situation? And her guide, whose name was Poisonless, said, Oh, about three days ago there was a woman here, but about three days ago her daughter made great offerings and meritorious acts on her behalf, and she was taken from here to heaven. And not only she went, but a number of other people who heard about these meritorious acts by the daughter were saved also. And the Buddha who's telling this story then says, and that Brahman woman is now Earth Womb Bodhisattva. So she made these vows at that time, very strong vows, to help beings and became this Bodhisattva. So Jizo Bosatsu has vowed to help beings in these states of woes especially

[09:55]

and will not become enlightened himself until the hells, this is what it says in the sutra, until the hells are emptied. And three times he told the Buddha, Don't worry about beings in the future. Don't be concerned about them because I've made these vows and I will be there for them and they can call on me. So that's the vows of Jizo. And in Japan, and also in this sutra, it talks about the various situations where people can call, where he's especially good are in these states of woes when you have evil things have happened to you or if you're in dangerous situations. Also for children who have died, young. In fact, there's a ceremony. We offer for children who have died, children under 10 years old is sort of a specialty of Jizo and we offer the ceremony.

[10:57]

The next one will be in November for people to bring their concerns and grief together with other people who have had similar difficulties. So we're very happy to have this figure to practice with and I think it's important to understand that all these figures that we practice with are not to be treated as something outside ourselves or above us or some deities, but more as the personification of energies that are alive in the world and alive in us and can be drawn upon, can be called up, can be called for.

[11:58]

And so when that energy is personified or made into a figure, drawn or painted or carved, they tend to look like this, traditionally. And Jizo's holding this wish-fulfilling gem in the left hand so you can ask for help. Now we sell these little Jizo in the office. Have you seen those little... They're kind of a rough little guy, little pretty colors. And I got one for my son because we thought it would be nice for him to have an altar and a place to put special things. And it's on his altar and sometimes he offers incense, sometimes he doesn't. My son's eight. And I remember one evening he had had a nightmare and I was trying to comfort him

[13:01]

and I said something like, ask Jizo for help. And he said, how is that thing going to help me? And I realized that I was a complete failure as a... I don't know as a what, but failure completely because I didn't actually know how to tell him how that little, you know, bubble, that little clay bald-headed guy... It was such a great question. It was sort of like Abraham smashing the idols or something. It was like, what does this have to do with anything? I'm afraid, you know. So I realized I had a lot more work to do in imparting to my children and myself what it is to call on Earth, womb, bodhisattva or even to call it all for help. How one does that. There's a movie called Little Buddha.

[14:05]

Have some of you seen Little Buddha? Lots of you have seen Little Buddha? It's a pretty interesting movie. I actually took the kids to see it. There's parts of it that are not particularly... well, that I didn't feel were all that well done, but certain parts were great. Do you mind if I tell you about it? The plot is basically that these Tibetan lamas have heard that the reincarnation of their teacher has been found in America, and it's about an 8-year-old boy, I think, who lives in Seattle, blonde, very cute, and the signs have been noted that this reincarnation is there. So these lamas come out of their monastery and go to Seattle, and they're very sweet. Actually, there's real lamas in the movie. And they come to this family, and somehow they're so friendly and sweet

[15:06]

that the parents end up having them come in, and they talk to the boy. Anyway, they give the boy this book about the Buddha's life, and then the rest of the movie is juxtaposing the search for this reincarnation and the life of the Buddha, which is, the life of the Buddha is done in full color with lots of costumes and elephants and great decorations, probably on-site in India with music and dancing ladies. It's great. And the baby Buddha, if some of you have been to our pageant here on Buddha's birthday, when the Buddha walks, takes 7 steps, and flowers come, well, they have this little baby walking, these lotuses are popping up under his feet, and he speaks, you know, he's newborn. Anyway, it's done very well. But the high point for me of the movie is when this little boy, well, there's actually 2 other children for whom there seems to be indication

[16:09]

that they might be the reincarnation of this lama as well, the same one. One is a little girl from India, and the other is a little boy from the streets of Nepal. So there's 3 candidates, actually, and they all end up, I guess they go to Bhutan to the monastery itself and consult oracles to try and figure out which is the real one. And at a certain point, the lama, who was the student of this teacher, goes to each one of the children. He goes to the little boy from Nepal, and he says, Oh, my teacher, I'm so happy that you're here. And he does this full bow, full prostration like I just did before the altar there, full bow down to the floor. And this little boy just kind of looks there and stands there, and then the rest of the monks in the monastery come, and they all do bows to this little boy. He just kind of doesn't know what to do. Then the lama goes to the little girl and says, Welcome, my teacher. I am so happy to see you again. He does this full bow,

[17:10]

and she's a little bit... what shall I say? She thinks she's pretty hot stuff, and she kind of just stands there and receives all these monks come, and they all do bows to her, and she just enjoys it. Then he goes to the little boy from Seattle, and he says, Welcome, my teacher. I am so happy to see you again. He does this full bow, and the little blonde-headed kid looks at him, and he does a full bow as well, goes down, and the two of them just bow to each other, full prostration. They practically bump heads. And that's the high point of the movie, I think, for me, that realization of their... It doesn't matter if one is the reincarnation and the other is the student or one's Tibetan, one's American, one's old, one's young. It doesn't really matter. It's two people

