Here in this valley, we are about two-thirds of the way through an intensive training period. Tonight we will plunge into a week-long or actually five days of even more intensive meditation. to finish our training period. And this morning, for the sake of those who have not been here, and also for those who have been, I'd like to give a summary, overview of the kinds of teachings that we have been studying and practicing here, an overview for those who haven't been here, and a summary and reminder for those who have as they are about to hopefully dive into the middle of these teachings and practice them for 24 hours a day for five days.

[01:25]

This picture, I will, with my words, paint a picture for you. And I hope that you can imagine in your mind and heart what I'm saying. It's a picture, actually, that you can think of as a circle. makes it a little easier to imagine a circle, a circle of initiation, a circle of entering into Buddha's way, And I'll draw the picture simply at first, and then I will go into some detail at certain points of the picture, at certain parts of the picture. I will go into detail in the whole picture for the rest of my life, because this is a picture of our practice.

[02:37]

so there's in a sense there's basically in a sense four main elements in the picture four main elements on the circle can you hear me okay in the back? the first I would start with the initiation of receiving the bodhisattva precepts start there receiving the bodhisattva precepts and in here we have we often speak of 16 of them of course there's other ways of speaking of them let's talk about one or a million but we often speak of 16 So the first step in this process is to receive the bodhisattva precepts.

[03:45]

The bodhisattva precepts are returning to awakening, returning to the teaching of awakening, and returning to the community of people who practice teachings and realize the teachings of awakening and help each other practice the teachings of awakening so the first three precepts are to return to awakening the teaching of awakening and the community of practitioners the next three precepts are the next three are to embrace and sustain right conduct to embrace and sustain all good, all wholesome things, and to embrace and sustain all beings.

[04:51]

And the first one, embracing and sustaining right conduct, includes embracing and sustaining the traditional forms of discipline. It means all kinds of right conduct, but includes the entering into discipline, The next ten, that's six, three and three, the next ten are not killing, the precept, the teaching, the practice of not killing, not stealing, not misusing our sexual energy, not lying, not intoxicating body or mind of self or others, not talking about others faults not praising yourself at the expense of others not being possessive of anything even the truth not harboring ill will

[06:11]

In other words, inappropriate anger. And the last one is to in any way undermine or disparage or abuse awakening, the teaching of awakening, or the community that's supporting the realization of awakening. So those are the 16 bodhisattva precepts. and that's the beginning of the circle of practice that I'm painting. To receive them starts the process. The next step is what I call being upright. Being upright means this is what I will go into I go into great detail on this but just briefly being upright is to be present with an unprejudiced heart to sit in the world of preferences of likes and dislikes to sit in the middle of all attachments and confusion and to be

[07:34]

uninvolved in all that just clear and aware not leaning in any direction open to what's happening practicing loving kindness with whatever happens receiving loving kindness in whatever happens but I'll talk a little bit more about that later Now, I said there's four elements, but in a sense there's really five. Arising from this, or arising with this being upright, is what I would call full self-expression. Now, full self-expression is the kind of action that emerges from this unprejudiced presence.

[08:41]

And being upright and full self-expression together are the way we enter into the awareness of and the understanding of the Buddha's teaching of interdependence. And not just the Buddha's teaching like in something in a book or something that the Buddha said, but actually through being upright, we actually realize and understand the interdependence of all things this realization is Buddhist wisdom this is what Buddhist wisdom understands is how everything interpenetrates and mutually supports everything else and supported by everything else And both openness and presence is the way to enter this awareness of interdependence.

[10:01]

But also action. Interdependent action is the way to enter it. And again, I'll go into more on that. then the next element in the picture is great compassion and great compassion spontaneously emerges arises out of the understanding of interdependence great compassion means that we care about all beings and we want them to be happy and free and we want to work so that they can be happy and free In other words, we want to work to help them realize wisdom. When one realizes wisdom, one wants other beings to realize wisdom and wants other beings to help other beings to realize wisdom.

[11:02]

This wanting, this desire to help all beings open to wisdom, understand wisdom, and enter wisdom so they can do the same with others, that's great compassion. And the expression of great compassion is the 16 bodhisattva precepts, which completes the circle. Receiving the bodhisattva precepts, being upright, full self-expression, Buddha's wisdom, great compassion, bodhisattva precepts. And we go round and round that circle. Okay? Can you kind of remember those elements? One of the members of the practice period is doing a lovely picture of that, which we will make copies of if it's okay with her, and you can have them someday if you come back and ask for it.

[12:18]

Meantime, I will be drawing it on various blackboards around the Bay Area. But maybe you can imagine it without me drawing it on the board. Now in some more detail, going around this, the Bodhisattva precepts, the first time when you first receive them, in a sense you may feel like they come from outside, but maybe you don't. Maybe you feel like they come from inside. Maybe you feel like you receive them from inside yourself. But either they come from the inside and you receive them from the inside, or they come from the outside. But anyway, you receive them. And this phase of receiving the precepts, you receive them and then you try to observe them and practice them. This is like moral preparation, in a sense. You try to practice them in your daily life. This is moral preparation for entering into being upright. Being upright is a way of being where you're not really preparing anymore.

[13:32]

So to enter into just being present and balanced and open and unprejudiced, in that stage you're not really preparing for anything anymore. but you need some preparation to do that practice if we don't prepare ourselves by a commitment to not killing and so on if we don't prepare ourselves by a commitment to embrace and sustain all life then it's not going to work very well if we then drop everything and just sit in a state of openness giving up past and future even giving up the presence, real presence, you don't hold on to presence. You're just present. You don't really know what time it is. Is it the present or the past or the future?

[14:36]

Well, you're not fixed on that. You're unprejudiced about the time. Again, in the middle of all preferences, in the middle of all biases, they're still all around you. Your preferences or preferences are still buzzing around your head or around your awareness. You just find a way that doesn't lean towards them. In the midst of all the complexities of your life, you don't lean. The state of being upright is sometimes called non-thinking. And this non-thinking is the gate to Buddha's thinking.

