Consideration of Buddhist ethics, our approach will be to consider initially the historical development of Buddhist monastic institutions in four cultures, India, Tibet, China and Japan, and we'll look at how those institutions influenced the host cultures and were in turn influenced by them, with a view to really laying the foundation for a discussion that will probably commence Friday evening and then continue for the balance of the conference on issues of more contemporary relevance to Buddhism in the United States. Let me introduce the gentlemen before you, Taratuko Rinpoche, Kadagiri Roshi, Robert Thurman, each of whom is a developed teacher, each of whom has an expanded sense of humor,

[01:07]

so their company is pleasurable as well as instructive. This evening, Bob is going to pull the laboring oar and give us an overview of the monastic history. We'll go till 9 o'clock and at that point consider whether we'd like to go more or proceed directly to Zazen. This is a flexible program in recognition of the great principle that everything changes. So, to the extent anyone has signed up and has not yet done the deal with me, please catch me later. Let's proceed directly to Zazen. Okay. So, thank you, Bill. So, tonight I'm going to mainly talk and Roshi and Rinpoche get the role of looking wise. Actually, I have already told to Rinpoche more or less what I'm going to mention tonight. I hope to shock everybody to start out this conference and discussion.

[02:09]

It's not just that I want to hog up the entire discussion, although I would be quite capable of doing that. I have been known to do such things, but I don't want to do that in this company because I very much want Roshi and Rinpoche's remarks about this. I want you to hear them. I want to hear them myself. And Rinpoche and I actually have been talking about this subject for some number of years. But on the other hand, I feel that it's necessary to start off with a little bit of... a little slightly forceful set of arguments to sort of generate the discussion because the perspective that I want to put on the table in the context of considering the possibilities for American Buddhism is, I think, somewhat unusual. Recently, I gave a talk at a peace conference in the Rochester Zen Center in the context of both that Zen Center and also a context of sort of this latest, late movement in so-called peace activism. You know, people's interest in sort of, you know, what is peace fellowship and peace activism, this type of thing. And people were kind of surprised by this perspective, and I think perhaps you will see perhaps why. The basic thrust of my thesis, which I will present in the form of ten propositions, which

[03:18]

I will then unpack some of them, and then depending upon the time, maybe I'll do it either informally or I can formally read it. I have a few hundred pages here, but I don't think we can get through that tonight. But we can, backing up these ten pieces, you know, but I will do some of them and hopefully we will generate a lot of discussion, a lot of thought, because the basic thesis of it is that monasticism, Shakyamuni Buddha's founding of the monastic institution was a revolutionary act, that the most revolutionary institution in society, truly revolutionary institution in human societies in our history, is the monastic institution. And therefore that monasticism is in fact the most powerful catalyst of social change that anybody has yet invented, and that therefore in the case of American Buddhism, until we get real monasticism really going here, we haven't even hardly gotten Buddhism going here as far as its true society-changing impact goes. So as you can see, the peace activists who are thinking in terms of marching on the UN

[04:20]

and attacking the nuclear submarine installations and so forth, they were a bit frustrated by this approach, that it might be more activists for them to build a real monastery and really engage in monastic training and really perform a revolution in their own individual minds, that that might be ultimately more revolutionary, they were a bit frustrated to hear about, and so we engaged in some debate, which we haven't finished. And hopefully you will perhaps feel like this too. Excuse me, before you get really up at the top here, do you want to take questions or have observations as you speak? After a little while, I think maybe I should go through this first, and then when we have sort of the basic overview of it, then yes, sure, people should interrupt. Of course, if somebody feels overwhelmingly that they must object at any stage, then they should do so, because that will just give us more fuel, more fodder for the mill. Now I want to read these ten theses, which I will read them one by one, perhaps explain a little bit, and then perhaps go back and explain in more detail what are two of them,

[05:23]

in more detail. Okay, the first one, number one, thesis number one. Enlightenment transcends all dichotomies and is just as powerful, therefore, in the social realm as it is transformative in personal experience. The core insight of selfless emptiness is simultaneously an embrace of the inexorable relatedness of the selfless individual to all others. Nagarjuna expressed this in his famous phrase, Shunyata Karna Garbham, in Tibetan, Tonye Nyingje Nimbojen, or in English, emptiness, the womb of compassion. That the realization of transcendent non-dual emptiness is simultaneously a realization of the total interrelatedness of all things, as Roshi was very ably describing to us earlier today. But that's the first, therefore, the first thesis is, in a way, the most important fundamental, that since enlightenment transcends all dichotomies, it cannot be possible that enlightenment of

[06:28]

Buddhahood could possibly ignore the social realm, that is, the realm of other beings, the realm of relativity. There could be some sort of solipsistic escape into a vacuum or a void. This is completely impossible that it should be such a thing. So, therefore, although it's not easy to understand it, and Buddha's enlightenment must have just as radical an impact on the social environment, on human history, as it had on Chakramuni himself personally. Second thesis. Buddhahood is thus far more than political Chakravarti conquerorhood, emperorhood, world emperorhood, that is. It is the complete truth conquest of the whole world. The creation of the pure Buddha land, though the unfoldment of the land appears to take time from the perspective of the unenlightened people trapped in ordinary time or history. Now, to unpack that just very briefly, Buddhahood is more than political world emperorhood.

[07:29]

Now, as you know, when the Buddha was born baby, daddy took him to the local or the local sage came by and looked at him and said, this boy will either be a Chakravarti Raja. That means a world emperor. Or he will be a perfect Buddha. And as you remember, the father was most opting for the world emperor trip. And much of Buddha's problems as a youth came from his father's insisting that his son become a world emperor. But Buddha chose, and Buddha is not, was not often known. People usually think, and the great thesis about Buddhism that is reflected in most scholarship on Buddhism in Asia and most people's attitude, and I dare say even in many Buddhists' attitude about Buddhism, is that by turning away from the throne, that the Buddha gave up the world as a bad lot, as a total loss, and simply turned away from it to some realm of individual fulfillment. But if people look more carefully at the story, for example, when the Buddha refuses the throne, when he tells his father that he, his father says, now Buddha, you have had a son now,

[08:31]

so you're going to be coronated in a few days, I'm going to retire. And the Buddha had said, well, I want to go and meditate in the woods to attain enlightenment. And the father said, that's very nice, son, but in fact, I want to go in the woods to attain enlightenment. And according to our Indian system, you have to stay in the office until your grandson is born, then you can go and attain enlightenment. And therefore, now I've been in office while you grew up, and now I've been king, and I'm tired of being king, I'm going to go now and meditate in the woods. So Buddha was sort of breaking the time scale of Indian society, and he was like ruining his father's retirement, a very unpleasant thing. But then the Buddha said, okay, I don't want to be mean to my father, I like you, and you've brought me up after all, so I will be king if you just give me some advice on how to run the kingdom properly. And he said, well, sure, son, I'd be happy to, what can I advise you? He said, well, as I've looked over the situation, my subjects, your subjects' major problems seem to be the sufferings of birth, sickness, old age, and death. So please tell me, which bureaucracy, which government agency can I develop to satisfy

[09:36]

those problems? If I can conquer those problems for them, I'd be happy to run the kingdom. And the father said, look, you know, come on, this is not our role, we just make an army and go out and fight the enemy and do this and that, we don't, you know. Well, that's the problem there, that I'm not being a decent king if all I can do is take care of what are not my subjects' real problems. Their real problem is not who is the neighboring king, their real problem is not this, their real problem is birth, sickness, old age, and death. So I'm going to go find out how to help them deal with those problems, then I'll be happy to run the kingdom. This little discussion between Buddha and his father is not so well known. So in other words, Buddha was not abandoning his subjects, he was not abandoning the kingdom at all. In fact, he was going to find out how to deal with their real problems. So that when he returned, he returned to do something more extensive for those subjects than merely be their king. If there is something more extensive, therefore, his Buddhahood is more far-reaching in planetary history, has a greater impact on society than Chakravarti Conquerorhood, that is, than being

[10:39]

a world emperor. Now, usually we think of, you know, the president, you know, Jerry Brown, or used to be Jerry Brown, now it's some other acronym of his name, but anyway, we think of these people as big, powerful, important people affecting people's lives. But by this logic, the Buddha's enlightenment must affect people's lives more powerfully, and therefore our task is to try to discover how. Then we come up with a concept of truth conquest, and this is a concept that comes from the Emperor Ashoka, several hundred years after the Buddha's death, where Ashoka, after he gave up military conquest of India, he said, no longer will I conquer by the sword. Conquest by the sword is a bad kind of conquest. It leaves people resentful, and all they want to do is rise up and overthrow their conqueror, and everyone is very unhappy, besides the people get killed in the process. And so I give that up. Instead, I will conquer by dharma. Then he had this notion, dharma vijaya, conquest by dharma, and dharma meaning truth, or liberating truth, dharma meaning nirvana, dharma meaning reality, or something like that. So dharma meaning insight and understanding.