[18:12]

who recognize each other and love each other and do this action. They bow. They find some way to express it wordlessly, how they understand their relationship. So this is an appropriate action. Suzuki Roshi says, We should always be alert enough to communicate at all times, even without words. So when they bow to each other, I feel that they're recognizing their true natures, their closeness and oneness. And to be ready to bow, we're lucky here. Bowing is not so... It's not a regular form that Westerners use, but at Zen Center

[19:14]

we've adopted this form because it's so marvelous, really. And we get to bow lots of different ways. When we come to the Zen Do, take our places before meals, before we serve up food, when we meet each other on the paths, before we have one-on-one interview. There's all these times when we are able to express ourselves with this bow, with a bow. And sometimes, especially with full bows, you need your knees. It's helpful to have knees that work to kind of get down there to the floor. And I just came back from Tassara, and my knees... I did something to my knees. It was very hot down there. It was about 110, and sitting with cross-legged position, I think my knees were swollen. Something happened. There's something going on with my knees. So I looked up the word knee,

[20:15]

just to see about the word knee. Knee and kneel are very close, of course. And the word knee comes from the root genu, as in genuflect, and it means knee or angle. So the knee has to be able to bend, has to be able to... I guess it's one of its greatest attributes is its bendability and its ability to be flexible. I remember in junior high in chorus, we were standing on the risers for a big program. We were supposed to bend our knees a little bit, slightly bend your knees, and one of the girls, one of the students didn't, and she had locked knees. You know, if you have locked knees, your circulation doesn't work very well.

[21:17]

And she fainted, and we heard this noise, and we turned around, and she was sliding down through the risers, head first with her feet sort of slithering down after her. It was a very memorable vision of those feet. They were sort of like the Wicked Witch of the West when those feet shriveled up under the house. The feet, they kind of went whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. She totally fainted. So I remember thinking how important it was to keep my knees bent, keep them sort of flexible and absorbent kind of. So the word genuflect means to bend at the knee, and it's genu or knee, and flect, which is to bend, like in reflect. To bend back is to reflect. And the second wisdom is cintamaya prajna, which is the wisdom

[22:18]

of reflecting on the teaching, reflecting back, bending the teaching back into your own body and mind and bending it around until you understand it, and maybe it's also asking someone about it so that you can thoroughly understand it. If you just take it inflexibly, you might faint, maybe not, but if you bend it and reflect it, you can plumb the depths. So this is that second wisdom, cintamaya prajna, reflecting. Another word that comes from this same root, the knee genuflect, is genuine, genuine or real,

[23:18]

authentic is genuine. And the dictionary that I love, that I was looking at is the American Heritage Dictionary, and it said that it probably comes from genuine, genuine meaning the acknowledgement of a parent. It actually said a father, so I'll say a father, acknowledgement of the father of their child by taking it on their knees. So I'm not sure what custom this was exactly, but maybe after the child was born and already had been in the mother's lap and on her knees, it got re-acknowledged to be put on the father's knees. So that's genuine, to be acknowledged and to be on someone's knee. Now we may find that when we feel we are our most genuine

[24:20]

and our most authentic in times past, we have not been accepted or not been acknowledged, not been taken on anyone's knee and not seen, not bowed to when something genuine has happened maybe. And so there may be a tendency to be afraid to bring out our most genuine self, our most authentic self, because we've done that before and we've gotten slapped around maybe figuratively or otherwise, and we might even have been abandoned by someone for being who we are. So what we really want to do

[25:29]

is connect with our most genuine self, with our true nature, with our true source, and we have been lucky enough and blessed enough to have come into contact with a teaching that shows a way that one can reconnect up with one's own genuine self. And this is our practice of sitting upright, sitting meditation, to reconnect with our true source. And the power that comes out of our meditation and wisdom, the wisdom that comes out of it and the power of this wisdom is bhavana-maya-prajna, that's the third wisdom, sruta-maya-prajna, hearing, cinta-maya-prajna,

[26:29]

reflecting, and bhavana-maya-prajna, meditation. So being abandoned for being who you are is very, very difficult for people, especially if you just, you were who you were, you know, as a little baby or something and there was nothing, there was nothing else you could do but be who you were and yet that wasn't okay. So Zen Center, I've often said, is a little like the French Foreign Legion because there's so many stories here and we don't necessarily ask what's happened to people, why they've come to sit quietly, but often if you do find out, you find that someone has been abandoned in some way

[27:31]

and in fact when you start sitting maybe you realize how much you feel you have been abandoned by everyone or by your parents and feel this. And maybe after we feel this there's another feeling we have which is how much we have abandoned other people and who we have abandoned. This sometimes comes up after that. Now the word abandon is an interesting word because it means to forsake or desert or leave with no intention of coming back, that feeling of abandon. There's also a sense of abandoning obstacles or abandoning wrongdoing so the sense of renunciation or giving up,