[15:47]

Buddha's thinking is wisdom. It's not like Buddha's had a lobotomy. Buddha thinks. But how does Buddha think? Buddha thinks in this inconceivable way. Buddha thinks of all living beings as herself. Buddha thinks of the activity and the happiness of all beings. No one can think this, but that's how Buddha thinks. That's wisdom of the Buddha. The entrance into this inconceivable thinking of a Buddha is this upright non-thinking. And non-thinking doesn't mean you're not thinking. Again, when you're upright, you're sitting in the middle of... a certain kind of thinking. What kind of thinking? Whatever kind of thinking is going on. Now, apparently, some people have more active minds than others, or some people have more active mind one day than another, or one hour than another.

[16:57]

The activity of our mind varies within ourselves and among people. What's going on in terms of thinking varies. Have you noticed? Noticing that the variety of your thinking is something that comes to you when you're just unprejudiced and sitting in the middle of the field of your thinking. For most practical purposes, most people are thinking all the time, except maybe in deep sleep or certain trance states that some people get into or in certain brain damage cases or in drug states. You might say, well, that's most of my life. But anyway, for a lot of people, those states happen just once in a while, and most of the time they're just walking around thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking.

[17:59]

So non-thinking isn't that you turn off the thinking. Non-thinking is the unprejudiced presence in the middle of your thinking. no matter what you're thinking there's like a presence there that's not pushing what's happening away or holding on to it that's not saying oh finally a good thought or get this garbage thoughts out of here the thought get the garbage thoughts out of here is just more thinking the thought oh this is really high quality thinking here that's more thinking Such thinking is going on all the time. Thinking, judging the thinking, making programs about what should be done about the thinking, making programs about what should not be done about the thinking, making programs about what should be done about other people's thinking. This is thinking. This is where we live. And this world of thinking,

[19:01]

which is sometimes very turbulent and sometimes so calm that it's very boring. So we go to sleep so in our dreams we can think something more interesting. So a lot of Zen students enter into meditation because they want to enter meditation because their thinking is so vivid, so alive, that they're in agony. So then they want to do a practice so that they can go to a place where the thinking's not so vivid and where they're not in so much pain, or just simply turn off that vivid, vital activity which they experience as painful because it's not under control. And then sometimes they're successful at turning it down or going to a place where it doesn't get to them, and then it's boring, so then they go to sleep, and then in the dreams it's more interesting. And then they try to turn off the dream by waking up. How does it go?

[20:07]

To die? To sleep? Perhaps to dream? Perchance to dream? Ah, there's the rub. Sometimes it gets so bad that we want to die. Or if nobody will turn it off, we want to die. But then what do we do? We got the dying and we're dead. Fine. Finally it's calm. And then we start dreaming. And what happens in the dream? The whole thing starts again. So we try to die in the dream. And we do. And we get a break. So we dream within the dream. There's no end to this thinking. No end to it. And even if there was, the Buddha comes back into the dreams and practices in this dreamland The Buddha's practice in the mundane world where everybody's thinking, including the Buddha. And actually, what the Buddha's thinking about would blow all of our circuits.

[21:11]

But the Buddha can stand it because the Buddha is practicing being upright. The Buddha is practicing non-thinking in the middle of the thinking. So the non-thinking is not to not think and it's not to think. It's just to be present and unbiased in the middle of whatever you're thinking. Now here comes the tough part, part of the tough part. Part of what happens when you sit in the middle of your thinking and don't mess with it and kind of like just let it be whatever it is, is that you become aware, since you open up to what's going on, you become aware of some things which you weren't so aware of before. Things that you had made some efforts to push away. When you start opening to one thing, one of the consequences of that is you tend to start opening to other things. And one of the advantages of closing to one thing is you close to other things. it's also one of the disadvantages of closing to one thing that you close to things that you want to see so anyway a lot of us are closed to the feeling of anxiety a lot of us are closed to the feeling of vulnerability but if we turn away from vulnerability in other words we somehow

[22:38]

I don't know what you do. You close. You lean away from vulnerability. And, you know, vulnerability means comes from... I wrote it down someplace. Where did I write it? I forgot the Latin, but anyway, the Latin means to wound. The root of the word for vulnerable or vulnerability is to wound. Vulnerable means that you're susceptible to... being hurt to being injured you're susceptible to danger oh that doesn't sound very good does it to be susceptible to being hurt but guess what we are susceptible to being hurt that's our normal state nobody is not susceptible to being hurt We're all susceptible to being hurt. We're all susceptible and endangered.

[23:43]

But that's not nice to look at, so sometimes we'd look away from it. That looking away from our vulnerability is not being upright. That's leaning away from vulnerability. Also, anxiety is not very pleasant to be aware of. Leaning away from the anxiety or towards the anxiety is not being upright. Leaning towards vulnerability is also not being upright. So being upright, you don't stick your head into it. You don't indulge in vulnerability. You don't indulge in anxiety, and you don't lean away from it. You sit upright in the middle of all your thinking and all your vulnerability and all your anxiety. And then what seems to happen is that the sense of vulnerability and the sense of anxiety might be heightened. And you think, well, what's the good of this? At such a time, we need help.

[24:53]

So that's why we have a community and teachers to go and tell the teacher, it seems, my life seems to be, I feel more vulnerable and I feel more anxiety than I used to. Something wrong? And then the teacher says, no. You're moving in the right direction. Now, if you show the teacher that you're indulging in anger, the teacher might say, that's too much. You're going too far. Lean back this way a little bit. Come up straight. It's possible to go too far into the anxiety and too far into the vulnerability. To just be balanced into it. So let's say now that we're just here and we're open to some feeling of vulnerability.

[26:04]

Is there something good about that? Well, yes. The good thing about being open to vulnerability... Well, there's several things good. One good thing... Oh, there's so many good things about it. One good thing is that you're facing reality. You're facing your vulnerability, which is... which is so, all of us can be hurt. The other thing is, by opening to your vulnerability, by opening the eye which was closed to your vulnerability, opening to it, you get to see some other things. Well, like what? Well, like interdependence. Well, like, yeah, that sounds okay. And you get to also see, by the way, beauty. because interdependence is, most of all, beautiful. Now, this vision of beauty is somewhat encouraging.

