I don't know if any of you read the description for this course, but I'm not attached to it, but I'll start anyway by honoring it as a basic framework. It says that the Buddhas teach that all life is precious and the Buddhas offer practices to help us realize our full potential. They offer practices to living beings to help them realize the full potential of a living being. The full potential of a living being is... Buddha, to be a Buddha. So they offer practices so that living beings can become Buddhas. And then it says the fundamental problem of our existence is ignorance.

[01:12]

The fundamental problem of our life is ignorance. And the suffering, the misery that arises in dependence upon ignorance. So in this class we will offer an introduction to yogic practices from the Buddhist tradition, both general Buddhist and Zen Buddhist in particular. offer yogic practices which are intended to free us and others from gross and subtle ignorance, gross and subtle manifestations of ignorance, and thus liberate us and all beings from suffering. Each class will include periods of sitting meditation, which you did, right?

[02:14]

And walking meditation, so you've already done that two parts. And then there'll be a talk and discussion. So now is the talk part. So I said before that the fundamental problem, the fundamental affliction of our life is ignorance. Suffering is not actually a fundamental problem. It's a derivative of the fundamental problem, which is ignorance. Fortunately, I don't know fortunately, I think it's fortunate that we can't get by with being ignorant. Turns out that when we're ignorant, we're miserable. Not just have some pain, like, you know, Like when mothers give birth to children, it hurts a lot for most of them.

[03:22]

But it's not misery necessarily to give birth. Sometimes women feel it's really one of the most wonderful moments of their life when they give birth. But it hurts because it's extremely stimulating to have this tremendous change. And a lot of the pain we have in our life is perfectly healthy, not a problem at all. Like pain in your tooth is helpful, so you can go to the dentist. Pain in your ankle is helpful to know that you sprained your ankle and stopped walking for a little while, and so on. Various pains are actually not a problem. But there's a pain that comes from ignorance, which is a big problem, super problem. It's terrible. It's a terrible misery we have in this world. because of ignorance. And you know about that, right? On the way over here, you know, I listened to radio and, you know, a while ago, I don't know when exactly, but maybe the end of the last century, most crazy people were put in jail in this country.

[04:40]

And then in the early part of the century, they switched from putting crazy people in jail, mentally ill people in jail, putting them into institutions. And that had all kinds of problems. So then they released them into the society. And now they're starting to come back into jail again. In the Chicago area, the figures may be off, but in their jail system, they have like 10,000 people now. And 1,000 of them are mentally ill people. And this show, you know, they didn't just tell you about the people in the hospital, you got to hear them. Like, you know, they went into the hospital and you could hear these people talking. You could hear very lovely nurses, not nurses, but therapists and psychiatrists talking to them, very compassionate people talking to them, really good people. really good people, like you, loving people, talking to people who really are incredibly miserable, incredibly miserable.

[05:55]

They've got suffering coming from every direction. A thousand of them just right there in the Chicago area, in that one kind of facility. And it's, you know, but it isn't just them that are suffering. The people who are helping them are suffering, too, to some extent. It's a big problem. So the Buddhas up here in this world to show us a way to understand so that we can help people become free of this severe misery And it turns out that the practice which sets ourselves and others free is a practice of happiness. It's a happy practice. It's a joyful practice.

[06:59]

It's a practice of peace. It's a good deal. It's a wonderful deal that the Buddhas give us these practices. They give practices so that we can stop being ignorant, so that we can become free of the ignorance and free of the suffering which is derived from ignorance. So the yogic practices which I hope to bring up for you during this six weeks Our practice is to set you free from any ignorance that you might be involved with. And most of us are involved in at least a little ignorance. Even subtle ignorance is sufficient to keep us pretty miserable.

[08:06]

Okay? The root of misery is ignorance, but the root of freedom from misery is love, is compassion. And the realization of freedom from misery is wisdom. And after being liberated from ignorance and misery by wisdom, then we continue to practice love, but now the love is purified of ignorance. So we can be like those people in the Chicago jails.

[09:07]

And I'm not saying better than them, because I don't know if they're Buddhas or not. But as good as them and to be able to sustain the kind of love that they're expressing in their work, to do it really skillfully without getting burnout, without quitting because it's so hard to face all the suffering. So the goal of Buddhism is not just personal liberation. complete enlightenment and having the ability to teach others how to become free, to have a purified love. But at the beginning of the practice we need to have love, we need to have compassion. So before we get into these practices, we need to work on practices of compassion.