[28:34]

so it has that sense as well. And then the third meaning of it is intemperance or totally giving in to one's senses, wild abandoned, and the connotation with that, oh, she's totally abandoned, is that there's a wickedness or a unseemliness about that, unwholesomeness about being someone who's abandoned, and yet we're asked to abandon certain things. We're actually even asked to abandon the teaching at the end if we're beginning to use the teaching as a, if it's extra, if it's too much. So we're asked to abandon everything, to not rely on anything. So the word,

[29:36]

it keeps turning round and round, and I've found that if you abandon another person, if you felt that you abandoned someone, the pain of your understanding of that can sometimes precipitate a life of wild abandon. It's almost if you see you've abandoned someone, it's so painful that you go completely in another direction and maybe misuse various substances, and this I've found to be true in many instances. The damage that one does to oneself by abandoning others, so-called others, is because there are no others to abandon, and our innermost understanding is the impossibility of doing this.

[30:37]

We maybe don't have that understanding consciously, but I feel like we know in some way that the pain of abandoning others is the pain of ripping yourself in half, or trying to. So the bodhisattvas, the bodhisattvas are beings that do not abandon other beings. That's the vow, that's one of Jizo's vows, is to not abandon beings in any state, doesn't matter where they've landed, what kind of unwholesome activities they've done. This vow to not abandon beings is forever. So we often want to know that there is someone who has not abandoned us,

[31:43]

and we call out. In fact, sometimes the wild abandon is just one big cry for help, saying, you know, don't abandon me, or please, I need help. It may look one way, it may look all sorts of different ways, but we do ask for help in all sorts of different ways. And these bodhisattvas, these enlightenment beings, hear the cries of the world. The Avalokiteshvara, or Kuan Yin, is the one who hears the cries of the world. There is a meeting, if you ask, there is a meeting of energy that will meet you. Now, the Jizo, Kashikta Garbha, can duplicate, this being can duplicate into hundreds of myriads of thousands of millions of shapes, kind of a shape-changer type being, for whatever the needs of beings are.

[32:44]

So whatever you need, Jizo will be there in that guise. Doesn't matter what it is, it may be you need to stub your toe, whatever it is, whatever is appropriate will come to meet you there. So it may not look like this when the help comes. So a bodhisattva does not abandon beings. I have a friend who recently lost, someone who was very close to her brother, and she vowed, I guess, to be with him. It was a long-drawn-out illness, and to be with him over that last year of his life as he made a downward turn and got sicker and sicker. They were extremely close, closer than many family members are

[33:46]

due to their family ecology and so forth. They were the ones that really were close, an older brother. And she spent a lot of time with him. His last days, he had been a Catholic priest for a while and had left the monastery about 5 years or so before, and he had, during this illness, which was lung cancer, was very, very uncomfortable and very, because of the difficulty in breathing and so forth. And when he was in a lot of pain, he would say, Merciful Lord, be with me now. And he had this prayer. And things turned for the worse. He left where he was living and moved in with friends of his who were going to be like hospice workers. He had hospice workers. His sister came, and they just went through these last days with him. And on the last day, the last 24 hours,

[34:47]

he seemed to kind of rally and had lunch and was talking. It almost seemed like he was making a turn for the better, which from my understanding from hospice workers sometimes happens right before someone is going to die. There's a kind of resurgence of energy for a bit, and then it's very fast. And that's what happened with this person. And during the last hour or so of his life, I don't want to be too graphic for you, but basically he was having lots and lots of trouble breathing, and they were being with him, and then there was some blockage in his, of some artery, and blood began to come pouring out of his mouth, and they all panicked. He was panicking, and the friends and his sister, they didn't know what to do, and he was in such, it was so horrific what was going on. And his sister just,

[35:49]

for some reason, just began to say, Merciful Lord, be with us now. Merciful Lord, be with us now. Merciful Lord, be with us now. And they all began to say it, and he began to say it, and the friends said it, and they said it over and over, and they all calmed down. They were able to calm themselves, and he died. So this, being able to call out, to be able to call out for help, truly and thoroughly, being rooted in that room with what is going on, and be able to be, to find what you need to do, to find the exact thing you need to do. And they were met. They were met by this merciful energy that came and calmed them during this last time. So she became a,

[36:56]

she became, she became Jizo Bosatsu. She became that energy for her brother and for herself. She was able to call upon it and bring it there in fullness and connect with her source. The word for source means, to rise up, to bubble up and rise up like a, like a spring, like the hot springs at Tassara, to rise up and meet the situation thoroughly and truly. And so she became a resource. She became a resource for her brother. So the most important thing is to be able to express,

[38:02]

this is a quote from Suzuki Roshi, the most important thing is to express our true nature in the simplest and most adequate way and to express our true nature and to appreciate it in the smallest existence. So to be able to connect with our source and express it simply and adequately, bow to bow, energy to energy, with nothing extra. And I'm so grateful that we have this practice that can help us to do this endlessly. Thank you very much. Take a walk.

