Today I offer these words to the path of peace and harmony among all beings.  In particular, I want to emphasize the path of peace and harmony among all different religious traditions and all different spiritual practices.

I sense that there is a clash, a disharmony manifesting among beings, that beings are at war with each other in some realms and that different religions are clashing and competing and disrespecting each other.  Or maybe I should say, practitioners of different forms of religion and different forms of spiritual life seem to be clashing and not appreciating each other.  What I might say could be said by a person who practices the teachings of the Buddha or the teachings of Jesus Christ or the teachings of Muhammed or the teachings of Moses or the teachings of Confucius.  I don’t want what I’m saying to be just something that can be spoken of by a disciple of Buddha.  And I want what I say to somehow demonstrate respect and appreciation of all religious traditions… maybe more basically and universally, respect and appreciation for all forms of life, for all beings, even if they aren’t practicing in a particular tradition--like rats.  Usually it’s just humans that practice some particular religion.  I think that rats  actually are practicing all religions, but they’re not practicing them in a sectarian way; they don’t think, “Buddhism is better than Christianity”—as far as I know.

The place I want to live this life is the place where all religions are in harmony. It’s the place and the way that all religions are working together in peace and harmony right now.  I want to live in a place where that’s the case right now, and I want to work to realize that in the places where we can’t see it yet.  And I don’t want to then make this way the Buddhist way.  I want all religions to equally share in this place, this way, of peace and harmony. I want to put my trust into that place and that way.  I say “I want to” because maybe sometimes I slip and forget, and think that place and that way belongs more to the Buddhists than to the non-Buddhists.  I don’t want to forget that that’s not the case.  I want to remember that we’re working together.  

I don’t like the word “Buddhist” and I don’t like the word “Buddhism.”  I mean, I feel uncomfortable with “Bud-dhist.”  It’s too tight.  I feel more comfortable with “disciple of Buddha.”  You could be a disciple of Buddha without being a Bud-dhist.  You could practice the way of Buddha without practicing Buddhism.  I try not to say Buddhism.  But, whenever there are –isms, if people are into –isms, then I want to respect and appreciate all the –isms and realize how even the –isms are supporting me and you, and we support all the –isms.  That may be difficult if you think about that for a while, but I’ll talk to you more about that… maybe.

The place I want to live is the place, the way, the realm where you are embracing and sustaining me and everybody else.  And everybody else is embracing and sustaining you.  This is the realm of mutual assistance, which is the realm of Buddha, the realm of enlightenment, the realm of peace.  I want to live there, and I want to practice attending to and entering that realm.  This realm is beyond our dualistic consciousness.  In dualistic consciousness, things appear as though they’re separate from our awareness.  Even our thoughts appear separate from our awareness—our own body, our own feelings feel separate, and all beings and things appear to be external.

The realm where I want to live is the realm where all the dualistic consciousnesses which each of us have access to are embracing and sustaining each other.  I want to realize the realm where all the consciousnesses which feel separate are not separate, and this realm is beyond dualistic consciousness. We can’t be outside of it and look back at it.  We are totally in it.  It is our harmony and we can’t be outside the harmony and recognize it with dualistic consciousness.  We can think about it, but then we exile ourselves from it.  

I’ve spent a lot of time studying dualistic consciousness, because you can see dualistic consciousness operating.  It’s like normal life where you know things as objects, where they seem external.  This is ordinary dualistic consciousness.  My dualistic consciousness and your dualistic consciousness are actually completely sympathetically resonating with each other all the time in perfect harmony.  But we can’t see that because we are that.  And if we can’t see that we’re working together, then some of the things people do we have trouble appreciating and respecting.  If some being you know you’re working together with--somebody who you know is embracing and sustaining you and somebody who you know you embrace and sustain--if they come over and take your glasses off your face, you can work with that quite harmoniously.  You can say, “No, thanks, leave ‘em on.”  Or, “Help yourself.”  In other words, you’re in the context of peace and harmony, so when they interact with you, you see that as the unfolding of peace and harmony.  