[10:15]

And I want to say one more time, not one more time, but to say a little bit more about the ignorance before we get into the compassion, and that is, this ignorance is not just, well, the Buddhist word that is usually used for ignorance is avidya, avidya. And aa is a negative prefix, and vidya means knowledge. So it sounds like what they mean is that ignorance is a lack of knowledge or no knowledge or not knowing. But it's not like that kind of thing. It's something that's directly opposed to wisdom. It's not just like you don't know something. It's like you actually hold another view which blocks your wisdom, which blocks seeing how things are. And the basic... The basic problem is a kind of a preconception of inherent existence, the acronym PIE.

[12:03]

We have a kind of an instinctive, we have a kind of an instinct, a mental instinct to mental prejudice to see that things that we're aware of have inherent existence separate from us, and therefore we have inherent existence separate from other things. And this very simple and basic preconception, this instinctive belief, is not only contrary to reality, but it is a source of pain and cruelty. Like another thing I heard on the radio today is this guy who's a member of some church that's the member, and this guy who's in this church, it's a white supremacist church, and part of their doctrine is that they're actually a different species

[13:15]

from people of color. And they feel that they... And one of their members just recently went on a shooting spree and shot, I think, six Orthodox Jews in Chicago and then shot some black people in Indiana and then shot some Hispanic people around there and shot some Asian people. And the interviewer was asking this representative of this church if he feels any, if he met these people, the parents of these people who were shot, or the relatives of these people shot, what would he say to them? He said, I wouldn't say anything. He said, don't you feel any compassion for the families of these people that have been murdered? He said, no. He said, we're told we don't have to feel compassion for non-whites. He said, we feel compassion for animals. but not non-white humans, because animals don't threaten us.

[14:19]

So the white supremacists are afraid that the white people are going to be eliminated by the non-whites, and Jews are considered non-white, according to this church. So they have no compassion for the suffering of everybody who's not white. Can you believe that? It's happening in this country, and this church has quite a few chapters. This one particular church has 40 chapters. I don't know how many people are in the chapters, but that's just one church, you know, like that. There's actually people who have that kind of idea, and that's based on the idea of inherent existence, that there really is such a thing as a white person. and a black person, and they're separate. They're even a different species. You can go to that. So, you know, they're not really human. And not only that, but they're a threat to the humans because, you know, they're a threat to the humans who are white.

[15:29]

So this is, this sounds like a kind of like, you know, you know, preconception of inherent existence, what's the problem? It is the source of all human cruelty and perversion. Without that idea, we would treat everybody like our eyeballs. We would treat everybody as precious as our own blood. We would treat everybody like the person we love the most, us. because we'd understand that there is no nothing existing all by itself. That's just an instinctive ignorance that we have. We must overcome it and we must help others overcome it. We must do this if we want to be happy and if we want to be happy.

[16:33]

If we want peace, We have to do this. I'm sure you all want peace. By the way, there's a whole bunch of people in this room from Sacramento. Let's hear it for Sacramento. There isn't much clapping because most people are from Sacramento. And they don't want to clap for themselves. But, you know, I think this shows, you know, this is real enthusiasm for coming to study Dharma. I really appreciate the effort. It's great. The yogic practices which help us become free of these deep ignorance are really different from the ignorance. The ignorance is like real easy to do.

[17:39]

It's like instinctive. You don't have to work at being ignorant. Although people do work at it, you don't have to. Just relax and you'll be ignorant. But you can't relax too much because then you might forget about being ignorant. To actually let go of ignorance is a radical practice. It means to go to the root and let go of what you're holding on to and forget about what you're always remembering. Such a shift is not easy to do and it's only possible if you feel tremendous support And that's why we have to start with compassion. In order to do these very deep, deep practices, to go to the root of our ignorance, we have to feel supported.

[18:46]

We have to feel love and we have to feel loved. We have to feel great love and we have to feel greatly loved. So, one more sort of example of how difficult it is to practice. In the first teaching the Buddha gave, which is recorded now as the scripture. It wasn't a scripture at first. They were just talking, but now it's been written down, so it's called a scripture. And he gave it to five people. His first little lecture was to five people. These were five people which he had previously practiced self-mortification yoga with. He and these five people were like very intensely practicing self-mortification as a yoga which they hoped would set them free from suffering.

[19:56]

And it didn't. It did not. It made them... It was painful. And these guys got really good at inflicting pain on themselves. And then after that, doing more. But it just was painful. It didn't set him free, and that was what they wanted, and it didn't work. After the Buddha found the truth, he went back to those. He saw his old friends, and he told them that he'd found the truth, and then he gave them teachings. And this teaching was the first teaching that we traditionally say he gave. And it's called The Scripture of Setting the Wheel of the Dharma Rolling. And in that scripture, he says, well, I'll just read it. Do I have it here? No, I don't, so I'll say it.

