So, we are affiliated with Robert Aitken's Hawaii Diamond Sangha, and so we have close ties with Aitken Roshi, and Aitken Roshi, the Hawaii Diamond Sangha itself, comes from a Japanese Buddhist tradition called Sanbo Kyodan, which was started by the great Hirata Roshi, Japanese Zen master of the 20th century, and is, interestingly enough, one of the few communities in Japan that is oriented toward lay people rather than toward monasteries and monks like most of Zen Buddhism in Japan is. So Sangha means community, and we are a community of people practicing Zen meditation, or Zazen, as a lot of you people out there probably are too. And so that is the center of our life here in Sonoma County, and we do lots of other things too. We get together and we have meals, and we work together and play together, and we have

[01:06]

those kinds of organizational meetings where, you know, you appoint all these committees and draw up all these plans and have arguments and then have a big meal, and do that kind of stuff too. But the basis of our practice is always our meditation practice. And this is a very old practice, as most of you probably know. Buddha started it when he parked himself under a tree and decided he was going to stay there until he understood the nature of human suffering. And so from Buddha, the practice spread through China and Japan and found its way to America. And everywhere it went, it underwent changes. And I find those changes very interesting, the changes that Zen Buddhism made in America and in the West in general. Part of the change is that we don't live in monasteries. We live in the world, so the world is our monastery, and so our life is our practice.

[02:10]

And another one of the changes is that we are democratic people, so we argue and wrangle and take votes and so forth, and work out our practice day by day. It's not handed down to us. And another change that is happening in the West more and more is that in the leadership of the Zen community and in California Diamond Sangha, there are many women involved. And I think that's nice. So why do we do this meditation practice? People come to meditation for all sorts of reasons, to relax or to be happier, more successful or to meet somebody. But it seems like we stay in the practice, or because our friend does it. It seems like we stay in the practice because we find that we want to find out who we are, what is our true nature, and in the context of our very confusing world.

[03:15]

And most of us, probably everyone in this room, looks at the suffering and injustice in the world and wants to go out there and reach out and fix it and change it and make the suffering and injustice go away. But how can you do that if you don't know who you are? You can just mess things up. So Zazen is our way of focusing on who we are so that we are more effective in our life and in the world. And we study who we are not in a figuring out sort of way, but by the heart, in the heart. And we do this with our Sangha because it helps John Tarrant Roshi at this point. And John is the teacher of California Diamond Sangha. He is an old student of Akin Roshi's, and he is Akin Roshi's Dharma heir.

[04:20]

He belongs to the tradition of teaching that started with Buddha and has come down through many generations. And John lives here in Santa Rosa with his wife and very charming two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, who is not here tonight, I guess. And as soon as John speaks, you will realize that John is not from around here. And so we're very happy to have John Tarrant Roshi, who came all the way from Australia, to live and work with us in Santa Rosa. John Tarrant. I always feel you should wait to hear what I say before you clap. I'll talk a little and then hand you over to Akin Roshi, who is the person you really came to hear.

[05:29]

Can you hear me okay? Is this working? Can you hear me now? Okay. If it's not working, somebody wave. Okay. Like many of you in the audience, I've been interested for a long time in what it means to try and establish Buddhist culture in this country. And seeing it as a sort of slow, long-term project that we're all embarked upon, a project in which we try and set things right at the center. We have a deep meditation practice, and then from that practice we then act in the world. So there's a kind of circulation from the inner world to the outer world, and then back in again, a sort of perpetual motion of meditation and action.

