I wanted a vision this morning to speak from. And this morning I had a dream. And the dream was that this little lecture here, for some reason or other, took place up at the entrance to Green Gulch where you turn off the highway.

[01:03]

We were up there. And I was sitting, like, by the little mailbox there, facing east. And you people, there weren't so many of you, though. There was about maybe 15 or 20, not so many, were sitting around. It was a kind of a dark, cold morning like this. And so I, am I speaking loudly enough? No? How many no's? Oh, the people in the back. Could you hear a little bit what I said? No? I had a dream. And I had a dream, and the dream was about this morning's talk.

[02:14]

And it took place up at the entrance to Green Gulch. Can you hear that all right? And there were just a few people up there. And so I started to give the talk. And then I kind of fell asleep in the middle of the talk. And then I woke up, and I remembered that I forgot to give my talk. But it seemed all right. You people weren't too happy about that, but it seemed to be all right. So we stood up and started to leave. And then I remembered that I also forgot that we wanted to do a memorial service this morning. So we wanted to do a memorial service particularly for the Chinese people that died, that were killed a week ago today, probably.

[03:28]

Or at least we found out about it last Sunday. So we did a little memorial service and that was the dream. So my vision is that the talk this morning will be a forgotten talk. It will be a talk that I'm forgetting. It will be a talk that's created here among us and that I'm not in control of. We can create this talk, but we can't control it. This is a week for, I think, many of us when we feel how out of control the world is.

[04:42]

And a little bit more than a week ago, some of us were, I don't know what, many, I suppose we all had different feelings about what was going on in China. But it seemed in some ways wonderful to see this great spirit rising out of this huge nation. And then suddenly it turned. I was thinking, I was myself thinking, my gosh, the Chinese government is so tolerant. It's amazing. And then this sudden crackdown. A friend of mine who's traveled all over the world, and he's kind of a tough guy, I guess, he often makes friends with police.

[05:58]

And he told me about the different kinds of police. He said in the Mediterranean countries, like Italy and Spain and Greece, when people get out of line, The police hassle them right away a lot. They get in arguments and get tough with people, you know, about little things, and there's always kind of a fuss going on. But they often work it out. He said, but in Northern Europe, in Scandinavia, Germany, and so on, the police are very tolerant And people can get by with a lot, and they don't do anything. And then suddenly, it just turns, and they completely crush the people. They go from leaving them alone to just completely suppressing them. Different styles of police action.

[07:01]

Anyway, I was surprised, really surprised, to see what happened. We want to do a memorial service this morning, and I would like the memorial service to start now. I don't know what it is to think about these people dying, but also to think about the people who are still living. And the wars all over the world. right now. There's big upheavals in Russia too, as you may know, with lots of people being killed and thousands injured, I guess in Uzbekistan. So how can we respond to all this?

[08:13]

How can we wish well the spirits of the people who died in Beijing and the people who have died all over the world? How can we wish them the very best and dedicate our lives and help them return to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha? to encourage them to return to their original nature, to encourage them to return to the oneness of all being, to sustain and embrace all these beings with our whole body and mind. so that they can return to the interconnectedness of all beings.

[09:36]

Part of what comes to me today is many, many, as you'll see, many, many somehow Chinese connections. This week hits me personally perhaps a little harder than some of you because I'm married to a Chinese woman and she has Chinese parents and relatives and she was actually born in Shanghai. So this thing really struck her family hard. Deaths are, for those of us close to a person who dies, it's always hard, but there's something particularly moving and something particularly wrenching when a great country, a huge country, kills its children.

[10:58]

its brightest and most courageous children are killed by it, by old people. So let us, each of us, try to find our way to settle with these with each of our impression of what's happening here, to settle with it, and in that settledness find a way to help all people. At the end of this talk, Those of you who would like may go to the altar and offer incense.

[12:03]

We'll put out tables, incense tables, for you to offer incense as you leave if you wish to express your heartfelt aspirations and hopes for these and all beings. All the Zen ancestors, all the Buddhas and ancestors, are unique individuals just like each of us.

[13:04]

They've all helped, tried to help beings be free of suffering. That one thing they share in common. they have been more or less effective, just like we are more or less effective in fulfilling our aspiration to help others be happy and free in this life. And someone asked, how is it that they can join hands with all living beings and walk through birth and death with them? And one answer is they are able to do this because they have ended all leakage, they have ended all outflows of gain and loss, of existence and non-existence.

[14:33]

They are free from their own views of what is helpful. They want to help. And they have some idea about what would be helpful. And they might be right, or they might not be right. But the most important thing is that they do not hold to a fixed view of what will be helpful, of what will liberate people from suffering. Because they don't hold to a fixed view, they don't have outflows or inflows which will undermine their aspiration to aid and guide suffering creatures. And therefore they can just join hands with beings and walk with them through birth and death, through suffering and happiness.