[21:05]

He said, there's two extremes that should be avoided by one who has left home to seek liberation. One extreme is devotion to addiction to sense pleasure. The other extreme is devotion to self-mortification. The Buddha, the Tathagata, avoiding these two extremes, has found the middle way. That's an abbreviation of what he said.

[22:10]

To elaborate a little bit, he said, there are two extremes. One is devotion to addiction to sense pleasures. It is low, common, unworthy, unholy, and unprofitable. The other is devotion to self-mortification. It is painful, unworthy, unholy, and unprofitable. The Buddha has found the middle way which is serene, which is peaceful, which is calm, which is liberation, which is nirvana.

[23:16]

So there it is. Just avoid these extremes. Now, the Buddha did not say to avoid sense pleasure. He said avoid the extreme of devotion to addiction to sense pleasure or indulgence in sense pleasure. Sense pleasure is just something that happens sometimes. Did you hear that bird chirp? To me, that kind of like, that little pleasant little thing happened in my heart when I heard, it keeps happening. Every time that bird chirps, I feel good right around my heart. How about you? Some of you do, some of you don't. Anyway, you know, it happens. Birds chirp, you feel good. It's okay. It's all right.

[24:27]

It's okay to feel pleasure, sensual pleasure. The extreme is to be devoted to indulging in it, to be devoted to the addiction in it. And addiction means to use the sound of a bird to distract you from facing the music, the music of misery, the music of the mundane world. It's okay to hear the bird and have it be just accompaniment to facing the suffering of the world. So you can hear the bird and you can hear these poor, miserable, tortured beings in Chicago. And you can feel good to hear the bird and you can cry when you hear the cries of the world.

[25:33]

the pleasure of the bird doesn't distract you from the suffering of the world, then it's not an extreme. It's not something you have to avoid. If you try to avoid the pleasure of the bird, that will turn into self-mortification. Lock yourself in a closet, stuff your ears with cotton so you can't hear the bird songs anymore. Keep the doors shut so you can't see the sunrise. And, you know, if people bring you food, make sure that it's not good. It has to be pretty bad because if you get hungry enough, even almost anything's gonna start tasting good. So actually, what you should do is have them bring you lots of bad food. then you probably won't feel any pleasure. Or, like the Buddha did, just have them bring you like a sesame seed a day.

[26:37]

That won't taste good and you'll feel pretty bad. So you don't have to worry then. Just stay in the closet with a sesame seed a day and central pleasure may be fairly well eliminated. But even then, maybe it'll still come up, you know. and you've got to get rid of that too. That's a self-mortification. Now some people, even that isn't enough. So what they do is they, like kids today now, they gouge their flesh, right? They cut themselves. Because by having that pain in their arm, it distracts them from this deep, deep misery. That self-mortification has a distraction. addiction to self-mortification. Self-mortification is sometimes fine. Like if you have to do some really hard work, you know, like to get down there and stick your hands, you know, in the dirt and get all messed up.

[27:50]

It's kind of self-mortifying. But, you know, you're not doing it to distract yourself from suffering. You're doing it because somebody needs you. to do some dirty work. My first job in the monastery was, I was a plumber, you know. I was very familiar with the septic tank. And before that, I used to work at a rehabilitation clinic for paraplegics and quadriplegics and what do you call it, hemiplegics. I used to do dirty work. I used to, you know, help people I used to reach inside people to help them evacuate themselves. I used to pull their feces out of them because they didn't have any muscles, so I would do that for them. And other dirty work I would do, but it was kind of self-mortifying, but I wasn't addicted to it.

[28:52]

I just did it during work hours. And only when they needed it, you know. I didn't go around and say, anybody, you know. And like my dog, somebody told me my dog, my little, this is not a picture of my dog. See this, Marianne? Marianne, my dog loves Marianne. This is not a picture of my dog, but my dog was kind of like this, and her name's Rozzy. She's much cuter than this. She's super cute. She's super precious, isn't she? She's incredible. Anyway, somebody told me she had worms, so I dissected her poop for a few weeks. Take it off, look it up, see anything in there? It's a kind of self-mortification, but it's... I wasn't using it as an addiction.

[29:59]

It didn't distract me from my suffering. In Buddhism, devotion... to these distractions, devotion to these addictions. It's not just addiction, it's a devotion to addiction. And I asked people at Tazahar recently, I was talking about this middle way with them. I said, does anybody here feel devotion to these extremes? And some people said, yeah, I do. And I got people who were devoted to both styles, and some people did both. But actually, some people are mostly into self-mortification, like a lot of people are into torturing themselves with self-criticism. And of course, a very common thing among Zen students is criticizing others, seeing how creepy other people are, and then hating themselves for thinking that way.

