Good evening. I started yesterday morning and I want to continue this evening talking about the ten paramitas, the transcendent bodhisattva practices. This is kind of prelude to our practice period that starts next Sunday about the major bodhisattva figures. and the Bodhisattva practices and the different approaches to Bodhisattva practice that they represent. But this is kind of a review of these transcendent practices. We talked about them a few years ago in one of the other practice periods, and whether or not you're formally participating in the practice period the next nine weeks starting on Sunday. Just hanging out here, we'll be talking about this stuff. And you're welcome, of course, to all our events.

[01:05]

So this is one of the lists of different kinds of practices, like the Eightfold Path or the Bodhisattva Precepts that help us to see how to express meditative awareness, zen heart, whatever you want to call it, deeper awareness in the difficulties of everyday activity. So, sometimes there's a list of six and there's an expanded list of ten, so just to mention them. Again, Dhana or generosity, Shila or ethical conduct and precepts, Kshanti, patience, virya, effort or enthusiasm, energy, samadhi, meditative settling, prajna, wisdom or insight, and sometimes that's those six are one list, and then the practice of vow or commitment, pranidhana, upaya, skillful means, very important,

[02:09]

Bala, powers, and jnana, which is knowledge as opposed to wisdom, knowing things and how to use those for the benefit of bodhisattva intention and wisdom. So, just to mention those ten and the bodhisattva figures we'll be talking about, like Manjushri and Kanon, the bodhisattva of compassion. Each of them have expressed some combination of these 10. But I wanted to just mention the 10. And I thought I'd talk tonight about, in particular, about two of them, although we can discuss others. And I talked yesterday mostly about generosity and prajna, or wisdom and insight, but shanti, patience. maybe the one I talk about most. And then I also want to talk about power, or Bala, which is one of the ones I talk about least. So patience is, we think of as, we might ordinarily think of as a kind of passive practice, just waiting.

[03:23]

But it's actually, as a practice, transcendent practice, as a practice of enlightening beings, of beings dedicated to universal liberation. It's a very dynamic, active practice. Patience means also tolerance, forbearance to withstand all kinds of slings and arrows, all the difficulties of our own life and of our world and the world around us. And it's not just, again, it's not just passive, it's attentive. It's, it's from this patience that we can develop the power and the energy to insightfully enact skillful means and commitment. But this will, this patience, this, you know, are just sitting in a way as a practice of patience, of just waiting for the bell to ring, or just waiting, waiting.

[04:35]

but with attention, not just sleepy, but paying attention to what's going on, being willing and ready to respond when there is something to do. So often there's nothing to do. There's no, whatever the difficulty is that confronts us, whatever the genjo koan, that faces us, whatever problems there are in our relationships amongst the people around us, in the world around us, it's hard to see something to do, and maybe there's nothing to do. But if we're paying attention, sometimes suddenly, after the long work of patience, there's some wonderful opportunity to respond in a way that can be very effective.

[05:44]

But as Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part. So how do we practice patience with energy, with attention, with insight, with readiness? And how do we give ourselves to tolerating the difficult things in a way that we are not cowering, not sleeping, not numb? So patience is not the same thing as numbness, as fearfulness, as settling. Active, dynamic patience is attentive and ready to respond. That relates to this practice of powers.

[07:00]

Bala is the Sanskrit word. And usually, traditionally it's associated with the, we think of supernatural powers of the Buddha or the Bodhisattvas. these unusual capacities, the power of the Malakirti, one of the six Bodhisattvas we'll study, for example, who can take a galaxy in his hand and toss it around the universe so that it lands back in his hand without any of the beings in that galaxy noticing or being disturbed by it. The ones who notice it are enlightened by it, they're not disturbed by it. for example, or the power of Buddhas to know the past lives of all other beings, or in terms of the great bodhisattvas to grant the wishes of beings, or to know the bodhisattva of compassion to see what would be helpful, to use skillful means to know how to be helpful in a particular situation.