[06:35]

I think Akin Roshi's life very well represents this kind of circulatory movement between the inner and the outer worlds. His first brush with Zazen, a sitting meditation, a contemplative world, was in internment during the war in Japan, and also was a kind of brush, I suppose, with a deepening of his poetry. Since, you know, there he met at least one of his poetic mentors, who was in the same camp with him. And I'm myself very grateful that he did all the work of interpreting the Japanese tradition to me, because then I didn't have to do the work myself. And I could go and study with him in Hawaii instead of having to go to Japan,

[07:41]

which, while wonderful, is a very difficult place to get established for a Westerner. And he is often described as the grand old man of American Zen. He did a lot of that work of going to Japan, learning the language, finding teachers, not being able to keep, you know, having teachers die or move, and then having to establish a new relationship with another teacher. A process familiar, I think, to many of us, but arduous in the first generation. I'm grateful for the way he plowed through the snow for us. And his other, he has many interests. One of the ways he has interpreted meditation is in terms of a sensitivity to the wider system of the planet,

[08:46]

to the ecology, to the harmony between people, to peace, and a good relationship with the other beings on the planet. And that's the main theme of his talk tonight. I think he has done a great deal to bring it about that Buddhism will last a lot longer than a coup does in Russia. And that, so that in this time of upheaval and hope, I think it's good to listen and go inside and connect there, as well as finding, I think, something to do in the outer world. This is Rabadey Kunrishi. Thank you, John. I'm delighted to be here this evening.

[09:48]

A bit odd. The poster for this meeting... The poster announced... Okay. All right. A great Western Zen master would appear. He couldn't come. And you know, there was a second poster that said, Western Zen master. But he couldn't come either. Showing up as I am,

[10:51]

let us persevere together. I'll read this short piece, and then we can have a question period. I do better extemporaneously, but I also write things down so I can be sure that I say what I want to say. On looking through the literature of peace and ecology, I'm struck by the frequency of metaphors of illness. Johan Galtung, professor of peace studies at the University of Hawaii and founder of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, has remarked that if you ask, what is the cause of war,

[11:58]

it is really like asking something like, what is the cause of illness? Another example, Petra Karen Kelly, co-founder of DeGrunen, the German Green Party, rejects war and the exploitation of the habitat as a sickness that arises from cold hearts and greedy ambition. Gaia, our living planet, is ill. Entire species are dying out each day. Forests are being relentlessly destroyed. Rivers, lakes and seas are less and less nourishing for their inhabitants and for the rest of us. And the earth is losing its fertility. The community of human beings also is ailing.

[13:00]

Violent crimes endanger the peace of cities and villages. War destroys the accord within and among nations. Exploitation of the weak by the strong blocks the fulfillment of human potential everywhere. And the reckless destruction of our environment brings famine, pestilence and premature death to people in poorer parts of the world and in increasingly larger areas within wealthier nations. I have a feeling here that I'm preaching to the choir. So... Anyway, you know, actually we are, all of us, afflicted. Vimalakirti, legendary teacher said to have been a friend of the Buddha Shakyamuni,

[14:06]

was once asked, why are you sick? He replied, I am sick because the whole world is sick. In context, his words refer to the human condition and the condition of all species. We are here only briefly and soon will pass away without a trace. All things are transient, but today his words can also be understood ecologically. This Gaia is in a dangerously toxic condition and therefore I too am poisoned. We can reverse Vimalakirti's words. The whole world is sick because I am sick.

[15:09]

The pathological views of a single person infects all beings. And we can reverse them still again, even in the throes of a critical illness. Even at the extremity of a life or a community in ruins, it is possible to take up prophylaxis and therapy and work for a healthy persona and a healthy world. Earlier this year, I visited an inmate at the Kulani Correctional Center on the Big Island of Hawaii. This is a minimum security prison. The inmate I visited and I have been corresponding for some time, but this was our first meeting.

