Can I borrow your watch? Thank you. It's 15 minutes fast. Oh, that's good to know. Good morning. Good morning. I think as a way of locating myself, since I've been gyrating around the world for the last five or six weeks, I'd like to make a kind of confession. We are working on our house, and so in my absence, other people packed the house. So when it came time to gather together my robes, I couldn't find anything. So I am an abundance of borrowed robes, including the watch. Thank you very much. Norman's okhasa and bowing cloth,

[01:02]

and pieces and bits of my friends, my brothers and sisters, helping me be covered up appropriately here in front of you. A few weeks ago, we had an ordination ceremony here, and a friend of mine, in talking about the ceremony afterwards, was puzzling over the theme of renunciation, which is one way of talking about or thinking about a monk or nun taking ordination vows. And in our conversation, the question which arose for my friend was, but what about the world? What about the world of suffering? What about the world and our lives in it that we need to take care of? And how do I understand or participate with

[02:05]

or join with this ceremony of renunciation when my heart is filled with concern for the suffering of the world? And I have, in the weeks since then, been chewing on my dear friend's question. As some of you know, I've been on retreat for the last month, and one of the themes that I've been considering during this time has been the war against afflictive emotions. So what has arisen for me is a kind of puzzling about renunciation and asking myself, exactly what is it we mean when we talk about a life of renunciation? And I would like to propose for our consideration this morning that we might think of renunciation in the sense that we have an opportunity

[03:06]

to renounce the afflictive emotions, and that to do that, there may be a number of ways of doing it. Taking the path of ordination as a monk or a nun or a priest is one of several paths, but for many of us in this room who have lives in the world, what does it mean, and how do we do it? And is there a way for us to bring into our so-called ordinary everyday life our deep intention to live in a way that is based on the cultivation of love and understanding and wisdom? Renouncing those emotions which take us away from that deeper intention, greed and desire, jealousy, anger,

[04:09]

just to name a few. I think when I use this phrase, afflictive emotions, I imagine that we all know what they are, or at least we know what some of them are. I think that this task of renunciation, of undoing or transforming or dissolving these emotions which arise and color our activity and life so powerfully and with such difficulty, is a demanding and difficult path. It, among other things, involves being willing to give up a kind of tendency to sentimentalize our view of the world and, in particular, our view of our relationships with other beings,

[05:11]

in particular with other human beings and of ourselves. So what I want to consider together a bit this morning is what I want to call the yoga of everyday life. Is there a way that I can make every action in my life associated with the activity of enlightenment? And as a way of preparing the ground which will produce enlightened activity, what I see most powerfully is the undoing or the dissolving of the afflictive emotions. Is there a way that everything that I pick up or see or engage with can be a kind of reminder of my intention

[06:13]

for cultivating enlightened activity? In July, when Tara Wampashe was still visiting here at Green Gulch, we went to Tassajara and we went for a walk and as we passed some of the manzanita bushes, I picked one of the berries which had become rather dry. For those of you who know manzanita, you know that after the berries begin to dry and harden, they make a kind of seed which has six lines on it, which I hadn't noticed until this particular day when we were having a walk. I picked the berry and showed it to Tara Wampashe because I wanted him to know that this was what we used for making prayer beads at Tassajara and they're quite beautiful, they're very nice to use. He took the bead and put it in his hand

[07:16]

and examined it for a moment and he said, oh, there are six lines on the bead for the six paramitas. There wasn't a moment's hesitation. He saw the bead and immediately what arose for him was remembering the six paramitas to cultivate these qualities that are associated with a bodhisattva, someone who is devoted to cultivating enlightenment for the sake of all beings. And I was quite struck by how quickly that association came up for him. And what came up for me was wondering, how can I have that kind of lens in my eyeglasses so that when I see the world everything I see reminds me of these qualities

[08:20]

which I hope I can cultivate in myself and with others. I guess it was last weekend, it seems like such a long time ago. Robert Thurman was here and did a seminar on the Vimalakirti Sutra. We spent the weekend reading it together. And he told a couple of stories. One of the stories he told I think is very much to the point I am trying to make this morning. It's the story of a monk in India who was very forgetful. I thought it was marvelous when my husband said, Why don't you tell the story about the monk who couldn't remember anything? And I said, What story? And he told me the story and I said, Oh yes, yes, yes, I remember. I remembered the punchline