[27:06]

Say, well, I'm feeling vulnerable and anxious, but I see beauty. The beauty can be somewhat encouraging. Also, I think I'm starting to get a glimpse of Buddhist teaching, and I think that I'm starting to realize wisdom. And that comes with some encouragement too. To continue. To not run away from what's happening. To open your heart to your experience. Now, in this state, in this situation of being upright and therefore being vulnerable, of being upright and therefore being what you are, and nothing more or less, which comes with vulnerability and anxiety, until you understand your independence.

[28:13]

When you understand interdependence, you're still vulnerable, but the anxiety is dropped. The anxiety drops when you understand your independence. All the things which used to be pressing on you and suffocating you and choking you and threatening you are now dimensions of compassion. All the things that you felt were attacking you and squashing you are now conduits of Buddhist compassion and Buddhist love when you understand your independence. Then vulnerability is no longer how you're hurt, it's how you can be hurt, but it's the mode of how you're helped. If you're invulnerable, you cannot be helped.

[29:15]

If we're invulnerable, we block Buddha's compassion. Part of what Buddha wants to teach is he wants to teach us to open up to compassion. Open up to the compassionate teachings of wisdom. Right now, all of you went out of your way to come here into this room this morning. Some of you didn't go too far out of your way since you're living here. But some of you went, traveled many miles through the fog to come into this room. And that's, you know, a gesture towards vulnerability. You may not have known what you'd hear here, but you were a little bit open to hear something. Now, here I am knocking on the door saying, would you consider just being present and open with an unprejudiced heart? And if you try that on, you become more vulnerable.

[30:24]

And those things which you feel vulnerable to, those things which could hurt you, are still there. But if you're closed to the awareness that something can hurt you, then you close to the awareness of Buddhist compassion coming to you right now. Buddhist compassion kindly, wisely entering your heart right now through everything that's happening. Now you may say, I don't want Buddhist compassion to enter me through such and such an experience. What do you say? It's a free country. You don't have to. If I insult you or someone insults you, you don't have to see that insult as Buddhist compassion coming to you through that insult, through those words. You don't have to see it that way. But why not? Why not feel that everything that happens in your life is Buddhist compassion?

[31:32]

What damage would that do? Tell me about it in question and answer. I don't see it. To me it seems alright for everything that happens to me to be a gift in Buddha's compassion. Now, if you hear about that, you still should stay upright and not start rushing after everything to get everything so you get Buddha's compassion. You just are open to the possibility of whatever happens being thus. Don't go after it. It's more just to be open to that. Now, still, part of what's happening then is you're feeling like choked or smothered in some situation. Currently, I'm feeling choked and smothered. How long is it going to be before I can see this as Buddhist compassion?

[32:34]

Am I going to make it to this realization that this suffocating experience is Buddhist compassion? Part of openness is not to think about how much longer this is going to go on. Did I say part of being upright is not to think about how long this is going to go on? Did I say that? Part of being open, yeah. Part of being open and upright is not to think about how much longer is this vulnerability going to go on? How much longer is this threat going to be on me? How much longer am I going to feel suffocated by this conversation? That's not what it's like to be open. Being open, you're just concentrating on how is it to be suffocated? How is it to be uncomfortable? If you start thinking about how much longer it's going to go on, you're not being upright. You're not in a receptive mood. You're not feeling the vulnerability. You're starting to close off and consider making deals.

[33:39]

You're shifting from being upright to power. You're starting to calculate, okay, if it's two more minutes or three more minutes, I'll stay here. But not more or whatever. That's what you're leaning then. You're leaning into the future. You're leaning into being concerned with taking care of yourself rather than how are you being taken care of. Well, how am I being taken care of? Well, I'm being taken care of by feeling pretty bad, by feeling kind of confined and squashed. That's how I'm being taken care of. I'm being taken care of, and I'm being given a feeling of anxiety, and I'm continuing to be vulnerable to this feeling of anxiety. Matter of fact, that's what's happening. I'm anxious. And somebody's thinking about that I'm anxious, but my practice of being open is non-thinking. I'm not doing anything about that anxiety.

[34:43]

And a thought crosses the sky. When will compassion come? When will compassion come? Buddha, where are you? Wisdom, where are you? When will I understand that dependent core are rising and have anxiety drop away? When will my eyes open to how this suffocation is giving me life? Well, prior to actually the vision of how the feeling of suffocation gives you breath. You never have breath without the feeling of suffocation. There's no such breath. There's never a breath without no breath. But before I get into that, I just want to mention, you just sit there. One time I was right here in this little valley. I took a walk with a very nice gentleman up in the hills here.

[35:57]

I think it's okay to tell you his name was Green. We took a hike in the hills with Mr. Green. And it was a very nice talk. We had a nice walk, and we got back here, and we stood in front of that office right over there. This is like a long time ago, in a sense. 15, 20 years ago. Had this nice walk, and we came back. And at the end of the walk, we were standing there, and he kept talking to me. He was talking to me. And... I don't know exactly what he was talking about, but at a certain point anyway, I felt like, well, I've had enough talk. I wish I could go someplace else, and I wish you'd go someplace else. Well, you can stay here, but I'd like to go someplace else. But I didn't say anything. I would like to go someplace else. And I wish you would stop talking so I could go. Or I wish you'd just say goodbye. Just say one more, a couple more words, say goodbye. But he wasn't saying goodbye.

[37:08]

And I was feeling suffocated by the conversation. And the longer the conversation went on, with me feeling like, would you please stop, I'd like to go, the more suffocated I felt. But I somehow couldn't, and the more suffocated it felt, the less energy I had to say, would you please stop talking? Would you leave me alone? Would you let me walk away? I was confined by my sense of, you know, you don't just walk away from a conversation. You figure out some way to say goodbye when you want to leave, right? Like, I'm bored. You know, would you stop? Of course, you can lie. I could have lied and said, I have an appointment, but somehow I didn't have the energy even to lie. I probably would have resorted to it, but anyway, I didn't have, but I was too weak. I was too weak to lie. I was too weak to say something clever, like, hey, look over there. And the longer it went on, the less air I had, the more suffocated I felt, the less good ideas I had on how to get away.