[16:12]

After we introduced ourselves, I asked him if he had a question and he said, tell me about the Buddhist precepts. You know, Buddhism has precepts the way Christianity and Judaism have commandments. They are approached a little differently, but that's another topic. I was quite struck by his request. I didn't feel that he wanted an exposition, you know, besides he had my book and there's the exposition right there. So I asked him as graciously as I could,

[17:18]

what he was getting at. And he said, well, I want to be able to respond and not just react. He had diagnosed his sickness clearly. He knew that the condition of just reacting is pathological. What is the therapy for this distressing malady? Can moral rules be of help? I told him that the precepts give guidance, like rails on a footbridge. And while they cannot be overlooked, it is important to understand their source in original peace and harmony. I explained that with the practice of Zazen,

[18:22]

focused meditation, he could find the peace that is buried under his thoughts and worries and the leisure, so to speak, to adjust to whatever happens. He would have a chance to recall the teachings of not harming. If he was struck by someone, he could respond gently. Why did you do that? Rather than just hit back. This is the process of opening to the other. And is a change of attitude rather than of fundamental human nature. Indeed, the definitions and contours of human nature

[19:24]

become more clear. The old illusion of a self that requires defenses of sovereignty can drop away. Not only can illusions of personal sovereignty drop away, but so can the fantasy of a sovereign family disappear and the fantasy of a sovereign community, corporation or nation-state. Imperatives for status and power can gradually be replaced by responsibility for health and healing. With the dropping away of illusions and the cultivation of our ability to respond, responsibility, in other words,

[20:29]

we find the original garden of peace and harmony to be more and more evident. This is not the mythological garden of Eden, which our ancestors lost by their foolishness, nor heaven, where we go after a life of faith and morality. Nor is the original garden within ourselves exclusively, for it is also our home and workshop or office, however full of distraction they might be. In the words of Hakuin Eikaku, the great reorganizer of Rinzai Zen Buddhism in the 18th century in Japan, this very place is the Lotus Land. By whatever name, this very place

[21:37]

accommodates the complementarities of self and other. It provides us with the breadth which my friend in prison and indeed all of us need in order to experience and practice interdependence and reconciliation. This very place is no other than my own family and yours, our own communities and our networks of like-minded friends, where we can work for health and mutual understanding in ever-widening circles of influence. My friend in prison was not ready to say that his environment was a garden of harmony,

[22:40]

but certainly he was taking himself in hand in order to bring forth a healthier view of himself and his fellow inmates. He was conscious of the hatred in his psyche which had brought him before a criminal court to be sentenced to a minimum of 15 years of confinement and hard labor. How can I deal with my hatred? he was asking. Hatred is one of the three poisons which the Buddha declared to be the toxins of the world, the other two being greed and ignorance. They poison our human systems of politics and economics as they did in the Buddha's time, and today they poison our sophisticated technology as well.

[23:46]

However, we can see signs, at last, that some of the greediest managers are coming around, like my friend in prison, to question their old attitudes and responses. No longer is dog-eat-dog the conventional view of society. There is, I think, growing awareness that we face a world in crisis, and now or never we must take up the task of transmuting the three poisons to the virtues of generosity, loving-kindness and wisdom. The Attitude of Wise Compassion

[25:11]

is actually quite similar to the poisonous attitude, for both arise from the treasure of individuality. There was never anyone with your eyes, your nose, your teeth before, and there will never be such an individual again. Moreover, you and I are born with certain particular potentials which we sense in ourselves more or less clearly. Our lives are all of a piece, more or less consciously dedicated to the fulfillment of our potentials. It is in levels of conscious awareness that we can discern the difference between compassion and poison.

[26:14]

The conscious, mature individual is the one who realizes that the human skin is as porous as the universe, and the potential of the self is the potential of the many varied beings working together. The much less conscious and cold-hearted individual, on the other hand, follows the self-centered way of the unloved child and is supported by other childish adults. Cold heart is a metaphor of warmth denied. The self-centered self conjures up a self-centered universe. I am at the center of the universe, just as I am with my own unique qualities

