And so last week, I spoke about the negative aspects of our recent election, the pain and suffering on one side. I didn't talk about the joy and happiness of the other side. I can't hear you. Say something. Say something. Something. How's that? Is that better? Do I have to repeat this all over again? I don't mind. Last week I spoke about the negative aspects of our recent election and the suffering on the losing side, but I didn't talk about the joy and happiness of the winning side. So this is all in the realm of winning and losing, suffering and happiness.

[01:09]

Progress and regress. the unhappiness of the progressives and the happiness of the regressives. So, and actually in my talk, I used an example of back in the 16th century or so, maybe the There was a very evil person who was about to destroy the monastic community in Tibet. And there was a monk who said that this person needed to be stopped or killed.

[02:22]

and that he would be willing to do that even though the karma from that act of killing would be with him the rest of his life, or the rest of his eternity. And some people thought that I was advocating that somebody should do something like that now. But I wasn't, that was not in my mind. So I apologize for giving you the wrong impression. So please forgive me. I, what? You need to be louder. Oh, I'll speak. There was a little pause there. I'm thinking, because my talk here is evolving, and several things stood in the way of my development, so I'm developing what I'm going to say as I say it.

[03:36]

a number of complexities in what I'm thinking about. What I'm thinking about is karmic life and Buddhist life. So today I want to talk about how we can actually, our approach to not getting caught or destroyed, how to find our freedom within the difficulties of the present situation, which is what we're always doing. But when it comes to difficult situations, unusually difficult situations, it's easy to get, to fall back into karmic responses.

[04:45]

The karmic world, there's the karmic world and the Buddhist world. Karmic world is driven by greed, ill will, and delusion. The pig, the chicken, and the snake in pictorial You know, the wheel of, the Buddhist wheel of karma. The axle, it's a wheel. I know most of you know this. It's a wheel, and the person holding the wheel is not a person, but a demon. When you look at the wheel, you see the claws hanging over the edge of the wheel, and the claws of the feet holding the wheel, and then this demon with tusks peering over the top.

[05:51]

And then the twelve nidanas, the twelve steps of karmic suffering. And then there are the six worlds. the heavenly world, the fighting demon world, the human world, the animal world, the hungry ghosts. I think that's six. And those are the worlds of transmigration. You know, we're stepping into these worlds all the time, and it's all driven by the axle. The whole world revolves around the axle of greed, ill will, and delusion. This is the karmic world where we all live and are driven by our karma. Karma, as you know, means

[06:55]

Volitional action. Volitional action is action which is created by greed, ill will, and delusion. So greed, ill will, and delusion are the axle in which the wheel turns. The wheel, the dharma wheel turns on a different axle, or axis. Dharma wheel turns on the axis of goodwill, love. I'm sorry. I agree. Buddhists use the term non-greed, non-ill-will, non-delusion, but they're positives, which is knowing how much is enough, goodwill, and wisdom.

[08:26]

So knowing how much is enough goodwill, which is love, and wisdom, which is allowing the light of the dharma to move everything, to move our, actually when we allow the light of dharma to enter, to enter through us, we know what to do, because Dharma is always instructive. So, stepping away from the karmic world and entering the Buddha world is that it's driven by different, the Buddha world is driven by

[09:31]

different power. So, you know, the karmic world is a mandala, and the mandala has a center. There's so many mandalas all over the place. If you really look, you know, circles, Buddhism is full of circles, circular understandings, that life is circular, it's not a straight line. What goes around comes around. And so the karmic world is movement. Karmic world is based on movement. And it's a cart. that keeps perpetuating itself. And it's really hard, and it causes suffering.

[10:38]

So it's really hard to get out of the realm of suffering because karmic life continues to perpetuate itself. That's called the wheel, the wheel of birth and death. Buddhist mandala, there are several, a lot of Buddhist mandalas. When you look at Tibetan mandalas, you see that they all are expressing some aspect of Buddhist understanding or how to free ourself from karma, actually. So when we look at Buddhist teachings, We have the six paramitas, prajnaparamitas of wisdom, the Eightfold Path. All of these stereotypes are mandalas, and they all have stillness at the center.