[38:14]

Then I said, well, how about I try to take care of myself under the circumstances? I don't have the intelligence to get out of here, but maybe I can at least sort of survive. Is there some air around here someplace? Maybe there's some kind of like, you know, reservoir of breath in my body someplace that I haven't found. So I look around, scurrying around there. It was getting heavy. I couldn't figure out how to get out of there. I couldn't see dependent core arising. All I could see is me, not him, and him, nice man. If he was a jerk, you know, I could say, you know, stop talking that way, and I could have got away. But he was saying all these kind things, you know. So kind, so helpful. How do you say no to such a nice person, you know, who's actually like smothering you with kindness? And also, you don't feel like, stop smothering me with kindness. This is like, how can you say that to somebody right in front of the office? And guess what?

[39:19]

I would suggest saying it. But I couldn't. I had gone too far. I was too weak. And then something happened. Now, the good thing about what I was doing is I was there... just being smothered. That's all I was doing. I couldn't do anything else. Now, if I was able to, I would have, but in fact, I was doing pretty well because I was doing just that. And then a voice came. And for some of you who don't know me, my name's Reb. A voice came and it was addressed to me. And the voice was, I love you, Rebby. And when I heard that voice, I felt some air. I felt uplifted in my situation of having this person talking to me and being trapped in the conversation.

[40:22]

And I didn't exactly say, could I have one more of those? But I got one. I got a second one. I love you, Rebbe. Where did that come from? It came anyway. Who did it come from? I don't know. But as soon as I heard the second one, I said, Mr. Green, it's been good talking to you. I want to go now. Bye. And he probably wanted to stop a long time before, too. But oftentimes when somebody's talking to you, and you can't stand to be there, they just talk harder and harder to get you to say goodbye or to relate. He's probably working harder and harder to get some response out of me, and I was waning and waning, and he was waxing and waxing. So he felt relieved too, probably, all I didn't ask him, because I wanted to get out of there.

[41:25]

I did, and I left, and it didn't hurt him, and it helped me. I felt fine, and I survived to tell you this story. Does Buddha's compassion always come? When you sit upright, I say, yes, always. Because it's always there. It's just a matter of opening to it. But if you don't open to the experience that you're in, which is sometimes very hard to be open to, you won't feel Buddhist compassion. Well, you might. Buddhist compassion might squeak through your defenses sometimes. But when you're open, it comes. And then this other thing which I want to talk about, but the talk's getting kind of long, is this full self-expression. We need to do both these things. And the being upright is like you're sitting or standing or walking in the middle of this world of your experience.

[42:43]

And in a sense, you give it up. You let go of the thinking. It's still going on. It's got its own life. Somebody's running around doing things. Somebody's... you know, called maybe by your name perhaps, is doing all this stuff, thinking all this stuff, and somebody else is sitting like a Buddha in the middle of this very active world. This is a kind of dying to the world. It's not a rejection of the world, it's just a dying to it. It's a kind of, what do you call it, initiatory death. An initiatory death sponsored by or initiated after preparing oneself with the bodhisattva precept practice. It's a death which just comes from letting go of manipulation and power. It's a death to power trips. It's a death to manipulation.

[43:43]

It's an initiatory death to manipulating the world. You give up manipulation, you give up power trips, and you just are present. And your eyes start to open, your heart starts to open, and you start to see the beauty of the world. You've been wanting to see the beauty of the world. The beauty of your heart has been wanting to see the beauty of the world. And this opens you to it. But this isn't all of it. We also have to have this, then, you have to pick things up again and express yourself. And again, this full self-expression, in order to really be full, has to also be in accord with the Bodhisattva precepts. But this full self-expression is not just coming from the bodhisattva precepts and in accord with them, but it's coming from this place of openness.

[44:46]

It is an expression which is going with beauty and will actually appear as beauty. It is accompanied by beauty and will eventually look like beauty, will be beautiful. But beautiful doesn't mean my idea of beautiful. It's not my idea of beautiful, it's actual beauty. And it doesn't mean it's actual beauty. So here comes another tough point. The world, the normal human society, oftentimes allows people to go through this initiatory death. In other words, there's some allowance in society for you to just be open and to let go of manipulation.

[45:56]

Because it's an inner thing, it's a private thing. Now, Zen centers are set up to sponsor this initiatory death, are set up to encourage you to be open, to make a place where your vulnerability won't get tested too heavily, hopefully, at the beginning. Where people will let you be quiet and let you turn inward and let you stop manipulating. They won't tease you if you're open too much. they receive the bodhisattva precepts too and try to not hurt you in any way but the full self-expression is generally speaking not allowed by society because it's not the usual way of behaving it does not go along the usual lines it questions everything

[47:11]

and doubts the usual way things go. And the society does not like this. Even in a Buddhist society, even in a Zen center, when somebody actually starts to try this out and come from this place, there's some societal tendency to try to limit it. That's one of the reasons why we need, again, support. We need support to go into the being upright and to withstand the anxiety and vulnerability there. And then we need support when we start expressing ourselves. That doesn't mean everybody says, okay, okay, that's fine when we do these strange things. That's not necessarily support. Sometimes support is, that's like totally weird. I don't like it when you do that. That's sometimes the way the support comes. But it's like, what is that guy? Was it Patrick Henry? Somebody said, I will die, I disagree with you completely, but I will die in defense of your right to be different, or something like that.