[11:40]

So usually Ashoka is considered the one to have begun that concept, but in my argument, my thesis, I want to say that it is the Buddha who began that concept, and he wanted to conquer by truth the whole world. Now remember that in Mahayana Buddhism, the universal vehicle of Buddhism, a Bodhisattva vows not to become a Buddha until all beings have been saved, and therefore a Buddha cannot become a Buddha without transforming their whole society into a Buddha land, their society defined not just as the human beings they're interconnected with, but all living beings that they are aware of in the infinite reaches of space. And therefore, Shakyamuni Buddha, to obtain Buddhahood, would have to transform the universe, and especially this planet, totally. In fact, it doesn't look like that, to the perspective of ordinary people who are unenlightened, perhaps. But it is our task in understanding Shakyamuni to not just simply assent to the ordinary appearance, but to see how it might operate on a more extraordinary level. So the third, this brings, now that explains, I think, the second thesis, somewhat. Now the third thesis, the Buddha's compassion is expressed as the ultimate artistry of transforming

[12:48]

the formation of the planet, which unfolds progressively through history as the process of the taming of violence by non-violence, what we all know of as the advance of civilization. And here, in this Buddha land thing, I'm reminded of an event that happens in the Vimalakirti Sutra, which many of you must have read, where the Buddha is asked by some young citizens of the town of Vaishali, sort of a kind of San Francisco of the day, all these dapper young people come out to see the Buddha, and they say, how does the Bodhisattva perfect the Buddha land? How does the Bodhisattva transform the universe, that means? Because the Bodhisattva vow, you know, is a messianic vow, it's a vow to save all beings, to transform the whole environment. So the Buddha says, gives this long story that the Bodhisattva does this and does that. Oh, hello. How are you? Eight years. Thank you.

[14:04]

So, he gives this long story about how the Bodhisattva's Buddha land is such a perfect land that once he has been so generous in his life as a Bodhisattva, that once he is in a Buddha land, the universe is such that all beings totally don't own anything, they all give everything away to everyone else, so therefore everyone is infinitely rich because everyone is giving everyone else all of their possessions. So it's a very complicated business of constant inter-exchange and inter-transformation. And he gives such a long description of a Buddha land, how a Buddha land is, what is a Buddha land. And then Sariputra has this thought, when he finishes this long, he says, therefore the perfection of a Bodhisattva's Buddha land, when the Bodhisattva becomes Buddha, is the perfection of the Buddha's mind, the Bodhisattva's mind. Just saying. No defilement, no flaw in it. Sariputra then thinks, wait a minute. The Bodhisattva's Buddha land is perfect, etc. Uh-huh. This here is a Buddha who is talking to me. Uh-huh. And therefore this land should be as perfect as the Buddha's enlightenment is perfect. Uh-huh. And this land looks to me like a pile of crap. Which he literally says.

[15:06]

I think I translated this ordeal or some euphemism. But basically he says, this land looks like a pile of crap. Therefore, either what the Buddha says is false, or when Shakyamuni Buddha was a Bodhisattva, he was a lazy, crappy Bodhisattva. He's not comfortable at all with either of these thoughts. He's extremely uncomfortable with it. And so he doesn't express it, of course. Regretfully, the Buddha has clairvoyance of reading people's mind. And suddenly poor Shakyamuni Buddha was sitting there looking in real meditation and trying not to show that he's thinking this nasty thing about his teacher. Who is the Shakyamuni Buddha, no less. He says, Sariputra, is it the fault of the sun and moon that those blind from birth do not see them? Oh no, Buddha, is that the sun and moon's fault? And this goes on and so forth. And then Brahma, the god Brahma, comes and scolds Sariputra also. Poor Sariputra is really sweating there. And then the Buddha takes his foot and puts his big toe on the ground. And for a moment, everyone in the entire assembly sees the whole universe, the whole environment is totally perfect.

[16:08]

They see their own body made of jewel substance. They see themselves seated in jewel lotuses on jewel zafus, all totally floating in perfect place of space of samadhi and total ocean of enlightenment, without a single problem, without a single imperfection, in the perfect environment, perfect pure land of a place to attain perfect enlightenment. They suddenly see this for a brief moment. No more problem of, you know, no money for the Zen center, no pillows, and no army, and nothing, no food today. But perfect. Everything is perfect. All made of perfect jewels. Jeweling, living jewel plasma substance, the whole planet. And they go, ooh. And then he says, Sariputra. He then says, Sariputra. He says, how do you like my Buddha land now, Sariputra? Oh, he says, Buddha, this is something I never would have imagined could exist. This is tremendous. So you see, Sariputra, it was almost like this, but your mind was full of imperfection and ordinariness, so you saw it as an ordinary Buddha land, he said. Oh, right, Sariputra. Then he picks up his foot and looks back to the same crappy 500 B.C. lousy India.

[17:09]

Although it was actually the richest country in the world in that time. Much richer than California in those days. But still, it's still basically a bit grubby. Full of lousy warriors and armies and kshatriyas and samurais and crazies and so forth. So this is a tremendous puzzle. This is a Mahayana sutra. This is not some kind of funny business. This is a Mahayana sutra. And this is the problem that faces us all, isn't it? The problem of the purification of perception. Here we are. We think this is some grubby place and the nuclear bomb is about to fall. But yet there is a Mahayana Buddhist claim that this world has already been shaved. Saved. Saved by Shakyamuni Buddha. That the world has already been developed into a perfect land. Therefore, this is the perfect environment, the perfect space and the perfect history for us to achieve our enlightenment. We happen to come 2,500 years later. From our perspective, from Shakyamuni Buddha's perspective, our coming is perfectly part of his vision. Because time and space are all perfectly wrapped in one perfectly well-functioning time machine

[18:13]

or Kalachakra, as the Tibetans say, wheel of time, which enfolds all beings into the Buddha's enlightenment. If it just takes a few thousand years, that's nothing. Every moment is present in every moment in the vision of a Buddha. So from that, thesis number three, therefore, follows that a Buddha's compassion is not just something, oh, I wish beings were happy, but gee, Jengis Khan is around, oh, it's terrible, you know. But rather, it's a compassion that is effective, that actually works to develop the environment perfectly for beings to be liberated and expressed as the ultimate artistry of transformation of the entire planet, which unfolds progressively through history as the process of the taming of violence by nonviolence, what we all know of as the advance of civilization. And this is a vision, this is really the time, wheel of time type of vision, actually. Number three, thesis based really on the wheel of time vision, the vision that a Buddha with his 24 arms and his foreheads and his certain kind of vision that he showed in South India in the esoteric sense, this magical form, that a Buddha is sort of fully involved in the evolution of beings,

[19:17]

there's no Buddha disappearing anywhere, that the Buddha's body is everywhere and is specifically involved, the Buddha's compassion is specific involvement with the evolution of a planet full of beings without any waste. So there's a vision like that, but we're not really looking just at that vision, that sort of perfection, bland vision of history in the general. We want to come down from that back and back and back into ordinary history. So then thesis number four then goes this way. Truth conquest or Buddha land building, this is number four, can only proceed nonviolently since individuals can only be conquered from the inside, as it were, from their own hearts, by their own free understanding. Their insight itself is what liberates the energy of the general goodwill that constitutes the perfected land. So therefore Buddha land building and truth conquest is a funny one, you see. This idea of Buddha's compassion being the most powerful force in the universe, love and compassion is the most powerful force in the universe, is very similar to the theistic vision of a god, of course,

[20:18]

which the Mahayana has often been said to have been the divinization process of Western scholars, they say it all the time. And so it's very close to that. And so then the question does come, the theodicy question you get in Western theology is, or in theistic, not Western, also Indian theistic theology, you also get it, is, well, if the Buddha's compassion is so powerful, why does he just put his toe down? Why does he just make the world a perfect environment for enlightenment practice for a moment with his toe down? What's he picking his toe up for? Why does it turn back into a mess? Why all this needless, untimely death? Why all this horrible holocaust and these dead babies and all this mess and earthquakes and landslides and tsunamis? What is the purpose of all of that? But there the problem, there the difference between Buddhism and theistic comes in that nobody ever claims that Buddha made the world to start with. Buddha has no power to just transform everybody else into Buddha. Because people can only become Buddha when they themselves understand their own selflessness. It's an ultimate, lovely, paradoxical, marvelous irony, although, and totally paradoxical and yet, of course, totally illogical.