[39:06]

Does anyone have anything they'd like to bring up or ask or talk about? I wanted to say I was really struck by your talk this morning and something that I've been struggling with in my own mind. Hello? To understand and connect with the energy or cry out for help. I feel, I always felt like I was born without skin or like I had a bleeding heart or I wore my heart on my sleeve. And throughout my life I never really developed a way to protect that or I felt like other people could cope with it better or not let things get to them and I never could. And it seems like in situations I found myself being like am I supposed to learn

[40:07]

that that's not okay? Like living in New York City, am I supposed to learn how to put walls around me so I can protect myself and not connect? And it seems in addition to that I have felt some serious abandonment because some people have told me well you put yourself so much out on the limb and that scares people and they run away. And it seems like a very hard thing to balance. Could everyone hear what she said? Pretty much? No? May I paraphrase? What is your name? Kat. Kat? Kat was saying that she felt she was born without a skin, very sensitive to the world and with a bleeding heart or a heart on her sleeve just really feeling intensely

[41:10]

the suffering of the world like with no boundary kind of. And difficulty around that. You know, what should one do? Does one wall oneself off for safety and people being abandoning her because it scares them how much she's there for them? I don't know you Kat very well like at all. But I do know that you know there's a kind of advanced practice you might say which is with Jizo you know going into any situation going into the hell realms with people and being there being a support for them there.

[42:11]

If you're not stable enough yourself or have not established your practice and your understanding thoroughly enough those situations then can become dangerous for you too. So you may want to go and work with aids, homeless aids people or you know some very heavy intense situation but you may not be able to even though you feel very strongly. And some people are able to. So in some ways you have to know your own limitations you have to know who you are you have to know thoroughly thoroughly who you are so you know what is appropriate action. Because there's a difference between Bodhisattva and compulsive caregiving someone gave a retreat on this actually the Bodhisattva and the compulsive caregiver because someone may look like altruistic and being there for other people

[43:11]

but they're getting their own needs met in a certain it's not to help others it's turned back and this is nothing about you I'm just sort of painting a picture. So you know the Bodhisattva the other one thing about Bodhisattvas is they have skill in means so they are able to know what is appropriate for what situation. And if one formulaic way of acting does not work for all situations so you to know yourself thoroughly and be able to be there with someone without turning away from their pain then you know what to do but you can't plan it ahead. So if someone's running away or abandoning you because they feel I don't know what it's too much for them it's too intense then you know what can you do that makes it where it's a complete appropriate action. That was a question a monk asked to a Zen master

[44:13]

what is the experience of practicing for a lifetime and the master said an appropriate action. So it's not so easy to do what is truly appropriate what is right on. You know you have to know yourself very thoroughly. So but I also know when I first started practicing and I was I went back home to Minnesota I'd come out here and I'd been sitting pretty regularly and when I went back home and I saw people who I'd known for a long time like my doctor and my dentist I saw their faces as if I was seeing their inner life it was like there was so much pain so much suffering there that I had never noticed it was just Dr. Rinke and Dr. what was the other guy just these guys they worked on my teeth but I saw them and nothing is hidden you know it's right there if you're there it's right there on people's faces. Some people don't see it

[45:15]

they really don't they're self-absorbed but if you see it it can be there with people people are not used to it so it may be too much. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the hell realms from a Buddhist perspective. Well in Buddhist cosmology there's a very articulated you know worked out system of geography and you know like this world is called Jambudvipa this is all in various you know 2,500 year old texts and things this is the rose apple island which is where we live Jambudvipa it's the human realm and there's Mount Sumeru and then there's various heavenly realms and then there's these cold hells and hot hells there's a whole articulated thing but it's not used to scare people or to threaten

[46:17]

or you better do this or this it's I always have taken it as an actual description of this life and what states of mind that we can enter you know so I don't think of these hells as some places that we go and they're not eternal they're impermanent but they are articulated in certain sutras where you can read about these terrible things that happen probably equal to any other Christian description that you know or Chromius Bacchus pictures so they are there but it's in our lineage anyway it's really not emphasized or brought to bear you know at all times

[47:17]

and in Buddhism you know we have the idea of karma and action and results of your action so the teaching is more if you do this this results will follow not as you don't have to think of it as punishment or anything else it's just very clear if you sock somebody in the face they're going to want to sock you back or it's just very clear like a wheel wheels following wheels so in terms of wholesome action and unwholesome action if you're involved in unwholesome action you will enter these states of woe you know it just it's the fruit of your action it's not punishment necessarily although you might understand it as punishment it's fruit it's just the ripening of your action as fruit and then that will give out over time

[48:19]

and then you come into some other state which is I mean people know they can be in a very bad place for a while really hard time and things shift you know and so impermanence is the operative concept here is that helpful? I the one thing I before now the other thing I had heard about the health states I think I read it in text was that once you really grasp impermanence that even the health states you can tolerate because you know you can get through life without pain of some sort if it's not you know at least at the end there's very few people who have a kind of no sickness or no you know trauma