[48:25]

How does it go? Huh? What? Yeah. So sometimes in the community of practitioners, when somebody starts trying to fully express herself, when she's trying to express herself, express the beauty which she sees, sometimes people say, no way, that's totally weird. I don't like it. But that means also, please do it again. Come on, do it all the way. Or you're doing the right thing, but you went too far. Or you're doing the right thing, but you didn't go far enough. Sometimes people disagree with this expression because we didn't go far enough. They say, that was totally off. You didn't do it full enough. Do it more. You didn't make it. And it's really painful and obnoxious to see you try and stop halfway. Come on, do it all the way. Or you did it all the way, you got it right there, and then you went too far.

[49:27]

Like, you know, one of my main occupations is to entertain my wife. She speaks of me as a desperado. I'm desperately trying to entertain her with my humor. Never a dull moment. And sometimes my futile attempts, I make lots of futile attempts, and then she just sort of says, well, I appreciate that. That was very dear, desperate efforts. But sometimes I hit the mark and do something really funny. But then oftentimes I try one more time when I shouldn't and ruin it. She said, you should stop right there. You went too far. And actually, not only do we need the support of the community to allow us to try, but we need the support of the community to tell us when we go too far.

[50:32]

We need people to tell us that was too far. That wasn't full self-expression. That was full self-expression plus one. You overdid it. You missed the point. When we hit that point, our friend says, beautiful. Just right. Or funny. Or whatever. And then we think, oh no. Try again. And then they help us by saying, that was too much. the combination of this openness which opens our eyes and our hearts to what's happening and in that openness the world starts telling us its secret the world is also vulnerable. It's not just us that is vulnerable, the world's vulnerable too. And when we're vulnerable, the world says, well, if you're willing to be vulnerable and not manipulate me, maybe I'll be vulnerable and not manipulate you. So the world says, maybe I'll tell you a few secrets.

[51:37]

Maybe I'll show you how closely related we are. And when we stop trying to get something out of the world, the world stops trying to get something out of us. When the trust is mutual, the vulnerability is mutual, We can hurt the world, the world can hurt us. Things start opening up, and the education process starts, wisdom starts dawning upon our life. But it takes this other thing, too, is that not only that, but we have to start moving into this interdependence. We need to start acting from the vision of interdependence, which is coming to us because of our openness, and with the interdependence, and sometimes the way that The way that we do it, we lose track of the interdependence and then we have to be open again to the interdependence coming back and saying, he missed it. Okay, I'm open. I'll try again. He missed it again. Okay, I'm open. I'll try it again.

[52:38]

He missed it. Okay, I'm not going to do it again. I give up. It's too hard. Oh, come on, please. Or why don't you just go back and just be upright for a while and then your enthusiasm will come back and you can try it again. We need the resistance from others in order to support us. We cannot fully express ourselves without their resistance, without that sometimes critique, sometimes approval. And again, the critique can be you overdid it or you underdid it. You held back just at the right time. We shouldn't have held back. Should have kept going. Or you went too far. You let your momentum carry you away. But some parts of society... Actually, now that I say it, I say society doesn't allow us. But in a way, again, we need to understand that even the parts of society which seem to really resist us expressing ourselves in creative ways, in some ways, they're not.

[53:44]

They actually are helping. But it's tricky. And this is one of the main difficulties. And a lot of people who practice Buddhism and practice Zen They really squash their self-expression. They think it's about being a good little Zen monk and fitting into the traditional forms. And they repress themselves and turn into... Some people come to Zen Zen and they say these people are zombies. They're little robots. Some Zen students do that. They really squelch their, and some Zen students, like in the last few days, one Zen student told me he feels that Zen says, you know, not to express yourself. Or I'm saying that Zen, you necessarily must express yourself. You must in order to understand interdependence. You can't understand interdependence if you don't make your full contribution

[54:48]

If you don't put your bet down, you don't get the other bet. If you don't make your contribution, you don't see the other one. If you hold back, it holds back. Or actually, what it sometimes says, if you hold back, it overwhelms you. If you don't meet the person, they suffocate you. Like the conversation I was telling you about. I held back, he overwhelmed me. And then once you're overwhelmed, you want to hold back more. And then it overwhelms you more. So it's difficult. How do you come back from that? Well, the way you sometimes come back, ladies and gentlemen, is with violence. Violence. Because you feel threatened, you feel your life threatened, so you fight back violently. And that's part of what the source of violence is, that we aren't expressing ourselves fully enough and we get squashed, squashed, squashed, squashed and then finally this interdependence which is in us just bursts forth and just knocks everything out of the way.

[55:59]

Quiet little gentleman living next door, such a nice boy and then suddenly we find out he's a mass murderer because he didn't stand up for his life Year after year, he let himself be squashed. And then finally his life just blew up. The other way that people go, of course, instead of blowing up, is to take drugs, to give this interdependence a way to sort of come out and to let this magical creative process come out with drugs and other addictions, drugs, power, and so on. But without the material of the addiction, it's hard for us to sort of put it out there, unaided by chemicals, to express yourself unaided by chemicals. So many people drink alcohol when they go to a party so they can express themselves.

[57:02]

And they do. They express themselves. It's really nice. Hi, how are you? That was good. You say hello. That was great. Oh, look at him. He's so cheerful. You know what I mean? I was throwing away a New Yorker, an old New Yorker. I was going to recycle it finally. I kept it for quite a long time. 1991, Christmas issue. I saw a cartoon in there. And this man's at the bar of his house, you know, and there's a Christmas scene. And his wife comes over to him and says, I think you're Christmassy enough. other words you know if you're saying hi to people it's fine you don't need to drink anymore you're being friendly enough you're expressing yourself enough you don't need more assistance but it's not just to be friendly to people and express ourselves also we want access we wonder we want access to beauty you take certain drugs

[58:07]

You see some beauty. Nice. Hey, beauty. Interdependence. Oh, I'm one with everybody. Oh, neat. Oh, gosh. Oh, my enemies are really my friends. Oh, cool. So addictions and violence are the way of our society to get in touch with interdependence. Anyway. From a certain point of view, without being sectarian, I'd like to say that I think it is the task of our society, it is the task of our world, it is the task of our time to understand interdependence. We must individually and as a society understand the interdependence of all life. We must understand this. And understanding it not only makes a container for the violent energies which exist in the world, for the tremendous violent energies, it contains them so that they're safe, so it's an interdependent violence.

