Someone told me that when he came to Zen Center, at some point he mentioned to someone that his practice was to... or something like that. And the person he mentioned to us said, you're in the wrong school. And I don't know what they meant. They meant the Zen Center school was the school he was in and that if you're worshipping deities, you're in the wrong school because we don't do that at Zen Center. Somebody said that to the person. And I don't know what that person who said he was in the wrong school was thinking or whatever, but some people do come to Zen Center and they notice, perhaps they notice that we make incense offerings to statues of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

[01:16]

And then we do prostrations, sort of in the direction of those statues. and we chant scriptures. And then after we chant them, we dedicate the merit to these Buddhas and bodhisattvas. This could be seen as worship. This is, yeah, worshiping the divine enlightened beings and the divine enlightening beings. We also... sometimes make offerings and do prostrations to ancestors of our tradition, like the founder of Zen Center. Or we make offerings and do prostrations to Ehe Koso, the founder of, the transmitter of our tradition from China to Japan. So in a way, we're going on at Zen Center, but we don't use the word worship very much.

[02:24]

Is that right? You don't hear it much around Zen Center. Let's go to the Zendo and worship, we don't very often say. We don't say weekly or daily worship. Is that right? Have you noticed that? It's not a common word around our San Francisco Zen Center or most Zen Centers. There's probably lots of reasons for it, like people's background is maybe they somewhat have the issue of worship from their childhood or their culture. So it might have been a skillful thing to not use the word worship much at Zen centers to attract all the people who are looking for a refuge and escape from worship. I don't say that when you're meditating or when you're practicing Zen you have to be worshipping, but most of the ancestors of the tradition were into worshipping.

[03:41]

So, for example, the founder in Japan, Ehe Dogen Daisho, he was very much into veneration revering and paying homage and praising and worshipping his, you know, Shakyamuni Buddha and all the ancestors. So if one isn't into worship, then it's okay to come to the Zen Center and not be into worship. In other words, to practice meditation perhaps as an act, a wholesome act, which you think will be beneficial to yourself and other people. to be quiet for a while, to sit still for a while, to pay attention to breathing and posture and as a result maybe become calm and maybe anger and other afflictive emotions will pass away and you'll feel better and be a better person to your friends and neighbors.

[04:59]

And that's certainly allowed at most Zen centers. And in addition to that, one might be sitting as an act of honoring enlightened and enlightening beings, of praising enlightening beings, of paying homage to enlightening beings. That way of sitting is sitting of enlightening beings. So some people are sitting with a wholesome intention, which is not separate from enlightening beings, but the enlightening beings, in addition to sitting calmly and doing wholesome deeds, they do these deeds of the great

[06:04]

enlightened being or great enlightened beings and great enlightening beings. The great enlightening being, Samantabhadra, who is the main bodhisattva of the Flower Adornment scripture, at the end of the scripture they have these ten vows of this great enlightening being. And I think that the first two vows are vowing to pay homage to all Buddhas. That's the first vow. And the second vow is vowing to praise all Buddhas. So this great bodhisattva, this supremely Bodhisattva who is not a Buddha yet, but who is a Bodhisattva with an understanding basically on a par with a Buddha.

[07:08]

The central figure of the great Mahayana scripture, this Bodhisattva, he or she, is vowing ten vows. Verse one is paying homage to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. I think Buddhas actually, and paying homage and praising the Buddhas. Yeah, those are the first two vows of the great bodhisattva Samantabhadra, which is translated as universal goodness or universally good, enlightening being. And again, paying homage isn't just praise. It means you align yourself with something.

[08:13]

You say, I want to join or be like this person. So you can praise, I don't know what, Tiger Woods as a wonderful golfer. But you could also say, I want to be a wonderful golfer like that. I want to learn to play golf really well. and learn the skills of golf and the skills of concentration. So that's more like paying homage rather than just praising. We have both these vows. And in this thing we just chanted, Dogen said, Eihei Koso, Dogen Zenji said, revering Buddhas, we are one Buddha and one ancestor. Revering Buddha, we are one Buddha. Revering the ancestor, we are one ancestor." So he said that. He didn't say, I revere Buddhas and ancestors in this particular place, but he's basically vowing to do that.

[09:21]

He's vowing to revere Buddhas, praise Buddhas, and in praising Buddhas and revering Buddhas become one Buddha. So the practice is even if you can't see a Buddha you can still look at a statue or think of Buddhas and bow to the statues either as Buddha or bow to the statues thinking about the Buddhas. And when you bow to them at that time there's the Buddha and there's you. And you're bowing to the Buddha. The Buddha might be bowing to you too, but anyway, you're bowing to the Buddha. And bowing with reverence to the Buddha, okay, we are one Buddha, not two Buddhas, one. Still, you are bowing to the Buddha, but in that bowing, that is one Buddha.