[08:04]

So usually in the traditional literature, it's described in terms of these great powers, the power of, and the powers that come from, from extended meditation. Sometimes, when I was younger and lived in Tassajara for a few years, I had developed the meditative power of not needing much sleep. Four hours was enough because I was doing an apsarasana. So I would have extra time for studying. I made it night or early in the morning. That's a small example. But I think, so all of these, we can see these as transcendent practices of bodhisattvas, but as bodhisattva practitioners ourselves, taking the bodhisattva vows, saying the bodhisattva vows at the end of each zendo event as we do, how is it that we express generosity, or ethical conduct, or patience,

[09:06]

or enthusiasm and energy and commitment and skillful means, and in this case, power. So how do we use our abilities? So everybody in this room, I know, has some significant abilities, some significant powers, some way that you can use your talents, your gifts, your powers, to be helpful in the world, which is the point. The bodhisattva is the one who supports harmony rather than harm, who is helpful in helping beings. So we have this wonderful example this Saturday of these young, insightful prajna beings who organized these great events all around the country, many hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., and I was down in Union Park downtown for a little while for the rally there.

[10:14]

I don't know if others of you were down to the march or rally. about trying to have sane gun laws. But just to listen to the eloquence of these young people, great power. And we've been waiting patiently or impatiently through not just all these school shootings, but the ongoing horrible gun violence in Chicago and maybe more in South Chicago than up here in North Central Chicago, but this is an ongoing tragedy, calamity. And the eloquence, if you look on democracynow.org, for example, the eloquence of these young people is just amazing.

[11:21]

And the power that they manifested in bringing together so many people, organizing these events. Just one example. And clearly this was the beginning of something. They are very, very, very committed to continuing this. So there's the power of sangha. and I mean Sangha in the widest sense, the power of, as Patti Smith says, people have the power. There's the power that at times can manifest, and sometimes it takes a long time of waiting. And of course, this isn't that everything can get fixed. We live in a world that is characterized, as the first noble truth says, of disharmony, of misalignment, of sadness.

[12:30]

And we have the, and it's a noble truth, because we can face the sadness in our own lives and in the world. But these Paramitas point to practices that are about how to respond, how to be helpful. So part of how to look at these practices is to see how they work together. And that's why they're useful as a background to looking at these great Bodhisattva figures that we're going to be looking at the next couple of months. Manjushri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Samantabhadra, the kind of aesthetic devotional Bodhisattva active practice, and it's not exactly how he's seen in the Asian traditions, but I see him as an activist bodhisattva. So in the book I have modern culture figures as exemplars, some of whom are arguable, but Dr. King I have in there.

[13:42]

So next Monday evening, a week from tonight, we'll have our Shuso entry ceremony. so Asian Nancy Easton will be the head monk for the two-month practice period. She'll be doing some of the talks and meeting with the students in the practice period formally. There's a ceremony kind of elaborate ceremony for installing her as she's so. But I want to say a little bit afterwards about the anniversary, the 50th anniversary of the murder of Dr. King, who I mentioned in the Samantabhadra chapter. Samantabhadra is a Bodhisattva who, well in our meal channel we say the shining practice Bodhisattva. So, each of these different Bodhisattva figures, and I'm sort of getting ahead of the talk tonight, but that's okay. Each of them has a combination of qualities, which is why they're archetypal. They've shifted in different cultures, but Samantabhadra has a series of vows and commitments to be helpful to all beings,

[14:54]

to study the teaching and share it with others is a kind of partner to Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of insider wisdom. And he's also has an aesthetic quality and is very devotional quality, but he's active in the world. So I think of people like Gandhi as well as Dr. King. And I'll just read the Ten Vows. I wasn't going to go into but venerating Buddhas, praising Buddhas, making offerings to Buddhas, confessing one's own past misdeeds, this idea of repentance, rejoicing in the happiness of others, requesting Buddhas to teach, requesting Buddhas not to enter nirvana but stay in health beings, studying the Dharma in order to teach it, benefiting all beings.