[27:18]

of personality, intelligence and talent. It is my lifetime task to network with the other selves and to guide them and control them so that my unique self shall prevail over the dynamic organism of the many beings. Thus you and I can be corrupted by the three poisons and relate to the universe from an imaginary position of control, like an infant demanding food. Warm heart is a metaphor of warmth affirmed. The multi-centered self, speaking from a single center, can testify, I am a hologram of all beings, just as I am

[28:19]

with my own unique qualities of personality, intelligence and talent. It is my lifetime task to network with my other selves to turn the wheel of realization and understanding and help to bring the dynamic organism of everyone and everything to maturity. In this way, the mature human being sees the same universe as the greedy manager does, but sees it with a different attitude, as a seasoned physician offering the food, therapy and prophylaxis that will best serve in the circumstances. It is important to notice

[29:22]

that finding oneself to be a hologram of all beings is not the same as the small ego enlarging to become a great ego. Ego is simply self-image and can be altogether neutral. The Buddha himself had a clear ego. He knew who he was and what he had to do. Great ego, on the other hand, is pathological and can wreak immense harm. Whitman's lines, I am large, I contain multitudes, was intended, I think, as an expression of the hologram, although, of course, he did not know the word.

[30:22]

But his lines can be misunderstood as a presentation of the great ego and so they can be dangerous. The mature self is not enlarged. It is forgotten and the power of individual potential becomes the power of the sage who is of all things rather than by some kind of inner light. Dogen Kigen, in his Genjo Koan, Dogen Kigen Zenji was the founder of Soto Zen Buddhism in Japan in the early 13th century. He set forth five steps in the development of the healthy bodhisattva mind.

[31:26]

The bodhisattva is the being on the way to realization, to enlightenment. The being who is enlightening others also. Here we have his five steps in the well-known lines. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be confirmed by the ten thousand things. To be confirmed by the ten thousand things is to drop away body and mind and let the body and mind of others drop away.

[32:29]

No trace of this realization remains and this no trace is continued endlessly. Very compact, condensed expression of our practice. My teacher, Yamada Koenroshi, used to say, the purpose of Zen is to forget the self in the act of uniting with something. It is the act of uniting with a task or it is the act of allowing the thrush to unite with you or with me so that there is only that sound,

[33:33]

that bird song, in the whole universe and everything else is dark and quiet. So that there is only that work and the importance of everything else fades. The self-forgotten is the myriad things that make you and me up. There is no other me. In Matsuo Basho's simple verse, look, children, hailstones, let's rush out. The poet forgets himself completely in the context of children and allows their presence and the hailstones to confirm him as an older child and he inspires his young companions

[34:37]

to forget themselves too. No trace of self-conscious realization remains and this no trace as a poem continues endlessly encouraging you and me to join the poet in forgetting ourselves too. The opposite of the forgotten self is the preoccupied guilty self always on the edge of paranoia. The healthy person sees a distant lantern and regards it as a guide. The unhealthy person regards it as the light of a spy. Self-consciousness, like self-centered conduct generally,

[35:41]

is the denial of mature wisdom. Basho's experience is a sample of maturity which can afford to be childish again. And there are many other samples. My friend in prison needs to listen to his fellow inmates and to the corrections officers and to respond to them from within the organism they share. At home, at the departmental meeting, at the post office, we have the same task. As family selves, communal selves, corporate selves, national selves, we have the same task. This task is a practice

[36:44]

and it's a practice and not something one just lets happen. We take it up consciously and conscientiously pursue it. Thodogen set forth this practice as a step-by-step linear practice. It is actually not something sequential. At each moment of our practice, we study the Buddha way. At each moment, we forget ourselves. At each moment, we are confirmed by the ten thousand things. For the Zen Buddhist, the prototype form of this process is Zazen, literally seated meditation.