[31:06]

You know, they feel terrible about hating all these people and think how creepy they are, and then they feel even worse about how bad they are to be like that. And this pretty much distracts them from basic suffering. Because, you know, you can control it yourself. You can do it when you want to. It's kind of you get to select the suffering you have. And you can turn it up, keep it going. It's a distraction. One person told me, she said, do you know how devoted some of us are to distracting ourselves from our basic suffering? Do you realize that some of us will do anything to avoid facing it? We'd rather die than face it, practically. So I really appreciate that comment, that this really is... Devotion means an ardent, you know, it's ardent, it's intense.

[32:16]

Many of us are intensely involved in avoiding facing our basic suffering. Because the basic suffering doesn't come on your schedule. It comes in this kind of rhythm with your ignorance, which you're not in control of because you're not looking at your ignorance. So real suffering is coming not on your schedule. That's why we like to have suffering that we can turn on. Don't we? Or, anyway, ways of getting away from the basic suffering. To wean ourselves from these extremes, we have to have something positive. Not positive as another distraction, but positive to... that positively encourage us to face the basic situation, to practice the middle way.

[33:17]

Again, that's why we need compassion. So compassion, what is it? Fundamentally, it's being in touch with suffering and your own and others and wishing yourself and others to be free of it. That's kind of the fundamental aspect of it. But it's not just a feeling and a wish, although it is a feeling and a wish, has a feeling and a wish. It's also active practices, too, like patience. In order to practice compassion fully, we have to practice patience.

[34:25]

In order to feel compassion fully, you have to practice patience. So patience is part of compassion. We have to learn how to be patient with our pain. That's compassion. Generosity, giving, joyfully giving is part of compassion. Ethical discipline is part of compassion. Enthusiasm to do the previously mentioned practices is part of compassion. Concentration is part of compassion. Loving kindness is part of compassion. In other words, wishing that people would be happy, wishing that yourself and others would be happy, is part of compassion.

[35:31]

Joy in other people's success is part of compassion. Equanimity is part of compassion. Wanting to help others be free, wanting yourself to be free of suffering, And being willing to work to help people be free of suffering is giving. And it's giving which is joyful. It's not the kind of giving where you give and have a little bit of regret about giving. That's not compassion. Compassion is not exactly fun, but it's joyful. One of the closest kind of traps around compassion is depression. Compassion is not depression, but it's easy to slip from compassion into depression.

[36:38]

Like listening to the radio today, it would be easy to get depressed about that jail scene in Chicago. But I didn't get depressed. I did not get depressed. I felt good. listening to that. That radio show inspired me. I felt joy for those psychiatrists and therapists I heard. I felt joy for them. I felt joy at their spiritual success. I cried for the men I heard on the radio, but I felt good that I could cry. I felt good that I care about them. I feel good that I'm horrified by this white supremacist, and I feel good that I feel compassion for him. We're not happy about suffering.

[37:39]

We're happy to be open to suffering. Being open to suffering is giving, and it should be joyful. And there's an actual practice of giving to actually be working, to actually be giving, you know, to actually be giving all day long. Try to learn how to give every moment. That may seem like quite a... high level of giving but that is that's why not why not make each moment of your life a gift to all beings why not feel like you're sitting here right now in this class is your gift right now and feel joyful about it

[38:46]

If you don't, you're just missing a chance to practice compassion. You're missing a chance to have what you're doing right now be a kindness that you're doing for yourself, for your neighbors in this room, and for all beings. Why miss the opportunity? And I would say, you know, a little threat to you, sort of like, almost like a threat, if you miss the opportunity, then... You're not going to feel love at that moment. You're going to miss a chance to love. And when we miss chances of loving, we miss chances of feeling loved. When we feel love, we feel loved. And some people say, I think some people think, well, I feel loved, but I don't feel, I feel loved, but I don't feel love.

[39:53]

And I, you know, I'm not going to, I don't want to be rigid about that, but I really think that it's hard for us to understand how we're loved if we don't love. Maybe you can understand a little bit how you're loved without loving yourself, without you yourself loving yourself and others. But I don't think you can understand the full extent of it. I don't think so. And put it positively, if you can really wholeheartedly love yourself and some others and then all others, you will understand how much love you're getting, which is incalculably great. Not incalculably small. Like I was thinking today, yeah, some people feel, some people, many people feel like I love but nobody loves me.

[40:57]

A lot of people feel like that. Have you ever met anybody like that? I know a lot of mothers who feel that way. They love their kids and they don't think their kids love them. I know a lot of men who love women, but they don't think the women love them back. And a lot of women who feel they love the man, and the man doesn't love them back. Or a lot of men who think they love a man, who don't think they love him, and so on. There's a lot of different patterns where people feel like I love, but I don't feel loved back. Okay? So that's one kind of problem. I would say the solution to that is love more. If you love enough, you're going to see it coming back. And of course, you know, of course I can prove it because if you say, well, I don't see you coming back, I just say do more. You're not doing it enough. Yeah, but I'm doing a lot. Not enough. You're not doing enough.

