Good morning. Well, it's been a very active week in Lake Wobegon, in Green Gulch Farm. We have the work week going on. Can you hear me okay? No. Our annual, can you hear me now? Our annual work week. And we've had a lot of visitors who've come to stay here and help us take care of Green Gulch.

[01:05]

And we've been getting painting done and carpentry and lots of odds and ends and projects done. And having fun, too. Enjoying each other. A couple of months ago, before giving a talk, my teacher, Ted and Shen, Greg Anderson, who's here, asked me if giving a talk was a joy or a burden. And I, you know, at the time I didn't quite know if it was a joy or a burden. The word burden means, the root means to bear. A burden is something that you carry and comes from the root to bear.

[02:09]

And it's a wheelbarrow and basket are from that root. Also to forebear and to bear children. Bearing in all different ways. And the word joy, the root of the word joy has something to do with or one of the meanings from the root is religious awe or fear. And it means gladness and rejoicing. So, in some ways, giving a lecture, I find, is this wonderful combination of the two. And they seem like they might be opposites, but they actually come together.

[03:12]

For me, the more I study joy and burden, the more it becomes one thing. And our burdens, if we want to take up our burdens, like childbearing, for example, it's a burden and it's difficult and yet we want to do it. So if you want to do it, then there's joy there. So the two merge into one natural event. I was reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, the section on naturalness. And Suzuki Roshi talks about going to sit zazen. And if you force yourself, then that isn't...

[04:16]

One might think to force yourself to go is not the way you'd want to go to the zendo. And I think this comes up not infrequently when people are first starting to sit, to practice and to want to sit every day. And then some mornings they really don't want to go. And should they force themselves to go? Or is that just more of manipulating themselves or pushing themselves around? And what Suzuki Roshi said was so interesting to me because he said, if you're forcing yourself but you know there's some good in it, then that really isn't forcing yourself. It's difficult but you want to do it. You want to have this difficulty. And so for me it's the same as joy and burden. If you want to take up something and if the difficulty is all right with you,

[05:22]

then this is a liveness and a live way to live. Another, the Greek for to carry, what is fair in the word euphoria, which is well-being carried or great well-being is euphoria. And metaphor is transporting one meaning and carrying it over to another. Metaphor. So, recently in a priest meeting that we have,

[06:34]

a group of people studying closely with Rev, we were talking about what makes Zen, Zen, what is it that's different about Zen than other Buddhist schools, let's say. And Rev was pointing out that the main, one of the main differences or the unique quality of Zen are these, attention to these dialogues between teachers and students that were actually recorded or pretty much if not they weren't taped but what was remembered and written down and passed on. We have these dialogues that we can look at and there's many, many dialogues that you can find, stories including dialogues between teacher and student. And the, often within these stories are the use of metaphor or simile and metaphor

[07:43]

where the meaning of a word is transported to something for which one might say, you can't put it into words. So the use of metaphor is very prevalent. So these dialogues, this unique ability to read what people say to each other and the point at which someone perhaps woke up or where the enlightened master tries to help someone to wake up and we get to be present there and include that in our life and take it up in a way very intimately for ourselves.

[08:45]

So underneath these dialogues and what isn't necessarily talked about as much as all the other Buddhist practices and teachings that have been studied by the people who are the characters in the story or the people who are having these dialogues, it doesn't necessarily point to all the study and all the meditation, all the sutras they've read, but there's an underpinning of practice and study and then we get to read the dialogue that includes all that but it's unspoken or it's alluded to. And I think one of the sad parts about all these dialogues, the sad for me is the lack of examples of this kind of dialogue

[09:56]

between women teachers and women students and their teachers. They just haven't been recorded and there's some, there's a few, but in relation to the vast number of other dialogues. Now why that's sad to me is I think feeling that it's important to see a model or an example that one can relate to easily maybe. So I think to have a wide example of teachers and students is very useful. But in the long run or in the deep run it doesn't really matter.

[10:58]

The teaching is the teaching and the awakening moment is the awakening moment and the gender doesn't really matter. But I think there is this dearth of women's stories dialogues. So someone recently said to me that they wanted to have a teacher, somebody they could work with that would walk the talk. They were tired of, or they had had some experiences perhaps where they felt the person said various things and had a great way of talking about the teaching but when they got to know the person more closely they didn't feel that they walked the talk. And when this person said this to me I thought, oh no, they'll get to know me better and they'll see that I don't, maybe they'll feel I don't walk the talk either.

[12:03]

Who walks the talk? So my effort is to walk the talk and not walking the talk just so I can feel like I've got integrity and I walk the talk but walking the talk as the great causal condition of awakening self and other. I should admit that I don't know what it is about preparing for this talk but I can tell right now that all during the week when I was preparing although I turned my attention toward preparing for the talk and making it a priority

[13:05]

there was a kind of swirling waves of things that were drawing me and interesting me, pulling me to study and yet there was nothing I felt that I walked the talk thoroughly enough that I wanted to bring up. So I'll just say that, I'm just going to follow my nose here. This time of year is graduation time and the spring marriages, the month of June marriages and graduations and graduations and congratulations and congratulations is to rejoice with and comes from the root to praise or to praise aloud is to congratulate.