[59:14]

Not only does it do that, but it opens the beauty of the world to us. And once we see interdependence, then great compassion will arise but first we need this vision we need this wisdom of interdependence and to get there is not easy because you have to learn how to be upright and unprejudiced in the most provocative situations of our life not to mention unproductive provocative in the boring ordinary ones we need to be upright in the most testing challenging ones we need to be upright and open and we also need to express ourselves fully accurately and truly in accord with interdependence and of course it's hard to express ourselves in accord with interdependence before we see it so there's gonna be some groping there's gonna be some mistakes so we have to do this hard work and that's why we need to help each other

[60:17]

practice meditation, find this place of balance, and also support each other, ask each other to express themselves, and also be willing to ask others to allow us to express ourselves and do this dance. The alternative is the world we've got of incredible violence and drug addiction. without this work, we've got to go this way. We've got to go the way of drugs and violence. It's just unavoidable. But with the vision of beauty, we will be encouraged to continue the work and the vision of beauty is right a blink away if we open our hearts and have the courage to be honest about who we are and receive Buddhist compassion in the face of this daunting experience that we're having right now does that make sense to you what I said?

[61:41]

does it sound kind of hard? It is. And it's not just hard for wimps like us. The greatest masters in history, the ones who were able to actually see clearly the reality of interdependence and from whom great compassion was seen to appear in the world, all those people, as far as I know, said it was hard to And they're all very grateful because they got a lot of support from their teachers and fellow practitioners. They got a lot of support, a lot of loving support, a lot of encouragement to really be themselves, to really find this balanced way of life. They got a lot of support. They're incredibly grateful for the support. So don't feel like you need to do it alone or you should be able to do it alone. None of them did it alone. None of the great ones did it alone. They all had help. So if the great ones needed help, maybe we do too.

[62:45]

So let's help each other, let's encourage each other to complete this circle. Great compassion is not practiced on smooth, on placid waters. It is practiced in the ordinary, tumultuous, [...] that's it, right? Tumultuous? It's in the wavy world, the difficult world, that's where it's practiced. Bodhisattva is practiced in this world. So, you know, after giving, my lectures are often kind of heavy and long and challenging. So a few years ago, someone said, how come we never sing in Zen?

[63:50]

So I said, well, we can start singing. So I started singing at the end of my talks. And so then after my talks, people would say, hey, I really liked your song. So then I started getting addicted to singing songs. But now people are starting to criticize my singing voice. At first it was kind of a relief. Now they're starting to actually get into what the sound of the voice is and stuff and whether I can carry a tune. I usually don't have time to practice these songs beforehand. So I'm kind of sorry that it's painful for some of you to hear me sing these songs. And some of the songs I'd like to do most are kind of difficult, have kind of a difficult melody, so either I do a bad job or I don't try them. So I'm sorry about the difficulty that, if it hurts your ears when I sing.

[64:51]

Okay? So anyway, I have a song today which doesn't relate at all to my talk, but it's simple, and I think I can carry the tune fairly well. So some people feel like better a song than no song at all. Even better a bad song than no song at all. Some people feel like that. How many people feel like that? How many people would rather have no song at all than a bad song? So it looks like the people who have no song won out, right? Let's have the vote for the song again. There is a song. No, no. It's a short one. Don't worry. Okay, here it is. This is a song from my childhood and maybe yours. Or actually, it might be before some of your childhoods even started.

[65:53]

I think Gene Autry taught me this song. Okay, here it goes. I have the wrong tone, by the way. Home, home on the range Where the deer and the antelope play Where seldom is heard a discouraging word And the skies are not cloudy all day Is that it? Home, home on the range Where the deer and the antelope play Where seldom is heard a discouraging word. And the skies are not cloudy all day. Is that it? Intention equally penetrate every being and space.

[67:00]

There's a question that's going to be put together as they're going to come out and clear how to do a mistake. Be ye [...] Andrew? Yes? Yeah. I, uh... You've been asking me something. And you also said that it's the task of our age to appreciate independence.

[68:33]

Well, one way it comes to mind is that I cannot fully express myself without, in some ways, obstruction from others. oftentimes through cooperative obstruction. If I feel like I want to do something and nobody resists it, I don't find out how much I want to do it. Maybe you want to sculpt, maybe you'd like to do a marble sculpture. How much do you want to do a marble sculpture? Well, first of all, you find out by seeing if you can get some marble.

[69:35]

That's quite a task. Well, unless it's a little tiny marble sculpture you want to do. But let's say you'd like to do a kind of like a six-foot marble sculpture. So you've got to get yourself a lot of marble. In the process of getting the marble, you might find out, actually, I don't care that much. So that full self-expression is you don't care enough to do it. And so you find out, that's how much I care. Then if you get to marble, then you start... working with the stone, and the stone resists you. That's how you make the sculpture, is through the resistance between you and the stone, or your tools and the stone, that resistance. You expect, you spend energy, the stone resists you, physically resists you, obstructs you, but also the way it's shaped, the way it goes, you know, it doesn't necessarily go the way you want it to. That resistance is what creates the work, art. So the work of art then is a realization of your understanding of interdependence.

[70:36]

If you feel like in the process of working with the stone, you say, well, forget it. That's too much work. Then that's not much an appreciation of interdependence. Here's the marble maybe giving you this chance. So, you know, it's not that bad to quit, but it doesn't really like bring your appreciation of the wonderful dialogue between you and the stone into this into this showing the beauty of interdependence by the work of art doesn't necessarily show it but at a certain point you feel like you might feel like this stone now shows interdependence at that point you maybe see the beauty of your work you realize it or another example is like training a dog to fetch A lot of dogs like to chase. If you throw a stick, a lot of dogs like to chase it. Go get it.

