In the last chapter of the book, its title is... No. No, no. No.

[01:05]

Everybody would say, well, you should quit now. No. So this is the way, for example, I have lived and I have controlled my mind and life? No. One sees lovely things in the world and so forth, especially if one is out of the cloister sort of thing and interacting with the world, but these are the ways in which one seeks to control one's reactions to those sights. No. No. And to therefore decrease one's attachment to sexuality just for its own sake, unrecognize its unsatisfactoriness, this is very, very useful.

[02:09]

Actually, I want to ask him a question. Yes. Yes. Yes. No.

[03:11]

No. [...]

[04:31]

No. Never mind. He just won't do something I want him to talk about anymore, so never mind. Forget it. No. No. No. Yes. No. No. No. Oh dear.

[05:50]

I love you. No. [...]

[07:36]

No. [...]

[08:58]

But in the countries where there is polygamy or polyandry, in such cultures where that is accepted in the culture for whatever reason, then it would be, you know, interrupting or having intercourse with a partner of one of the other polyandrous or polygamous relationships. So monogamy is not actually written into the Buddhist law in the sense that the Buddhist law can adapt to countries where the cultural situations are different. But fidelity within whatever the relationship is, is written into the Buddhist law, and such infidelity is considered, therefore, what is called wrong sexual misconduct. For a layperson. In the meditation chapter of Shantideva, a great deal is taught about this subject.

[10:40]

Or whether it's six or seven, I'm not sure. The whole question of lay life and the problems of lay life and the ways of lay people restraining their difficulties and so forth are taught there in some detail. If you're interested in that, then you should read more than ever the Bodhicaryavatara. Now about emptiness, I can't talk a lot, but if I say just a little bit. There is the statement, to return to what we were talking about yesterday, there is

[11:50]

the statement in the Heart Sutra that Avalokiteshvara truly and thoroughly looked, beheld the nature of the five aggregated processes of body and mind. As being, I'm sorry, saw their nature as being empty with respect to intrinsic reality. As I said, the idea of thoroughly there refers to the fact that he looked with a wisdom that was integrated with the aspect of technique or liberative art of compassion. And therefore, the teaching of the Heart Sutra depends upon that true or thorough vision. So although there is no direct instruction of compassion or love and compassion or the

[13:01]

spirit of enlightenment in the Transcendent Wisdom Heart Sutra, in this notion of thoroughly and truly is contained that idea. And this means that one will, that this thoroughly, the thoroughly aspect, the truly aspect means that it's combined in that way and the thoroughly means that this, the impact of the realization of wisdom in the context of emptiness, in the context of compassion, will be developed from that vision. Now, what he's looking at there, what he beholds there is the emptiness with respect to intrinsic reality. For something to be empty with respect to intrinsic reality is quite different from saying that something does not exist at all. When you say he beheld something, you are indicating in fact that something exists,

[14:13]

which was beheld. Therefore, in his statement, there is an indication of something that does exist and something that does not exist, in that statement about Avalokiteshvara. When you say that something does not exist, you have to know why and how it does not exist. When you say that something exists, you have to know why and how it exists. What is known as ultimate reality is understandable on terms of what Avalokiteshvara is saying does not exist. And the superficial reality or the relative reality is understood, encountered in understanding what Avalokiteshvara is referring to as existing.

[15:14]

In fact, these two are non-dual. They are the same. But if we say, ultimately they are the same, but if we say they are the same, we can say they are, I'm sorry, we can say these two are the same. But if we say these two are non-dual or the same, then it is useless and meaningless to say so unless we can give an account of why and how they are non-dual and the same. The one that the knower of their ultimate non-duality is what is called enlightenment. But with our minds, our kind of dualistic minds, we can think and think about their non-dualism, the non-duality of absolute and relative, but somehow there always seem to be two things to us.

[16:19]

For example, when we think about emptiness and we contemplate or we meditate about emptiness, then we get to a state where we can't even see or perceive the things of the superficial relative reality. We lose complete track of them. When we think carefully about the things of the relative world, about the relationships of things and the causalities and the interconnectedness of things in the relative world, we get where we can't even, we lose all track of emptiness, of their ultimate reality. So when we think about emptiness, we lose entirely the relative. When we think about the relative, we completely lose the ultimate of emptiness. So our mind always bounces back and forth in that way. And therefore, in this way, we don't really discover the way in which emptiness is inherent there.