[14:09]

And I had a number of graduations in my family, two, a niece and a nephew and then three of my friends from high school, all their children all graduated from high school this year and I began to think about my graduations of this type and my graduation from college was, I remember I wasn't planning on going to the graduation at all. It didn't occur to me that I should go to this graduation but then someone from the school called and encouraged me to go so I invited two of my friends, Deborah Madison and Rabbi Anderson, I invited them to come to my graduation and we went over and it was a rainy old day and Deborah had prepared this beautiful lunch for an al fresco lunch to have after the graduation but because it was raining we never had this picnic and we just went back to Zen Center and I never even had lunch, I don't know what they ended up doing

[15:17]

and that was it, that was the graduation and I had no emotional, it didn't feel like the end of all these years of effort and accomplishment and I never picked up my diploma either until just about a year ago. I saw in the alumni news it said, many of you have never picked up your diploma and I thought, oh, maybe I should go pick it up so I went over to Berkeley and got it and the woman who went to the file to get this diploma said, why didn't you ever get your diploma? She said, I cared so much about having my diploma and it was the same thing and it never occurred to me to go pick up this piece of paper. Now, in looking at this now, I realize I was at Zen Center, I was living at Zen Center at the time and all I wanted to do was sit Zazen and get a job so I could make money to go to Tassajara

[16:18]

and graduation and diplomas and it had no meaning for me. It really, it had lost significance, a significance that I had been trained to take up as meaningful but it held nothing, it really held nothing, except I wanted to finish what I had set out to do so I remember feeling happy about that. So, but I see how graduation, this making some, completing something and feeling very happy about it, I don't, there's no problem with that, I just, you know, the word graduation means steps, degrees and steps,

[17:21]

the root of graduation means degree or step and then you get a degree when you graduate so it's all kind of, you get this paper that says you have done these steps and, you know, there's sometime a discussion in Zen about sudden enlightenment and gradual enlightenment and those are positive as two different things, like joy and burden maybe and if you look long, one can see that, well, Dogen Zenji says, after you have completed the way, please continue your practice, this is my prayer for you, this is what he prays for you, that after you have completed your way, you will continue, so is that completing the way or is there no completion of the way?

[18:28]

And in our ordination ceremonies, even after you have acquired Buddhahood, will you continue to observe these Bodhisattva precepts and the ordinees say, yes, I will, so is that step by step, is that suddenly completing or is it hard to distinguish when you're practicing thoroughly, there's the merge? So congratulations, congratulations to all of you who may have graduated this spring or your loved ones may have graduated, to rejoice with, there is rejoicing when we complete something, there may be great rejoicing but it doesn't mean that we're all done

[19:36]

and to sing, to say the praises aloud, to praise each other aloud is a wonderful practice, the word bard means singer of praises, we've been reading the Iliad aloud to our 12 year old son and it's this new translation by a man named Fagel I think, and it's, I had never read, I had read parts of the Iliad but I had never read the whole thing straight through and this is this epic poem and the language and metaphor that is stunningly wonderful and the subject matter which is war basically or the rage of Achilles is incredibly violent, it is one of the most violent things I've ever read,

[20:45]

the description of the ways in which a young man can be or older man can be killed by a bronze tipped sword, you know exactly where it enters and what happens as it enters and comes out and in detail, in beautiful poetry, this violence of war is described as well as the beauty of young men and their love for each other but the violence is, it was so strong, it was like we would stop in the middle and just have to take a deep breath, it was so, just, the images that would arise in the mind upon reading it were just too much sometimes, and one of the themes is forcing, forcing others to do your bidding and to be under the power and how this forcing turns people into objects, that's this underlying theme of the whole poem,

[22:03]

so in just the same way, this is in a grand scale of this 10, 12 year war, how forcing, forcing anyone to do anything turns them into object, in just the same way the violence that we do to ourselves and others by trying to force ourselves, turns ourselves and others into objects, so again what Suzuki Roshi said about if you're forcing yourself to go to the zendo or forcing yourself to do zazen, there's something to look at there, but if you want to have this difficulty, then there's no forcing involved, then this is joyfully taken up, this difficulty. The Greek muse for epic poetry is Calliope, and Calliope is, the word means beautiful voice, beautiful voice, and recently I went to a program at my daughter's school at Tam High School in New Valley,

[23:23]

to see the conservatory theater ensemble, which is a very old theater group that was started 20, 25 years ago at Tam, it's a very unique program where it's a company, it's an actual theater company, the students run it, run the concession stand, do the stage managing, sometimes they write plays, my daughter wrote a play that was produced in the fall, and they have bigger productions, one act festivals, it's a wonderful program, and in the show that I went to, there was a group called Voce, Voce means voice, and this is a group of, I guess the PC way to say this is developmentally challenged people, this is a group of people of different ages who live at a facility called the Cedars, and maybe some of you are familiar with that,

[24:34]

and they, this group comes to work with the Tam High School, a group of Tam High School young people to work on a theater production together, and they spend five or six weeks putting together a show that's then, they do a number of evenings for the public, and when I came into the theater that night, I noticed that there are a number of people, and I thought, oh, there must be some special showing for some facility that has, or a resident place where they bring the residents out to go see a show, people with Down syndrome and other kinds of disabilities, and they're all coming to the show tonight, and that was true, but they were coming to watch their friends and family members be in the production, they weren't just coming to see the show, so I wanted to describe this to you because I had a kind of epiphany, I think you might call it, while watching this show,

[25:43]

so here was a group of people whose, you know, we're so, our ability to look at someone and immediately tell that there's something going on with them, there's some disability there, we can tell so easily, so fast, and I have many preconceptions about this group of people and who they are and how it would be to be around them, and that I don't know them and maybe don't want to know these people, and they're really not my friends, and lots of prejudgment, prejudice, and that was unavailable, really, that I hadn't even noticed how much I carry these kinds of thoughts, and when they came out to do their show, they were all mixed together, the TAM High School young people, who to me looked like, you know, these beautiful young people, healthy and intelligent and alive and beautiful bodies and just out there, just putting out for the audience, you know, and then along with them was a group of the same number of people from the CEDARS, the Developmentally Challenged Group,