[21:22]

Nothing illogical about it. We're all totally selfless and have no self, and only we ourselves can understand our selflessness. It's pretty obvious, really. Who else can understand your selflessness for you? Who else can eat your dinner for you? No one. Buddha can only prepare it, you have to eat it. Buddha can prepare the dinner of shunyata, of emptiness and selflessness, we ourselves have to realize that we are selfless. Only way we can do so. So therefore, this truth conquest can only be non-violent, in the sense that you cannot force someone into understanding. You cannot force someone into giving a gift, for example. If you force them, you've taken it away from them. It's not a gift. People can only give a gift freely. Forcing them takes away their opportunity of giving the gift. Forcing them into understanding or attempting to takes away their opportunity of realizing their selflessness. So fifth process then, fifth thesis then this leads to, which says, hence, perfect Buddhas must carry on their truth conquest

[22:23]

by means of education in the liberal or liberating sense, which is neither indoctrination nor training. The insight of psychological selflessness has been the inexhaustible source of the creative individualism Buddhism has always nurtured in all societies. This has also been the liberator of the world transforming dynamism of the ethical selflessness that has adorned the history of Buddhist societies. That is to say that therefore, how do you help people to gain insight only by education? And education here, especially in the liberating sense, where education doesn't mean brainwashing or indoctrinating them to just adopt the belief system, in this sense Buddhism is not simply a religion. A religion defined, at least in the modern way of defining religion, as a belief system or symbol system. Since Buddhism does not achieve its goal in the individual's heart by them adopting a belief system. Just by believing they're substituting one belief system for another belief system, the structure of belief and individual egotistical appropriation of a symbol

[23:25]

is still left intact. Buddhism only operates in a way by curing the sickness of absolutistic or fanatic conviction and adherence to belief systems. Shunyata, as Nagarjuna says, Shunyata, Nagarjuna says to Buddha, You, oh Buddha, taught Shunyata as the medicine for the sickness of convictions, of fanatic convictions. Therefore, whoever adopts Shunyata as a fanatic conviction is unfortunately incurable by you. So therefore, we see how Buddhism is not really just a religion, but rather a system of education. A system, a space within which beings can bring out their own highest potentials in the ideal of liberal education or liberating education, where the being is there not to learn some body of knowledge, but to free themselves. And neither in the idea of training like some kind of robot or rat that is trained to behave in some certain type of way, but in a way where their own ability is brought out to the full. And that is why the Buddhist truth conquest has been a process of education,

[24:26]

of civilization education, of ultimately planetary education. And this kind of education, because of the power of education, the power of the teachings, the fact that it's not that difficult to realize selflessness, that in fact people already somewhere know that they are selfless, that they can easily realize that their little ego business is really a big, big exaggeration, pretty easily. They're a big fuss over themselves. And therefore, once they realize that and they really strengthen and confirm that realization through story, through history, through legend, through meditation, that then they can in fact easily transcend themselves in action and act selflessly, and act transcendently. And therefore, those stories about the Bodhisattvas that used to drive my Sanskrit teacher crazy, about all these goodie goodies, as he called them, that used to drive him nuts. How can there be so many goodie goodies, he used to say, in the Buddhist literature? It's not simply a fantasy or an exaggeration, but there truly were so many great beings who could actually give their bodies, give their lives, give themselves completely away for nonviolence, for out of generosity and out of tolerance. Now we see, oh, the instinct for survival, no, no, nobody can do that.

[25:29]

But that's part of our indoctrination, that we shouldn't do that. In fact, people do give themselves away, even today. They're easily trained in boot camp. Next minute they're kamikazes. Or they're driving some tank up and down the Vietnam jungle and giving their lives to hate. Easily trained for hate, to give their lives. How come they can't be easily trained for love? In fact, they can, if such a society becomes civilized enough to develop a boot camp, an education system, to teach them how to do so. This boot camp, of course, I'm coming around to, is the Buddhist monastery, is the Buddhist sangha. That is what is the boot camp. The educational institution, now this brings us, therefore, to number six. The educational institution Buddha founded is the precious community, the sangha ratna. Functioning on the moral, spiritual and intellectual levels as the anchor of the new ethics, the new religions and the new sciences that have all grown up and loosely known as Buddhism. And then I'll go right on to number seven.

[26:31]

Monasticism is the core of that new community and is an original invention of the Buddha. It is the institutionalization of transcendentalistic individualism. Society's acknowledgement that its highest interest is the self-fulfillment of its individuals. You get that? I'll read that once more and then unpack it. That's a very important point. That's a key point. Monasticism is the institutionalization of transcendentalistic individualism. Society's acknowledgement that its highest interest is the self-fulfillment of its individuals. And that's not an easy thing for a society to realize, of course. Societies think that their collective interest, of course, is always higher than the individual's interest. Tribal societies, for example, are characterized as tribal because they submerge, in simple-minded anthropology, because they submerge, as a sort of stereotype, because they ask the individual's self-identity to be submerged within the good of the whole.

[27:33]

Therefore, the individual is nothing to the whole. Modern tribal societies, materialistic ones, ask the individual to fling themselves into the furnace of war for some supposed good of the whole. Mainly it's a misguided good of some dumb politician, usually. But it's supposed to be for the good of the whole. And therefore, in fact, we see both ancient and completely modern societies completely unable to tolerate this idea that the good of a society is nothing but the good of its individuals. And therefore, that every one individual is more important than the entire society. And therefore, the society has no right to ask any one individual to demand that individual to give up its life. That society has no right to kill any one of its individuals. But this is what monasticism means. For society to accept the institution of monasticism means that it has to accept that its individuals are more important than it. For example, in Nagarjuna's book in India, this is a shocking statement. He says to the king, after a long set of advice, to this king who runs a huge empire in South India, who was his buddy,

[28:35]

how to run the kingdom, the most remarkable welfare state he describes, in the 2nd century AD. And when he gets to the end of it, he says to that king, he says, well, your majesty, I know that this would be great if you implement all of these things, and people will be happy, and your kingdom will flourish, and your karma and your advance towards Buddhahood as a Bodhisattva by being so generous and so tolerant of all beings, and everything will flourish. But it might be very hard for you to implement this, because people are imperfect and society never works right. The best thing actually you could do with your life, of course, your majesty, is to renounce your kingdom and become a monk and attain enlightenment. So even the king, you know, the king is supposed to be the most pompous self-sacrificer in any society. You know, the heavy lies the head that wears the crown, you know. Well, I don't want to do this, but I have to do it, you know, for the kingdom. Sort of the idea that the collective will is expressed through the king makes the king a complete non-individual in a way, ultimately. The king is the nation, has to behave in a certain way. So the idea that even the king's role as king is less important

[29:37]

than any one individual becoming enlightened, proves that within that society the idea has become accepted that a single individual's opening up of their Buddha potential is the only most important thing for that society. More important than winning such a territory, more important than their gross national product, more important than their economic or military viability, more important than anything. In modern terms we could say that this means that, and you can see how far our society is from this, this means that the education budget of our country should be the most important budget, not the defense budget. That is to say that in fact it's not that you go to school for a few years to get to be a good producer, a nice lawyer, a nice bomb maker, a nice politician, a nice doctor, baker, butcher, candlestick maker, do something useful for the society to become a producer or a product, but that actually the society's whole production and everything is geared so that any one of us can have a permanent lifelong fellowship in any school to develop all of our own abilities to the ultimate degree. And that that is our national purpose.

[30:39]

What is our national freedom? What is our national purpose? It is only the education of our individuals. And therefore only education marks the civilization of a society. So that educators are not servants of society in a sense, and that students are not there learning how to serve society. Society is serving, their activity is the core activity of the whole society. And you can see that's very far from our modern idea of education. You can see that. There's a little grain of it alive in what is called liberal education. Liberating education. A tiny grain of it is there. The idea that you can have four years to goof off and bring out your potential. Then law school, med school, forget it. Back to work. No bringing out your potential. You have to sneak off on vacation. On sabbatical to some Zen center and try to get a little potential. Or go to Esalen for weekends. But that society should support you for life. You do that? Shockingly, shockingly decadent idea. But in those terms that is what our Buddha was now.

[31:42]

If we think that's difficult now to implement, how about in ancient times? Socrates was poisoned for talking to a few young potential army recruits in the bathhouse there in Athens. About some philosophy and getting their minds a little puzzled where they might get out of ranks and charging on the Spartans. They immediately poisoned him. The king of that country. Confucius never got a job. He was chased around. He never even got like tenure track. They kicked him out of one country after another. It was everywhere he went. He was teaching civilization, tamedness, ethicalness. And the dumb dukes thought that this would ruin their country. And the one time when he almost got a job, when he got one duke, the duke of his own hometown, Lu. To put him in business and to start being just and kind and liberal. And intelligent and educate people and develop an enlightened country. This country increased in power and wealth and citizen happiness and inventiveness so fast. That the neighboring duke developed a stratagem to try to get Confucius kicked out.

[32:43]

Because he was afraid of the competitiveness. So he sent in a bunch of dancing girls, a bunch of playgirls to entertain this duke. Knowing that Confucius would become incensed and leave town. Which he did. So this is the same era. This is the same era when Shakyamuni Buddha marches downtown wearing a weird orange robe. Made up out of cemetery patchwork. And a shaved head and a bow. And comes downtown in Magadha. And says, hey Bimbisara. It's time now. We've had enough of this. Us yogis having to live out in the bush. Peripheral to society. Now I want you to make it known that any young person, man or woman. Who wants to shave their head and put on a robe and do some Zazen. And learn a little morality and ethics and philosophy. And develop a little analytic mind as well. Any person like that. Who wants to shave off their head and put on this weird orange robe and grab a bowl. Should have a life long research and development scholarship from you King Bimbisara.