[49:19]

or something so old age sickness and death come to everybody even though your life might have been pretty calm so but understanding impermanence understanding the nature of existence and emptiness these these hells are appearances that come and appear and go everything is like that everything exists in emptiness so so there's not some idea of some eternal damnation or something there's no eternal in that way you talked about abandonment and how the person that does abandonment has pain themselves you know how them abandoning someone else how it affects their life and you also talked about the situation of the death experience in the end and I was thinking like on the

[50:19]

nursing intensive care many times there are people who go through the last stages of death it is almost you know it's so horrifying for them that they almost don't you can almost abandon someone in that stage you as a nurse or oh just people around yes it's very scary to them so the fear comes into the abandonment yes and I just wanted you to kind of you know expand on that yeah well if you haven't gotten familiar through your life through your entire life with the fact that this is from the sutras death will come life force will be cut off death will come and you know where you have it on your right shoulder you know you have this idea at all times death will come life force will be cut off and become very familiar with that if you're not doing that in some way when it comes you are in extreme fear right and the

[51:20]

people around you if it's you who's in the situation the people around you if they haven't worked with it and they're not ready they're in extreme fear as well and the situation is instead of the last moment being very concentrated and those last actions in terms of karma being beneficial for you and others it's the worst you know so are you familiar with this it's a new book it's been out about a year called the Tibetan book of living and dying the first chapters of that book it's by Tibetan teacher he goes into very clearly how especially in America we are taught not to look at death and to divert ourselves from it as fast and in as many ways as we possibly can and we spend our lives you know

[52:22]

working hard to get things to be comfortable go on vacations and do all this stuff the whole book is because he feels the main thing we should be doing is this preparation for death and then that should be within all of our activities it's very hard in this culture for sure because it's all hidden and no one wants to talk about it so then you get in a situation like this being in the hospital and you don't know what to do you don't know how to help the person they don't know what to tell you to help them and it's terrifying so they actually walk out the door at the last minute they can't stand it and I think something that I've noticed too is children we don't teach our children early to be present with this but it is a lot worse that it goes now that it's okay to be there like birth and death yes I think

[53:25]

that's true I think it's hidden and children are lied to and Millie has gone away and that kind of thing so I know here at Zen Center we're trying to someone died here just this last September a community member and she had a daughter and she had known the kids in the community over the years and a couple of kids came up to pay their last respects which is a kind of anachronistic little phrase there but it was really that was what it was they came up and were brought in to the death bed room to say goodbye and I brought my children she was our neighbor they didn't know her all that well but to see her so we're trying I think here to make it more conscious and the children are not it is not a horrible experience for them actually children sometimes have better yes you

[54:25]

mentioned that that old age and sickness will come to everybody yes well this seems to be totally true our experience is but there's some schools that contend the opposite what do they say there's some schools that contend that physical immortality of the human body is possible and is an option for an enlightened being an enlightened being is understood as someone who is in total attunement with the forces of nature there is no friction in the system for an enlightened being is understood in other schools that leaving the body is an option is a voluntary act which they do in order to pursue or to continue with some other paths of evolution in other spheres or in other realms that are accessible to us so

[55:29]

it's also a recent understanding of some of the mechanics of the human body in terms of modern science which it is theorized that in the state of enlightenment there is a physical state of perfect correlation with everything such a state of superconductivity or superfluidity in quantum physics so the human body apparently is able to enter a situation of perfect integration where there is no friction nowhere so my question is is there in the Buddhist tradition anything that indicates this or any idea or any suggestion that the physical immortality of the human body is possible I would say no I think there are some trance states that you can go into meditative trance states

[56:29]

high level trance states where various bodily functions um you know it's almost as if you you don't need anything you don't need food and you don't need anything you can be there for you go to these various heavenly realms actually and can be there for certainly like the time that it runs out it's not a forever thing but no um there isn't a teaching about the immortality of this physical body there's teaching of the impermanence of it but there also is a teaching of no birth and no death along with it and the no birth and no death teaching has to do with the fact that this physical body that we see right now is a no physical body is not what we think it is is emptiness right now is completely in tune with no friction right now and so this is um this is

[57:29]

the teaching of emptiness you know no the unborn but the way you're describing it um I I don't know of a teaching in Buddhism about the immortality of the physical body a wonderful book that refers to that preparation of her death as can't well burn try and kill her grace and grit I don't know if you've read that grace and grit yes I have yeah yeah grace and grit Ken Wilber and Trey it's a story about Ken Wilber's teacher um kind of eclectic teacher Buddhist and psychological and systems and all sorts of things and his wife Treya they were the love of each other's life and she contracted breast cancer soon after they were married that's

[58:29]

right yeah and they thought we're going to beat this we're going to do everything and they go through the gamut of you know enzyme well they do all the regular things chemotherapy and then there's meditation they were both meditators so you go on their journey with them um of healers and vitamins and their relationship but it's an incurable kind of thing it's a very moving book and the hell realms they go in together before the end um what I learned from that book mostly or one of the things I learned from it was what the caregiver goes through the person who's ministering to the person who and how they become the center of attention they need all this they're getting everybody's input and the person who's helping them needs they need a lot too