[42:00]

I have confidence in that. But some people actually think, well, I don't love anybody else, but I think some people love me. But, you know, you don't really understand how much they love you until you love. Like some kids, you know, they hate their parents, but they think their parents love them. Say, yeah, they love me, but I hate them. They're total jerks, you know. But they love me. I say they don't understand their parents love them. If they would then, you know, of course their parents are jerks. Just set that aside, okay? If anybody's a jerk, my parents are jerks. Fine. But do you love them? No. Okay, fine. Then you don't understand how they love you.

[43:04]

When you love them, you'll start to understand a little bit about how much they love you. But you don't have to love them necessarily. You can love some other people instead. That'll also help you. The more you love any direction, any way, it'll help you understand how it's coming to you all many other ways. Like my parents, my parents were very loving to me. You know, they were, but I never could, when they said it, I also felt like I didn't understand what they were saying. Say, I love you. I said, I love you. Fine, thank you. I know you do. They acted like it, too, you know. They said it, they acted like it. They were really nice to me, both of them. I had two. But I always kind of felt like, I'm missing something here. I did, I did, I felt like that, just kind of, I know you do, kind of. But when I became a parent and I saw my daughter born, at the moment she was born, I loved the way I never loved before.

[44:24]

And at that moment, I understood how my parents loved me in a way I never understood before. Just a whole new, I got it. I'm the missing link. We haven't got into these practices yet. But like I say, they're awesome. They're like, you know, you must be kidding kind of practices. Okay? Who, me? No. Who, anybody? You must be kidding. Let's have another course. These are like all-out radical practices to address all-out radical ignorance and create full-fledged understanding. But you and I cannot do these practices. Nobody can do these practices. They aren't that kind of practices.

[45:26]

That's the kind of practices they are, is they aren't that kind of practices that you do. They are practices that you do together with everybody. They're practices you do together with all the people who love you and all the people you love. That's the kind of practices they are. We are not strong enough. We are not smart enough. We are not courageous enough to do it on our own. Nobody by power can do these practices. That isn't the kind of practices they are. They're far greater than that. But these are practices that can be practiced, can be realized if you love, if you feel enough compassion. And you can feel enough compassion. You can feel as much compassion as you can feel. You can feel fully compassionate. Your heart can be full. And that's as full as it needs to be, just full. You can love without holding back at all. You can give completely and joyfully.

[46:29]

It is possible. And when you love that way, you can feel that you're loved that way. And you can feel, you can understand that the Buddhas, what Buddhas are, is the support that you get to practice. We have to understand that. We have to feel held and supported by them. We have to feel their complete, unhindered compassion, which means we have to also be full of our compassion for all beings. We don't really feel compassion for Buddhas, you know. Buddhas don't exactly need our compassion. They just need our, what do you call it? Well, they need our love, but not our compassion, because they're all fine. we need buddhas we need these buddhas to help us and they are helping us but we have to accept that how do we accept it well one practice again is giving but but one that's really close you know in some sense i think really uh clear is patience

[47:53]

Patience is so handy and so relevant because there's so much suffering in our lives. And basically what I would say patience is, is that you do yourself the favor of experiencing your suffering in the smallest possible dosages. It doesn't mean you limit it. You just take it in the smallest possible dosages. And it turns out it is being delivered in the smallest possible dosages. That's the way it's coming to you. I mean, sometimes it's really intense, but it's coming to you in the littlest pieces at a time. Just one moment at a time, it's coming to you. Even the most intense pain still is delivered to you one little chunk at a time. One little pain at a time. And minor, lesser pains are also delivered to you in little chunks, little pieces.

[48:55]

So, patience is to feel the suffering of your life, feel the suffering of the world, hear the suffering of the world, see the suffering of the world in these little momentary little installments, then you can face it. If you get them in big balloon payments, big installments, well, then you're going to probably say, I can't handle it. It's too much. I'm out of here. Give me my addictions. Forget it. Forget this suffering. Ridiculous. This is crazy. No. You can't stand it. And it's not loving to expect yourself to take big chunks of anxiety. You know, like take five minutes of anxiety? Forget it.

[49:57]

An hour of anxiety? No. It's too big. It'll wipe you out. Wipe you out. But a second of anxiety, you have a chance. If you take big chunks of suffering, you feel it, and then you take a big vacation. you know you go off into these extremes and then you know sometime later you come back say oh yeah my life where is it oh yeah that thing oh let's get out of here again you know no wonder i no wonder i'm never here this is like total this is like total pits i'm smart Yeah, we're smart, but we're ignorant and we're suffering. So part of love is patience, is to help yourself settle into the place where you're going to find happiness.