[33:46]

Should be exempt from the draft. Should be exempt from their caste roles and duties. Should be exempt from their family obligations. This includes the ladies and the dishes. Oh yes Buddha. We're going to do that. Here's some lunch. Free lunch for life. You've got. How does he get away with that? In that era. 5th century BC. They gave him Central Park. He didn't have to go and lurk out in the bush someplace. They gave Central Park to his monastery. His first monastery was built in Central Park in the great city of Shravasti. It was bought by one merchant who covered every square inch of it with gold. To buy it. Because the guy who owned it wouldn't sell it. The prince. And therefore it's not only jokingly sneeringly said. Oh yeah you can have it if you cover it with gold. That merchant said done. In front of witnesses. And bought it. That's a great one. Finally the prince gave the last 10 square feet. Himself to get a little of the merit he thought he would hedge his bets.

[34:49]

In any case how did this take place? You see this is not an easy thing. Sure there were people in the bushes. There was a few Brahmins in the bushes. In their ashram. In India was a rich society unlike Europe. And Greek where they lived on olives and goat cheese and so forth. And they were a little bit you know between them and the Spartans there wasn't that much to go around. That's why they were clanging around bashing each other over the head. A few fish. You know a few little bit of retina and that's it. India was full of mangoes and beautiful forest and milk. It was the richest possible place. You can't imagine. Like in California. And so they could afford to support unproductive people yes. But still to go right downtown. Take out the draft corps. Break up the caste society. This was a rigid caste society like the old south. It's like going and saying any slave who wants to be a monk can come in. And once he's in the thing and shaved head then he has equal status. In fact if he's a year older or a day older in ordination than a white a former owner. He's superior. That foreman has to get up for him. Has to serve him his food. How did he avoid being torn and feathered and destroyed?

[35:52]

It's very difficult to imagine. I would have imagined. But never mind that. The point is he did. And the point is therefore that's a very radical institution that he developed. And he had to do that because he couldn't come and say let's found you know Stanford University here. He had to have something that had a radical otherworldly sort of connection to it. And had to like be radically freeing institution for the individual. And this was the monastic community. And around this monastic community over the centuries in India. There developed tremendous universities. And as we know then this monastic community seven or eight hundred years later influenced the Christians in Mesopotamia, Iran and eventually Egypt. To begin to develop monasticism. It emboldened them. This is fairly. It's not. It's a bit controversial. But it seems fairly likely because of the tremendous amount of communication. And because of the 700 year priority of the Buddhist monastic tradition. That probably there was some influence on the early anchorites in the desert. The Sadhus. The first few Sadhus that managed to survive in the barren Middle East with the tyrannical kings who used to waste all Sadhus.

[36:55]

As we know. That was their thing to do. Not like India. They didn't tolerate Sadhus in the Mediterranean. They wasted them. So it took them 700 years longer to get up to where they could have a monastery. Before that they had to hide out someplace in a cave. So this monasticism never had this very powerful revolutionary impact eventually on the whole world. Okay. So I think the institution of interest is the self-fulfillment of its individuals. I think that's a point. I think you've got that point. H. To describe monasticism. It is a mediating institution. Centrist in every sense. Midway between city and wilderness. Priest and hermit. Noble and commoner. And indirectly providing both social cohesion and mobility. That's what I've already discussed. Like how it functions sociologically. If you study monasticism actually. It has a very fantastic and very powerful role. And it's a very transformative institution. Just as educational institutions are the most important instruments of social change in any society.

[37:57]

Which is why tyrannical rulers always kill the professors first. They do. They shoot them. Right away. And all communists, Marxists, they always destroy these ideologues. This is the reason why. Because these are the instruments of social change, individual fulfillment and so forth. And in these ancient times, Buddha anchored their root in monastic institutions. The monastic armies. So therefore. In other words. I'll go here. In ninth thesis. Its main rival. Whose origin lies in the same era as this. Same 5th century, 6th century BC. Is universalistic imperialistic militarism. That's monasticism. If you see monasticism. Therefore it's a worldwide civilizing institution. A secret army started by Buddha. Of non-violent warriors. And warrioresses. Heroes and heroines. Who were to go around the world. And be non-violent and peaceful. And make kings. Allow them to sit and meditate. And do kind things for people. And allow people from all classes. And then under oppressive family circumstances. To come in and become educated and liberated.

[38:58]

And so forth. If you see this as a slow kind of institution. Spreading peacefulness and civilization internationally as it was. Then you can see it as a kind of army. An army of peace. An army of non-violence. Organized by a great general. The great world conquering emperor. Who was too great even to be an obvious kind of. Single nation identified world conquering emperor. And hence became a planetary world truth conqueror. But at the same time interestingly of course. The world conquering empires were all beginning. This is the era where you have the beginnings of. Of Macedonia. Alexander the Great. You have the Magadan Empire. Which became the first empire of India. A century or so later. Beginning in the same area of India. As the Buddha began in. The same nation that first supported the Buddhist Sangha. Was the nation that became imperial over all of India. Interestingly. The Chinese Empire. The Han Empire is beginning to. Seeds are developing now. And ending up a few centuries later. You get the Han Empire and so forth. So world empire begins. And militarism's movement begins at the same time. As the opposite thing from the monastic army. It is the army army. The one we all know about.

[39:59]

Monasticism's. And here I get a little optimistic. I say monasticism's greater planetary success. Over all. Although the tale is not yet ended. Maybe due to the human spirit's basic soundness. But it's also understandable. In terms of monasticism's natural alliance. With mercantilism and the bureaucratic state. And this is a complicated statement. That means though. That it's not too complicated. It's pretty simple in one way. And that is that. Another element of this era. The fifth century B.C. in India was. That the source of power was changing. From being in the hands of the warrior class. To being in the hands of the merchant class. And the merchant class is a class. That finds greater profit and benefit in peace. Than in war. Because war. Both one side gets destroyed. Then the victor gets some spoils. But they wreck most of what they conquer. Whereas in trade. Both sides can benefit. And wealth can continuously expand and increase. And so trade is actually long term. More profitable than war. For merchants. And they are the ones who supported the Buddhist Sangha. Interesting. This is not just something that flew in from outer space.

[41:04]

They are the ones who supported the Buddhist Sangha. And they always have supported the Buddhist Sangha. And against tyrannical rulers. And sort of military industrial. Military political complexes. The merchants have always supported them. In the past. Finally. The tenth level of the thesis is. Which brings us to the conclusion of this thing. At the beginning of the 300 page book. Three phases of monasticism can be discerned. In every culture. In which it has exerted. Its influence. The first phase is what I call revolutionary. Or radically. Dualistic. Impact. Where monasticism creates kind of an alternative social world. Where when you're outside in the world. You have to be tough. And fight. And follow your past dharma. In a certain way. Like I'm talking now India. But inside the monastery. You can be gentle. And peaceful. And sensitive of your neighbor. And non-violent. And surrendering. You can be. You can be. You can be tolerant of women. You can be a woman. You can do. It is like an alternative sphere. Of a different kind of manners.

[42:06]

Which is presented as being separated from the world. But of course. Since there's tremendous interconnection. Between it and the world. It begins to have a slow. Civilizing impact on the world. But yet coming in a subversive. And invisible way. In a sense. Where it's apparently. From a sort of other worldly realm. That it comes. And so that's what I call the revolutionary. Or radically dualistic phase of monasticism. Where you're drawing out energy. Out of the armies. And out of the economies. Of these nations. And you're putting that energy. Into self-transcendence. And you're putting it into people's conquest. Putting people's warrior energy. Into the conquest of their own ignorance. Hatred. And delusion. And greed. Rather than in the conquest of their neighbors. The second phase. Is what I call evolutionary. Or educatively non-dualistic. And this is the phase. I would say monasticism has. Once the Mahayana arises in India. And this is where. Monasticism is very pervasively entrenched. As the establishment within a society. As it was in India. Of the first century B.C. and following. And where the monasticism.

[43:09]

Serves also the lay community. By developing around itself. A kind of university complex. So that those who are not going to be full-time monks. Can begin to educate themselves. In a certain sense. Although the monks and nuns themselves. Develop the main energy of self-transcendence. That gives others the inspiration. To do so in other spheres. Finally. The third phase. Is what I call fruitional phase. Of monasticism. Where it is pervasively non-dualistic. Not just evolutionarily. Or educatively non-dualistic. But pervasively non-dualistic. And that is where in a sense. The entire society becomes completely pacified. Where the entire society recognizes. That its only role is to educate. Its own individuals. That the precious human life. Its only main purpose is to be used. And that the whole national treasure. And energy of the society should be devoted. To all of the individuals achieving enlightenment. And therefore in a sense the whole nation. Becomes one huge monastery. And this has never been achieved. In any societies in human history. Except with the exception of. Tibet and Mongolia.