[15:57]

I think it's important, and transferring one's merit to others, which we could understand as transferring one's energy and practice. practicing for the sake of others. Anyway, in that sense, I think of activists as fitting into Samantabhadra amongst other kinds of beings. And I spoke of Dr. King on the formal holiday of Martin Luther King Day. It didn't get recorded. We were having some glitches. So I'm going to speak during the next month of a number of things that happened 50 years ago in 1968, which I remember very well. I was 18. Who Dr. King is seen as now is not really a full picture.

[17:05]

The last year of his life, he was killed organizing sanitation workers in Memphis. He worked in a poor people's campaign. He was organizing very strongly against the Vietnam War. He spoke about that a year to the day before he was killed. That's probably why he was killed. He said that the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today was the United States government. So in the time now when we're facing danger from new cold wars and nuclear posturing by our government and other governments and danger and endless wars, a lot of what Dr. King spoke for was is still very relevant.

[18:06]

And of course, when he was killed, that triggered a lot of anger and riots here in Chicago. and around the country. And a few weeks later, I was involved in an event that I'll talk about on the 50th anniversary of that, an uprising at Columbia University where I was a student, and taking over the buildings for a week, and 700 people arrested. And there were many things that happened in 1968. Anyway, what happened with the gun rallies Saturday reminds me of that in some ways, because a lot of the civil rights movement, a lot of the anti-Vietnam movement was young people organizing. Young people who didn't want to go fight in Vietnam.

[19:13]

And so there was a certain kind of power that they had. The war continued for a number of years after that, but things changed. There was a change in the direction of the country because of that. Culturally, there was a big change. So we don't know how change happens, but we also don't know our own power. So there's a lot to say about this. And part of what I've been talking about is kind of collective power. We also don't know individually. There are people in this room who've done wonderful things on their own. We each have a great capacity. but sometimes it takes a while to manifest it. So this relationship that I'm pointing out tonight between two of these ten patients and power is one word, ability,

[20:25]

is one of the interesting relationships. Skillful means is also related to this, and insight, and of course, the samadhi, settledness, calm. If we think we can just go around and exert our power without that settledness, we get into trouble. So there's a lot more to say about all of this, but maybe that's enough for me to start. And so I invite your comments, responses about these Paramitas or these two or any of the others. So please feel free. Yes, Suzanne. Do you all know who Emma Gonzalez is?

[22:07]

No, it's fine. I would like you to say more. She's very eloquent. And she was silent for the amount of time that the... She was silent not for the whole amount of time. She spoke, and then she filmed the rest of the time for six minutes and 20 seconds or something with silence. So I don't know exactly how long the silence was, but it was like televised live, that way, silent. And that was the time while the shooter was shooting or something like that? Yes, right, the FCC.

[24:08]

That's exactly the waiting, the silence, and the power together. That's a perfect example. Yeah. And then when she spoke again, it held this up. The two together just worked with each other in a way that really relates to her practice. Yeah. And she's lost family members. And she's so panicked, just can't get there. Oh, I saw, I saw her hand. 11 years old, standing outside of 800,000 people or something, speaking on my phone. I got tears in my eyes. I mean, I remember she ended up saying, only seven short years until I vote. Yes, saying I will be voting again.

[25:39]

So in our problem, listening to these kids that have been marching in the streets since 2005, this isn't the first time that kids have led marches. 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds. I was... Thank you. Yes, Dennis. I'm a little older than you, but I was swimming It really, really, really reminded me of the Civil Rights Movement and how it sprang up almost spontaneously.

[27:33]

It's one thing young people don't understand. Well, it needs to be sustained and it looks like they will, but we can support that. The thing about dialogue too, just to listen to different viewpoints, to hear, when it becomes us versus them exclusively,

[28:37]

I mean, in this situation, it's easy to call out the politicians. But in terms of the range of all people, I mean, I appreciate Dennis, you're talking a while ago about people who grew up in gun cultures. And so it's not about eliminating that. It's about just having some sensible, reasonable gun control. That's not something that's impossible. I wonder if people have other examples of this sense of power as a practice, of how to use our abilities.