Once we see, in the sense of entering into and swimming around in the realm of harmony, we still have dualistic consciousness, but it becomes eluded.  Unenlightened beings believe dualistic consciousness.  Enlightened beings can still see dualistic consciousness, but they don’t believe it.  They live in the realm where all beings with dualistic consciousness are working together, and they don’t believe their own dualistic consciousness or other people’s dualistic consciousness, but they appreciate all dualistic consciousnesses.  The seeing is not seeing them as a separate object, it’s seeing in the form of realizing fearlessness, unhindered compassion, freedom from suffering, unbounded generosity, patience with one’s own and other dualistic consciousnesses which have not yet realized illumination.

For those who wish to enter the realm in which we walk the path of peace and freedom, we have precepts.  Maybe it could be called the precepts of those who wish to awaken to the path of peace and harmony.  So we say, “bodhisattva,” which is a Sanskrit word, and it’s a word that was used to apply to the Buddha as the Buddha walked the path to really becoming awake, but “Bodhisattva” can used for any being whose own path is to wake up to peace and harmony.  When the Buddha awoke, the Buddha saw.  He looked at all the crisis and conflict in the world.  Among beings, Buddha saw how all beings were in harmony.  Without denying the appearance of disharmony, the Buddha also saw harmony and the Buddha could see that innumerable beings in the realm of harmony do not see the harmony and suffer because they see disharmony and believe disharmony, they see separateness and believe separateness, and therefore they suffer, suffer, and suffer.  But the Buddha saw the harmony and then re-entered intimately with many people, many beings, human and otherwise, and brought the vision of peace and harmony and non-separation to beings who see separation and see disharmony.  And many beings he met also realized illumination.  Their dualistic consciousnesses were illuminated.  And when dualistic consciousness is illuminated, we no longer believe it to be true.  We just see it as dualistic consciousness, which is quite useful.  Buddha has dualistic consciousness too, but the Buddha knows it’s dualistic and false.  

There are many precepts, but there are three I’d like to emphasize today, which, again—they don’t belong to Buddhism.  They don’t belong to Buddhism, even though Buddhism could claim them, rightly.  You could find practitioners who do not practice in a tradition or who do practice in other traditions who could also share these precepts.  And the three I have to talk about, one is not slandering, another is not praising self at the expense of others, and the other is not being possessive.

If I say, “This is what this practice offers, the only path to salvation”… can I say that without praising this path, my path, at the expense of other paths?  Is it possible to say that?  Maybe.  This kind of language is found in all the –isms.  It’s found in Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Communism, Capitalism, racism, Mohammedism… it’s found in all  –isms.  They all are capable of saying, “This offers the only path to true salvation.”  Can we say that and somehow respect all beings, and appreciate all beings, or do we slander others indirectly and maybe unintentionally?  Some people are concerned with the use the term “relativism”; by that is meant to some extent the idea that one religion is as good as another.  And I’m not saying that one religion is as good as another.  But I would say that if one religion was better than another, and I was a member of the religion that was better than the other, then I want to not praise the religion that is better than the other at the expense of the one that is less good.  How could I avoid that?  If everybody agreed, even the people in the inferior religion.  “The other religion is better than ours.  But I’ve invested in this religion; I’m staying with it.  And I congratulate you on being in a better religion than ours.”  [laughter]  Or someone might say, “Well, I’m sorry, I do praise my religion at the expense of others, and I can’t help it because my religion is better.” [laughter]  But I do realize that’s a fault in my religion.  It’s a defect.  It doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t feel friendly, to be saying, “Well, you know, I’m trying to be friendly, but your religion really is not too good.  It’s below average!”  But I try to say this in as friendly a way as I can.  [laughter]  But I don’t feel so good.  Maybe you can switch to mine; that would make things better.

Anyway, even if it did appear that one religion was better than another, or that they weren’t all one as good as one another, still, what I’m suggesting is the way I want is the way where a religion that is not as good as another is in perfect peace and harmony with its inferior partner or its superior partner.  Even if one thing is better than another.  Even if we do value Catholicism over racism.  Even if some people do value Protestantism over Buddhism—even if they do value one over the other.  Which seems to be the case, right?  Some people think Protestantism is better than Buddhism.  Some people think Buddhism is better than Protestantism.  Some people think racism is better than Catholicism.  Some people think racism is the same as Catholicism.  Some people think racism is the same as Islam.  People have various opinions.  But whether rats or humans are part of an –ism or not,  I want to find a way that all these people are working together.  I see no way to take out some of the –isms.  Even if racism or Buddhism makes some negative contribution, which usually –isms do—still, we’ve got all these –isms.  They’re appearing in the dualistic world.  It’s easy to disrespect them.  It’s easy to trash them.  It’s easy to love some and not love the others.  And I don’t think there’s one of them that appreciates all of them.  But I think there is a way which appreciates all the –isms.