[44:11]

These are the only two societies. That I would say have become. Fully monasticized societies. And we can see that. That is simply proven. By the fact that in Tibet. There was literally no army. The main rival which was the military. The political authority. Did not exist. There was no army at all. And all of the excess manpower. Outside maintaining the family system. And woman power. Was in monastic institutions. And the central institutions of the whole society. Were monastic institutions. And in fact the monastic institutions. Had even produced the government. And the monastic institutions. The monastic bureaucracy. They never had a national deficit. Because they had no army to support. They didn't bother much with the road system. They simply supported. They were there to collect a few taxes. And to keep the aristocrats. The old former warlord families under control. To keep them under control. And to support the monks and nuns. Which is all that they did.

[45:13]

And have big festivals. It was a truly party government. In fact run out of the potala. A party party government. And therefore of course. No society is civilized or perfected. Until the planet is perfected. And a society that becomes so civilized. Just like it had happened to India. In the 10th century AD. When it became incredibly tame and civilized. And women became incredibly free. And that society more than ever since. Naturally the society has become incredibly vulnerable. To the more barbaric. More rigid. Less sensitive. More violent societies around them. And they become invaded and conquered. This happened to Tibet recently. A time where the camel drivers squadron. From Central Asia came rushing down. And destroyed this beautiful lotus of a culture. That had developed there. So that is the thesis. Which as I say. I hope provokes a little bit of discussion. A little bit of objection.

[46:14]

But maybe to really link it up to today. Really strongly. What it means therefore is. That traditionally in America. Traditionally in Buddhist terms. They talk about the spread of a Dharma. As the taming of the societies in which it goes. Just as they talk about the spread of a Dharma. In an individual's being. As the taming of that individual. The word for a disciple in Buddhism. Is Vinaya. Which means a person who is tamed. Like a horse that can be then. Tamely led away with a rein. So Vinaya. Vinaya means the taming teaching. The teaching of the discipline of taming. And when they talk about spreading. Into another culture. They talk about taming that culture. There's a name for the Buddha. Meaning the ultimate tamer of human beings. Like a lion tamer. You know a human tamer. Because they consider that a living being. Who kills other beings. Rather than to accept some small discomfort of themselves. Whenever they have a temper tantrum. They go out and kill somebody or something. To be an untamed wild type of animal. Driven compulsively by their instincts of greed and hatred.

[47:17]

And therefore in Buddhism. Sort of missionary vision. I won't just say religious. Because as I've said. It's more than a religious movement. It's a civilizing type of movement. But in its thing. Its role is that of taming or civilizing the planet. And you know a Buddhist as well. Like some Buddhist in China. Some Buddhist in India in the 17th century said. Gee when are we going to get over to tame those Tibetans. Those wild and woolies up there. Or some guy in China might have said. When are we going to get out and tame those Japanese. All those wild warriors over there. Running around like with their kamis. Well let's send a few Buddhas over to the emperor. And a few medicine Buddhas. And send out a couple of monks. And that's how they tame these societies. In that terms. We Americans are not yet tamed. I'm sorry to say. We are untamed. We are not yet civilized. Whatever we might think about our highways and our roads. It's clear that we're not yet civilized. Because we hold nuclear blackmail threat over this entire planet. Not the Russians.

[48:19]

We do. We have the bigger ones. Like Eisenhower did. Reagan does. We elect them to do it too. And so we are not tamed. We are the naughty boys and girls of the planet. Who want to consume all a lot of its energy. And let them refugee around here and there. And don't come over here and mess around with our ice cream cones. Otherwise we'll nuke you. That's how we are behaving. We are all a bunch of nation of strange loves. There's no question about it. If a planet. If Dr. Spock was to give a real candid description. From his spaceship of this planet. Of this group in this country. Oh they're nice, they're free, they're wild and woolly. But they're still uncivilized. They hold murderous threat over the head of everybody else in the whole planet. They're going to maintain colonial. The last vestige of colonialist exploitation. Or they're going to blow the whole joint. It's like a doomsday game. I mean I don't. I know maybe we wouldn't. But we threaten that we would. And we're putting a lot of money into keeping the capability of doing so in place. Most of our money goes there. How many Zen centers.

[49:21]

And monasteries could be built for any one missile. Costs. For example. Therefore how can we be considered tame. We are still wild. We thought the Germans were kind of wild. When they went off on their tribalistic trip. We thought the Japanese were wild. When they went back off to conquer the world. We thought we were very righteously conquer them. But we are just as wild. We are wilder. Because we are ready to blow the whole place up. If it doesn't be according to our liking. Better dead than red. We could be pink or white or blue. Who cares. If we were tame and civilized. We could instead be painted any multicolors we want. So therefore. The process of taming therefore. Now in that traditional same view that sees the nation as being tamed. By the Dharma. Talking in very blunt and practical terms. It is considered that a Dharma has not arrived in a society. Until a monastery has been built in that society. And it is very questionable.

[50:23]

Is there any monastery in this society. Yet. At least a Buddhist one. Perhaps not yet. If we want to be very cosmic. Perhaps we could say that indirectly. Christian monasteries are promoting the same kind of non-violent goals. And therefore in a way they are. Indirectly the Buddhist monasteries in this society. So they are already there. And the process is underway. We can say that. And we can argue it in a certain way. In non-academic circles. In Dharma circles. But from our own Buddhist point of view. We have to say. That there is no real monastery here. There are centers yes. Meditation centers. There are temples yes. There are churches. There are schools. But a real monastery. Real monastery means that the people support it. For no utilitarian purpose. You know keeping people clean off the streets. Or keeping people off the streets. Or like you know because it's benefiting the neighborhood. Or because it's better than having little Joey go nuts some place.

[51:25]

Or take drugs. Or because this or that will give a little piece of small change to them. Let them go and meditate there. Keep them quiet. Not for such utilitarian thing. A real monastery means. That people can go there and be assured of support for life. And honor. And respect. For what they do. And be completely supported by everybody. People who support it don't support it. Because see I want to have a place near me. Where I can go and meditate on weekends. And calm down and get away from my hectic neuroses. They support it even if they never get to meditate in it. They support it because they want to support somebody else. Achieving enlightenment. Whether they have to slave away in their office all day long or not. By their own karma. They support it because there should be a completely free place in this country. In a country. In a civilized country. This is the reason for it. In the end it means the acceptance of a monastery. Now in the history of Tibet for example. It took 200 years. From when the first Tibetan kings began to erect temples. And put up Buddha images. And give Dharma classes and have Zen centers. It took 200 years for them to really have a real monastery.

[52:27]

And in fact it was said. They have a wonderful myth. Where the monastery was being built by this one king. And he was exhausting his treasury. Because the national local deities. You know the mountain deities. The river deities. The lake deities. Kept coming out and pulling the walls down. At night. He would have his laborers build up the walls at the day of his monastery. And these Nagas and Devas and mountain gods would come and pull them down at night. Why? Because they didn't want a piece of their land. Going to this completely free thing. That was beyond their nation. They didn't want something other than the cult of worship of them. Their tribalist idea. You know it's the national psyche. Anything that furthers its tribal power. Is what it wanted. Not something that was beyond its control. Some place that it supported and yet was free of its control. It didn't want such a place. So then the head monk. The great abbot. Who was there trying to build that place. He had to leave even. Because the local shamans and the local tribalists were threatening him. We don't want these transcendentalistic Buddhists. Who are transnational.

[53:28]

And don't like our army and our power and our glory. And our blood sacrifices. We don't want them. So he had to leave. Siddha. This Bodhidharma type of character. This Padmasambhava would be summoned. And Padmasambhava arrived. And just like Bodhidharma went straight to a mountain up behind the monastery. Straight to a cave. And disappeared. Asked for a few puja materials. Some firewood. And just mumbo-jumboed away there meditating in his cave. After about six months the king was getting frantic. His budget was getting worse. And nothing was happening. This supposed great guy who was going to tame the local deities was doing nothing. He runs up to the cave. What does he see? He sees a giant Garuda. Like a giant eagle. Fighting with a giant dragon. And it was swallowing the dragon. Just the tail of the dragon was sticking out. And then he says he got frightened. So he called Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava where are you? At this point Padmasambhava transformed back from being this giant eagle. And then the dragon turned into a little snake lizard. And creeped away. Slithered out of his mouth of the beak of the eagle.

[54:31]

And slithered away off into the bush. So Padmasambhava then gave the king a heavy scold. He asked me to clean up the scene here. He finally allowed me to finish swallowing that dragon. And he'd never have had another problem. Now you can build your monastery. You'll be supported. There'll be no problem. But you'll pay the penalty later. 150 years later there was a bit of a reaction. Tribalistic reaction against it. And there was a problem. But in any case the next day the king went down to the shore of the lake by the monastery. And there was gold washed up on the shore by the Nagas. Brought out from their underwater treasuries. And the local deities rained down silver and gold and wood. And they brought timbers and stones and rocks. And they brought their infant. But the myth is like that. The myth means that the people do not give up something to freedom. Totally give it. I have been in so many Buddhist movements in this country. And I have so many to talk to people. Hey, let's get together. Let's have a monastery. Let's raise some funds. Let's do it. And then everybody says, wait a minute. I want it to be in my backyard. So I can go on weekends and meditate. Oh no, I don't want to build a monastery in Vermont. But I can go.