[59:30]

so that was one of the main things I think that he was teaching them grace and grit yes you talked about abandonment it seems to me that one of the immediate results of having been abandoned sometimes is to grasp and as far as I don't know that much about buddhism but it seems to me that part of the central tenet of buddhism is to let go of that grasping so how how do you work on that grasping which seems to be a natural result of having been abandoned in some sense at some point yes well I think another name for that word when I was I

[61:24]

am going crazy you know and I feel like this this realization is a I have to do something I've got to do something you know is a very big impetus to start doing meditation to start sitting it may be the last thing you do before you commit suicide or something the bedrock thing you say well before I do that I'm going to just I'm going to try meditation I'm going to just sit still I'm just going to stop and sit down you know so in that stopping in that sitting still which is not a state of grasping necessarily usually you may have some some mind that wants to get better or feel okay or something it's very mild compared to some other kinds of grasping but anyway when you sit down and

[62:27]

stop running around you can start to see clearly what's happening and the zazen posture itself which is neither leaning to the right nor to the left nor forward nor backward it's this upright posture of composure and then anything that happens during that any thought that you can't even bear usually it can come up and if you can sit there in composure like like mountain it will come and it will go and what's what's there is you i wasn't referring so much to the addictive terribly self-destructive grasping yes but more perhaps to what the first question i was referring to which is the grasping in relationships with other human beings you know not necessarily drugs or crazy men but the grasping of that comes in human relationships

[63:28]

and how zazen how you could work through that during zazen so the grasping we have feeling that some other persons in my life will take care of you know grasping for what you didn't get or grasping for what was taken from you in human relationships and the more that you grasp the less you get and uh like grasping for attachment yeah grasping for attachment yes and how you work with that in zazen well I think you work with it in a similar way that I was talking about um the mind of zazen is a mind that neither pushes things away nor grabs things it's a mind so a mind that neither is grabbing or pushing what kind of a mind is that it's a mind that lets go it's a mind

[64:29]

that just is um is big enough to just be there for whatever and allow it so um you know attachment and self clinging is the root is the root of suffering the the grasping very subtle grasping grasping after a self grasping after the fact that we think we exist as a separate being is very subtle how how deep deep and subtle are self clinging so but when you're sitting uh that can be it's arrayed before you in its minutia you know grasping after the tiniest of things like wanting to scratch you know or

[65:29]

move your foot I mean it gets down to the minutia of your life it gets down so close that there's a kind of stopping of of any kind of movement that's out to either grasp or move back one way or the other you just are are are neither leaning to the right nor the left in any way and you can find about about how not exactly how to do that but you can find out about that by taking this posture it just so happens it's a great posture for finding out about this and trying it out and you can see when you first do it you can't believe that your mind is as well they call it monkey mind in this movie little buddha there's these monkeys in it and they're running around and they're grabbing bananas in there well that's I don't know monkeys very well I've never been to India but I know people who live there and the monkeys are really a

[66:30]

problem they're like raccoons but intelligent with prehensile fingers anyway so your monkey mind is constantly trying to add and detract and so so to find yourself sitting quietly doing nothing and watching watching your mind try to do other things is can be a major turnaround in your life in terms of attachment and grasping because I mean grasping things is basically delusion there's nothing to grasp there's nothing you can hold onto because of impermanence so you see that you experience that it's not just poetry you know is there anybody I'm

[67:30]

missing I haven't been swiveling my head over here just sort of to illustrate the paradoxical nature of this I've also noticed at times I've become attached to the idea of not grasping yes so oh I wanted to call this friend no I'd be grasping and I get this very rigid kind of place with it and I find that in ways when my life force I find moving in a certain direction towards someone to flow with that to let that out is actually not grasping it's like a kind of openness and my idea of not grasping might say oh that's grasping or attachment to someone or a relationship and that sort of freeing myself from this rigid concept of what grasping is another level of this yes well you know actually in the final I can barely see you in the final analysis

[68:30]

even seeing someone as other as out there is a kind of grasping actually I mean if you want to get down to the basics here seeing that this person is there and separate from me is is a self other and it's grasping actually it's subtle grasping but it's kind of the root grasping so but it's true there's all sorts of permutations of it you know being attached to non attachment if you watch somebody who's attached to non attachment they're in trouble in fact in that little Buddha you know the five ascetics how many of you saw the movie so you had those five guys who were all smeared with ashes and oh well they were supposed to be they were

[69:32]

being attached to non attachment that's the problem with asceticism it's way extreme you know they didn't wash and ate one sesame seed a day and this one guy kept his hands curled like this so his nails grew in and then out these are these kinds of activities that are nihilistic but under the guise of I'm not attached to pain but they're completely attached to these practices and so and the Buddha before he did those was into dancing ladies and all sorts of sexual orgies and wonderful food and music and that was that's another side that's sort of hedonism and the Buddha taught the middle way and that's what this is all about that's what is the middle ways that's what we negotiate and it's it's not so easy we're much more comfortable with I won't do this and I won't do that I won't do this and I won't do that