[10:31]

When you start, it seems like there's nobody, right? But when you bow to the Buddha as an act of reverence, then there's one Buddha. So did you drop out of the scene? There was Buddha in you and now there's just Buddha? Well, kind of yes. But also Buddha dropped out of the scene as being somebody in addition to you. Anyways, there's just one Buddha when you bow to Buddha. When you bow to Buddha, that's Buddha. When we bow to Buddha, that's the Buddha way. That's the Buddha way. Buddha is the Buddha way. Now, if you happen to run into a Buddha and you say, what's happening, man? And just, I don't know what, wave or something, walk by, that's okay. If what you mean by that is, wave means total reverence, total, you know, this is called the homage wave.

[11:47]

This is called the praise wave. This is called the worship wave. Okay, fine. That's the Buddha way, too. But most people go like this to something when they mean to say, I really praise you. They don't usually go like that. But if that's what you mean, I guess the Romans, did the Romans go like this? How did they go? Did they go like that? Huh? In the movies, yeah. I think they actually did do something like that. And then Hitler picked up on that, too, right? Anyway, the prostration is the formal way of saying, I'm with you, and I'm with you guys. And at that time, that is the Buddha way. And when there's that, and when there's not that, when there's not reverence, for the Buddhas, then the Buddha way degenerates.

[12:54]

The Zen school may not be known for this, but that's just because the Zen school isn't known for this by some people. Millions and millions of other people, I don't know how many millions, but anyway, for quite a few millions of other people, the Zen school clearly is a school of Buddha, venerating the Buddha and being one Buddha. The Buddha way is about not being Buddhas and other people. And so we have this, when we have a chant, there's more than one chant, but we have a chant which we can do in our head or out loud when we bow to Buddhas or Bodhisattvas or Zen masters. And the chant is, the one bowing and the one bowed to, their nature, no nature.

[14:09]

They each have the same nature, no nature. the one bowing and the one bowed to, their nature known. This body and other bodies, not two, plunge into the truth, live in vow. What vow? Well, for example, worship, praise, pay homage to Buddhas, live in those kind of vows. What kind of vows? The vow to, and then the rest of it, there's more vows coming up, there's eight more for this particular bodhisattva. Serve all living beings, to be a servant to all living beings, that's another one. This great bodhisattva, supreme bodhisattva vows to serve all beings,

[15:14]

and also to confess his shortcomings. What shortcomings does he have? Well, if we looked at Samantabhadra, we don't see any shortcomings. In all the scriptures, there's no shortcomings of Samantabhadra are mentioned. But he sees his shortcomings. He sees little shortcomings all the time. So he's confessing his shortcomings. And then also when you see the shortcomings of others, when you see your own shortcomings, and the next one after confessing your shortcomings is to see the virtues of others, to vow to see the virtues of others. But that follows after looking at your own shortcomings. The more I notice my shortcomings, the more I see how others are virtuous. The less I see my shortcomings, the more I see other people's shortcomings. Does that make sense? You know about that. You've seen people like that, right? They've got no shortcomings.

[16:22]

But when I see my shortcomings, then I see how good other people are. Wow. Amazing. I mean, they've got problems, but compared to me, please. I vow to do those practices. If I say that, I just happen to be saying, what is supremely developed, enlightening being, says in the Albatam Saka Sutra. So, hey, you're allowed to join in this kind of vowing. But this veneration, remember, it's not, and people have been nervous about it, but it's about the duality between you and Buddha. Now, cutting through duality, now that sounds more like Zen, okay. But the way you cut through it is to enter it by being you and the Buddha. Sounds like duality. Me and the Buddha. Me worshipping the Bodhisattvas.

[17:24]

Sounds like duality. There's me and them. There's two. Right? Me and the Bodhisattvas. You and the Bodhisattvas. You and the Buddha. Sounds like two. Okay? Well, what do you do with that? You bow. Bow. and you cut through it and it becomes one Buddha. So, now if I hear about people going around telling people, you're in the wrong school, get out of here, you worshipping one. If I hear about that, then I have to think really quickly of my own shortcomings. so I can realize the virtues of this person saying, you're in the wrong school. Because they actually did me a favor by saying that, so I could, like, talk about this today. That a lot of Zen students, when they hear about the kinds of Buddhism where they're kind of clearly expressing worshipping Buddhism, Bodhisattvas, a lot of them would think, that's not what we're doing here.