[17:37]

No. Now, when we do, if we properly proceed in that, when we reflect upon emptiness and we come to some experiential realisation of emptiness, when the mind turns back from that realisation or goes on from that realisation in the next second, we then begin to realise truly that the way things appear, relatively speaking, the way the relative world arises is really illusory. It's like a magician's illusion. We really actually realise that, once we have seen the emptiness of it. And when we begin to think about how things exist as like an illusion or illusory creations, like the creations of a magician, the more we get clear about how that is,

[18:59]

and the more we see things as being that, the more clearly their emptiness appears to us. And when one proceeds in that way to emptiness, towards more and more deepening one's insight into emptiness, then one transcends dualistic perceptions and conceptions and eventually reaches enlightenment. So this is about emptiness and non-duality. So I still think this isn't going to really work out. I can't really teach you all about emptiness. I'm always very afraid of teaching about emptiness to people,

[20:08]

that when they hear things like in the Prajnaparamita Sutra, that there is no I, no ear, no form, no feeling, no ideas, no consciousness and so forth, that they are going to think that there is no I, no ear, no form, no feeling and no consciousness. And if they think that there is no such thing as these things, this will be a great harm to them. Only if people prepare themselves carefully and understand exactly in what way, in the case of that sutra, means that there is no I, no ear, exactly how he means that, how it can be that there can be no such thing, in what context there is, in what way there is no such thing. Only when one is thoroughly prepared to understand that very accurately and completely, with complete conviction and complete certitude, only then can one safely proceed to meditate

[21:10]

that there is no I, no ear and so forth. Therefore you must study, you must analyze, you must reflect deeply about these matters, and you must learn very much the teachings of Nargajuna and Chandrakirti and so forth, and then proceed into this meditation. Then your realization of emptiness will be so excellent. But I don't think I can really explain all this here, now. Such a tiny little time, I have to explain all these difficulties. But I think I can. The base essential meaning, as Dzongkapa has said, is that when we do reflect upon emptiness itself,

[22:23]

we do lose track of relativity. But on the other hand, and then, after meditating on emptiness, when we return to perceive the relative conventional objects of relative world, and if they do appear to us to be like illusions, like, not illusions, but like a magician's illusions, if they do appear to us in that way, then we know that we are meditating properly on emptiness, even though in the temporary states of first approaching emptiness, it will seem as if those objects disappear. Similarly, if in our process of interacting with relative things, as we inevitably do,

[23:26]

we go here and there, we go to the kitchen, we drink tea, we do this, we do that, in the process of doing that, if we do regard these things and we do cultivate the perception of them as being like illusion, like a dream, like a magician's trick, and so forth, then our meditation of emptiness, when we return to formal meditation of emptiness, it will be ever more powerful. Scientists say this, for example, which I like. Well, this is to be noticed. Well, this refers to my favorite scientist, as Ramachandra has actually heard this one from me, it's about my favorite scientist who is a subatomic physicist, and who has retired, and a very venerable one, and he is ... he has studied a great deal about the nature of subatomic energy

[24:28]

and realize that there is no indivisible particle and that most of solid matter, supposed solid matter, is really empty space, and therefore he can normally still survive to live outdoors and here and there when he's having tea and going home and playing golf and so forth. But whenever he goes to his laboratory to work on some of his old experiments, he has a pair of snowshoes that he puts on that hang nearby the door of his laboratory because when he's in there and he's thinking about the actual nature of reality of matter, he feels it's very dangerous that he might fall through the floor into the cellar and down into the dirt, so he wears snowshoes to increase his chances of not doing it. So Rinpoche likes this fellow very much and he feels that this fellow is someone who is dangerously close to getting some real insight into the nature of emptiness. We who are supposedly meditators on emptiness, we never or rarely get actual experiential feeling of things dissolving into pure space of subject and object, all dissolving, pure

[25:28]

of space, totally disappearing, but we have disappeared and the object has disappeared as if we died, in fact, in all of our coarse embodiment and the subjects we were in, our container, totally disappeared. In the threshold of the realizations of emptiness, even though, of course, emptiness is not just an empty space, but nevertheless, in the thresholds of the realization of emptiness, there are many levels of experience wherein all apparent existences seem to totally dissolve into total non-existence, where everything arises as a pure, clear void in which both subject and object totally dissolve. And therefore, it is that when one has seen once the world dissolve down the drain in that way, a world of subject and object totally dissolve down the drain in that way, then when relative objects re-arise subsequent to that experience, that is why they are said to be like an illusion.

[26:28]

And of course, one should know that ahead of time in a way, because, of course, there's a tremendous danger if one has once seen things totally dissolve subject and object, that one might be thinking that somehow these things that re-appear in the world of relativity utterly do not exist and completely don't exist, and the fact that their illusion-like existence is a type of real existence, even though relative and illusion-like, would escape us totally. I don't know about that scientist that he might end up saying that there was no such thing as the table. I hope not. If that scientist was to say that there is no such thing as this table, then he would become some kind of weird nihilist, I'm afraid. But how then scientists who dissolve matter in a sense by understanding that there's no indivisible particle and that it somehow as an objective analysis-resistant phenomenon

[27:44]

disappears, how they then account for its re-appearance or for in fact the coherence of relativity, of relative things which are existing in the relative way although they appear to exist in the relative way although they don't ultimately do so, how they account for that I'm not sure. So now I can't say any more than that about emptiness, and I have to seal my mouth. Okay, let's take a ten minute break, there's some tea and maybe even some movies, might they practice together in a different way, and part of another question was in terms of women's spiritual development, this was I think a subject that we can all comment on, but it included a question for Rinpoche, do women learn in the same way as men?