[51:04]

And the place you're going to find happiness is in the mundane world of suffering. This is where Buddhas are born. Buddha's seat is in the middle of our suffering. That's where Buddhas sit. That's where they sit. But they don't sit there and say, okay, now just save up a lot of anxiety and then dump it on me. They just handle it one at a time, just moment by moment. Buddhas practice patience too. Patience is loving. Patience is kind to you. Kind to yourself. And it's very kind to others, too, because if you handle your suffering in little pieces like that, you can meet people without freaking out. People can come up to you and do their thing to you, which is very intense and painful sometimes. If you take it in these little pieces, you can not slug them. You can like not abandon them.

[52:07]

You can like not passive-aggressive them. You can like not hurt them out of fear of the next installment of suffering that they bring you. Some people, some people we're practically allergic to. We can't help it, you know. It's just like we're practically allergic to them. Their pheromones just drive us nuts. And other people, we can't help it, we're really attracted to them. We can't help it.

[53:12]

It's just the way it is. It's just chemistry. Some people we like, some people we don't like, but we can love everybody. We can love the people who we're allergic to. We have to take our allergies into account and practice patience with them. Don't be unrealistically cavalier about how much pain you can take. But can you be enthusiastic about practicing patience? Well, that's another loving thing to do, to be enthusiastic about doing practices, to do the other practices of compassion, to be enthusiastic about practicing loving-kindness.

[54:24]

But I feel maybe this is enough of me rambling on like this. Some of you look like you've had enough. Some of you even look like maybe you've had too much, I'm sorry. Put your glasses on, you'll see the rest. How you doing? You okay? Is there anything you want to discuss? Now it's the discussion time. Yes? I was wondering about how to feel compassion for someone who's violent against other people, separating. When you feel anger and you want to

[55:32]

compassion. You don't want to feel self-pity. That's my advice. I want to feel compassion. But I sense that I'm separating and I'm feeling actually self-pity for them rather than compassion. And I feel angry also. So I wonder how can I get to compassion? You mean, are you talking about a case where you're observing somebody who's being violent? So you see somebody who's being violent and then what happens? But didn't you skip over the pain? Didn't you feel any pain when you saw it? I feel pain, yeah. I feel pain. I feel sad. I feel a lot of grief that that exists. I have a hard time. Okay, so you've got a whole bunch of things going on there. You've got sadness and grief and pain. Which is... Sadness and grief, I would say they're kind of similar. Sadness and grief... Sadness, for me, sadness is a healthy thing.

[56:39]

Sadness is a healthy thing which is an antidote to me clinging to something that's not there. Maybe that may have been one time, or may never have been, but anyway, I thought it was there, and now I've lost it, but I'm still holding on to it. Sadness is a medicine which helps me let go of what's not there anymore. So sadness is good to feel. But anger is easier for people oftentimes than sadness. So instead of feeling sad, they get angry. But also, even if you weren't sad, if you see violence, you might feel pain of it and get angry about that too. I think it's okay to get angry at violence. itself but anger at the violence itself is probably not might not be coming from you avoiding your own pain if the anger is coming from avoiding your own pain then it's probably not helpful anger and it's probably not towards the

[57:57]

violence itself is probably towards the person because the violence doesn't so much hurt you it's that somebody would do the violence that hurt you it's that people do violent things that bothers us not the violence and the violence is uh... if it's not towards you it doesn't necessarily hurt you but when somebody does it to hurt somebody that hurts you i think And if you skip over feeling the pain of that and get angry, then you just missed a chance to love. What I'm suggesting is that if I see somebody do something and it hurts me and I practice patience with that pain, that I can address what they're doing if I think it's helpful, from patience.

[59:00]

And with just as much energy, and probably more in a certain way, and certainly more appropriate energy, than the energy I bring when my energy, when my activity is coming from avoiding my own situation, my pain over what the person is doing. What do you think? Does that make sense to you? Yeah, it sounds very, very intricate. And I hear that when we experience anger, I experience rage. And my rage can be escaping my suffering, or it actually can be something that's occurring that might be helpful. Right. That's right. Rage can be helpful. But when rage is avoiding what's happening with you, it's kind of inappropriate. It's not relevant. You're running away from your life.

[60:03]

It's another kind of addiction. I think it's sort of like self-mortification. You're hurting yourself by being angry as a way of avoiding feeling fear, sadness, grief, or anxiety. Is there a sign of which it is? Oh, yes, there is. What are the signs? One sign is, am I like totally like rooted in my pain and patient? Like, you know, okay, this is painful and I am here and I'm not running away and I'm Hold on to your seats. Here comes some rage. But this is not, I'm not trying to hurt anybody. I'm just going to shout now.