[15:51]

That's all they do. They just join hands and walk with beings through the changes of life and death with no fixed ideas. this is very difficult. And I don't know if anyone ever perfected that practice. A Chinese Zen monk was once asked, his name was Yunmen, which means cloud gate. He was asked, what was the teaching of the Buddha's entire lifetime?

[17:00]

And he said, an appropriate statement, an appropriate response. The Buddhas and ancestors join hands with people. They have ideas just like everybody else. But their Buddha activity is to respond appropriately on the occasion, to be there appropriately in response, to manifest their life in response appropriately to what is happening. But it's not so easy because we arrive in every moment and give rise to some idea about what should happen. And it's difficult not to hold on to that and be open and ready to do the appropriate thing. But that was their effort.

[18:02]

That has been their effort. And that is our effort now. Right? The same Zen monk, Cloud Gate, was once asked, he was asked, where do all the Buddhas come from? And he said, the eastern mountain moves over the waters. Where do all the Buddhas come from, teacher? The eastern mountain moves over the waters. This is a Chinese mountain, of course, moving over Chinese waters, but it's the same all over the world.

[19:12]

Eastern mountain means, eastern mountain means all mountains. Mountains means phenomenal existence. Means your experience right now. Waters means the liberating quality that coexists with our life moment by moment. Waters means the fact that your life and my life lack any inherent existence. And therefore, nothing can touch it. The mountains are our life. The waters are the fact that our life is always compelled to flow.

[20:22]

And no one can ever catch it or hold on to it. Our life moves over the waters. This is where all the Buddhas come from. A Zen teacher named Dogen said, after quoting Yuen Min saying about the Eastern Mountain, he said that the foot, the foot of the mountain, of course, comes down and touches the waters of

[21:41]

that it moves across. The tip, the toes, the toes of the mountain touch the water and splash around in the water and cause the water to spurt up and splash. and the top of the head of the water touches the foot of the mountains. Now, I'm giving you a talk about this right now. And four years ago, a little bit more than four years ago, I gave a series of talks on these mountains and rivers, these mountains and waters during a session.

[22:54]

And that was the first time I gave a series of talk on them. And I didn't think, after the session was over, I didn't think I understood this teaching about the mountains and the waters. I didn't think I understood it very well or gave very good lectures on it. But at least I thought I finished the seven-day sesshin. Do you know what sesshin is? Sesshin is when we sit for seven days, from early in the morning till late at night. So when we finish, we usually feel some sense of accomplishment and some sense of relief. So I felt... And usually we feel, you know, often we feel, well, I sat pretty well, I got through, and I'm pretty concentrated now, and now let's see how I can live my daily life. Let's see if I can... Let's see if the composure that I was able to... live with in the midst of this challenging schedule.

[24:06]

Let's see how this composure works now as I walk out the door of the meditation hall into the street, into Mill Valley, into San Francisco. So I did walk out And during that session, two big events happened in my little life that caused some disturbance. One was that my wife's car was being repaired. Before the session, I heard that it was going to be repaired. It had transmission problem. How many people have heard this story before?

[25:07]

Would you raise your hands? One. That's not too bad. Would you people please excuse me to tell this again? Is that all right? No? Huh? Oh, thank you. So I heard before the session that this car was going to be fixed, and it was going to cost quite a bit. And so I had a little bit of savings, and I gave my savings to my wife to get the car fixed. I'll even tell you the exact amounts. It was going to cost, I heard, $1,100 to fix the car. And I had $1,000 saved, and I gave it to her. Then during session, she kindly told me the latest developments, which were that it was going to cost $1,700.

[26:17]

And she was going to borrow the money, the remainder of the money from her father, who's Chinese. And he was actually, he was in, what do you call it, the Kuomintang. He was in Chiang Kai-shek's army during the war. He wasn't a communist. So then the next thing that happened, I heard, was that my sister-in-law, who's also Chinese, had a baby, a little girl. And then I soon after that heard that the baby had something, some problem. There's, I guess, some doctors maybe can tell me what about this, but there's some kind of a valve having to do with the pulmonary artery that when you're in the womb, it functions, and then when you come out, it closes, and then the flow of blood goes some other way or something like that, right?

[27:27]

Anyway, this valve didn't close. So blood was going someplace where it wasn't supposed to go anymore, I think, something like that. And she was turning blue. So the newborn little girl had to have an operation, open heart, not open heart, open chest surgery right after she was born at UC Medical Center. And then after Sashin, I got out of Sashin, and then my wife told me more about what was going on, namely, number one, that the car work had gone beyond $1,700 and had gotten up to $3,100. $3,100. And this is an old car, too. A car that was not worth $3,100.