[28:49]

Related to that, how are feminine principles integrated in practice? Now before we open it all the way up, if either Nina or Yvonne wants to make a statement, please do, otherwise we'll go general. Yes? In terms of the first question, I also think that particularly for us at Zen Center we have an assumption about practicing as practicing together, and one of the things that I know in my own life and that I've seen with other women practicing together has been that particularly in the point at which we begin to have children, we are pulled out of the meditation hall, pulled out of group practice, and thrown onto our own resources to practice on our own in a way which our particular tradition and the way we're organized as a Sangha does not support or authenticate, and we end up doing a sort of kitchen table, a kitchen practice, that

[29:57]

is around the kitchen table in the process of taking care of families and children, and the whole question of is that authentic or true practice of the Buddha's way, and what are the ways in which that aspect of our lives becomes recognized or acknowledged or integrated into our spiritual life? So there's that. I also think that one of the aspects that seems to be pretty clear in what's happening with Buddhism coming to this country has to do with women being an important aspect of the Sangha in a way that has historically not happened, at least as far as most of us can see, so we don't have certain kinds of ready models or guidelines. When we first announced this gathering, a couple of people, a couple of women said,

[30:59]

here we go again, more teaching by the men teachers, although there will probably be at least a few women participating. So there's that kind of dilemma about what do we do to generate a situation in which women will develop enough so that they'll also be teachers as well as practitioners, and the ways in which the role of women in practice affects both men and women. It isn't just an issue for women practitioners in this culture, but seems to be very relevant to both men and women practicing together because it may be that part of what we're looking at is how do we acknowledge and identify and nourish both the feminine and masculine aspects in all of us, whatever our specific gender may be. And immediately when women become an integral part of a Sangha with both men and women practicing together, all the issues that have to do with family and that aspect of life as an

[32:06]

opportunity for practice comes up. And again, where are our models, where are our guidelines, and how do we find some sense of authenticity of spiritual life in those realms of our lives together. So it's a real shift away from the conversation we've had so far about monasticism in some ways to what's the tradition with respect to lay men and women. But it has a different spin on it, I think, for us as Americans. Anyway, those are the concerns that come up for me around this subject and that I hear from other people over a long period of time, actually. I liked everything you said. I would just simply add one tiny thing, which is that many years ago when I got involved with Buddhism, I used to sit around and listen to Tenzin's teacher, Geshe Wongya, speak.

[33:10]

And he always used to phrase human beings, he was referring to men and women as human beings. And he always used to make the point that they were equal, just same, was the way he used to say it. And so this does not deny any women's issues, but it sort of prevented me from becoming a rabid feminist, I think, in a sense, because I sort of started always looking at people as human beings, children and so on, everyone as a human being, and sort of seeing it from a larger perspective. Although we are individually uniquely different, depending on our sort of karma, from many lifetimes that have brought us to this very moment, we all share the same exact difficulties of being born and alive and dead, and attaining enlightenment and so on. So I always keep that element around when I think about these different kind of issues because I feel that when one doesn't, it is very easy to get sort of caught in some

[34:13]

sort of big duality that women are so tremendously different somehow. And so I would like to work more from the point of view of seeing things as more the same rather than different. I just want to add on. I would like to tell a story that I think is relevant to this, which is a story about what the Yurok Indians call their medicine way or their wisdom tradition. A friend of mine who studied with a man that those of us who have been here at Green Gulch knew for a number of years, a man named Herod Roberts, actually has studied the religious tradition of the Coast Indians and the Yurok in particular. And one of the things that he discovered was that because the Yurok lived in close proximity

[35:16]

to each other, among the factors of their life together was that the women of the tribe all menstruated at the same time. So they actually retired from the community and from their role in terms of cooking and taking care of children and for those of them that were doctors, whatever their function was during that period of time, they would all retire to a big house. And it was during that time that they had certain practices that had to do with that period in their cycle, but also it was an occasion to be withdrawn from their ordinary life for something between eight and ten days out of their moon cycle. It was also at the same time that the men also retired to their own house and did their own practices. So this was a period of time when the members of the tribe separated themselves by gender

[36:18]

to do a period of time when they did sweats, they did fasting, they did all of the things that had to do with purification and renewal and whatever their particular practices were in their religious tradition. And it was out of a kind of shared cycle that was key to what was happening with the women, but which affected both the men's and women's lives and gave them a periodic cycle of observances that had to do with their wisdom condition that was of real concern to all of them. And I've been struck by that particular bit of anthropology in terms of some of the things that have happened for people who've been living together, for example, at Tassajara for practice periods. But things that I've heard about groups of men and women students practicing together for seshin or three-month practice periods in various meditation groups around the country.