[09:20]

but I didn't remember the rest of it. Anyway, this monk was so forgetful that when he would be reading a sacred text he would read one line and then when he would get to the second line he already had forgotten the first line. He'd get to the third line and he'd forgotten the first two. He would get to the end of the fourth line and he would have forgotten the beginning of the fourth line. And he was very discouraged so he went to his teacher and his teacher gave him a practice. He said, I want you to be the sweeping monk and when you sweep you can say to yourself, Dust go. Defilement go. And with every movement of the broom dust go, defilement go. So he took this teaching

[10:22]

and went out sweeping and he did this for many years. After some years, as I recall the story, I think it was twelve years, some nuns in the village were unhappy with the monks. They were getting a little out of hand, a little arrogant, not behaving in the way the nuns thought they should. And they thought, well, we're going to embarrass the monks, show them what's really going on. So one day when this forgetful monk was away from his keeper they went up to him as he was sweeping. Dust go, defilement go. And they said, hey, how about giving a talk to the townspeople? And he said, oh, all right. And they thought,

[11:24]

now we're going to really embarrass the monks. This stupid sweeping monk won't be able to say anything. And of course he stood up in the middle of the town with all of the local people gathered to hear him and began to do a great and profound teaching. And he had in fact attained such transcendent wisdom that he floated some feet above the ground and the nuns were amazed. In the morning when I brush my teeth I could, as I brush my teeth clean, brushing away the bacteria, the dirt, the collection from the food I've eaten. As this dirt goes away,

[12:25]

defilement go away. When I go to the toilet or take a bath, again an opportunity as I wash away the dirt, as I eliminate the wastes from my body, so may I eliminate the wastes, the toxins, the dirt from my life and from the world. We have to start somewhere with some simple activity, some activity that we do every day, several times a day. So we begin to cultivate this habit, this way of using our imagination to lace through our daily activity, remembering this deep intention for awake, compassionate, wise mind.

[13:30]

Another story that Bob Thurman told was about the rice husker. He had this job of pounding the rice to take the husks off of it and he was bemoaning the fact when a revered teacher was wandering through his region. He said, Oh, I feel so sad that I can't lead a sacred life. I can't be on the path of realization. I'm too poor. I don't even have enough money to pay for teaching. My life is a waste. All I can do is work hard to make some effort to feed my family. And the teacher said, Give me a bowl of rice and I'll give you a teaching. So the rice husker gave him a bowl of rice and the teacher said,

[14:37]

Think of the husks as ignorance and the pounder as it hits the husks is breaking up the shell of ignorance and as the kernel of rice is released, what you're actually releasing is compassion and understanding. And so the rice husker took on this way of working and after a while he had many other people working for him also doing this work of pounding the husks off the rice and his life flourished as he pursued his intention for realization, pounding rice day in and day out. And after some years he is described as having attained enlightenment,

[15:43]

clear understanding and compassion. We think of a monastery, a monastic environment, as a place where people do this so-called real work of spiritual transcendent life and the cultivation of wisdom. An environment which is created so that embedded in the environment itself is wisdom and the opportunity for cultivating habits of mindfulness, of awakeness, of concentration and attentiveness. But in fact I think it is possible for all of us to participate in such an environment. It's what we do when we have a daily practice. It's what we do when we have a practice of meditation, which we do every day.

[16:46]

But it's also what we are doing when we lace through the activity of our day this kind of imagination where the world we live in becomes a network, a net of symbols that remind us of how to cultivate these capacities that lead to wisdom and compassion. I know someone who has begun setting aside one day a week a kind of day of mindfulness, a day when there is no cooking even. She and her family make sure there is some food prepared so that they can eat without any work, no television, no visiting, no going out and no visitors, a quiet day at home

[17:48]

doing simple, quiet tasks, perhaps doing some studying, some quiet, simple cleaning or working in the garden, some way of being alone and together as a family, a day that has a slower pace than the rest of the week, which then can inform the other days of the week. A day of mindfulness. When we come together for a day of sitting and walking meditation or when we have a seven-day session, seven-day meditation here as we do several times a year, we are all becoming monks for a day or a week. We all have that inclination in us,

[18:49]

I believe. And what inspires me is to consider the possibility of living our lives with our families, with the people that we work with, the people that we drive with on the freeway, the people that we are bumping up against in the grocery store in ways that are not fundamentally different from the way we remember we can live when we sit together in this wonderful hall. One of the elements in living a life this way, I think, has to do with our motivation. We have to be sure that our aim is clear, that we have some clear intention, and if we aren't sure what our intention is,

[19:50]

to then pick up the task of finding what our clear intention is and to remember every morning before we move from our bed, what is my clear intention for my life and for today, for this week? Do I know what it is? And if I don't, perhaps I can consider what it might be. I try as much as I can to remember every morning I want to live my life based on non-possessiveness and non-violence and to cultivate, to the best of my ability, understanding and compassion and wisdom for myself and for all beings. How will I be able to do that

[20:54]

this morning and today? Do I have a plan? Do I know what I'm working with? I'd like to look for a moment at anger as one of the afflictive emotions which is particularly troublesome for many of us, perhaps all of us, and is certainly an emotion which informs much of life in the world today. There's a book which some of you might find fruitful to look at. It's called Anger, the Misunderstood Emotion. I believe the author's name is Carol Tarvis. And what she does in this book is a kind of rigorous investigation into the nature of anger.