[27:05]

and their bodies were, you know, from my point of view, strange shapes and, you know, they didn't look sort of intellectually alert, and so these were all my prejudices, but when the show began, it started out with one of the women from the CEDARS who had gray hair, she was an older person, but I think she was just like a little kid, she was about like four, and she got up and said, you might have some ideas about who we are, but we have an open mind about who we are, and she did something like that, it was like, whoa, this is going to be interesting, what's going to happen next, and then the show started, and what happened as the two groups came together and did this production was I found that all my preconceptions and my supposed knowing who these people were and which category, which person fell in, it all dropped away,

[28:23]

there was just people out there, it was just people, and they were all in a line at one point, and they were singing the song, Let's Go Fly a Kite, and doing movements to it, let's go fly a kite, and each one of the kids had a whole different way of expressing that song, and they were rowing their arms in the air, and jumping, and turning, and with exuberance, you know, with joy, and it all dropped away, who was a regular person, and who was not a regular person, it was what was regular anymore, it was just people having a wonderful time together, and I feel like I want to go on with this, because it was so amazing for me, one of the people from the Cedars sang, she had a solo, she was going to sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and she got up to sing, and her voice was, I think she might have been completely tone deaf,

[29:37]

or there was no way that she hit any of the notes, kind of on key, and her voice was very crackly, and kind of shrill, and kind of like that, Somewhere, oh, like that, and she sang the song, the whole thing through, you know, with lemon drops, and just with all her might, and all her main, and it was like the most amazing rendition of the, of the, Somewhere Over the Rainbow I have ever experienced, I was transported, really, and crying, you know, it was like, it was really beyond conception, and when she got back after being out there, she came back to one of the teachers, and kind of hit her head, like under her wing, you know, because it had been a big deal to go out and sing her song, So, for me, seeing them all together, and I think the, you know, the teaching of karma was very in the forefront for me, to see all these people next to each other, all singing, and all doing their actions,

[30:59]

and each one has, you know, is manifesting the fruit of their life, and this is, this is their life, and there is no, nobody can take it away from them, nobody can change it for them, this is their life that they're living, and they, you know, I had no, I didn't feel sorry for anybody, or there was no room for feeling sorry, or congratulating one half of the group for, you know, being one way, or feeling sorry for the other half, it was just appreciating our human life, and the vastness of it, and the wide, marvelous variety, and the lack of how categories, there's no fixed categories, that I, whatever it is that I concoct about how things are, falls away.

[32:04]

So that was the group called Voce, Voice, and the word voice means to speak, and all the words, you know, it's a very powerful word, all the words that come from it are very powerful, provoke, and evoke, and invoke, and evocative, that's the same, they all have a kind of emotional feeling to them, equivocate, vocal, all from to speak, the importance of to speak. So, looking at that which is before me, looking at this group of young people, young and old young people, I was brought back to a case in the Shoyo Roku, a part of which Lee Po says to his student Yang Sung,

[33:29]

he calls him after a conversation earlier in the day, he calls him to his bedside, Lee Po is dying, and he says to his student, you must experientially realize the saying of my old master, that there are no things before the eyes, that meaning is before the eyes, there is not something before the eyes, it is beyond the reach, or out of reach of ears and eyes. So, again, we have this, we're at the bedside in the night of this teacher who's dying, and speaking to his student,

[34:35]

and he says, and I always felt he said it so earnestly, he really, his, the one great matter for him was to expose his student and demonstrate, expose him to the teachings, demonstrate the teachings, so the student could enter and realize, realize and enter Buddha's way, so there's, I feel like, you know, it doesn't say, and there's a lot of emotion there, but I feel there is, he says, again, you must experientially realize the saying of my old master, that there are no things before the eyes, that meaning is before the eyes, there is not something before the eyes, beyond the reach of ears and eyes. So, this teaching is, what it points to, for me, is the teaching of the emptiness of the five skandhas, or the five aggregates,

[35:52]

and this is, we've been chanting this new version of the Heart Sutra, new translation, and we've dropped the word skandha, which is the Sanskrit for heap or aggregate, and we're not saying skandha anymore, we're saying aggregate. So, in the Heart Sutra it says that Avalokiteshvara, when practicing deeply the wisdom that's gone beyond, perceived that all five aggregates are empty, and was saved from all suffering and distress. So, this is a very vast teaching, but I wanted to try and just point to this, because this experience with the Voce people, and my understanding that what I saw before my eyes, that which, there are no things before my eyes,

[36:55]

things that I can call anything, that there's meaning before my eyes, the meaning that I make myself is what's before my eyes. And in the skandha, in a skandha meditation, when there are forms, there's five aggregates or skandha, there's form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness, and they all work together. So, for the form, if there's something of color or shape, actually color and form are almost one, the color and the form become one, comes before your eyes, you need the other skandhas to help you understand what that is. So, for the first skandha of form, there may be a shape there, and then the second skandha, samnya, together knowers, that's perceptions, it recognizes certain characteristics of that shape, let's say, and goes back into the file of perceptions and says, oh, that's a such and such, that's a person.

[38:21]

And then, perceptions is the third, so it's form, then feelings, which are good, bad, and neutral, so you have, there's a form there, then there's some feeling that it's positive or negative, or you can't tell which, and then this together knower perception comes and says, oh, that's, I recognize that as a person. And then the next one, samskara, is together putters, together makers, and that one says more about, well, that's an enemy, that's a person I love, that's a, it has a lot of more discriminating conditions about what that person is. And then the last one, vishnana, or consciousness, is awareness of that. So, when this stimulus comes from outside, suppose it's outside, how is it that we can actually get at sort of what we think is outside?