[37:46]

The practice of sitting as erect and as still as the Buddha, quietly breathing in and out while uniting with a theme. This theme might be the sounds of the world. It might be one's breaths. It might be a word or phrase of particular existential resonance. It is a practice of intimacy. When you are intimate, you are one with. When you are not intimate, you are isolated in your head. Intimacy is wisdom. The awareness that just as I am, with all my peculiarities and weaknesses,

[38:50]

I contain everything. Just as every cell of every leaf contains the universe. This is compassion, suffering with others. And its function is to work with the myriad components of the living dynamic organism of all beings to bring more and more intimacy to world consciousness. The Buddha himself was enlightened by a glimpse of the morning star. And in our Zazen, you and I are practicing with that star and with everything and everybody right here on our seats.

[39:51]

We are breathing together with people, animals and plants as ourselves. We return to our superficial selves when we reflect on the Zazen practice, the Zazen process itself, or when we think about something in the past or future. At such a time, we don't hear the birds and the wind. However, when we are focused on our theme, the birds and the wind join us. Daily life practice goes hand in hand with intimate Zazen. This is the proof of the pudding. Like Zazen, it arises from the right attitude.

[40:53]

And in simple language, it is the imperative to be decent. Guided by the wisdom of words, we find that decency is etymologically akin to honor. And the ancient ideals are validated once again. In teaching honorable conduct to our children, we confirm and bring to their awareness what they already know in their hearts. Hakuin expressed this innate awareness by saying, all beings by nature are Buddha. We need simply to bring forth and practice what we really are.

[41:56]

A.J. Muste is said to have asserted that peace is the way. In other words, peace is the way we conduct ourselves. It is illumined by the ideals of peace, the way the sun illumines our path. We can't leave our work to the sun, however. Our practice is to lose ourselves in our task of bringing forth light and harmony wherever we are, and of organizing with friends in social and economic communities to bring good health to our interdependent world. Thank you. Greed,

[43:17]

hatred, and ignorance. I was reflecting the other day about the word ignorance, realizing that it is related to the word ignore. When we ignore what's really there, then we are being ignorant. Yes? Well, about nine years ago,

[44:19]

Ann Aitken and I, in our naivety, decided to join with friends in the American Friends Service Committee and the Fellowship of Reconciliation and other peace and social justice movements who are withholding all or part of their federal income taxes by way of feeling better about ourselves, I think, that we are not providing gas and oil for the engines of destruction and murder. And we studied the Tao of tax resistance

[45:22]

as carefully as we could. We learned that the best way is to fill out one's form exactly and show the amount due and then either write a check for part of it or not write a check, but to enclose a letter explaining what we're doing. So we did that. And nothing happened. For some time. About four years later, we started getting letters, progressively nasty letters,

[46:24]

nastier letters. And the upshot was that after about eight years, the IRS entered our bank account and extracted part of what we owed. The confusing thing is that we worked through a tax accountant. He knows what we're up to. He doesn't care. He just wants to get his returns right. But where the returns showed that we paid too much, even though we didn't pay it, we got refunds. So,

[47:35]

and we're reflecting, you see. Well, we pay 50% because the people who study the matter say that 50% of our taxes go for military purposes. I figure it's actually higher than that if you count the payments on debts, you see, that were incurred in past wars or the debts for pensions and things like that. Well, we don't mind paying debts, but we just don't want to pay for planning and conducting war. But 50% of our 50%, of course, is used for war. And then they extract the money from our bank account that we owe, or theoretically they do, because they're so confused that

[48:39]

they're not able to keep up with all of our all of our returns. So we only lost the amounts that we owed on some of our returns. But anyway, the idea is that they come in and extract all the money that we owe, plus penalty, plus interest. And so we end up paying more taxes. And so we're making this gesture, and we're making it to make ourselves feel good. We're also maybe making an impression, we hope, with our letters, and not only letters to IRS, but also copies of those letters that go into the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign newsletter, and maybe the Fellowship of Reconciliation newsletter,

[49:40]

if we think to send it on to them. So it's really a very ambiguous kind of position to be in. We're going to persist and persevere, but I'm giving you all this to show you that it isn't really a black and white, or completely heroic, or unequivocally pure stand, or pure action. Okay? How am I doing? Yes? Yeah. This is a very important question.