[29:42]

In this example, it's kind of communal, but I'm thinking of theater groups coming together and producing something powerful together, for example. how people can do things together, but also how we each can use our capacities. Yeah? Just before coming here, I was reading in a book about the work of art, that it has the power to detain us or arrest us. There is a very mysterious power in that, in being arrested or detained, which is the words that the author was using, we tend to hear them in the context of police.

[30:57]

Arrested, detained. But there is this flip side that the attention can actually be stopped and all of a sudden Yes, yes, yes. And there's this tremendous beauty in that. Yesterday, I went to see a play called Roundheads and Pointheads by Bertolt Brecht. And sadly, so relevant. It's about this fictional country that is going through economic and political turmoil. And the people in charge decide to exploit a difference in the way that people's heads are. So if you're a roundhead or a Zack, you're good. If you have a pointed head, and it's really interesting the prosthetics that the actors wear, you're the enemy. And your land can be confiscated. You can be arrested and shot. And of course, the play was influenced by Nazi Germany.

[32:01]

But it takes that a step further, and the finally Thank you. It's interesting about creating a space and stopping. So Samadhi, part of that is just concentration, focus, stopping. So the relationship between Samadhi and patience is also interesting. part of patience maybe is to stop all of our busyness, you know, just to give our attention and to wait in that kind of space.

[33:04]

And then what is, and then How is it to be willing and ready to respond from there, as opposed to from all of our ideas and ideologies and so forth? Just a thought. Yes, Bill. reintegrate a sense of connections among different things that have gone on and are historical events. And I just know this is a continual frustration for me in teaching at a university. Newton, yes.

[34:18]

the NRA is something that I would truly have absolutely nothing good to say about whatsoever. Sort of goes back to that discussion a few weeks ago about it seems it is permissible to not necessarily have compassion Right, yes. I'd like to know for those, I didn't see this on television, I could hear it on the radio from the demonstrations, but when they had silences, you know it's very difficult in our society to have silence.

[36:19]

for what they were doing. Yeah, part of what you're saying, this is part of why I want to talk this month about 1968. I mean, my personal involvement in it, but there's not a sense of history. And that that history matters and who Dr. King really was and what happened in the anti-Vietnam movement and how that echoes, not exactly, but in some ways today.

[37:55]

And to me, what I learned from all that is that the NRA pushing guns in South Chicago and all around the country is, to me, totally connected to our foreign policy of pushing weapons to the Saudi Arabians and all around the world, and the endless wars. Anyway, that our economy, based on selling weapons, I think that connection is important, and I hope that gets made. That hasn't really yet, but our foreign policy is really dangerous now. So I'm interested in helping make those connections and looking at history. And I have my own perspective, and so I'm not trying to impose that on anyone. But I want to bring that up for

[38:55]

Given that I lived through that, I wanted to share that, so that's what I'll be doing. Last word, Jen. they did not understand what she was doing. And so they would break out in cheers, or they would make noise, and it would go nowhere. I mean, when they interrupted the silence, it went nowhere. She didn't do the whole six and a half minutes. I don't know.

[40:08]

I didn't see the whole thing. She was, yes. understand what's going on. That's part of the reason we have to put it in the convention center. Just a comment on that, and silence, and as one who has gone to numbers of demonstrations, often there is loud chanting, and sometimes it's angry chanting, and I don't join in that, but I recall one of the most powerful demonstrations I witnessed on television, and it wasn't there, was after students were pepper sprayed on the University of Davis campus

[41:17]

I think this was over torture, I'm not sure what the exact issue was, but the students were pepper-sprayed because they were protesting, and there was afterwards the university chancellor There was a protest and the university chancellor walked through the protest. And as she walked by, there was total silence. That was the most amazing protest I've seen. There was no, and she was really shaken. And so we know silence is powerful. This is our practice, to sit silently for whatever, 30 minutes or 40 minutes, and then here we are babbling. But our training is to stop, to sit silently. So, I don't know. I don't know how this, where the power of that goes, but we, you know, we might be creative somehow.

[42:26]

So let's close with the chanting of the Four Bodhisattvas.

[42:31]

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