[28:29]

Before or after. But the little girl was apparently pretty much all right. The surgery was successful and she was alive and seemed to be recovering. But my understanding about mountains and rivers was not so good. And I tried to look for someone to blame for this car bill. I couldn't blame me, of all people. I was just, you know, innocent victim. I didn't really feel like I could blame my wife. I didn't feel like I could blame my father-in-law. I thought maybe I could blame the mechanic, but it didn't quite work. Somehow it didn't really make sense to blame the mechanic or the car or Germany. I couldn't think of... But I really wanted to blame somebody, and I was really irritated, generally irritated, and partly irritated because I couldn't sink my teeth into some object to be angry at.

[29:51]

My understanding of the teaching is good enough so that I couldn't find any outlet, and yet not good enough so that I felt relief. So we went to see, after I got out of Sashin and found out about the car and looking for somebody to blame and so on, being irritated and upset, having a headache about it all, sort of squirming in my place, not settling. After seven days of settling, now I couldn't settle. I couldn't settle into my circumstances, trying to find some out. I went to see the little girl and we went to UC and we got into elevator going up to her place where she was.

[30:59]

And I thought, I remember I thought in the elevator, I thought, this huge building and all these buildings around here, what are they for? thought, they're just for ways that people can take care of people. That's really interesting. So much of what we do is just for people, helping people. So we got up to see the little girl, and there she was, laid out on a table with lamps on her. No one else was in the room. And she hadn't completely come out of the anesthetic. Her eyes were still closed, but she was wiggling and twisting a little bit. And she was in a little bit of pain. At least you could see she was starting to feel some pain.

[32:04]

And you could see she was trying to cry. She wasn't quite awake enough or alert enough to cry, but she was trying really hard to cry. And her shut eyes were bugged out from the effort to try to cry, but she couldn't. But all the... Except for that little bit of... awakeness or alertness that she would need to go to cry, she had all the other energy there to burst out into a cry of pain. But she was alive. And then I understood what they mean by the eastern mountains moving over the water. Then I understood a little bit. And I stopped trying to find somebody to blame for the car bill.

[33:08]

And my headache went away. And I relaxed into my life. One of our students, his name is Chris Persig. He is a son of the man who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He studied here for four years. And one night in San Francisco, he was walking on the street, and someone stabbed him, and he died. And we all stood around his body near Zen Center. And later one of the people, one of our members said, why can't we be like that all the time?

[34:17]

Why can't we be the way we are, were, standing around his body? No one was wishing they were somewhere else. No one was in a hurry. No one was trying to blame anyone. We were just there together. Why can't we be like that all the time? Well, because we get distracted, I guess. Because we get distracted by it. the impelling, flowing, energetic quality of our life. It's very difficult for us just to stay with what's happening and to settle with this little difficulty and this little difficulty. The little knocks on the door of our life don't necessarily remind us

[35:29]

of what we're supposed to do, of what would work for us. So if we're lucky, there's a louder knock, and then we get it. And if we don't get it then, there's a louder knock, until finally we say, oh, I get it. I get it. I remember now what I'm supposed to do. Thanks. I got it. Got it. Thank you. Sometimes more comes then after that, even though we don't need it anymore. The mountains and rivers of the immediate present are the realization of the way of the ancient Buddhas, abiding together

[37:04]

In their dharma position, they have culminated the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness. Because they are events prior to the aeon of emptiness, they are the livelihood of the present. Because they are the self before the emergence of any subtle signs. They are the culmination of penetrating liberation. I know that was a mouthful. But what I mean is that, or what Dogen Zenji means when he says that is something which probably I should discuss some other time.

[38:15]

Now this little girl, this little Chinese girl, is four years old. And she's become quite an individual. Her parents are both Chinese, and they speak Chinese to her almost all the time. But she only speaks English. Not all the time. Yesterday, by coincidence, I got a chance to see her. She now lives in Taiwan, but she just came back to visit for the summer. And I went with my wife and my daughter to the grandmother's house.

[39:39]

So I was the one man, and everyone else in the room was Chinese females, except for one half-breed, my daughter. And before I left here... before I left Green Gulch to go to the grandmother's house, we had here a beginner sitting. And we had also here a vipassana sitting. And then we also had some other people doing some other things here. And I was in San Francisco with Chinese women. And I thought how, you know, we have all these different places to practice coexisting. And our job, my job, is to abide in my position and culminate the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness.