[37:20]

And that there are ways of beginning to acknowledge some of the differences but resonances in the life cycles of men and women practicing together that we haven't looked at, but that we could. We do have an occasion to look at what's actually happening in our lives and find a way of practicing together and separately in ways that benefit all of us. That particular story was a good example of a kind of opportunity that I see for those of us who live in a situation where either for a long period of time or occasionally we do live together. And it's not exactly something coming out of a monastic environment, but there's some aspect to what a shared life can provide in terms of opportunity. I think there are these two aspects of the question you're discussing.

[38:22]

I think Mayumi brought it up from the point of view of women living in a monastic situation, I believe. And then there's the question of women and their practice in the home, in a family situation. And both of these are very fruitful areas of discussion. I asked one of those questions and I didn't necessarily mean that aspect of home versus monasticism. It's my part, which is women and their practice. I mean, spiritual development, no matter whether you're at home or not. Yeah, but I say to Mayumi, when she said, how do women practice together, is it the same as men's practice? I think she was sort of interested in the nunneries, for instance, in Tibet or in Japan. Is their practice the same as the practice of men?

[39:25]

Or is it somewhat different? And that may be less interesting to the British people here, perhaps. In the case of Yvonne, how about in the home, when women have to take care, particularly during their young children's years, when they can't practice together very much at all? I guess I'd like to just ask Yvonne if you have some statement on your, statement about what you think they need to know, or what you'd like to say. Well, to some degree, I think part of what I would hope could happen has started to happen just because there, within Zen Center, for example, we have more experience of what happens for somebody when they have a child and are put into a situation where they're

[40:28]

thrown on their own resources and practicing alone in the way that that life circumstance suggests. One of the things I guess I would like to see us know more about is to look to the traditions that have some experience of solitary practice as a resource for us, given that we have such a strong emphasis on group practice and not much experience with what it would mean to practice, you know, doing a practice where you go on a retreat alone. What are the circumstances? What, in Tibet or Southeast Asia, whatever, the historical traditions where there's been some pretty significant experience and organization that provides the support system for people

[41:29]

to do a practice on their own. How are some of these organized where whatever the practices are, are done in a solitary manner rather than in a zenda of what we do. I think that kind of broadening, just in terms of looking at the history of what's been done, would help us begin to see some ways of trying some different ways of practicing. I think that for any of us who, for a variety of reasons of family, aging, and health being the two things I think of, it still is something of an uphill battle to practice alone and feel like that's okay, that's not somehow heretical or second class sort of thing. So what are the ways in which we can acknowledge and support each other when that situation

[42:29]

At this stage of the game, I'm more interested in having us find some ways of learning what the options are. And I think looking to those traditions which have cultivated solitary practice is one of the things I'd like to see us do. I also think it would be great for us to learn more about what it means to be a teacher. One of the things I wanted to ask Rupesh, actually, was something he said a few days ago about the, I think, ten characteristics or attributes of a teacher, qualifications of a teacher, and to try to look at those to the degree that they do or don't have anything to do with whether one is a man or a woman. But initially, where do we go for some guidelines in terms of what does it mean for a woman to

[43:33]

be a teacher working with both men and women students? All the models we have are men who are either teaching other men or both men and women. So those are the two areas that I personally am very interested in, in getting some guidance and instruction and study. Lee, you're leaning in. Oh yeah, the part on opportunities for solitary practice. Of course, I'm interested in that hierarchical thing that I mentioned before. One thing you can tell is that Thomas Merton, who was a monastic, was always interested in becoming more and more cloistered. His confessor wouldn't let him because he was so attached to being cloistered, more and more like a hermit, more and more constricted. And he kept on asking for this and kept on being denied it. But he did design a system where they could have hermitages within a monastic setting

[44:40]

and really looked into it and wrote about it. And there is a writing available. And it seems to work. I wonder if Hrubeshe would say something about the qualifications of the teacher. That's an interesting question. From the Vinaya, the six qualities of the teacher are that they have ethical conduct. Do it. And that he knows the rights and methods of the Vinaya itself. Kind to those who are unwell, who are ill.

[45:42]

Whose followers are excellent or who doesn't have any creepy followers. Who has a very beneficial mind to people, wants to help people as much as possible. And who is ready to teach any time he or she is requested to teach. Those are the six qualities of the teacher as described in the Vinaya. That's the one who you call a teacher. It was recited in my memory from the Vinaya Sutra. A verse that contained those six. Now in terms of the Bodhisattva vow, there are ten qualities of the teacher.