[11:50]

So a mandala of freedom, is stillness, has stillness at its center. And when you look at the mandala of karma, greed and delusion are producing lines or spokes that go out from it and form the world. Buddhist mandala, the center of Buddhist mandala is stillness, which sends rays of pure light into the world. So how does a Buddhist respond? This is a question. This is not my question. I don't think, how does a Buddhist do something? How do we do something

[12:54]

in line with the dharma that's beneficial and allows us to have freedom from suffering. So the center of the mandala is radiant light. Sometimes people call it divine light, which speaks from a deity point of view, but we can say it either way. divine light or radiant light. So when we step into the center of radiant light, then radiant light informs us and flows through us, rather than having karma as our center, or greed, hate, and delusion as our center. Freedom from is Buddhist understanding. So, karmic life is the life of suffering.

[13:57]

Buddhist life, dharmic life, is the life of freedom from suffering, which doesn't mean that there's no suffering. There's suffering in Buddhist life, there's suffering in karmic life. But in karmic life, it's really hard to get out of it. That's Buddha's message. Karmic life is a trap that's really hard to get out of. So when we engage in karmic life without understanding what we're doing, that's called suffering. There's no, it's life that's driven. You know, people go to work, as an example.

[15:01]

You get on the freeway, you have to go to San Francisco at eight o'clock in the morning. It's called suffering. It's just an example, there are many much greater examples. So some aspect of Buddhist life is called escape, escapism. To get out of suffering, you know, the word escape has a kind of negative connotation because it's saying, well, you should stand up to, you know, the karmic life around you, if it's mean, which is good, but it's not that we escape, dharmic life is an escape, it's that it's freedom within the problem.

[16:06]

So we can't escape the problem of karmic life called the election. We can't escape from that problem. I mean, if it's positive for you, that's very nice, but for most of us, it's negative. It's caused a lot of suffering. Everything's being turned on it. All of the progress of the last 80 years is up for grabs, to be turned over. And that causes great suffering for a lot of people, for the world. So in the name of greed, hate, and delusion, of course. So greed, hate, and delusion is driving, we call it the fight between good and evil. Evil is driven by greed, hate, and delusion. Good is driven by purity, divine light, and peace, love, and wisdom.

[17:25]

So these two forces are always vying with each other, and it goes on forever that way. This is not the first time all this has happened. It's just that it's a big surprise for us. But it's consistent with the rhythm of worldly karmic life. It's just that this is the way it's going now. The pendulum is going this way. But that's not solace, it's just truth. So how do we rise above karmic life? knowing that we're always creating our karma at the same time. So how do we stop creating karma that's detrimental? Suffering causes suffering. So when Buddha says, all I teach is the cause of suffering and how you get out of it, or how to be free from it, that's my message.

[18:33]

So we have really good opportunity. Those people who feel hurt have a really opportunity, you know, to practice the Dharma. Because our reactions, our immediate reactions are disbelief, anger, hurt, despair, all those negative, and our anger rises up and then we get caught in these negative emotions and thoughts and feelings. So, how do we free ourselves so that we actually can observe what's happening and encompass it? Suzuki Roshi always talked about we should act from our big mind.

[19:39]

Big mind. is the mind that encompasses, includes everything. Our narrow mind is the mind that gets caught in greed, anger, delusion, but it means ignorance, and so forth. So small mind, of course, is, we have to, small mind when it's, informed by greed, ill-will, and delusion is the cause of suffering. But small mind, when it's informed or driven by love, wisdom, and non-greed, the road to being free from suffering is the foundation of being free from suffering.

[20:44]

So, we could use, liken it to, Big Mind, to the Earth, Water, fire, earth, and air. The earth receives everything, is big enough to receive everything. Whatever falls to earth, the earth receives it. And it may complain. Complaining is okay. but it's big enough to actually encompass everything. So that there's no limit to the size of its ability.

[21:49]

In other words, the ability to act is not restricted by what happens, by happenstance. And the sky is the same, it's big enough to include whatever appears in it. Water is the same. Fire burns everything up and purifies. So there's, you know, nothing left. So operating or, in other words, not to be controlled by circumstances, basically. Circumstances will always change. They'll be favorable, unfavorable, like, dislike, hurting, feeling good.