[55:31]

Oh no. Everybody wants to use it for something. It's going to fit into their system of use. Nobody wants to just give it. For the use of others. Nobody wants to just support others enlightenment. At least. Even if they themselves are going to be haggard office slaves like some of us are. Desk jockeys. So therefore, this is why the people in the Buddhist peace fellowship were a bit shocked with me. I think they thought I was a bit of an atomist. In the sense that I was saying that, you know, you talk about activism. You say, gee, enough meditating. I want to go out and get mad now. When did you ever stop getting mad? You were sitting there mad at your pillow. Mad at your Roshi. Mad at your this and mad at your that. You obviously didn't stop getting mad. You're mad at Ronald Reagan. Disturbing your meditation. You stop getting mad if you want to go out and get mad again. If you stop getting mad, you never get mad again. You laugh. Before getting mad again. You embrace Ronald Reagan.

[56:32]

Ronald Reagan is your Roshi. He's a Buddha. He's just the same defensive, aggressive person as us. Or he wouldn't have elected him. So when I said that, I said there's real activism. Get out there, get some stones. Build a monastery, not just for you, for anybody. For the next generation of crazy monks to come and meditate free and then bring them a free lunch every day. That would be true activism in this country. That would be the beginning of taming the wild, savage mind of this country. Gee, I think we're going to have to talk to the Treasury Department. Indeed. Zen Center, you have to pay to get in. So you don't think anything Zen Center is a real monastery? I don't think Zen Center is yet a real monastery, no.

[57:34]

None of the Zen Centers. I don't think any of the Tibetan Centers are real monasteries yet, no. And you think they should be? I do. And that doesn't mean that I think there should be no lay people or lay practice. I don't think that monasteries should have to go back right to the Buddha's time. But there are going to be some people who deserve to be monks the whole time. Some of them might be, you know, they're not all going to become Buddhas, maybe. Maybe some of them will just be good at cooking. Some of them will be good at sewing robes. Some of them will be good at memorizing some sutras. But there are people who will benefit their life, they will bring out their potential best in their life, uninvolved with the family system, uninvolved with the tax system, uninvolved with the military system, and the workforce. And they can do great benefit for beings, by doing such a benefit for themselves, and they should be supported. Maybe the next generation, maybe this first generation, won't have too much ants in our pants and everything. We're sort of the pioneers. Not many of us can do that.

[58:34]

Well, the point is we should be willing to make such a place for those who can and wish to do that, is what I'm saying. See, for myself personally, I was a monk. I was ordained as a monk. And not in the Zen tradition, Tibetan tradition, which preserved the ancient Vinaya idea that when you become a monk, you have to be celibate for life. And carried 253 precepts of the bhikshu, of the Hinayana bhikshu. And, you know, I was a complete gung-ho fanatic, and I did it, against advice of some elders who didn't think I had it in me, or thought I had too much other things in me. And so, but anyway, I did it. And then after some years, I felt that this was not useful. But in my case, and I couldn't do it anymore, and I resigned, returning to Pasaka, lazy Buddhist states. And then, to rationalize myself, I got into this whole trip about New Age, and, you know, that's old-fashioned, that's Asian civilization, and blah, blah, blah, this is America, and we're all going to be free, and blah, blah, blah. And I rationalized away wildly about how Shambhala was on the doorstep, you know. I kind of mixed up the 60s and Shambhala

[59:36]

and the Aquarian Age and Maitreya and the whole schmier, by pure wishful thinking, knowing perfectly well the exact centuries that these things are designated by the tradition. But nevertheless, I mixed them all up, and rationalized, and I even translated the Vimalakirti Sutra by accident to the great layman, you know. So I had a big model there to identify with, and I thought, ah, who needs monasteries? It's an old-fashioned thing. And only in the last four or five years did I realize my deep error. Because the point is, Buddha's strategy, if you understand the Buddha's strategy, you can see it. He's not just drafting the young men and women into their armies and brainwashing them and training them into violence. There has to be a counterbalance. There has to be a counterforce. And that only, the real chuck troop, you know, the real paramilitary, the real militancy in nonviolence, in Enlightenment tradition, is the nun and the monk. You know, they're the ones who, they don't look up twice. They don't recognize their brother and sister as brother and sister. Therefore, everybody's their brother and sister.

[60:40]

Therefore, they create an energy of universalizing certain things within a society. They keep it alive. Everybody, when the Japanese government, to come to recent history, when the Japanese government was brilliantly strategizing in the 19th century how to rebuild Japanese nationalism, how to fight off the Western imperialists, how to get a real violent thing going on inside of society, a strong tribalism, they knew the one thing and they said, forget monks. And they made them all get married. We would have, in modern sense, we would think the monks would have all been delighted, charging off down there for the willow corner and for the daughters of all kinds of good families. But the monks who understood were not at all delighted. They realized this was a disemboweling of their militancy, a government that had a great tendency to becoming autocratic. They also drafted them. They drafted them. Of course, in Japan,

[61:43]

the key turning point was earlier than that was with Nobunaga. That was really the key point. In the late 16th century, when in Tibet, the monasteries, with the help of some Mongolian generals, crushed the aristocracy in Tibet and really canceled the army. The Pacific government. At that very time, Nobunaga destroyed Heizan and destroyed the monasteries in Japan, its main seat. And in 1587, 1592, and they never recovered in a way. And that's why you hear Japanese historians who try to rationalize that the shogunate and all that, they say, well, because the monks were so militant they couldn't run the government. In fact, the monks represented freedom and force in Japan, which had been a problem to Japan and Japanese Buddhism from the beginning. Very strongly powerful government. Running monks around here and there with their board of monks.

[62:44]

Yes? What I hear you saying with the ethics, I bet you can't hear, is that the monastic core kind of crystallizes ethics in a society. And that it's a vehicle for education. My own observation of that process in the West is that it actually is a vehicle for training and accidentally, sometimes, education. That's where I have my prejudice. I find that it's actually, perhaps I agree with your observation we don't have monasteries in that sense. We have monasteries that train. And that's where I'm searching around. What's coming through cultural transition also seems to be an attachment to form, which is at the top layer rather than the lower layer. May I ask you what you mean by training

[63:53]

as opposed to education? Well, it seems like a behavioral modification so that you look like you are non-biological, liberated, can meditate well, which, you know, of course some people can do that too, but it feels like it's more you take on the vibe of a Zen student, you take on the vibe of a Buddhist, and you talk in a certain language to people. So you mean that training is a kind of more superficial type of transformation that you would like when you're using education or reading sutras or that kind of thing. That's what I see as more of an issue and I see it also occurring in Catholic monasteries too where there's this difficulty of finding the penetration into the lower layer. Well, I agree with you in the sense that there must be many people who use this wisdom, the accumulated wisdom

[64:54]

of the monastic traditions as a sort of behavioral there must be both in Christian and in Buddhist circles. However, on the other hand, if we're looking at this sort of planetary macro level that I'm trying to look at, most of the training going on in say this country is militaristic type of training. For example, I was talking with a colleague of mine back in the East and they were talking about meditating and we were talking about the subject of having in this particular committee meeting when I said, but people are meditating all the time. Schools have always had meditation. What is it? So what do you think football is? Ice hockey, lacrosse. That's a meditation in team play, violence, aggressiveness, hostility, how to subordinate your will to this like drive, how to crush the opponent and so forth, smash that Andover defense man, beat him down. Bonding techniques,

[66:01]

militaristic focusing techniques. It's a militaristic education. And then you move that right over to draft, boot camp, basic training six months. So there's a hell of a lot of behavioral modification going on in the wrong direction, in uncivilized tribal direction. And therefore, even if some of these tactics and techniques of the ancient monastic traditions that the Buddha developed in the hundreds and hundreds of years ago, they have a lot of funky things in there. These things are all right, I think, even if some people do them in a sense hollowly. In fact, within the Buddhist monastic tradition, as I would argue, within the Christian too ultimately, the core event is an event where they're structured in such a way that you can't accomplish all the behavioral modification that's desired if you really look at Samadhi and Prajna, the three spiritual educations

[67:03]

of Buddhism. And Sila is the basic of them, that is more behavioral modification of speech and body. You can't actually accomplish the goal of Sila without developing Samadhi, just as you cannot accomplish Samadhi without developing Prajna, wisdom through your critical analytical discrimination. Samadhi will not be accomplished without that wisdom, and Sila will not be accomplished without the Samadhi and the wisdom. So, while I agree with this could definitely be a criticism about lax monasticism, what I'm arguing for here is in an overall sense that the institution deserves wholehearted Buddhist support, and instead of a Buddhist activist thinking to support such an institution. So even if some people are going to use it in a less than excellent way, you follow me, it's like you build a certain vehicle or ride on that vehicle to a glorious place, and it's therefore worth making. And in fact actually it's an essential to make, and my argument is even more that it's essential to make it to develop the peace energy in the society to a certain degree, that it's