[71:37]

They like to go get it and bring it back part of the way to you. They'll bring it back part of the way to you because they want you to throw it again. They can't throw as far as most people can. So we're useful servants to them in the game they like to play of running after things, grabbing them. They don't actually like to bring them back, they just want to have it thrown again. They don't just like to go find stuff, which they do, but they like to find stuff that's just been thrown as part of the fun for them. But they need our help to do that on a repeated basis, otherwise they have to wait for a bird to jump up and fall down. So they like us to perform that service, but the practice of fetching is more like the demonstration of the relationship between you and the dog, that you get the dog to do things a little differently than the way the dog likes to do it. Namely, the dog brings it all the way back to you. See, the dog thinks it's their stick, and so they just bring it back somewhere near you so you can walk over and get it and throw it again.

[72:38]

But to bring it all the way back is something the dog does not do, by its untrained nature. It takes a long time for the dog to understand that you want it to bring the stick all the way back to you, and you really want it, and that it's worth it to the dog to make the effort for the relationship. But the dog resists you. You throw the stick, the dog brings it back part of the way, it doesn't bring it. So you say, no, no, that's not quite, you know, and you teach the dog what to do. And the process, if you get angry at the dog and start saying, instead of fetch, you start saying other words, you've kind of lost track of the point of the exercise, and then the relationship starts to break down. The dog does not learn, if you switch from fetch to some other words to start with F or whatever, the dog does not learn better from that. The dog learns from your... patient loving attention it partly likes to bring part of it is not just that to bring the stick back to you to get you to throw it again but that the dog kind of wants to do this thing with you and with you and at the time that the dog understands what you mean and then decides to go along with you that is a moment of interdependence and that is a moment of beauty that is a moment of joy it takes a lot of work though

[74:03]

Until that time happens, the dog's resisting you, and from the dog's point of view, you're resisting the dog. So you interfere, you obstruct each other, but keep working together until you understand, through this obstruction, your interdependence. I mean, realize it. And both of you, the dog goes into another realm of understanding when she gets it. They are in a different world, and the world they're in is the world of interdependence. And the dogs are very happy when they get it. When they finally decide to cooperate and get, when they understand and want to do it, the dog's happy and the trainer's happy. It's a joyous moment. But some people break down in the process and have to be replaced by professional trainers. In other words, people who can remember But the point is that the relationship is not to get the dog to fetch, it's the beauty of the learning. That's the point.

[75:05]

I mean, it's not that big a deal for a dog to bring a stick a few inches closer to you. But to be there when the dog learns is to also be there when you learn the right way to teach. So both of you learn at the same time. In other words, both of you are enlightened at the same moment. This is what life's about. And it takes full self-expression from both parties to do this. The full self-expression of the dog, part of the full self-expression of the dog is to resist. Part of what a dog is, it's my bone, you throw it, I'm not going to bring it back to you. That's part of what a dog is. But a dog is more than that. A dog is also an animal that respects words. And you teach the dog with words. You say, fetch. And it doesn't understand English language. So it gets really angry at you while it's trying to understand. But that anger, that resistance, is what you have to go through.

[76:06]

If the dog was really big, it probably would kill us. You don't train really, really huge animals in fetching. Unless you're really skillful. But that's an example of, you know, of interdependence being realized through the relationship and through the resistance. And it's also frustrating that the animal won't do it. And it's also frustrating for the animal that you keep messing with its game it wants to play. So things can get really violent there for a while. But if you trust the process, the violence doesn't hurt, doesn't disrupt the relationship. You have a strong enough commitment so that you can contain that violent energy. are both parties trying to get the other one to do what they want? Does that make more sense? Okay. Yes. What's your name? Lenslop. Lenslop, yes?

[77:08]

You spoke about being present and vulnerable in a situation that is unresponsive. Can you say a little bit about the outside, when we are in a situation, we're relaxing to the point of one expression that is a personal situation that is unresponsive? Say it again. Well, you're waxing, did you say? And the other person's kind of backing down? Well, one way is to, like, be quiet and listen for a while. And then if nothing happens, you can sort of say, would you like to say something? And then they say, mm-mm. And you say, how do you feel? Did I offend you in some way? Yes.

[78:11]

And then it starts to happen. How? Well, you were talking nonstop for five minutes, you know, just doing this monologue in my face. And then you say, oh, I'm sorry I asked you. Just kidding. Say, oh, oh, I see, yeah. Would you like to do a monologue back at me? No? So when we're talking to someone, it's a dance, and in some sense we take turns. Now I get to assert myself, would you please listen? Now I stop. Now please you assert yourself, I'll listen. But I won't listen too long. I just want to listen for a little while. Then you stop and I get a turn. And ultimately, we want to get to a place where we're almost like, I'm almost like asserting myself and expressing myself and feeling heard by you.

[79:19]

At the same time, I'm listening to you and you're expressing yourself. It's almost impossible to reach that point, but that's the ideal of where we're both expressing ourselves and we're both recognizing and supporting each other. We're both confirming the other and expressing ourselves and feeling confirmed by the other and confirming the other. But that's a dance, that's a real dance, right? Where the two partners are both fully expressing themselves and fully supporting each other. There's a real dance partnership. But to do that verbally, somehow it's even harder sometimes to sing together the same song, but to have a conversation, especially where there's no set form, like the rumba or the tango. That's really creative. And so we have to be patient to get to the place where we listen at the same time we talk.

[80:23]

Salvi and then Renee and Paula and Jenny. My question will end up in intervening and the Bodhisattva precepts, but I'd like to make a first analysis. And in a magazine, a Buddhist magazine, a gentleman made a statement that he was a vegetarian. At the same time, he was not a vegetarian, so he was both, which kind of caught my eye. and I thought about Suzuki Roshi, that you told us a story about the hamburger, and also I know that Suzuki Roshi did eat oysters. He told us that he really liked oysters and some oysters for a certain specific place, which goes into a problem that I'm having,

[81:31]

is that I'm sort of thinking that if I eat, I can stop eating meat, but I still eat chicken and salmon. One of the research is about not killing, and my feeling is I am still eating chicken and salmon, I'm supporting those who are killing salmon and poultry. and also that it's connected with interbeing that we should consider that salmon is needed and poultry is needed and there's so much commercializing going on that who knows what is going to end up in 200 years from now. Do you want to express yourself and have me not express my stuff? Okay, I'd like to say I've heard enough. So do you want to come to a question now?