[46:47]

Who should be... Seventh is, should be someone who, when you ask them to teach the Dharma, they don't make some tremendous heroic superhuman struggle about it and have like a terrible, like, oh gosh, it's the Dharma, then it's like hardship for them. Should be like easy and cheerful, they do it. Should be someone aged who, when you ask them to teach the Dharma, should be someone who strives ceaselessly, who makes constant effort to benefit others and also to take care of him or herself. And two, that the person know the meaning, the real meaning of anything. This comes from the teaching of Nagarjuna.

[47:53]

No. I think it's from the Surya Lekha, from the Friendly Letter again to the King, where the source of it is, but it's known as a verse of Nagarjuna's. I mean, it's known as a teaching of Nagarjuna's, they accept it canonically. Bob, could you repeat 8, 9 and 10 real quick? To make effort in teaching the Dharma was tense. What? Eloquent in saying what they mean. And 8, what? Constantly making an effort to take care of others and of oneself. Oh yes, right. Striving to... Striving to take care of others, always ready to make efforts to work to take care of others and also to take care of themselves. I wonder if they would say something about who decides and when it is decided that somebody is ready to teach. And perhaps also, is there some review or chant or something

[49:04]

on the quality of somebody's teaching as they, once they've started it? Yes. These systems of the 6 and the 10 qualifications, for example, are taught primarily to give the disciples criteria to make their choice of their teachers. The power of choosing the teacher is really in the student. Now, I want to study with this person. What qualities do they have? What do they like and so forth? Do I or don't I? It's their decision to make, the other ones are going to learn. But now, in the case of monastic structure, who is appointed abbot and who is appointed this and that,

[50:09]

that's a little bit different. No. No. So, in other words, there is a process of determining. In Tibet, it's done pretty much by appointment, by, you know, like the Dalai Lama or very highly regarded Lamas, these different abbotships and things like that. But in the ancient Vinaya, there was some other process. But in the case of the teacher, which the disciple chooses, for example, in the monastery, the disciple doesn't have to take the abbot as the disciple's teacher. Within a given monastery, there are large monasteries, there are many people qualified to initiate people, to teach them this and that text, to teach them this and that subject, to exemplify this and that quality,

[51:10]

to instruct them in this and that meditation. And the disciples, therefore, pick and choose. They say, well, this one is so great, I don't know whether they explain that or I've heard they know this, or I just have a feeling about them. And they pick such a person, and that one is my teacher. Often the teacher will refuse them, they have to insist, and they will insist. And then that's how they choose their teacher. And these guidelines were set down in the past about what the qualities of a teacher are to help them make such a decision. In ancient Buddhism in India, it seemed that the choice of one's guru or lama or teacher was something that there was a lot of attention paid to. Especially in the Tantrayana, where the relationship with the personal teacher is so crucial, the fruitional vehicle type of practice such as Tantrayana. And it was said, minimum spend three years with your teacher,

[52:14]

observing that teacher before choosing that teacher as your real teacher, life teacher of Tantrayana. Similarly, there's a lot of instructions to the teachers on how to pick the student. Sometimes if the student comes up and says, please, I want to take the Bodhisattva vows, it is taught for the teachers that they should not at all immediately say, oh yeah, sure, here, have a Bodhisattva vow, no way. Only when the guru has decided by examining the disciple and carefully coming to know them and understanding their own understanding and their ability and so forth, has decided that the disciple is truly capable of keeping the Bodhisattva vows,

[53:15]

do they consider them conferring the Bodhisattva vows. Now, it is also said that if in choosing a lama or guru or roshi, one can't decide, one goes and sees all different ones and just simply can't decide who to be, because one just can't make the decision, then it is written that one should take the person who most other people like, who is famous and who seems to have helped lots of people and people are very grateful for the teaching of, someone who has been most beneficial to many people by their other reports, then take such a lama. If you can actually somehow judge their qualities yourself, you feel that you're trying a lot. Is that okay? Is that a right name, ma'am? I have a very strange feeling about Nagarjuna and the king at that time.

[54:27]

Nagarjuna is respected as the father of all Mahayana Buddhism. And what that means is, there was a crisis of Indian nation, so to speak, and Nagarjuna was an inspiration to the survival of the Indian nation. And preserving good seed and ecology of, preserving fine vision of the coming nation.

[55:41]

It seems that Nagarjuna was like a, like a Moses-like image. Moses? Moses-like. Instead of going into self-destruction as a nation, he became man and woman, knowing that coming together again is separated, and became a kind of, not heated like an animal, but cool people in terms of coming nation to create.