[22:54]

All these opposites are reconciled in big mind. So you have the freedom to act without being, this is called freedom from suffering. Freedom means not to escape to some place, but to not be controlled by the forces around you. about how we actually work. Sometimes it's called flexible mind. Soft mind. Soft mind means like grass. When the wind blows, the grass bends with it. And sustains itself, comes right back up.

[23:56]

When the wind stops blowing, the grass comes back up. When you have a stiff tree, when the wind blows, if the roots are not strong, it falls over. So it's not a matter of resistance, it's a matter of allowing everything to flow. and flowing with it. In the 60s or the 50s, it was like, go with the flow, man. It's true. That's the truth. You go with the flow because everything is flowing. And when you resist the flow, it creates suffering. But you know, our emotions are very strong. And we're loyal to our emotions.

[24:57]

We're really loyal to our emotions, and this causes conflict. We're loyal to our anger, and so forth. So that's okay. But sometimes it's false loyalty. Forgiveness eases false loyalty to our anger. So, it's been two and a half weeks or something since the blow, so to speak, for those of us who are progressives. And we've all been through the stages of disbelief, anger, grief, and so forth.

[26:00]

So now what? How do we deal with all those alligators in the swamp, so to speak? I think that it's important to open our mind to the reality of the circumstances and not be controlled by them. You know, this is exactly Zazen. This is the time when you really should, when we really need to look at what is the meaning of all this practice that we've been doing for all this time?

[27:04]

If we look and see how we actually live in zazen with big mind, we just open our mind and let everything be. Whatever is there is there. It changes. Good things, so to speak, come by. Bad things go by. Emotions, thoughts, pain, joy, whatever is there is just there, and it's all passing through. And how we deal with difficulty and pain is simply to open up. Because when we have adverse conditions, we tend to repress, we tend to protect ourselves. Drawing inward and protecting ourselves.

[28:10]

But the only way to escape is to open ourselves. If you want to sit comfortably in Zazen, you have to be totally open. You cannot suppress anything. You're just totally open to everything. And this is how we, you know, the people who had a good time during the election say, get over it, you guys. Yes, I agree. Get over it. So how do you get over it? We had our cry, boo-hoo, crybabies. And then get over it. How do we get over it? You rise above it. Better than get over it. You can't forget it, but you have to rise above it. And you rise above it by opening your mind.

[29:13]

You resist what needs to be resisted. You act on what you need to act on. But at the same time, there's an openness that's really, and inclusiveness that's really important. So I feel that today. You know? all my emotional resistance and crybabiness and stuff, that's over for me today. I let it happen over the two weeks. Now I'm back to practice. So that's my suggestion, is that our calmness of mind We don't, to free ourselves from animosity and complaint and so forth.

[30:26]

There's plenty to complain about, but still not to be controlled by negative emotions. As soon as we're controlled by negative emotions, then we're caught. and it doesn't help. So if we're angry, use your anger. Transform your anger into doing something beneficial. Transform your despair into doing something beneficial. So this is, we receive all of the negativity. We have a transformer. We transform the negative energy into positive energy. That's called freeing yourself. So we want to live in our freedom, not get caught by negative emotions.

[31:33]

We have negative emotions. We don't eliminate them, we transform them. You can't get rid of it. The more you try to get rid of it, the more it sticks to you. There's acceptance on a high level, but not acceptance on a karmic level. So we live actually in two, in both of these worlds, the Buddha world and the karmic world. but we approach the karmic world from our Buddhist perspective, our understanding. Do you have a question? Anybody? You do. The line from the Heart Seeker keeps coming into my mind about the fears, because it's fear is kind of the fruit of all these things going on in us right now.

[32:42]

And far apart from all perverted views, fears don't affect us, is what it says. But you speak a little bit about how to deal with the fear. I mean, it's just another emotion. Yes. Well, you know, politics is funded by fear. This one fears that, that one fears that. Repressive people fear this. But you know, fear is important. How do we move beyond it? by accepting it. This is fear. This is fear. Not hiding it or trying to pretend that it's not there or whatever.