[21:56]

What are we talking about? I found reading this book very useful in parsing out the particular elements of what I usually think of as anger, making it more particular and descriptive. Extremely useful in looking at what I think of as the runway to anger. You know, you think of anger as a kind of airplane. Once it takes off, once the emotion arises with a kind of intensity, it takes over. And I am helpless to do anything except hold on and stay present until it subsides. In the midst of intense anger, I probably can't do anything to interrupt it. So how do I work with such an intense emotion? One of the things I might do is after it has subsided

[22:58]

to arouse within myself regret or remorse for my anger and the consequences of it. To do whatever I can to not reaffirm the habit of anger. And what I've noticed is that the place where I can do something about anger is in that area of the runway. To begin to notice how much in the prelude has to do with expectations and the disappointment when they are not met. To begin to notice when there is in me arising some irritability. And to have some willingness to investigate that irritability. When did it first arise? Can I acknowledge out loud that I'm feeling irritable

[24:00]

or grouchy? In the very acknowledgement of that feeling, there is some dissolving or softening. And certainly my friends and family can then say, Oh, be careful, she's grouchy this morning. And to have their help in that they may not take me quite so seriously. What I notice is that if I pay attention in that region of my emotional life that has to do with expectations and the minor beginnings that eventually lead to anger, it's then that I have some opportunity to interrupt and divert the build-up. I'm somewhat less likely to kick the cat or yell at my son

[25:01]

or husband or friend. I'm a little less likely to slam down the telephone in anger with the uncooperative long-distance operator or whatever. It is in that region that I'm calling the runway that the practice of the half-smile may arise. It may occur to me then to remember that I can lift the corners of my mouth slightly and let my attention go to my breath for three breaths. Good old mouth yoga, which I can do no matter how I feel and which through practicing I've learned leads me to that place of attention with respect to

[26:02]

what is actually going on, not what I project into the future, not what I remember from the past, what's going on in this moment. It is in this rigorous and sometimes almost ruthless way of investigating that I begin to notice that anger is not something that exists in some ongoing way but is an emotion which rises and falls, changes, as does the breath, as does the ocean as it comes in and goes out. If I notice that, I can allow the subsiding and not hang on to, not harbor the ill will. There is a way that I'm suggesting

[27:08]

that involves our using our imagination. As Bob Thurman suggested to us last weekend, for us to be poets, to take on as a yoga our everyday life in this way. We're all poets, every one of us, poets who have the capacity for enlightened activity, who have the capacity to dissolve or transform or allow to slip away all of the afflictive emotions. We all see the diamonds in a dew drop. When I see or feel or hear water,

[28:09]

it can be the symbol of compassion. When I see fire, the leaping remembrance of joy. And when I feel or hear the wind, to know equanimity. We can lace this imaginative, poetic mind, intent on our spiritual life into every detail of our daily life so that the whole world becomes our monastery. And in so doing, we can inspire ourselves and each other cultivating friendliness. That, of course, includes

[29:12]

cultivating friendliness with our resistance, friendliness with our capacity for judgment, for small-mindedness, for losing our temper, and patiently returning to our deep intention to dissolve the afflictive emotions, to go to our deepest capacity. So I think back on the conversation that my friend and I had a few weeks ago, and I see the ordination ceremony when my sister took her vows as a priest and as a nun, and I see her following a path which enriches all of us and which is one of a number of paths which we can take.

[30:13]

What I want to ask of all of us is that we not see these various paths as in conflict with each other, but to recognize how we are about the same thing and to keep our sight clear about this deep intention, to pick up the possibility of slowly and carefully but with rigor dissolving the afflictive emotions and awakening our capacity for an enlightened mind and life. If we look at this image which is sitting on the altar here, to let it remind us of that capacity for wisdom, deep understanding that exists in each one of us, and to let the detail

[31:15]

of our daily lives carry those reminders, to let ourselves be poets together. Thank you very much.

[31:33]

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