[56:47]

Prasangika seems like a sword, cutting all deluded idea or illusive vision turmoil. I have studied about Chandrakirti. Commentary of Nagarjuna's Muramaji Yamaka. I didn't know until this time what was that. Just as I thought it was a philosophical, extremely polished philosophical discussion, but it seems very important to know that

[58:03]

escaping from destruction by war, people meditate and discover the right way to move on together. Listening to the meditation technique, teaching of impurity, intensive visualization of impurity or how can I say,

[59:09]

decay of our body while we are still young leads to the process of cooling ourselves down. And decreasing population of people to have monastic life seems a very nice idea. But of course, young people like us, our young age people have a very strong resistance to send children to the monastery.

[60:15]

But if you understand that children nowadays go to school and learn the skills to the new job, they can survive themselves and benefit other people. Parents are very happy to help them. Society will help them to grow. Maybe the rest of you speak. I cannot speak more than this. I want to ask the Rinpoche about people like myself who have been in the world and been householders

[61:16]

and raised children and worked for many years and then consider becoming part of a monastic Sangha in some form or other. Does this occur in Tibet? We hear about the people coming here four years old and five years old and staying there and taking 20 years and 30 years to perfect various practices, but some of us don't see that much time here to do all that. What kind of life do the older people have in the monastery? Do they come at this age? There are plenty of people in Tibet who become monks or nuns at an older age

[62:37]

The nature of the life in Tibet was that half of the national economy about went into supporting the monasteries. About half of the national economy. Therefore, old, no, get that, get that, get this in, no, [...]

[64:14]

And so the idea of going towards, as soon as one was free from obligations, immediate obligations, of a worldly kind to enter a monastery and then when older to go from monastery to hermitage, to go to long retreats and so forth, this kind of thing, this was like sort of considered ideal, sort of, the way you do it. For example, if in a little valley like this, there were ten families, definitely the Amatutsu definitely all the women would gather for at least one or two months a year in one place and collect the Zamba, and the butter, and the different provisions, and they would collectively decide that we're going to accumulate one million Manis each, or we're going to do one

[65:17]

hundred thousand Taras each, or we're going to do ten million Manis, or whatever it might be, you know, that is recitations with the visualizations and so forth, and they would like have their own retreat for like one or two months even in a little valley, definitely every year they would gather. The guys would go over to another place and they'd do all their mantras, especially the older ones, and they'd gather all Mani Pema, Mani Pema, that's it, and they'd do a heavy old Mani Pema home somewhere else. Sometimes the whole family is all together, like the whole little community would gather and do certain things too, for some week, or a month, or two days, or three days, or something like that. Their children would bring them the food, especially as they get older, their children would bring them the food, the ones who had to stay and work, and so on, therefore the old people

[66:19]

definitely had a great interest in Dharma, and it was expected that they should be free to do as much Dharma practice as they could as they grew older. Another major point that, which Neju Rinpoche used to say about Lama who passed away now, he used to say this, that while half of the economy of Tibet went into the monasteries, and the other half went into supporting the people, and they never had a famine in their history except for another invasion, a very stable kind of population, and the irrigation and agriculture was done depending on rainfall, so it was very stable, and in spite of that, they had a tremendous amount of free time. There was hard work at harvest, there was hard work at planting, and there were periods of hard work of making butter sculptures, or whatever, for big religious festivals, but then they had a tremendous amount of time to do absolutely nothing, and one of the nice

[67:20]

things about Tibet, Neju Rinpoche said, was that people were really expert at doing absolutely nothing, and they would sit around, and just like in the village, and they would play some game, or they would say some mantra, or they'd go on a pilgrimage, or whatever, it was like, it was quite static, you know, there was no notion of making over, you know, making some huge national product, they would just take time off, and forget it, when there was nothing to do, and Neju Rinpoche used to tell this to people who asked him how he compared Communist China and the West, because he had lived in both places for many years, and he used to say, well, it's the same, we're both the same country, nothing different about you Capitalists and Communists, because all of you are busy morning and at night, and you've never got enough time to do all that you're doing, and as rich as you are, you seem to be even more busy, and more frantic, and I don't know how you manage it, we would have such a nice time doing nothing. And it relates, what he's talking about, so therefore you have more time for the Dharma, when you have less to do. Well, America and Canada were so different from America.