[68:04]

essential that it develop to. I follow you just until the essential part, and then I find that I wonder if that's coming from our society to Buddhism, or coming from other... Well yeah, monasticism being the core of Buddhism, that's where I find it. Yes I know, people have difficulty with this thesis. As the peace activists say, hey this is modern America, you know, we reinvent every wheel. It couldn't be that a man in the 5th century BC could have been, quote, omniscient, could have actually been a better sociologist than Max Weber, and actually understood precisely how economies and bureaucracies and civilizations and histories and nationalisms and national egotism, national ignorance, self-habits and so forth, how they work, impossible. He wasn't educated at Harvard, excuse me, Stanford. So Buddha didn't go to Stanford,

[69:07]

he wouldn't have been able to figure this out. That's our modern chauvinism, and people should argue for that, because that's how we're indoctrinated to think that way. I think it's a more Mahayanistic idea that Buddha is a being who could not become a Buddha in good conscience without having provided for the sort of time machine of history to lead other beings with optimal efficiency into Buddhahood. And the Buddha felt that as long as there, he didn't actually articulate it in that way, but I think you could say as long as there's militancy on the wrong side, on the violent side, there must be militancy how do you educate for militancy of non-violence. In other words, let's put it simply, Shantideva has a teaching of how to tolerate the injury of your enemy. If necessary, how to die rather than hate your enemy and

[70:08]

retaliate. That clearly is what would be necessary theoretically, to have a peaceful planet where nobody could be injured because everybody was willing to let I don't know about you, but that's clearly logically the only possibility of peace. And so how do you develop the ability for people therefore to be at least willing to die for peace, for love, for calm and for tolerance. We know, and we can't say it's that hopeless either, because we know very easily that people are easily trained to be ready to die for hate, for tribalism, for egotism, for vengeance. Easily they kill themselves, throw themselves in front of any cannon out of those negative emotions. If the positive emotions, if love is more powerful than hate, why can't they be trained to die for love? Die coolly, what I call cool heroes in heroism, not hot heroes in heroism. Why not? And where are they going to be trained? Well, maybe Stanford can do it.

[71:10]

But I'm afraid Stanford has to have like a monastic core, where there's like some specialist, you know, like the advanced institute in a place like that of this kind of cool heroism would be people who would have had to die to a certain type of relationship to the world, who would have had to go monastic, sort of go all the way, go to where their every moment, their purpose in life was completely other, beyond life, completely self-transcending, beyond death and life. If they're going to die for hate, if the love side is only ready to do a little whippy-thousand for love, and then they're going to not die for love, then they'll join in the hate and defend their innocence. Then violence has won the day. Please address those questions to Roshi and Rinpoche, who Rinpoche knows the basic thrust of the thesis, and I don't need to be the total focus of it. I said my piece. I was going to ask both Rinpoche and Rinpoche, what do you think is essential to society in the

[72:11]

sense you're saying? Okay. One by one. Where shall we start? Shall we start with the newcomer? You mean monastic life? Is it core? Is it essential? Is the monastery essential for our society? Society, I think it is essential. Yes, it is. The basic idea of monastic life is, what to say, according to Zen teaching, everyday life, everyday, what to say, everyday mind, everydayness is put away. So that is a very basic Dogen's intimation. The everyday mind is put away. Everyday mind, wherever you

[73:12]

may be, in this world or in the other world, wherever you may be, that is everyday life, everyday mind. Then from that point, from that place, this world is come, and the other world is gone when you go on, when you go. So from that place, means everyday mind. Everyday mind is place where you can grow, you can help yourself and others. This is a very basic idea for society, human society, how to live, how to educate people. So that is the basic idea in Zen teaching. But in ancient time, if you read Agamas and etc, it is very difficult

[74:13]

to find the basic fundamental idea of ethical teaching in Buddhism. But very big, because from that teaching, I think you can see the Dharma. So all human beings follow the textual and their lives in terms of the Dharma and try to be fitting to the Dharma's life, Dharma's world. And that is the basic idea of Buddhist teaching. Do you need a monastery to learn that? Yes, I think that the monastery is very important for us. And then the monastery, I think you can really put yourself there and educate yourself. And also, that everyday mind is not the

[75:14]

idea of human life. It is exactly activity or practice, emotion every day. That activity really helps others and educates. So that is a monastic life. So that's why Dogen Zenji mentions everyday life. Through the everyday routine, anyway, you can build up Buddhist world. And also in the Buddhist world, you can see very naturally many mediate beings exist there and helping each other. That's Dogen Zenji Mentions. Thank you.

[76:36]

No. Arunachala's answer to that is as far as one's own self goes, as far as an individual, then one may not at all find a monastery indispensable. But for the benefit of a country, of a civilization, a monastery is an indispensable institution. That is his answer. Why is it indispensable? Why is it indispensable or not? Because

[77:45]

monasteries are crucial to the development of the mind of a people. For example, in our country, the major problems of any country, of this country or any country come because of the disturbances of the individual people's minds. Therefore, the original sort of, you could say, you know, machine shop or factory or repair shop of people's minds is the monastery. It is the original factory of a good mind. Good mind factory. Of any society producing good minds. Therefore,

[78:51]

a monastery to protect the mind of the people, uphold the mind of the people, provide refuge to the mind of the people, a monastery is the uniquely indispensable institution. For example, For example, nowadays, we can see throughout the planet where people have on a vast scale in the last century destroyed monasteries everywhere, Christian as well as Buddhist, all throughout Russia, all the Christian monasteries and they're dying of decay in the western part of northern Europe, all finished by Protestantism. In China, destroyed by communism. In industrialized parts of Asia, destroyed by modernism. We can see

[79:52]

everywhere monasteries have been massively destroyed and people have been thinking, that's great, finally we got rid of those parasite institutions. Wonderful, all those waste of time people in there doing nothing useful and blah blah blah and locking away from all good things about life and all this kind of thing. Protestant attitude about monasticism and communist one and on the other hand not only that but people thought, oh delightful, now we have all this free energy, now let's turn it, let's get a good Protestant ethic going here and let's build up some big factories and let's perfect this world, let's stop this wasting time and spirituality and let's make a perfect world and build it up beautifully and making all kinds of wonderful machines and wonderful factories and wonderful productions and how have things been turning out? That was a extraordinary answer, I appreciate it. He said, I said exactly what he said. I should've said this more freely. I did say it, I did say it. He said, I didn't say it. He said it, he said it. I did say it, he said it. He said it very well.

[80:52]

For example, if we talk about the Chinese communists, for the last 40 years they have said, boy, we're going to have one new age here when we get rid of all these creepy monsters and crappy monks. And they publish it in newspapers and they send it on the radio and they put it in big bulletins up on huge billboards. They've been saying this. But now, the Chinese have realized that nothing has worked out, there's no new age, everything is a miserable mess, and then they let the people free for half an hour and what did they build? They went back to build up their monasteries. So now even the Chinese communists have recognized that monasteries are indispensable institutions to the people. The Russians, there's a danger that they might begin to allow this to happen, to let the

[82:02]

people get around and build up their own voluntary monasteries. Therefore, the monastery as a factory of good minds, although its product is not something that is immediately visible to people, is still something that cannot but be recognized by all governments in the world and people in the world as beneficial to the people, essential to the people, vital to the lives of the nation. He said that. How do you analyze countries like Burma and Thailand where superficially they rate their monasticism? Oh, who are you asking? What do you mean?

[83:04]

How do you rate them? Well, I mean, I've visited those countries and I've seen a lot of monks and I know there are monasteries there and I know the society and I find them in some ways extremely repressive, extremely hostile to some members of their groups, extremely angry and punishing, and yet those are societies where there is some significant amount of monasticism. Right. So then you feel that that means that monasticism didn't help them. Did you have any sense of how they were before they had monasteries there? How angry and how repressive and how unfriendly they might have been? They had monasteries before? Well, yeah, but they also had a time before they had monasteries and also their monasteries by no means have totally become, the monasteries never did, their government has always controlled their monasteries, their monasteries have never been other than an alternative force, so they never reached this sort of pervasive non-dualistic phase that we talk about. But the main point is you didn't see how angry and so forth they were without their monasteries. You did go there happily, they didn't have you for dinner.