[39:34]

That which is before the eyes, there is no things before the eyes, that meaning is before the eyes, so this stimulus, whatever it is, comes, and we can't actually grab something out there other than how we experience the significance ourselves, through the feeling of it. Our past perceptions, our emotional sort of relationship to it, and our own awareness of it. So, what are these things that are before our eyes? Who are these supposedly developmentally challenged people? You know, our whole relationship to them, understanding of them, perception of them, is completely the five skandhas operating naturally.

[40:40]

So, that meaning is before the eyes. The meaning is what we live with. So, when we see that, all those things that we see before our eyes, are empty of some inherent existence that exists outside of our own relationship, through our aggregates, through, not that our aggregates are separate from us, that our relationship is the aggregate relationship. So, it's beyond the reach of eyes and ears. We can't actually hear anything without including our own awareness, our own perceptions. There's nothing out there that's sort of all by itself that we can hear.

[41:48]

So, I'm training myself in this way, and we can train ourselves in this way, and when you, sometimes we come in contact with something where all the categories in our old understandings, and how we solidify and reify how things are really, it all gets topsy-turvy, and we're left with no place to stand. And how natural and free that feels, and how joyful. So, thank you very much for your attention this morning. All right, attention. I kind of, thank you for your talk. You're welcome. I'm kind of interested about your work. Oh, okay.

[42:53]

So, I was supposed to be there, but I really wanted to mention a few things to you. Um, what, somebody mentioned to me, somebody that was on the page of a woman who mentioned that she really enjoyed the cardamom, the roche. Roche, uh-huh. And she has also had an experience with those people, they come to the Discovery Museum, that's, she works at the Discovery Museum, and they come one day a week. Uh-huh. And she was saying that her experience, she was very open, she was very open to the people. Her first encounter with somebody, she touched them, and was the first person she wanted to touch them, and she freaked out. But, after that, it was very wonderful. And she said that she thought they would do very well and saw that.

[43:55]

And on that occasion, she wanted to mention to you if you were interested in working with the group, she said that she thought that they would do very well. Another thing I wanted to mention before talking about, um, our, how we experience our cut, that we don't see things. I interpreted it as there's no thing out there, just our own perception of what's in our mind. And this week, I was having that, it was coming up a lot. Through some circumstances, I was heading this painting crew, which is kind of a big crew. And, um, we had some casualties, you know. Two people were, well, two people left in tears because of me.

[44:58]

And, um, my style of directing people sometimes can be a little bit harsh or a little bit rough. But, um, and they actually went all the way home. And then we talked with each other, like, well, what was your experience? And even though we were in the same room, seeing the same things, hearing the same, we saw it so completely different. Like, um, and listening to each other's experience about that was that it wasn't just that experience. I think somebody mentioned being reminded of a third grade teacher. And another one got reminded of, you know, like, some other experiences. And I was having a bunch of other experiences. And we kind of sorted it out. And it was all completely wrong, you know. It was just, and then, and then it came back to, you know, because we're doing the practice.

[46:06]

And because we really have the attention to continually check ourselves. Um, we had some awareness that it was, you know, it wasn't a blaming thing. It was actually, this was my experience. And checking it out later just reminded me so much that we, you know, there is no real thing going on. It's just our experience of what's going on. And I learned a lot about, and I actually asked him because I'm, I would like very much to know how I can be helpful in doing what I really want to do. Which is, I don't know what I really want to do. But what I don't want to do is to hurt others, you know, to be kind. So I asked this one, you know, I asked this one.

[47:07]

Can everybody hear Jeanette? Well, I heard you yelling almost. All right. So you can interpret. I'll give the gist after, but go ahead. But anyway. Did they give you hints how to help you? Um. I don't, I think we gave each other hints of just, just knowing that it's not, you know, just waiting and maybe checking it out. I'm not really quite sure, except to just keep, you know, and then I thought about, well, I can't act in a way that, I can't act in a way that I think others are going to interpret this or that. I know that I can only act in a way that's true of myself. I can't do that. So, I think, I don't, I really don't know.

[48:15]

It's just been such a wonderful experience for learning about myself and studying myself. Yes. So for those of you who didn't hear, I'll just do a summary. Jeanette, she just, she told me about someone who had worked with developmentally challenged people in other contexts and had similar kind of events happen while working with them. But Jeanette's been here for the work weekend leading a paint crew, and what she said was she, by her managerial style or whatever, two of the people on her crew left in tears and left Green Gulch. And then they came back, they went home, came back the next day and they worked it out. And in working it out, they saw that each one of them brought a whole world to this, supposedly this room with the same people and the same walls and the same thing going on.

[49:18]

But each person brought a completely, a complete world there and they crunched into each other, bashed into each other. And, but because you're all practicing, you were able to sort it out to some degree. One thing you said was that there's nothing out there or it sounded like it was going too far. You know, there, there is some, there is the need to get the room painted and you, which you all agree on. There's a conventional reality that you agree on that there's a job to do and you're the leader of the crew and these people are going to work. So there's certain things that, that you all agree on. It's not just total free-for-all or, you know, but what we spark in each other, the projections we have. You remind me of my third grade teacher, you remind me of my mother and leave me alone and just all that. So there, I know that there's certain kind of Zen center lingo. For example, things like my understanding is, you know, that phrase, have you heard people at Green Gulch?