[68:24]

A family would stay together, children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, so forth, and uncles and aunts, for a long time, they would live together quite a lot, for a long time. A middle-sized family would be like a community of 15, 16 people. Every night, they would gather and recite the Tara, the 21 Tara recitation, all together as a family, at least 3 times, maybe 17 times, 21 times, whatever. The little kid would learn Zazen, all from a child, just sitting there and going like this, or reciting, sitting posture and everything, cross-legged. They'd pray together, and the little kids would pray along with them. So everybody could recite the 21 verses of Tara and certain main prayers and things,

[69:41]

completely. No. Then, of course, they did have their entertainments, like we watch television and go to the movies and so forth, and they would go down, guess where, to the monastery. And in the monastery, they'd see plays and dramas and mystery plays and three-day dances and all kinds of festivals, all kinds of ways of fooling around, and when they saw the plays and festivals, what would they see? They would see the Buddha's Jatakas, they would see the great Dharmarajas of ancient time, all the great saints and so forth, so that even though the plays all were teaching Dharma to them, in a certain way, the whole culture was teaching them the Dharma all the time. So even the whole theatre and entertainment industry in Tibet was all teaching the Dharma

[70:49]

too. I have a story on this one. I have a story on this one. I have a story on this one. I had a cousin who came out to the West from India and was educated in the US in Southern California for six or seven years, went to college in some kind of high school, college

[71:50]

and so forth, came back to his mother, came back to his family who also had escaped, and the mother's family lived in Missouri, in a refugee colony there of the Tibetans, and this young fellow who was a college graduate back from the States, knowing English and the modern and the Lincoln and so forth, cassette recorder and the whole thing, he comes back and there's his mother and he's hanging around, you know, Missouri and so forth, and he notices his mother, sort of after breakfast or in the middle of the day, sort of seems to be in her room and he sort of pokes in there at some point, and sees that she's writing Tibetan poetry and verses of Dharma and this and that, and he was totally astounded at her artistic skill and at her knowledge of composition and how beautiful she was, what she was writing, and he was totally freaked out apparently. This was a big crisis for him. He had thought he was so educated and these people were so backward, his own people. When he got back to his family, his mother, who without going to any formal schooling but

[72:51]

following the custom of the country, the way that you just learn, you read Dharma books or you study some poetics or something, had developed this tremendous skill and was so deeply educated and so learned, he was really impressed and said, boy, I'm amazed, my mother is so much more educated than I am. No, no. In general, therefore, the meaning of emptiness is the most wonderful thing. All the words that express the meaning of emptiness, the teaching on emptiness is so helpful to all of us. It was the root of our culture and so helpful to us. And the life in Tibet was based like that.

[73:55]

And in social intercourse, for people to tell bad stories or this kind of thing was very frowned upon. Dirty jokes were not too popular. When I was a little boy, because I was a reincarnation, I didn't get to stay in my home family and I was taken very young to a monastery. So I was really disappointed because all my cousins and everybody, they got to hang around my mother and hear all of her interesting conversations and learn in a certain way culturally from her and I got snatched away from this little crowd and taken up to the monastery. So I was thinking at the time, oh, I wish I wasn't a lama.

[75:17]

I have a strange vision of the Tibetan nation as one humongous tree. The monastery is the root of the tree and the lay family is a beautiful tree trunk and a humongous tree growing. Always. The way the families related to each other, the kindness, the lack of strife within families

[76:41]

and their friendliness and cheerfulness was wonderful. Sort of touching on what Yvonne had said, I'm in the childbearing years of a female situation with the responsibility of a child. So I go to PTA meetings, I don't exactly pick on the layman, but I can't follow the nasty schedules either. So I kind of feel like we're in this hybrid situation and I'm wondering if there were analogies in other traditions which had a kind of permeable wall in monasteries and also what suggestions for people to practice differently. It sounds like Tibet, there wasn't this other range on that outer concentric circle, but just some suggestions in that range. Are you asking me to change something?

[77:43]

I'd rather like to see your dream. What kind of world do you want to have? Well, I have a sensation of being a bit lost for models, so that's in this particular question. I'm sort of wondering what other information from other people's experience. What kind of world do you expect for your children to live? Actually, my son is interested in Buddhism somehow, so it's a little easier. He has some feeling for what I'm doing and I can also go both ways. So that seems to be the primary practice when you have a child is to figure out how to take care of their civilizing practice and planting a seed in that, but also then to further your

[78:49]

own understanding of Buddhism. So that's my question, is how do you work on both those levels at the same time? Enlightenment is something to do with this subject, and we say, particular summit father, everything is, it's not philosophy, it is how we see things. So that how to reproduce this new world to come, we have big tasks to construct. Two more questions.

[79:59]

He says that yes, we have to build a pure land. This is a comment rather than a question. It seems to me that we're drawing on our resources that are often here to look for role models, but all said in various different ways is that the culture at the time, whether it was when Shakyamuni lived or Natharjuna lived or when Tibet was destroyed, all created this situation that drew out the Dharma and drew out the teaching. So perhaps our best teacher, our search for role models would be to look directly and study our own culture deeply as it exists right now so that we understand the conditions so that we can respond to the conditions with what works and is appropriate now, not necessarily something that worked and was appropriate then. Well, isn't it a matter of extrapolation where it's like four things you have to figure out, right?