[61:04]

And this isn't even my shout. This is everybody's shout. And here it comes. And I just happen to be suffering, and I'm here suffering, practicing patience with my suffering, but I'm also a mouthpiece for somebody that's going to say something about this thing. I've had people get mad at me that way, the way I'm talking about, where it was rage, and it wasn't because they were running away from their pain. They were like right there, sitting in the middle of their pain. They loved me enough to feel the way they felt. And they said what they had to say. And it wasn't that person. It was somebody much bigger than that person. It was 10 feet tall. That person was speaking for everybody. But she wasn't running away from her own pain.

[62:06]

She had pain over something about me. And she was willing to feel that pain. And she did. But then something else came. And that was very helpful for that rage to come. And when that rage came, it hurt. But, you know, it didn't harm me. It's kind of like, okay, I get the picture. Thank you. I get the picture. Okay, okay, okay. I quiet down, you know, and just listen to the truth. But if that person didn't love me enough, and love herself enough to feel what she felt. Then her comment would be like, you know, excuse me for saying so, but I would just like, I would slap it away like a little fly. Because in fact it would be irrelevant, even if she was saying the same content, exactly the same words even.

[63:13]

But since she wasn't sitting on her seat, the Buddha wasn't talking. She'd have no authority because she wasn't willing. She didn't love me and herself enough to feel her pain and speak from her pain and her patience. But when a person sits in their pain and speaks to us from it, there's respect for themselves and there's respect for us and there's respect for the pain. And they have authority. and we have a pretty good chance of being able to listen so that's another reason why you see patience is giving you give yourself to patience so that you can give yourself to another because you're coming from where you are you're coming from where you are you're coming from the way you're suffering right now not a theoretical suffering but the way you're actually suffering

[64:17]

That's your authority. That's your virtue. That's your love. You're taking good care of yourself and you can take good care of others from that seat of enlightenment. If you won't sit in that place, you can't sit in the seat of enlightenment. The Buddha said, the way he actually said it literally is, I don't say that someone who is afraid of pain can sit on the seat of enlightenment. I don't say that someone who shrinks away from pain can sit on the seat of enlightenment. I don't say that someone who's interested in their own pleasure can sit on the seat of enlightenment. Who's seeking a serene state for themselves, they can't sit there. But

[65:20]

And that's what he said. But I say, if you can sit on this seat where you're not concerned, you're not seeking your own serenity, if you can sit on that seat, that's the seat where serenity is found. That's where the middle way is. And the middle way is serene. But if you're trying to get serenity, you're not in the seat of enlightenment. You're off in these extremes and you're suffering. And now you're suffering. you're not serene and now you're not serene but you're in denial you're suffering in the dark and you're causing damage you're hurting yourself and others if you're not sitting on your seat I'm hurting others if I don't sit on my seat if I'm not practicing love I hurt myself and I hurt others So rage is sometimes very helpful.

[66:24]

But, you know, passive aggression, which almost nobody even notices happening, just a little withdrawal, a secret withdrawal of love, without any signal, can be extremely devastating and really cruel. and coming from not being willing to feel your own pain. And the thrill of the cruelty distracts us very nicely from our own pain. Because we know, this is really a good one, and they can't get me for it. Because, like, no marks, you know? No bruises, you know? Just a person who has been ruined, that's all. But they can't prove I did it. What did I do? I didn't do anything. Who, me? Anything else you want to bring up?

[67:38]

Yes, yes? You were talking about compassion. in a way you seem to be saying that just feeling compassion is an act. Yeah, it is. And when I feel compassion and don't act on it, then I... What did you say? When you're feeling compassion? I'll use the example of what happened in Sacramento, the synagogues in Sacramento. Yes. You know, I mean, you couldn't watch the television or anything without just feelings, pain, compassion, sadness, all those things. Yes. But then I criticize myself for not acting. I feel like there's no value to that if I don't act, if I don't do something. Uh-huh. Okay. So...

[68:41]

What is it? The bodhisattva, the enlightening being of infinite compassion is called the one who listens to the cries of the world. The initial act of compassion is that you listen. You hear the cries. That's the initial thing. it is a receptive mode of being to listen. Listening is not like, you know, something you do. But the things you do, the things you do are in the realm of delusion. But hearing is in some sense not quite as deluded as like talking. Because you think you can talk, but you don't really think you can hear all by yourself.