[70:33]

but then we get off and people tend to not want to be around us anymore or we can't be with them because you might do such and such but a bodhisattva can be with people and stay nowhere be the boss of their own Suzuki Yoshi says be the boss of your surroundings you can go anywhere you can do anything because you know who you are but it doesn't mean you don't go here you don't go there maybe today you don't but it doesn't there's not that kind of attachment to so anyway yes it is a problem being attached to not attachment but it's also very funny yes you could if you could if there's some humor in the way our mind works in our unending you know trying to get what we don't need or what we have already thank you

[71:35]

was there somebody who kept saying over here over here or was that you okay would you speak more on asking for help asking for help oh well as i said i feel like we are asking for help all the time and we do it some in ways that are cryptic you know or you know it may not be so noticeable but um there's a poem a zen poem that says phenomena exists like box and cover joining phenomena exist like box and cover joining so uh and also in that same poem it says um the meaning is not in the words but it responds to the inquiring impulse so

[72:37]

so if you have an inquiring impulse or you're asking or you're you know there's this story that was told by a former abbot zentatsu baker where he had this question that was bothering him and he just kept asking it to himself and asking it over and over and turning and asking it and finally he had this kind of not exactly a day dream but just a mental image of a brown phone ringing brown phone was ringing so he picked it up in his mind and there was the answer to his question i've always loved that so so one way is to just ask the question know what the question is and ask it and turn it internally ourselves and keep it on the forefront you know of our mind instead of kind of right before bed oh god that's right i was gonna i care about such and such or this is bothering me you actually bring it into the forefront and you ask it you ask like a

[73:38]

mantra or a koan there's a term called the genjo koan actualizing the fundamental point where whatever is fundamental for you that day or that those ten years you turn it and you look at it and you keep it so that's something you just do internally in terms of inquiry and it's a kind of asking for help you know it's you are inquiring of the universe you know and there will be a response and it may be very unexpected like a brown phone ringing or you don't know but but box and cover joining you know inquiry the meaning may not be in the words meaning you may not someone may not spell it out for you but it will respond the meaning will respond to your impulse your inquiring impulse so that's a certain kind of asking for help then there's the straight out and out going to your friend and say I need help here I

[74:38]

don't know what to do which I think maybe some of us are pretty good at that maybe others of us are not we don't know how we're embarrassed we feel like you should have it together by now you know for all those reasons why we don't and I think another kind of asking for help is this actually using these practice beings to focus you know focus comes from the word that means hearth the center you know the house or the heart or fire to focus on that hot spot of our life and use a helpful being like there's on the wall is green Tara who also is an emanation of Avalokiteshvara the bodhisattva of compassion when he cried out of the tear of Avalokiteshvara was born Tara out of his tears from seeing suffering

[75:38]

beings so she's another one she's a feminine form of buddhahood she's an awakened being so we have these who else do we have around here I don't know that anyway in buddhism there are these personifications of these energies that you can have a rapport with you know if you want to even looking at the figures you know I feel like looking at the psychotherapy has anyone heard of it in japan morita

[76:39]

and they use these figures they set up rooms where there's large pictures of the buddha and other beneficent beings and you go in there some people in very disturbed states of mind and they're helped by this you don't have to be in some you know ambulatory schizophrenic to need to relate to a calm presence you know so those are some things then there's also practice discussion you know at zen center we have people who give practice discussion they're practice leaders they're called and you can sign up to talk with them they do what do they do they do practice discussion it might be called pastoral counseling or priests and older students senior lay students who are asked to meet with people so there's lots of different ways within the zen center context buddhist context and you probably have a lot of different ways in your own life 12 step

[77:41]

programs and your own minister at your church or your old aunt or grandma there's lots of ways to ask for help but ask actually because we need all the help we can get how much time do we have left of questions right now right now I think lunch is at 1245 so we've got some time did you want to you want help in getting to lunch yes you do do you want to go ahead now go ahead my dad served career wise in the army I grew up in a very structured environment how do I develop patience or whatever you find you lose your temper is that what you mean by not having patience

[78:41]

or I get frustrated very much frustrated professional valuable in my growing up years so if you didn't meet the standard then you fail you know the term patience in buddhism has a lot to do with anger you don't need patience if you're just you know like you're sitting in the doctor's office reading a magazine and you're just fine but if you said my appointment was 20 minutes ago and that's when you need patience so patience is one of the six perfections actually and it's a practice that's extremely important and you bring it up usually most usually around the time of anger so

[79:42]

um i don't you know sometimes frustration what looks like frustrated greed is um actually anger i can feel that yeah so to know what it is exactly you're working with because there's different ways to work with whatever the state of mind is but if it is anger then patience is the exact thing to pull up for antidote more than antidote um do you have a potion card well there is actually there's there's for example uh to understand that all your good intentions all your vows um can be destroyed in a

[80:45]

moment of anger you know you can really so to know how important it is how anger is harmful to you the thing about anger is it's it's likened to throwing sand at somebody in a big wind it just comes back and gets in your eyes so anger actually does incredible harm to yourself that's one of the teachings if you've ever looked at a person who's angry you know they've got this red face and their eyes are popping out and they look like um beings demons like from some hell realm you actually can watch somebody turn into a kind of and that's happening to you the person for whom or at whom you're angry has their own life you know their own problems and they may have bodily harm from you or something like that but if they receive bodily harm from you you are the one who inflicted the bodily harm and it comes the fruit of that action accrues to you so you