[81:04]

You have to figure out what was there then and what answered the need then and how successfully did it do it and based on what principles. And then what is here now and how is it compared to what was there then and how could a parallel solution that would be as successful or more successful be developed? So that's like three knowns to reach to an unknown, right? So all those who agree with you, but I don't think that means you can neglect the other thing. You have to figure that out in its context and then figure out how this will grow here. It's like transplanting a tree, I think. It grew well in another soil. You know the nature of that soil. You know the nature of that tree. And you study the soil here and then you figure out what you have to do with that tree and grafting to get it to grow well in this soil and to benefit this soil. Isn't it a complicated metaphor? I have a practice question that relates to a lay practice. And I especially would like Rinpoche's opinion on this.

[82:07]

And also I want to be corrected if I have a misunderstanding of Kadagiri's position. But it seems to me that in listening to Kadagiri and reading Thich Nhat Hanh that there is a meditation that each of us can perform every minute and that's mindfulness, that's a meditation on greater reality as it's manifested in what's immediately around us. And that awareness, that meditation, that staying in the instant, as far as I know wasn't mentioned in any of the Tibetan practices that Rinpoche talked about. And I was wondering, because that seems to be the easiest thing you can do. Because that seems to be something that either a lay person or a monk can do equally well.

[83:16]

They can do it as part of their daily life. Can this be used to help obtain some of the understandings and states that have been described in the Tibetan practice? What we have in the Tibetan teaching, chapters four and five in Shantideva, which are about mindfulness and alertness, that is attention to the immediate situation in order to maintain Shila in particular, ethical conduct, does not seem to me as likely that that foundational practice in Shila contradicts what Kadagiri Roshi was talking about, about being in the moment. Without vigilance and alertness, smrti and samprajanya,

[84:31]

we cannot implement our practice, we cannot put our ethical practice or any other practice into, or love and compassion or wisdom, or detachment or whatever it may be. None of them can be put into practice without constant vigilance and alertness. Why is that? Because in regard to any teaching, whether wisdom or compassion or renunciation or whatever, first one has to hear that teaching from one's teacher or from a text or whatever, one has to learn that teaching first. And so once one has heard it and learned it and thought about it, then one has to regard one's practice as what one actually is doing and acting in the world

[85:33]

and one has to remember that teaching and be mindful of that teaching in relation to the way one is actually behaving. And then that is mindfulness. And then alertness, vigilance is to be aware of how one is executing that teaching or not executing that teaching. And then there's a third, alertness, which looks ahead towards circumstances which will endanger one's practice, which will cause one to lose one's train of practice. And those three, therefore, act like watchmen and scanning like guardsmen of one's practice. Ultimately, what reaches a certain high development of the power of our mind, whether it be the mind of emptiness or the mind of love or whatever, where almost naturally such a mind flows out or where things in the case of emptiness, where naturally the world seems to dissolve into emptiness and so forth,

[86:33]

and one at that time no longer needs to preserve vigilance and alertness. And so at that time one could say that without using the sort of protection or the balancing mental mechanisms of mindfulness and alertness, one can just be in the moment, so to speak. At that time, without such a thing, that's possible at that high stage. And therefore, I feel somehow the way of presenting it as being in the moment, the active principle of the moment or something, is the way of expressing very high stage of realization. And the way of expressing with mindfulness and alertness and guarding oneself carefully and bringing teaching to bear and so forth and being sort of more like this is a way of getting wide and getting up to that stage.

[87:33]

And that's why listening to Kadagiri's teaching as Tenzin Ma was translating it to me, I then said, if you remember, a few days ago, that it seemed to me that the way of practice of Zen was very, very high kind of advanced practice. And on the other hand, therefore, something that one encounters and says that's a very high practice, just because it's a very high and advanced practice, doesn't mean it's something that we should just abandon as something we can't attain. We should seek the methods of reaching to be able to make that high practice. On the other hand, if one says, well, I only want that high practice, and without any kind of preliminary learning, without any development of mindfulness and alertness, without any development of detachment and diminishing of desires, and development of body, mind and spirit of enlightenment, of love to save all beings, to attain enlightenment and so forth,

[88:51]

and developing the energies and expanding the abilities to reach to that kind of high practice, if one says, I just want to do that high practice, and then just sort of somehow imitates the high practice, and sits down and gets in a good posture and falls asleep, I don't think that's really going to help with getting to the high practice. Therefore, the need for study and reflection and learning to be able to reach up to this very exalted realization has been stressed by me, therefore. If you want to, therefore, meditate in the moment, and total immanence of all things that are penetrated one and throughout the other, and the vision of the Avatamsaka Sutra, the vision of the Buddha's enlightenment, then learn something and learn how to get from where you are to where that is. Therefore, I think that Katagiri and I will find some modes of harmony here.

[89:57]

Yeah, after all, Katagiri himself already assured that he and I are non-dual. We are one being. Thank you very much.

[90:16]

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