[50:21]

Well, my understanding is, you know, we're supposed to collect the money at 1140, not 1150 or whatever. But I always feel like to say something like my understanding is leaves a lot of space for, you know, it's just your opinion. It could be wrong. It could be somebody else. And it's very flexible, soft mind, you know, that says, well, my understanding is this. And then you listen and you work it out. But so that's one. If the vow is not to hurt others, not to harm others. How do you interact with people who, you know, where it's two, it's always two different worlds. You know, it's always worlds coming together. So how do we ever even communicate at all? Well, one might wonder, you know. Yes. Yes.

[51:23]

Yeah, I think that's true with all relationships. It is two worlds and you calibrate, you know, you. And if you want to do it, then the difficulties are just. That's part of the relationship to working it out. And at home, at work, family, it's teacher, student. It's like that all the time. And. So I was telling this young lady. So, you know, every week.

[52:25]

During that meeting. And. So I think that it's necessary. Yes. That's a great story. I remember once when I was the head of the meditation. I was, you know, and the summer, that particular summer, it was in. Seventy three, I think a lot of people were sneaking in down the road. Do you all know what Tassara is? Most of you, anybody not know? Tassara is the monastery in the mountains down near Carmel. And it's in the winter. We have practice periods, kind of intensive meditation retreats in the summer.

[53:32]

It's a guest season. People can come in. There's hot baths. So. But you have to make a reservation. You can't just come in anytime. But people were sneaking in, in the night and using the baths. And so we worked out this thing where we would sleep on the bridge. We had a bridge. But it was this terrible thought of encountering people at two in the morning. You're in your sleeping bag and they're coming over the bridge to have a bath. And they may be, who knows, in what sort of state of inebriation or whatever. And you'd have to make a stand, you know. And this top sergeant thing. It's like, you know, sometimes you put on a persona in order to, you know, kind of make your point. But in that same summer, there was also men and women's bathing was separate in the hot baths. During the day, there was mixed bathing on the men's side at night, which still is the case. And this gentleman would not go for it. He kept wanting to go over to the women's side. I had to, I remember I had my robes on and I said something like,

[54:37]

this is not, I can't remember what I said to him. This is not appropriate or something. And he called me, what did he call me? Police woman. Police woman, you know, because I had my robes on too, you know. So it hurts, you know, to feel like you're trying to do your job and then somebody gets some big. But there was something, I mean, there's also often a grain of truth there, you know. In terms of your own skills, people pick up on it. It just takes a little bit to have a whole projection created, you know. It just takes a little tiny bit of truth there for someone to create a whole thing like, you're my mother, you're a police woman. So although I was kind of doing my best, I wasn't very skillful. Somehow I wasn't able to get him to see, this is how we do it here and you're not really, this is making problems, you know. But, so we can, I always find those situations when there's a little conflict there,

[55:39]

that I learn an enormous amount about my own abilities to, where I'm holding back or have a lot of prejudice or ideas about who they are. So it can be very helpful. But the thing about the worlds coming together and trying to talk, you know, it's really true. Yes? Questioner's question inaudible.

[56:48]

Questioner's question inaudible. No. Questioner's question inaudible. Uh-huh. Uh-huh, uh-huh. You know that, the tree fall in the forest, I've always, I don't know if some of you have really found that, have really gotten into thinking about that and I've, at a certain point I just gave up thinking. I, because I didn't understand, was there salvation in there? If I could solve that mystery, would I be saved? And I, so I, I put my attention some other places, you know, but it does come up. It does come up because, let me see, yes, it's a metaphor, yeah.

[58:02]

The teaching of Buddhism is that, I don't know why I'm laughing, it's just such a big thing to say, the teaching of Buddhism is. Around this, this, of the five skandhas, which I did feel like people, and my husband who was sitting up here said, it's kind of at the end of the lecture to get into the five skandhas and the aggregates and it's like, it was maybe, you kind of lost people there. So, let's see, it's not that there isn't the material world, but we can't know it. We can't, it's beyond our perception or it's outside of our ability to conceive because conceiving and perceiving is through the skandha perception and vijnana consciousness and the samskara skandha which creates it.

[59:08]

So, it's not like there's something out there kind of by itself that's existing outside of, that we can know, maybe there is, but the teaching is that it's empty of inherent existence, it doesn't exist all by itself somewhere, somewhere out there. So, the liberating quality of this is that we too do not exist separate and solid somewhere out there, we're not connected with others and all this that I was talking about, the perception and the feelings, that's us too. So, when we understand the emptiness of the skandhas, our own skandhas, everything, because for visuals, let's say for a Martian, let's say a Martian comes down,

[60:09]

they don't know a tree, bush, shrub, they don't know any of that, it's all, they just, they don't even know green, they don't know round or bushy, they don't know anything, they just, but there's something, there's some kind of shape that they, let's say they have the capacity to perceive light hitting off of objects or something and it activates their, activates their, whatever the Martian has, but they don't know to call it, the antenna or whatever, but they can't, they don't, so an artist is like this too, you know, an artist who's actually seeing, it's like, it's not bush, tree, it's light and tree comes much later, you know, tree and elm and all that is further along and it's conventionally designated, we all agree to call that elm and, you know,

[61:13]

so it's not like elm tree exists all by itself, we, it exists in relation to us, so it's us, elm tree is us, so when we, when all the five skandhas are empty, everything is empty too, all the visuals and the hearables and the touchables and the tasteables are also empty too, so the entire universe is empty of this reified solid separateness, that's the kind of awakening in the five skandha meditation, so, so, and, you know, the teaching is when you are born, the whole world is born with you and that's, that's not a metaphor, that's, when you're born, the entire world is born, the world, and it is unique, you know, nobody else, nobody else when they see Janette, except for this person, thinks third grade teacher, you know, it's, it's their whole unique world,