Any –ism, I would say, has negative consequences for life.  Any –ism is a tightening on the peace and harmony of all beings.  But we’ve got the –isms.  What’s the way of relating to them?  What’s the way of living with them which will realize peace and harmony?  For me, it is to confess that I am responsible for Buddhism, Catholicism, racism, Communism, capitalism, Confucianism… I am responsible for all of them.  I embrace and sustain the entire universe, and every particular person in the universe, and every particular group phenomena.  I want to live in a place where there’s no exceptions, where I didn’t say I would embrace and sustain 99.9% of the beings in the universe, or even 20% or 5%.  I want to find a place of peace and harmony, which is the place where I embrace and sustain the entire universe, where the entire universe is based on me.  And when the entire universe embraces and sustains me; that’s why the universe is based on me.  I’m responsible for the entire universe, and the entire universe is responsible for me.  This place is the place of imperceptible mutual enlightening relationship among all things.  I don’t want to call this Buddhism… or Taoism.  I want to call it the Great Way, which has no particular signs, which nobody owns, which doesn’t praise itself at the expense of others, which doesn’t possess anything.  

The entire universe is based on each of you.  I want to live in a way that enters you being responsible for the entire universe, and the entire universe being responsible for you.  I suggest that that is a realm that is already going on, and that there is peace and harmony right now in the realm where you are embracing and sustaining the entire universe, and the entire universe is right now embracing and sustaining you.  This is where you are fearless; there is no limit on your compassion and your generosity and your energy and your devotion to all beings that are supporting you.  You’re grateful to them for giving you life, and you’re also happy to give all of them life.

We have teeth, or some of us do.  Some of us have hair, and some of us don’t. We have arms and legs, some of us, some of us don’t—anyway, all of us have dualistic consciousness.  So we have a little training program to go through, where we somehow study dualistic consciousness, which is quite obvious, and learn to change it from a wall or a door.  There’s the door--we to need the study the door until the door opens.  If it’s the door of thinking that you’re better than somebody, or somebody is better than you, that’s part of it.  If the door is thinking you’re together with some people and separate from others, that’s part of it.  It’s the realm of praising yourself at the expense of others, that’s part of it.  It’s to study that and be aware of that and admit that until you’re not fooled by it any more.  And it doesn’t any longer blind you to your actual life.  From this place of peace and harmony we have, we are sponsored and supported to do the hard work of watching how we believe we are separate from people, and dealing with all that fear and confusion, so that we cannot fall for it anymore.  

I almost said when I was talking earlier that if I found myself in a situation of being a member of a superior spiritual tradition, part of what I’d like to be able to do is switch to the inferior tradition.  Just change places, or not even change places, because maybe nobody from the inferior tradition wants to move to the superior tradition, but anyway for me to be willing to give up the superior position and enter the inferior.  Again, I don’t want to say, “This is the Zen way,” but there are people who are called Zen Way people, who found the superior way, but they gave it up to hang out with people who were in an inferior way.  More important than half-holding on to the superior way is to be friends with the people of inferior ways.  Friendship’s more important than superiority.  But sometimes it really pushes you into a superior position, and you realize a superior truth.  There you are, you’re stuck with it.  OK, fine: now can you give it up and join hands with all people who have not realized it?  The Buddha did that.  The Buddha realized a superior view—in the sense you can call it “superior.”  Basically, he just realized the view of peace and harmony.  But then he let go of the view of peace and harmony. There’s a precept which says, “Do not be possessive of peace and harmony.”  Do not hold on to it!  Holding on to peace and harmony is antithetical to it.  It’s OK to be grateful for it and say, “Oh, thank you!”  That’s OK!  And then, give it up!  And join hands with those who are not in peace and harmony.  

I got a life, you got a life, everybody’s gotta have a life.  But there’s only one life that’s for me: our life of mutual, imperceptible, inconceivably wonderful and beautiful mutual assistance.  I want to open the door and enter with all of you.  And we’re already there on the other side.