[84:05]

They allowed you in their country, they are peaceful, they've never made a major, recently they haven't made any major, they didn't join World War II too much and so forth. So I think their record is reasonable. They had a few wars in the past and so forth, but while they may have some of the problems that other societies do, and then nobody has finished, evolution has never been finished for any society, I don't think that you can say that the monasteries have caused them any particular harm. No, but I'm asking what particular good they have. And you told me that years ago things might have been worse, which they might have been. Definitely, I'm sure that things were worse, A. And B, I've studied the cults of the tribal peoples of those countries, and there you would be had for dinner, you know. And other people were behaving like that in an earlier period too, you know. And so I have no doubt that they would be, A. And B, what they are doing is the same thing that Rupert says, they are producing good minds. There have been enlightened people from Burma and Thailand. There's a lot of people in California, in fact, trying to do Vipassana, taught by these enlightened people. They have definitely something to benefit. Schumacher discovered Buddhist economics in Burma.

[85:08]

For example, small is beautiful is an idea from Burma, by V.F. Schumacher. And so, although monasticism in those countries had become, since several centuries, somewhat under the control of the government, too much perhaps under the control of the government, nevertheless, it still operated effectively as a certain kind of institution. And when you destroy it and sweep it away, what did you have recently in similar countries like Cambodia? I'm not sure it was preferable when you destroyed them. And when you took that manpower and womanpower out of the monastery and allowed it loose into armies again, back into tribalism again, I think it turned rather violent and nasty. I think we've noticed. So although it's not the ideal utopian form, perhaps, it seems to be an indispensable institution to check the violence in a population, to ameliorate it. And if pursued to its limit, it may even conquer it. If you take another example, if you go to Tibet or Mongolia, if you went there 30 years ago, as many travelers have done, you can read their books, they did discover some social problems, some unhappy people.

[86:11]

One of the things that really freaks them out is everybody was a bit grubby. Nobody took many baths. They were not into bathing, and they had greasy butter lamps and things. And they were pretty relaxed about cleanliness. They weren't very anal with the culture. And this disturbs some foreign visitors. Dalai Lama is very apologetic about it. He says, Tibet was a lovely place. Everyone was very cheerful. We were so terribly dirty, though. A few foreigners never forgave us that, you know. They thought because we were dirty, we were necessarily feudal, medieval, evil, and many things. But actually, dirty is beautiful, he was jokingly once. But the point is that those people 1,000 years before, they are total monasticization. Those countries are the most monasticized that any country has become. You had something called Genghis Khan. And in Tibet, you had something called Songtse Gambo, and conquerors who conquered from the Ganges to China, to the capital, to Chang'an in China, way deep into Central Asia, and deep west into Iran. Very powerful, violent people who would impale their enemies on spears and parade them around, perform blood sacrifices of human captives and so forth. And Genghis Khan is legendary, of course.

[87:14]

He supported monasticism. No, he did not support it. He destroyed monastery of Genghis Khan. His heirs eventually supported monasticism when they had finished their battling. And then within 1,000 years of monasticism, they became unfit to destroy other people. And hence, they became vulnerable and were themselves, have themselves been destroyed. But I'm saying they became tamed as a nation. For example, this is something that to me is the most interesting. If you see on a macro level, if people like to do that, then if you look at World War II as a time of explosive national tribalisms, exploding with industrial technology around the world, if you look upon that time as such a time, and then you look back into the 17th century and you discover that the Dalai Lama prevented Mongolian-Tibetan nationalism from arising then in the hands of secular aristocratic power, and it prevented those people from modernizing, industrializing, bringing engineers from Russia and people from Iran and so forth, and stopping monists, prevented them, and kept the people under monasticism, then you might say that in the 20th, that otherwise, had not that happened,

[88:16]

had the Dalai Lama gone with that, those nationalizers and modernizers, of which there were many, we might have had another force in World War II. How would you like to have had the heirs of Genghis Khan in their tanks and planes and Messerschmitts and whatever it may be, to add to the little mix? Would you think it would have been pleasant? I think not. But they are a case of a nation who was completely tamed to its own political detriment. Now, of course, one thing about this thesis that is very bluntly stated, it is like the same thesis about selflessness on the individual level. If you're going to be selfless, if you're going to realize selflessness, you're going to have to accept vulnerability. You're going to have to, the price of being civilized is the price of being open, of being generous even towards barbarity. As far as yourself goes. You may actually, born and suffered, may fight to protect another, but they will accept violence perpetrated upon themselves without retaliation, without hatred, without anger. A nation, by the same token, who truly has become civilized, opens itself to the danger of invasion

[89:17]

and has to put its value elsewhere than in holding its political territory. And it's so moving that Dalai Lama gave a talk to 20,000 Tibetans who came from Tibet to Bodhgaya this winter. And he was teaching them Shantideva's teaching about how to develop tolerance and not to retaliate to the enemy, and how the enemy may even take your life, a pissed life, but all he can do is kill you one time. Whereas hatred, if you hate and you kill back, you may kill yourself and put yourself in hell innumerable lifetimes. Your own hatred is a much more powerful and dangerous enemy, in other words. And he was teaching them this. And therefore, you should actually be thankful to your enemy. Your enemy gives you a chance to practice tolerance, which then gives you a chance of reaching the boundless life of Buddhahood, the great ocean of life that Kathagiri Roshi never tires of talking about, the great ocean of life of Buddhahood. It is the enemy who gives you a chance to develop that by developing transcendental tolerance, by injuring you. It's a very powerful argument Shantideva makes that is really wrenching. It takes the ego and just crushes it, that argument. And he was saying to these people who had been tortured by Dachang,

[90:20]

who had been through a holocaust, their relatives had been killed in front of their face, they themselves had been in prison camps, they had seen their temples desecrated, their children destroyed by famine. He was telling them this, and they were weeping. But they accepted it. They tried their best. It was very moving, really. They placed their value in something beyond the material reality of this life. Now your Marxist says they are fools. But it's up to the Marxist to prove that there is no such thing as a spirit and no such thing as a future life. On the other hand, it's not so takeable for granted, the materialist's point of view. In fact, it makes lousy sense that something should become nothing. So it's up to them to prove that. Did you want to say something? Each one of you was going to say something about what you think. We didn't want to, you just came off the highway.

[91:22]

Monastery, what? We didn't want to put you on the spot. But if you'd like to say something, please do. How about nunnery? They should have nunnery. Female monastery. Not the Shakespearean sense of nunnery. Female monastery. Why? They asked Buddha, he supposedly was grudging about it, but they did have this in India, and if you read the songs of the sisters in the ancient Pali literature, they were very grateful. Many women were extremely grateful. Thank you. I listened to you, and the subject of natural growth of monastic life in society seems to be pointed to who lives together,

[92:31]

and what kind of mind causes people to be able to live together. Many, many centuries ago, there was a discussion of Vinaya, these two expressions were what we talked about, the essence of monastic life. The invented term, shukke, goes beyond the home. Right, leave home, yes.

[93:34]

Not leave home, but the mind goes over the floor from the home. Right, right. Without such an overflowing mind of ordinary life, the only monastic life exists alone. Naturally, present to growing people and future people, as a parent mind and elder mind, we are able to create such a monastic

[94:39]

buddha family. I recall, in the original sangha, these two members consisted of three people. In everyday life, whether we are ordained or not ordained, as long as the way-mind burns within us, the sangha, in terms of trusting someone else,

[95:44]

as well as your own for bodhicitta, to support other existence. I think we have to look at those very conditions, whether we are ready to say to monastic life. In that aspect, I say, in this country, there is already a monastic life growing.

[96:49]

I don't know who asked me that question. Just ask, all that you say is very true and useful, and no one suggests that there should be some empty institution without all these other things that you suggest, of course. But the question was only that, did you think that to really have dharma established in a country, that a monastic institution was an essential part of its establishment in that country. That was the question. In other words, that you can, yes, do here and there without it, but ultimately, can you do without it, is the question. Can there be a modern buddhism in a modern country that cannot be like the buddhism in other countries and not have a monastic for some individual? Do you think? Monastery, intense educational facility,

[98:03]

the core of plunging into it and trying to recreate yourself. So some people have that opportunity. For example, newly married people or having delivered children, they don't go off from home to join to that monastery. But those who stay home, create the monastery. Sure. They have created the monastery. Always.

[99:04]

But it doesn't mean we have to make a monastery right away. I understand where this encouragement comes from. Research on every subject of Buddhist teaching I hear by your speech. I would like to utter some words, some sounds, in the instance of nunnery. Nunnery appeared during Buddha's lifetime. Right. So the pleasure of what kind of Sangha can be

[100:33]

produced in this country, in this world, is the basic subject. Without unity of four kinds of Buddhist, without four kinds of unity, there is no preserving energy of monastery. One more thing we have been experiencing here is each individual who is interested in some kind of practice,

[101:38]

especially meditative activity, he calls it the inner order of the possibility of realizing other people. And wanting to be with such people, I think it is very, it should be very natural, when I think of my appearance. Thank you. Let's leave it at that. We have a question. Should not monastic life be a natural appearance?

[102:41]

We are to 9.30. It's been a full day. Bob, thank you enormously for your talk tonight. I think it is great. One or two questions. And we will have three more evenings in the weekend to continue talking about the themes with Bob Markson. Thank you all. Thank you all.

[103:01]

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