[81:45]

have to know very very thoroughly how anger is self destructive first it's other destructive as well but um to know that very thoroughly the benefits of patience and then I mean there's um there are various practices around it I don't know if we want to get into it maybe we can have a practice discussion later I have to have anger detached from your anger that's that's wonderful if you can do it yeah now one thing about anger is and about all these states is that they are caused by conditions you could be going along just fine happy-go-lucky and then somebody you're in a car and then somebody cuts you off and it's like it's instantaneous for some people and the blood pressure in their heart and they're going to

[82:45]

get them and they're out to get them and they're going to get in front of them and it's um you had no chance to be detached it's so fast anger is so fast and one thing about anger is you get a lot of energy from it you can conquer the world if you've got a lot of anger it's adrenaline it's you could do anything and actually anger the beneficial side of anger is you can get really upset about an environment or the homeless or and you can kind of put that energy to use but to um so anyway so there are causes and conditions you're not in a state of anger right now I don't think you don't look like it if I keep talking about it ok ok good what did you say about the joke that you didn't get you say

[86:16]

I'm very angry I am extremely angry I'm still very angry and I might even say I'm really hurt and I'm angry and then you the more you're with it like that you say you can feel it diminishing you can actually feel the state of mind shifting and then it's I'm not so angry anymore I'm less angry so we have the capacity to deal with these states with our mindfulness as if they were these loving arms that are there to hold these states and that you do not have to act and express and act on it which will be like the sand in your face and more trouble and more building on trouble so that's one and that's the practice of patience it takes mindfulness it takes resolve it takes over and over because we have habit energy forever that wants to act

[87:16]

differently is there a word for habit energy karma you might say you might call it karma habit energy but I'm sure there's a technical term that I'll find out later thank you could you talk about the idea of objectives in life you know the problem I've always had with a lot of eastern views is that it seems hard to reconcile it with our desire to have objectives to achieve something to identify appropriate goals in life and if you are detached from everything it so often means abandoning those goals or feeling maybe they're not worthwhile so there have to be some worthwhile goals in life and how do we identify those and how do we reconcile them with the idea

[88:16]

of not too attached to the goals I think you've said it very beautifully one does have aspirations in life and things one wants to accomplish or study or create and Buddhism there's nowhere in Buddhism which says you can't do that that's bad to do that but what you touched on right at the end is this attachment to so the careful working out of you're going to buy a house or you're going to get a certain education and doing that thoroughly there's no problem with that the where the problem arises is the fact that let's say you do get that education

[89:17]

you do get that degree and then causes and conditions are such that you cannot find a job or you don't know what the world what is going to be brought forth right so the so then what is your state of mind when you can't find the job with your degree tucked under your belt it's I think Buddhism or these eastern religions the the teaching and the practice is taking care of your body and mind in the moment you know this thing about in the moment means yes you got your education and you went to the job interview and how what is your state of mind there not that you don't plan for things and set out but all along the way what is your state of mind not to sacrifice state of mind for something down the

[90:17]

road which when you get there may be very different you know there may have been an earthquake so I think that's what the emphasis is in is what is happening right now how are you treating your kids now you know rather than while I'm working so hard in order to make money so that they have these things they want but how are you with them now even so so it keeps bringing you back to your present circumstances does that speak to what you were saying that's helpful there's something about anger and impatience and my own anger and impatience and I was

[91:20]

thinking about the things we were saying about anger and impatience and my own experience in my life with anger and the anger of impatience has come so much from my believing that I knew the way things should be and becoming impatient when they weren't that way when someone else wasn't fulfilling my idea of how they should be acting and again what you started out talking about in your childhood experience of being brought up to feel that everything had to be perfect and if it wasn't you weren't okay and nobody else was okay either and that there is no perfection that there is no right way and we certainly don't know it if there is and learning that I mean it's taken my life to learn that when I pushed through things that I thought was the

[92:20]

right thing and then finding out well it wasn't it takes enough experience like that for me to let go of my believing that I know the way things should be so I don't I have a lot less anger the more I become humiliated laughter [...] comes out of the concept that there is such a thing as another there is other

[93:20]

there's me and there's you and so I was going to ask you if you had some practical suggestions practices for um learning um getting closer to the feeling that there that there is no me and you that there's just all all well that's the basic you know as I said the basic um problem actually the basic problem the basic ignorance or if you want to use a word like sin which we don't use very much but if you wanted to the original sin is that we think that there is duality that there's two so um so I would say that all of Buddhism is directed towards all the teachings all the sutras all the vast is directed

[94:20]

towards this point of um some another so you know there's various ways I mean there are various practices um so I'll say one is um very direct um a direct kind of bodily practices also intellectual practices for example let's see um there's there's a meditation when you where you exchange self for other I don't know if you've been acquainted with that it's um uh it's yeah it's a meditation so it [...]

[95:15]

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