[62:15]

you know, and it's so marvelous and amazing, each person is just beyond our ability to conceive, you know, everybody, so, yes, Lee? The five skandhas? I, if, yes, I can, would that be okay with everybody, will you all fall asleep? There's something about these kinds of things which our mind kind of begins to go soggy or something, it, it, it takes a certain kind of, yes, my third grade teacher. So, so the, the, the five skandhas are rupa, vedana, samya, samskara, vijnana. Rupa is form, and under form comes, there's eleven kinds of form, eye, ear, nose, tongue,

[63:16]

the, this is the, what? Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, that's five, and then there's the visibles, the hearables, the smellables, the tasteables, and the touchables, that's ten, so they go together, so you've got, this is all under form, the, the eye faculty and the visible is like, those are all under form, and then the, no, they're all under rupa, they're all under form. The faculty that, the eye faculty, the indriya, are the faculties that have the capacity to, to see forms, it's not the eyeball itself, because, but it's in the location there, it's not the tongue itself, but it's in the location there, it's the, the ability to, to respond to light in a certain way,

[64:20]

that's the eye faculty, and then along with that is the visible, okay? So, for example, what? They are separate, they're, they're in rupa, they're in, they're in form, but they're separate, they, there's eleven things in rupa, and the eleventh is subtle rupa, and it's, it's called avishnapti rupa, and it's, it's, you can't see it, it's like, for example, the example that's used is when you receive the precepts, there is some actual physical material change in your body, psychophysical body, that you can't actually see it, or perceive it, but it, there is a material change in, in turning, or, for example, you see people at the end of their life, and they have lines in their faces, those are, you know, from making, from having certain, holding their face a certain way or something, and that's over a long time, but you can't see those wrinkles kind of being made, so subtle, subtle rupa, so that's avishnapti, that's the eleventh.

[65:23]

So, you know, in the Heart Sutra it says, no eye, no ear, no nose, no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, no color, sound, smell, taste, touch, those are the rupa skanda, and, and no extinction of those, so when we say no rupa, no eye, ear, nose, it means no solid, separate thing, it's empty of that. And same with the visible, you know, this, that's the thing about objects, to you, all this is a visible, right now, right? It's, and visibles are color and form, it's the shape, and it has color, and sometimes people say it's just color, because the color and the shape, you can't really distinguish between color and shape, right? It's, there's not color without the shape, or shape without the color. But they usually say color and shape, and for you, this is a visible, for me, it's a visible, and it's also a touchable, because I'm, and, and it's a hearable, and it's, what else?

[66:29]

Then we have some perception, this is cup, that's different, that's, that's a different skanda, our calling it cup, so I'll get to that in a second. So, so anyway, that's rupa, those visibles, and the, am I losing anybody? Okay, okay, you're watching, you're in there, okay, so it's the, the capacity to, eye, ear, nose, that's the hearable, the capacity and it's object, you know, the field, where it operates, is all under rupa. So then the next one is vedana, which means feeling, and vedana is, there's only three, it's an easy one, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. It's just, and the neutral is often, they often say it's not really neutral, it's that you don't know what it is, you're kind of confused about it, you don't know if it's pleasant or unpleasant, so it's called neutral, but, so that's vedana, and in terms of, you know, vedana, feeling. And then the third is samjna, S-A-M-J-N-A, and that's together, samjna is knowables, like prajna, or gnosis, it's the same root as gnosis and,

[67:42]

what else, anyway, that J-N-A, and the samjna is, so form, feelings, perceptions, and it's, was taught to me as if you have like a file folder, the samjna is like a big file folder, or I suppose the computer, and you see something like this, and you say, that reminds me, these characteristics, this shape, the color, that's, reminds you of something, you look in your file, and you say, oh yeah, it's cup, similar, not coffee cup, it's like, it doesn't have a handle, but cup, I bet it was cup, that's samjna, that's perception, and we do that, you know, like nonstop, I mean, just the fact that you can look around the room and pick out colors, because first seeing this, there's color here, but you don't call it brown yet, when you just see in form, there's no brown really in, in rupa, it's not named, it's just a certain wavelength that your eye cones and rods or whatever pick up on, in a certain way, you know, it's not brown,

[68:53]

but samjna says brown, and then samskara, it's got a lot of stuff in there, kind of lumped together, a lot of emotional things like, and jealousy, and hatred, and loving, and it's emotional things are all in samskara, because we have these kind of emotional feelings, like if this cup reminds you of the cup that your little brother threw and hit you, just spilled it all over, hit you in the face and you got a black eye when you were three, you see this and it like scares you, you might get sick to your stomach when you see this kind of brown cup, right? Somebody else, it was a gift from their grandmother, you know, and they love it, you know, so it doesn't inherently have any emotional content. This formations, yeah, samskara, samjna, perceptions, perception is cup, and formations is kind of, what? Baggage, right, baggage,

[70:01]

but very, very important, you know, what your relationship is with your world, association, yeah, liking, yeah, there's a whole long list that comes under samskara, you know, that I can't name, but, you know, the definition of samjna is that it grabs the characteristics and refers back to other things to get what it is. Samjna is language, there's language in samjna and samskara and vijnana too, I think, but yes, language is very bound up, completely bound up in all this, yeah. So that's samskara and then vijnana is just awareness of all that and you can't, what samjna finds out about the fact that that's a cup and that you hate it or are afraid of it or whatever,