[33:48]

Fear is often accompanied by anxiety. So anxiety is the inability to sit still. Anxiety is going from one side to another. So when we realize that there's no self, no permanent self, that everything is interconnected, that we only exist because of everything else, then it's easier to allow ourselves to flow rather than fear, because fear isolates us.

[34:49]

So when we don't feel so isolated, we're less fearful. So that's why people get together in groups. You know, when you're going to a battle, and you're a soldier, you're going to battle, and then you have group camaraderie, and you say, we're all gonna do this, then your fear is channeled, and you just go with everybody, and you create atmosphere of, even though we have fear, we do it anyway. And that's one way to handle fear. We do it anyway, because fear can immobilize us. So, by being mobile, it helps. But also, when I'm sitting Zazen, I don't have any fear at all.

[35:55]

I never have any fear or anxiety when I'm sitting, because I'm sitting in the midst of stillness, and I disappear into the universe. It doesn't mean I don't have fears, I do. There are certain things I have fears about, but I won't tell you what they are. Would you say that Big Mind includes the karmic life? Yeah, of course. That's called inclusiveness. So it's not that your karma or what you generate has to be advised by Big Mind? It's not advised. Big Mind just includes everything. So what does that mean? That's good karma, I mean good, go on.

[37:01]

What is the boundary of big mind? It means mind has no boundary, but we bind, we give boundary to our various states of mind. That's why we say Zazen is no special state of mind. There's no Zen mind. Zen mind is no mind. No special state of mind. It means we accept everything just as it is. Like it or not, we accept everything just as it is. Even our karmic life? Well, not even. What else is there? We're all always involved in karmic activity, karmic mind. We're always creating some kind of karma. through volition, but within the karma we have the freedom, not outside of it. There's nothing outside, there's no inside or outside.

[38:01]

In the wheel of birth and death that you described, in each realm of birth, the six realms, in the iconography there exists this little buddha sitting there. Yes, that's correct. Amidst the suffering and being liberation amidst it. So, being the actuality of liberation amidst karma. Yes, within the karma, yes. So, I'm maybe responding to what Gary said and what I've been thinking, which is that the wheel of karma and the wheel of Buddha, they're not different. They're not the same and they're not different. Well, you always say that. Yes. What did you expect me to say? That's okay. We go through this little pattern.

[39:16]

This is our dhokasan, between you and me. And that's your koan. So my mind is big enough to accept that. That's what I think. You're not satisfied? I'm always pushing. Well, pushing will get me in trouble, as it were, but I always respond to the idea that there's big mind, small mind, or karmic wheel, buddha wheel, and I say, come on, there's a still center in the karmic wheel, too. Yes. That's right. Exactly.

[40:18]

Stillness within the karmic wheel. Karma within the stillness wheel. Death. That's called non-duality. circumstances as manifested by our emotional states, which sometimes surprise us, and we find ourselves in the sway of our reactivity. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit more about that moment. You sort of touched on it as acceptance, as the key to finding the freedom to make a different choice. Can you talk more about that? Well, before you can change, you have to accept what it is that's changing.

[41:21]

You know, you can say, well I don't want to be this way, or I do want to be this way, but you have to totally embody the way you are. You know, as an example. There are people who I've known who have done despicable things, and they know they have to reform, but they kind of hedge. They reform a little bit, they look like they're reforming, You know, but they never, or they're always saved by something, but they never have the opportunity to go all the way down to the bottom of their life where nothing helps in order to actually die to come back up to life.

[42:27]

So true reform actually is often based on dying and then coming to life, but that's what makes it so hard, because we're afraid to die. Fear, yes. There are two aspects of fear. One is existential fear, which is like fear of life, and then there's fear of death, which is more basic, which is always there and inevitable. But we're usually up here in the fear of life. But the fear of death is always there. Actually, Zen practice, is based on dying and coming back to life. We rarely get there, but that's really the basis of our understanding, which means that you, in order to come back to life, you die completely.

[43:51]

Then you have no fear of death. This is like, doesn't mean that you disappear from the world, but it means that, you know, dying actually means to give yourself over completely. It means to live completely. To die means to live completely without any, without being driven by your ego. or self-centeredness, that's dying. And I'm going to get hit with that big stick if I don't stop.

[44:37]

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