[40:56]

That's my job. That's your job. And the way I'm doing it, I must be, I believe I must be really enthusiastic about being where I am and living my life completely, culminating the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness, just like mountains and rivers do. A river never holds back from being a river. and thinks it should be an ocean or a creek. A mountain is never one centimeter taller than it is or smaller. It's always exactly a mountain of that size. So I must, I can't, I must be enthusiastic about being my life now At the same time, even spread that enthusiasm for not being my life, but for all of us culminating in the qualities of where we are.

[42:10]

At the same time that I have enthusiasm for this practice that I'm doing, to also realize that other beings who are not doing this practice are perfect. And make sure that they are not discouraged by my enthusiasm at being who I am. Not to mention me looking down on them because they don't look as enthusiastic as being what they are as what I am. Or whatever I meant to say. It's like those are two torches that you carry. One is the torch of this way, this way you live. You definitely wholeheartedly live this way with your total life energy.

[43:15]

The other torch is beings who are living other ways are perfect. So with complete respect for your way, you also really respect others' way. which is again why we must not be attached to a particular way or a particular view of what's helpful. So in that spirit, I'd tell you just a little bit about this girl, this girl who helped me when she was first born. Now she's four. And at dinner, her mother said something to her, admonished her. I believe, I don't remember what language her mother admonished her, but her mother admonished her. And she said back to her mother that her mother told her twice about something.

[44:20]

And she was quite upset that her mother had told her twice And she said so. She actually concurred with the admonition, but that it had to be reiterated was embarrassing. She's just this little tiny thing, you know. She's quite a small four-year-old. And she's one of these little China doll type Chinese kids. Really cute. And when you first meet her, she's somewhat shy and won't talk to strangers. But somehow yesterday, she started to come out a little bit, even though I was there. She said, that thing I told you. And then...

[45:21]

at the table she was making these grunts, kind of like a, which was her way, her mother says, her name's Justine. Justine is a woman of few words. But she makes these grunts, which are very clear and don't need to be translated. She invented little animal crackers, which was sort of more, a little bit, she didn't tell me I could have some of those. She put them over near to the kids. But then, a little later, she told Justine, she said, give some to Uncle Reb. I'm skipping over a lot of other good stories, but anyway.

[46:31]

She said, so she said in Chinese, she said, people can raise their hands. Which her mother translated back to me, she says, they're supposed to raise their hands if they want something in school, right? So she would, her mother said, do you understand? She said, so if I want the crackers, I can raise my hands, right? She doesn't just bring them to me, right? Well, I didn't raise my hands for the crackers. I let it go, but I understood the policy. Then a few minutes later, we're leaving, right? Now, this little girl has never hugged me or kissed me And her little sister, I think, has. Her little sister likes men.

[47:33]

Anyway, I've never asked her for a hug or a kiss. I've never given her one. But my wife and my but my wife. Oh, God, there's a lot of good stories here. My wife said, give me Justine, come give me a kiss and a hug. And so she gave she reluctantly gave my wife a kiss and a hug. And my daughter is her idol. My daughter can get kisses and hugs all she wants from the kids. She's their big cousin, right? Big girl cousin. So they just idolize her. So she got her kiss and her hug. So... So I raised my hand.

[48:39]

LAUGHTER And she started stamping up and down. No, no, no, no, no. You know, in Rumpelstiltskin, when she guesses his name, it was like that. She was totally pissed off that I raised my hand to her. Because she understood completely what I wanted. And she wasn't going to give it to me. And she just went charging up and down the hall. No, no, no, no, no. This is that same spirit, you know, from that first time I saw her, that she's got a lot of spirit, this kid. She said, she said, when I go to sleep at night, I think of the ocean.

[50:01]

No, no, she says, when I go to sleep at night, I think of, I think of, I think of I think of, I think of the ocean. And my daughter's name is Taya. And I think of Taya. She's quite a kid. This is what I'm, I'm using her as an example of something. Can you guess what it is? It's called Mountains and Rivers of the Immediate Present. because they abide in their dharma position, in their phenomenal position, like this little girl does, they have culminated the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness.

[51:02]

So this is our job, okay, to be ourselves. That's all. There's nothing harder. And then there's nothing else to do except loaf. And there's all kinds of names for loafing. Fear, greed, anger, confusion, and so on. My faith is that for us to settle into our life is our gift for world peace. That from this place of where we are, the way of peace comes forth from here.

[52:09]

It doesn't come forth from someplace else. So our job is to get to here and to now and to settle here calmly and courageously. And naturally, our way of compassion will open from here. But it's not easy to just be here and keep coming back. as things happen to us moment by moment and move us here and there all the time.

[52:50]

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