[71:13]

unless there's vijnana, awareness, consciousness, you don't register any of it, you know, and if you think about the millions, myriads of gazillions of ways we're being bombarded by sense data that we do not turn our attention towards and cognize, I don't know what, you know, I don't even know how one would calculate that, but you have to turn your attention to something to do it and have consciousness of it, right, but meanwhile there's all these hearables and, you know, it's like sitting in the dogsan room or practice discussion room and the clock is ticking and you're hearing the clock tick and then you start talking and what happened to the clock, you know, you don't, is it ticking in the forest, you know, if anyone's there to hear it? If you put your attention on it and hear ticking, but does it stop ticking? Well, you could swear it wasn't ticking during the whole time you were there, you know, but your attention is focused on something else, you know, and the person next to you may be completely listening to the clock ticking, yeah, so the consciousness in the Abhidharma, which is this systematic study of this kind of thing,

[72:26]

it says you could only be conscious of one thing at a time, you know, we usually think, oh, I can do five things at once, but it's actually, it's one after the other, but it's, I mean, faster than that, that's the teaching that it's one thing at a time. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[73:28]

This is a cup. You're Renee, you're over there, I'm over here, everybody has their own lives and exist in that way, right? That's kind of conventional way of believing that objects are outside of, exist outside of, our interaction with them. And that's mountains are mountains, the regular way that we usually think how things are. And then you get exposed to this kind of teaching that this is not something outside of a visible, a hearable, your reference about the fact that you can name it something and your awareness of it. And it's like it's no longer cup anymore. It's, I mean, it's no longer, you can't think of it anymore as this is a training. This is how you train yourself when, well, right this minute. Can you train yourself to, it's to not believe anymore.

[74:31]

It's experientially, you know, comes from training yourself to not just assume that you know what that is, you know, so there's training involved. I don't think it's just, well, I think for some people you tell them this teaching, they hear the teaching of emptiness, you know, and like Avalokiteshvara, you know, was practicing deeply, training herself or himself and perceived that all five skandhas, all the rupas, meaning all the visuals, all the hearables, all the sounds, smells, tastes are empty of separate inherent and was saved. But there was training there in the, and at a certain point experientially they experience that and be saved. So I think we have to start somewhere and there is this intellectual analyzing kind of mind that turns towards this material and tries it on, you know, and there are these

[75:40]

stages like that stage where mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers, that middle way, that middle stage, I mean, where you've heard the teaching, you've been exposed to it and you don't, you can't quite believe it anymore in the same way, but you don't necessarily experience it as empty, but you can't go back to, I know that that cups the cup and, you know, and nobody's going to tell me any different. You actually, you know, you've heard the teaching enough to know that it's not how I always thought, you know. So that's mountains are no longer mountains and you train yourself. And when I say train, I mean to actually, how is it to say there are no things before my eyes, that meaning is before my eyes, to actually look out on each other and bring up the fact that what I perceive is the meaning that I bring to it.

[76:43]

It's not out there separate from me. How would that be to bring that up all day long, you know. So the more you do that, the more, you can't put a lot of energy into that other way anymore. Yes. [...]

[77:43]

Yes. [...] I'm wondering if you could comment on some of the things that you've been able to do with the people that you support, the people that you support. Obviously, because of the pandemic, you know, a lot of the things that you do have not been available, and you've been able to choose to develop. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you've been able to do with them. And so this isn't like someone in a place that maybe is interested in talking to you. I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit

[78:46]

to what you've been able to do with other people who have different experiences of not really having access to social media. So because of that safety experience, really, is that opportunity that people have when they're going through some un-human or non-human situations. How would you be able to help them and give them the perspective that they need to learn about? Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. There is a tendency, and I think this is culturally true in places where karma is kind of coined in the realm where it's part of the... I don't think in our culture... I mean, it's getting more and more that way, but it's not necessarily a word that everybody's used to. But in certain cultures, karma is a regular, conventional, everyday concept, and it has been misused as a way of...

[79:46]

Just like you said, oh, that's their karma, and so I'm not going to help them, or that's the caste they were born into in terms of the caste system, and they can lump it. So I think there is a history of having karma be an excuse for not helping somebody, basically. So the way I was using it, the word karma means action, and the fruit of someone's actions, the teaching of Buddhism is that there are consequences to one's actions. There is fruit that develops in this life, or the next life, or further lifetimes. And in some ways, it's not... I was going to say it's kind of neutral, meaning it's just the consequence of your actions. Yeah, sometimes we interpret it as reward or punishment, but if you look at it kind of boldly, it's just the fruit of actions.

[80:59]

And so, if you do actions that are harmful to others, you will receive the fruit of that. And if you do actions that are wholesome and helpful for others, you will receive the fruit of that. Now, in terms of these people, when I saw them all mixed up together doing these dances and things, and I saw each person's karma is so different. Each person lives the life, they have the fruit of their own, and it's not... I didn't see it as punishment anymore. I think that's what... I didn't see it like, oh, because of their past actions they were born as a yadaya, they were born in this... I actually saw the... It was like, if each person, whatever their circumstances, rich, poor, whatever, to fully live your life, it didn't matter anymore. I think there was no... I didn't see, well, that one's good karma, that one's bad karma. That's what dropped away, that this is a better circumstance than the other.