[18:34]

Well, we are. Some of us are. Particularly, the ancestors are the ones that did it. Some people would just come into Zen centers and walk out and don't become ancestors. They don't do that, some of them. They come in, they say, this is a nice place, good vegetarian food, people are quiet, I can sit here and calm down, this is great. Everyone's welcome, all sentient beings are welcome in a real Zen center. But the ancestors are the ones who come and worship. The people who are going to become the ancestors are the ones who come and worship the ancestors. They don't necessarily do it the first day they arrive. Sometimes they get into it. But sometime before they become an ancestor, they really totally get into person bowing, person bowed to, their nature, no nature.

[19:36]

person bowing, person bowing, one Buddha. They get into that. Usually it takes, you know, some repetition of this issue before there's like 100%. One Buddha. Why? And people have, human beings and some other kinds of living beings, do have some problems around worship. And one of the problems around worship I'd like, or a couple of the problems around worship I'd like to mention.

[20:45]

The Buddha Dharma is not without danger. The Buddha way has dangers. And So even if you're bowing, still we could have some shipping, and in the process they're becoming one Buddha. Still there's some problems, and also before you do that, you may have some resistance, and the resistance may be well-founded. I just recently was reading an article, I think by a Christian person, I'm not sure, but he was talking about, I think... Well, basically he was saying that in the Lotus Sutra, the great Mahayana Sutra of the Lotus Sutra, by the way the Lotus Sutra has three parts, and the third part of the Lotus Sutra is the practices of Samantabhadra. So Samantabhadra is also big in the Lotus Sutra, because the third part of the Lotus Sutra is about the practice of Samantabhadra.

[21:54]

But anyway, in the Lotus Sutra, in Chapter 16, the Buddha Sutra says some wonderful things. Chapter 16 is about the eternal life of the Buddha. And the Buddha says in that chapter, you know, it looks like I was born at a certain point, lived in a palace, saw the suffering in the world, left home, pursued the path, attained the path, taught for 45 years and died. It looked like that. But actually, that coming and going was just a skillful means that I to help people. Actually, I'm always here. He says that in chapter 16. But one of the implications you can draw from this chapter is that this Buddha that appears and disappears represents, he represents something that's true about all of us.

[23:08]

And so the Lotus Sutra does seem to be saying that the Buddha, the great Buddha Shakyamuni who appeared in India and other Buddhas who appear in the world they appear as representatives of the truth of our life. But within Buddhism, and in Christianity too, some people can see Christ as representing the truth of a reality about all of us. But and within Buddhism too, I think in some cases people might think that Buddha or Christ are not representatives of a truth that pervades all being and that works in all beings, but that Christ constitutes the truth, constitutes the truth, rather than is a representation

[24:25]

that beings can see as a way to enter the truth. And the author points out, which I think is really important, that if you take the Christ constitutes, if you take the constitutivist view of Christ, then you would probably logically have to deny that, for example, the Buddha is a valid representation of the truth or, you know, a valid constitution of the truth or representation. And in that case, and here's the really bad part, which I think is good to be wary of, in that case it would be difficult for you to have a dialogue with a Buddhist. other than basically saying, too bad for you because I have to deny the validity of your tradition because the truth is constituted by Christ.

[25:38]

And similarly, so then they wouldn't be able to dialogue in a respectful way with Christians, etc. And I think this is one element in our current world in our current world war around the world is that people don't see their traditions as a representative of a truth that's found in all beings and therefore it's hard for them to actually have a conversation with people who are using other representations to be able to acknowledge the validity of a different representation of the divine reality. So if you hear about worshipping the Buddha, and you come from an environment where people are attributing the constitution of reality, you might feel, well, if I worship the Buddhas, then I will become perhaps hostile to other forms of divine reality.

[26:53]

And if you did think that worshipping the Buddha would mean that you would say that the reality is constituted into, that would not be harmonious with you respecting other traditions. But in the Lotus Sutra anyway, which I think is, again, very closely related particularly to the Zen school and especially in the Lotus Sutra, it's pretty clear that we're talking about Shakyamuni Buddha as a great and necessary representation of reality. We need some representation of reality to enter otherwise our mind doesn't know where to look, doesn't know where to bow, doesn't know where to resist or whatever. So the Buddha appears and disappears but the Buddha doesn't Buddha appears to appear and disappear, or appears to be born and die.