[82:32]

Yes. I am having a conflict with this because on the other side I see that, you know, Native American, they were very... are conscious about the environment and everything, and they eat it sound, so I'm having a conflict about it. So you're in conflict about this question of what to eat and what to do. Yeah, so we've heard that at one time the Native Americans lived on this land, and maybe they had a peaceful relationship with the environment, and yet they ate buffalo and salmon. Now they didn't kill the buffalo like some people do in mass herds, but they did eat buffalo. But then we hear that they do a ceremony before they go buffalo hunting, and they ask the buffalo, please give us a buffalo.

[83:35]

So my feeling, in one sense, my simple answer is, that not killing means that we do not take life that ultimately unless we feel that the plant or the animal gives itself to us unless we see that it's being given to us there's something uneasy in our heart we're not content unless we can understand how the food is given to us as long as we take the food Either steal it or take it like by taking that life. There's something lacking wisdom there. So for some people who understand, even for them it may be that what they eat is what they ask for and what they only beg. That's what the Buddha just begged. Now, did people ever give the Buddha meat?

[84:38]

We don't know for sure. There's some debate about whether people sometimes gave him meat. So if you were begging and someone gave you meat, you'd have to think about, did you in some way take that life or support the taking of that life And if you do support in some way the taking your life, there's something lacking in your wisdom and something lacking in your contentment. That's what I would say. So if an animal were to die nearby you, a chicken were to come over and drop dead in front of you, and just before it died it went, sorry, sorry, I'm for you. and then boop, he might say, well, maybe I can eat this chicken. This chicken seems to have given her life to me. Maybe you feel like that. Someone else may say, no, he didn't, that chicken didn't say salvi salvi.

[85:40]

Or someone else might say, God, that's amazing, salvi, that chicken just came over and gave her life to you. You might feel like, well, I'm not sure it gave my life to me, but I do think it died, and so I will give it to you. just to make sure that it was given to somebody, so I'll give it to you. That person maybe could eat that chicken. Matter of fact, maybe that chicken's meat should be eaten because it's a good use of that chicken's life, is to support the life of this person maybe, who's maybe a good person and you'd like to help this person. So if it really is given, I think it's okay. And if it's not given, I think there's some problem. If we take something that's not given, there's something wrong. If we take life, No good. Can life give itself to? And someday, now Buddhists usually get cremated, but some Buddhists don't get cremated, or some Buddhists give their bodies away when they die. And then whether we give our body away or not, anyway, we will be eaten. Something's going to eat us.

[86:44]

But it would be nice if we would give ourselves, say, this is my body, please have it. Some people give parts of their body. The Buddha in a previous life gave his body to a tiger. So the tiger who ate his flesh did not kill the Buddha because the Buddha gave himself. So strictly speaking, I think we can only really eat when we understand how this food is given to us. If we take it, even if it's vegetables, it's still taking life. Does the vegetable really give itself to us? We have to look at that and look at that and look at that until we understand how it comes to us. Does it really come to us with the Bodhisattva precepts? Or is there some dishonesty, some lying, some stealing, some killing? Is that what's happening here? If so, it's not quite right there. And we still may go ahead and eat. But we may say, I'm eating, but I don't feel quite right about this, and I want to study more until I can understand when it is that I'm being fed.

[87:52]

But until then, my heart hurts because I don't really understand this is really given to me completely. Even vegetarian Although you didn't want, just like you didn't want somebody, you didn't ask somebody to kill the animal for you. Vegetarian food involves killing perhaps because plants, animals get killed by the plows, animals get killed by tires, by people digging the ground. by pesticides. There's various things that animals die and some plants die. We go down in Green Gulch, we weed. We weed some plants so other plants will grow. So even vegetables, there's some kind of like thing going on there. Do those weeds give their life to us?

[88:58]

Do those weeds say, Okay, we'll make a deal with you. You plant the fields and several billion weeds will grow and you can weed like, you know, 90% of us. And we still have this good deal where we wouldn't be able to grow if you didn't do it. If you really understand that, that we're actually helping the weed population, which we really are here. You know, they're doing really well. They're flourishing here. But we also push some of them away to make space for our favorite food. Is that really a good deal for the weeds? Do they really cooperate? I don't know. Do they really let go and pull them out? There's a question. So vegetarian meals, and then there's vegan too, non-dairy and so on, right? Because of the cruelty of the dairy industry. Some people know dairy. So all these things are questions which are, I think, if you're vulnerable and open, these things hurt you a little bit, or a lot. Some people are in agony over this situation.

[90:01]

over the situation of how the food comes to us. But even they are still eating, but they haven't yet found peace with how they're not sure it's okay for them to be eating these things, even the plants. So being open to that pain is part of the practice, I'm sorry to say. That's why we have to be very kind to ourselves and patient so we can stand the pain of what's involved in us living. until we understand that these animals and plants are given themselves to us to eat, which may take many years of suffering before you see that. I think Renee was next, maybe. She's glad I'm talking about the circle. The circle is bodhisattva precepts lead to being upright, leads to understanding interdependence, leads to great wisdom, leads to bodhisattva precepts.

[91:15]

That's the circle, right? Something you didn't say the other night I wanted to comment on, it seemed to me that when you're talking about the circle, the true importance of it is that if you live a manifestation of the entire circle, that you are not acting karmically. Yeah, if you live that circle, your life goes beyond karma. However, your life is lived in the world of karma, because when you're sitting upright, there's karma all around you. And one of the karma creators you think is you. You're doing this, you're doing that, but you're in the middle of that. There's something which is called just studying karma, and studying karma is not karma. Finally, you understand maybe that you don't do these things, and then you're not even doing any karma, but you still live in the world where a lot of people around you are thinking that they're doing this and they're doing that.

[92:14]

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