[82:07]

It was just people completely and thoroughly expressing themselves beautifully. So that's what kind of dropped away, is the kind of rote way of thinking such and such. And I think this excuse for not having compassion for other people, which I think, you know, in some Buddhist countries you hear that there's not very much social action. You know, this kind of... I can't say never having gone to a Buddhist country, but that good works and so forth are not... there's not a lot of energy put into that. I don't know if this is true or not. This is maybe a stereotypic thing, but... and there seems to be this misunderstanding around karma that causes that. Rather than seeing compassion, whether or not someone's past actions brought them to a state of woe, it doesn't mean you don't have compassion for them and try to help them in this moment thoroughly. It's not necessarily stigmatized.

[83:10]

Yes. Well, I think that's the Sangha jewel. You know, we have Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the triple treasure. And the Sangha, which is the beings who practice, and you can think of those practitioning beings or all beings in the world. So, yes, to not separate yourself from any suffering beings and to... that's the whole purpose of Buddhism is to help other beings. Help other beings means helping yourself and others together. It's not separating. So, you know, to expose yourself to the suffering of others is... I mean, often that's why people end up coming to start practice in the first place is through their own suffering. That's the biggest gate there is.

[84:38]

But to sequester and hide out and not expose yourself anymore is counterproductive to what the whole thing is all about. So, you know, you can... some people are more drawn to social action things than... I think it can happen just, you know, in one's own monastery, you know, because so many different people of different walks of life are people you'd never choose to live closely with or be friends with. They all come, you know, so you have a chance to do that. But many people, and that's what the Buddhist Peace Fellowship is about and the base program, Buddhist Alliance for Social... what's the E? Engagement, you know, going to work outside in soup kitchens in different communities to bring their Buddhist practice out. And yes, I think it's not to hide out from the suffering of the world.

[85:42]

But I also am not saying necessarily that you must do social action in order to drop this conceptual framework. I wouldn't say that social action, meaning place yourself in... some people may not be suited for it, you know. Their karma is that their temperament or whatever, this is not the place they need to be studying and teaching academic classes or whatever, you know what I mean? So it's not everyone's vocation. Yes. I know the experience of that would be... I didn't go to my college, I didn't go to grad school.

[86:52]

It's funny because when you go, it's no big deal, but if you don't go, it is a big deal somehow. Yes. And for me, I also didn't graduate from high school, so it was my first graduation. I just graduated from graduate school. And it was really sad, like this whole situation for a while, this graduation that never got completed. I never really felt like I graduated from anything. It was always just like there was never any moment of, are you done? And now you can choose to do something else, or you don't have to. So I always felt like I had to go. And I just appreciated you sharing your experience of like, you know, there's the story of how your family's there and how wonderful it is. But it isn't that way for a lot of people. Like, no, you didn't bother to get your diploma. You know what I mean? And there's just a couple of your friends, and you didn't have a lunch or a training, and that was it. You know what I mean? And for me, you know, I don't know.

[87:54]

Like, I think for a lot of ceremonies like that, and for a lot of people, I don't know, at least for me, I feel like the sadness of the way it could have been, you know, with a family and everyone happy, and mom and dad are getting along, and they have this house. You know, my parents don't have this house. I'm an able-minded mayor. And so it's like, for me, this sadness of just sort of loss of this happy way that it all could have gone. And what I really appreciate about the Zen Center is it's the only place I know that actually takes ceremony really seriously. You know, no one's in a hurry to do it. And we have tea. We take the tea seriously. You know, we've never in a hurry to do the cloth, but it's sort of, you know, it would be wonderful if that sort of brothers and sisters could be there for all the ceremonies, like for graduation. For me, it was just like a statement. I never even went to college. I stopped going until I got out of high school.

[88:56]

And I really didn't miss it, and I still haven't. I'm 29 years old, and I still feel like this kid. You know, I'm really, really sad about it. And, you know, I guess I would say that, you know, it's great to be here. It's always nice to be here. Thank you. Thank you for telling us your story. You know, I think human beings have a very strong need for ritual and ceremony. And it's not met, you know, in the world. And there's sort of these fake ceremonies that are kind of put together. I'm not saying all, I'm not saying Zen Center is the only place where real ceremony takes place. But I remember I was in a sorority, which I finally dropped out of. But the initiation for the sorority, going from a pledge to an active. Were any of you in sorority? It was this made-up ceremony with razzing, you know, which culminated in this thing where you then became a real member, a real sister of the sorority.

[90:03]

And I remember feeling so sad, you know, because the potential of actually joining together with young women of about your age to really live together in harmony and da-da-da, you know. But it was all lost in a kind of fake ceremony, you know. So, anyway, I think I appreciated when I came to Zen Center also that the ceremonies had real meaning. You actually felt transformed from the beginning of the ceremony to the end somehow. And what I was, what's been pointed out to me by Riv, and also remember Richard Baker mentioned that all ceremony is breath. That's what he mentioned a long time ago. All ceremony is breath. And if you're with your body, breath, and mind through a ceremony, you know, the meaning is revealed to you.

[91:05]

And I think the more energy you put into a ceremony, the more thoroughly you are there, the more meaning you derive, you know. But it means if everybody's doing that, you know, then this wonderful event is created, which I think many of you have experienced that here at ornations and weddings. And just you really feel it. And we miss that, you know. We're not met without that kind of experience in our lives. We long for it, you know, to express these inner realities, you know, our inner, what really matters to us, to be able to express it outwardly in body and speech. And a beautiful ceremony can do that. So, yeah, I think our culture has a dearth, is that the word? Yeah, of meaningful ceremonies. Yeah.

[92:06]

Yeah. And not knowing about their breath, you know. I think if all ceremony is breath, there is a kind of pace there that's natural, you know. Although, you know, there are certain things like, you know, the steps to the capitol in Washington, D.C. It's a long, long, long step. And I was told architecturally that that is...

[92:40]

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