[69:48]

You know you've got to have a sound. So hearing is closer to reality in some ways. It can be seen as passive, but it is a life function. And for you to hear somebody's suffering is... is the name, is sort of the name of the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion, is that you listen to it. And sometimes, sometimes as you know, listening to somebody is very, very helpful. That someone's crying and you're there listening, that's all sometimes a person wants is somebody to hear their cry. Now you could say, hmm, I hear you. You could say that, you could speak that, but if they can tell without you saying anything that you're hearing. That your life is, your activity, although it's not an action in the sense that you're doing it, your activity isn't at that time hearing.

[70:52]

That's what you're up to. And you're hearing them cry. And that sometimes is very helpful to someone, that someone listens. You know, the people at Zen Center, you know, they got their problems. But, you know, occasionally they're helpful. And one of the ways I've heard that they're helpful is that sometimes people come to Zen Center or they meet Zen Center students around the world and they say, you know, they listen. And I think that some of the people who practice meditation for a while, they actually start learning how to listen to people. and even look like they're listening. But some people are listening but don't look like they're listening, but they actually are. But some people are listening and you can somehow sense that they're listening and that's really helpful to people sometimes.

[71:55]

And the fact that you hear this and you care about that, even though you didn't do anything, you are transformed by their suffering. You're a different person And the Jewish people in Sacramento, whether they know it or not, are helped by the fact that you listened to that, that you heard those cries. It helps them. You may help other ways later, but just hearing was the initial help. Another way you can help is you can help by being patient with the pain you feel when you hear. That would help you and help them because they don't need, if somebody's house is bombed, they don't need sensitive people to hear about that and then become non-functional. They don't need like, okay, my house got bombed and then also 800 people had heart attacks. they don't need that what they need is the house got bombed 800 people heard about that and practice patience when they heard it and we're on duty you know ready to do something helpful if something helpful is needed so if they call you and say okay we want you to do something you can you can you can do something because you haven't decommissioned yourself by your reaction to the pain of hearing that because you took care of yourself

[73:20]

And you didn't also go out and start, I don't know what, you know, and do some violence to who you think did it. Which also they don't need. So, practicing patience is another thing you can do. Okay? Now, then giving. You give yourself to their welfare. You give yourself to the practice of patience and so on. You practice ethics. You be careful what you say about all this. You try to practice right speech. You talk to your friends about it, not in a way to cause disunity in the community, but to congeal the community and do something positive to support those who have been harmed and to let those who have harmed, let them know that you definitely are opposed to this. Shakyamuni Buddha was very, very strong on non-violence. But he wasn't violent. But he was very clear about how bad violence is when human beings do violence to each other to hurt.

[74:31]

But he wasn't violent about the way he did it. He was gentle about the way he was opposed to violence. He was very strong and non-violent. Well, I just saw some big thing, but it's too late to bring it up. I'll bring it up from there later. Kate? The patient's in pain. I really appreciate these words.

[75:35]

And it seems that when I practice patience and pain, it allows sadness and grief to help get loose from some of the pain. Yes, sadness and grief are to help us get loose from the, you know, the the ropes that are pulling us down into depression so if you can feel sadness you let go of the things that you're that you're holding on to that aren't there anymore and you become you become refreshed like i often use the example of like bamboo and snow so when when when bam when the snow falls on bamboo under the right conditions it sticks to the bamboo but the bamboo bends Oak trees don't.

[76:36]

At Tassajara, we had a big snowstorm many years ago, and the oak trees broke in the snow. They cracked. About half of them broke from the weight of the snow. But we have bamboo there. The bamboo, same snow. Bamboo just starts to bend when the snow builds up. And it just keeps bending and [...] bending. And when it comes way, way, it bends all the way down, you know. And then the snow falls off and then it bounces back. So sadness is like that. Sadness is, you know, if you hold on to things that aren't there anymore, sadness is a way for you to go down. And the more you hold on, sadness lets you be bent more by what you're holding on. You feel the weight of what you're holding on, and you go down. When you go all the way down, what you're holding on drops off. Then you're refreshed, and you're back to face new suffering, but fresh suffering, not suffering from holding on to what's gone.

[77:47]

So sadness is good. Sadness is something you feel. Depression is something you think about, and it's from thinking about it over and over, and it's the psychochemical disturbances that happen from that. So sadness and grief are really good for us people who have some attachments. Anything else for tonight? So please practice love this week towards yourself and towards others by generating loving kindness towards yourself and others, by being generous, by being patient, by practicing the ethical precepts, by being enthusiastic, and by concentration by being present with whatever's happening with yourself and with yourself and others.

[78:54]

Work in these many ways and we'll see if we need to do more work on love before we face this awesome task of weaning ourselves from ignorance. Okay? So we did all the things that they said we would do. So please take care of yourself really well. And take care of everybody that you meet really well, please.

[79:35]

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