[50:44]

I find myself feeling rather hopeful about our fate as a nation, as a species. I'd like to think that we are trying to survive this long period of time. I'm going to need you to say something about how I suppose you think we ought to be up there. Yes. The question was first when we when we do that he mentioned that his first-send teacher told him that he should practice without hope, by which he understood him to mean that he should practice without expectation of realization, or or deep condition, or anything of that kind. And

[51:56]

the second part of his question related to our work to save the planet. And he expressed the feeling that he was hopeful about this work. And is this justified? How's that? Is that all right? Okay. To adjust the first part of the question, which is really a very interesting one. My first teacher, Senzaki Nogen-sensei in Los Angeles, a very gifted monk who lived in this country for more than 50 years, said much the same thing as your first teacher. He said don't think about enlightenment. Don't think about realization. And I think that was a valid thing for him to say,

[53:00]

but it really needed a little explication. You see, cause and effect are really only one side of the story. The other side of the story is that the present moment includes all moments. And the present includes the future, certainly. So we should practice holistically, so to speak, with the awareness that we are involved in this complementarity

[54:02]

of time and no time. So it is very important to sit without expectation, but at the same time not to make the mistake that I did when I was working with Senzaki-sensei, and that is give up all incentive. I was just sitting there with the happy feeling that I was just sitting with a teacher that I loved and that the atmosphere was very, very pleasant and that somehow I was unconsciously becoming a better person.

[55:03]

Well, I don't know if it relates to this teaching, but the fact is that nobody in his Sangha ever had a realization experience with him. And when he died, the Sangha dispersed. The community dispersed. I don't want to be overcritical of him. I would not be here if it hadn't been for Senzaki-sensei. I am deeply grateful to him for his many wonderful teachings. But in that respect, I think he could have said more. He could have challenged us,

[56:08]

you see, who are you? What are you doing here? And you see, with the incentive that is aroused by these challenging questions, one does go deeper and deeper into the question, more and more focused upon it, until there is a natural kind of realization experience. I don't know if you've read Simone Weil. She has a very interesting life story. She is one of the truly great thinkers of this century. A

[57:11]

Jewish, humanist, French philosopher who grew up with English as a second language with a very broad interest. And one of her interests was poetry. And she encountered George Herbert's poem called Love. Love, bad me, welcome, and so on. A very straightforward poem, but there's something a little elusive about it. George Herbert was one of the metaphysical poets, but the word God doesn't appear in that poem. He uses the word love and personifies love. So there's something elusive, something hidden there in those straightforward words. And they captivated her. And she devoted herself to that poem. She was altogether caught up in it.

[58:14]

And she read it over and over again until it was completely a part of herself. And she continued to face it, repeating those words. And one day, she had this great religious experience, which transformed her, changed her life completely. You see, she wasn't reading it with any expectation. She was reading it because she was fascinated. There is something here I want to get at. She wasn't thinking about what might happen if she got it. She just wanted to understand. And that's really what the Zen process is about, from my point of view. Now, the second part of the question, of course, is related to the first.

[59:15]

We have some vision of the kind of world we want. But we better not put it into organized form, because it isn't going to happen that way. I think that we work for decency and harmony in our circumstances now. This dam, or this development project, or this prison system is not right. And it is not in keeping with

[60:24]

the overall, general view of how I and we think things should be. And so, we think globally, act locally, you know, and do our best to challenge right here, with a kind of general idea of how it might be later. And the second way of action is the democratic socialist way of, or, if we can use the bad word, the anarchist way of building alternate structures

[61:26]

alongside the structures of the present society. Is the savings and loan going bust? Well, let's have our own savings and loan. The laws allow it. Why can't we get together with a credit union? Do our own. Immigrants, you know, to this credit union,

[62:04]

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