[27:57]

Actually not. A Buddha that isn't born and dying, we can't see that Buddha. Not until we study the one who appears and disappears and teaches us how to see the one that doesn't appear and disappear. So the one that does appear and disappear that we need to see the Buddha in order to see the Dharma. And the one that does appear and disappear tells us that the real Buddha, that the one who appears and disappears represents, doesn't appear and disappear. The real Christ isn't the one that appears and disappears. And the real prophets aren't ones that appear and disappear, they're representations of a spiritual process. So then in chapter sixteen also the Buddha tells us, the alternative Buddha, the Buddha who appears, who we can see, who allows us to make a representation so we can see and hear, that one tells us that if you practice all virtues and you're gentle and flexible and honest and upright

[29:19]

will see the Buddhas. You won't see the representative Buddha, because that Buddha has passed away. But that Buddha sends the message, the one through words, that you'll see the real Buddha. And that Buddha is always with us. And we need to see the Buddha. because the Lotus Sutra also says that only when a Buddha meets with a Buddha is reality realized. Only when we bow to Buddha and there's one Buddha and one ancestor and in that bowing there is uprightness honesty, flexibility, and harmony.

[30:22]

And also, we are practicing all virtues means we live in the world of all suffering beings. So if we don't practice virtue in a gated community, in our home recreation center, where all suffering beings are kept out and where we only watch one cable news station. We go into all suffering and there we take care of ourselves and there we see the Buddha. And seeing the Buddha and meeting the Buddha, reality is realized. So some Christians are representationalist Christians and they can have a conversation with Buddhists and Jews and Muslims.

[31:38]

Christians who are constitutionists or constitutiveness-ist, those Christians would have trouble really having a dialogue. And without dialogue, when we don't have dialogue, when we don't have conversations, then we have war. And, of course, we do have some dialogue and some conversations, and where those are happening, we don't have war. So not all different religions are fighting, but the ones who won't talk to anybody want to go to war. Oh, another thing that happens, by the way, which I mentioned in an article that's in the new edition of Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains, is that Jung proposes that if you have a group that bonds, a group of people that bond with each other, the cost of a group bond is a lowering of the consciousness of the members of the group.

[32:55]

And it's just, you know, part of the price of having a group. And the stronger the bond, the more the consciousness is depressed. What does that mean? Well, for example, would be, the people in this room are somewhat different. There's men, there's women, there's older people, younger people, different kinds of backgrounds. And we all have different views of, for example, the Buddha way. Some of you actually have a different view of the Buddha way than me. How dare you? Well, you dare because you have some courage. But if we're going to really get together and have a nice little Buddhist group here, we're going to kind of emphasize to some extent where we agree. And if we find something we can agree on, for example, you know, like we're on lunch, right?

[34:04]

And we agree it's going to be a vegetarian lunch. Well, how strict are we going to be about that? Did somebody bring some meat? Well, are we going to let them eat here? Okay, okay. Here, meat. But let's say we agree, you know, no abode is basically a vegetarian situation here. We agree on that. But maybe some people feel, I wish I could have meat at no abode. But they don't want to say so because maybe it'll irritate somebody. You do. Your mind kind of like has a tendency to squash that down into unconsciousness. Because disagreeing with a nicely bonded group Everybody says, oh, we're so happy, we all agree vegetarian is good. How about, like, sitting is good, you know, sitting still, quietly is good. Keen Heen is great, walking meditation, we love it. Oop, I shouldn't have mentioned that. Better not say that. I don't want to do walking meditation, I want to keep sitting.

[35:08]

But the group thinks, everybody else thinks it's really good, so they go, ugh. They will, they'll probably go, ugh. Because it's like, we're doing this good thing and you don't want to? Come on, come on, come on. That happens in groups. Find something really good. Walking meditation. I don't want to do it. Oh, come on. Come on, come on. And you feel a little uncomfortable resisting. It's much easier just to go along with And then even easier, just forget about that you don't like it even. That'll make it even more comfortable. And you can be like, there was a time when I didn't realize how good walking meditation was, but now I see. And then somebody hears that and says, am I allowed to say that? Probably not. So the awareness goes down because it's uncomfortable to be different when the group's strongly bonded on the virtues of peace, harmony, the Eucharist, whatever.

[36:25]

Whatever the group agrees on, it's nice to just go along with it. It feels good. One, two, three, we're all together. Does that make sense? That's where the thing drops. And I don't think you can actually stop that. What you need to do is be aware that it happens and notice it and express it. John and Rosanna? aligning through worship. Yeah. I'm assuming aligning through worship is actually raising consciousness. So, this other idea of you seems to be more depressing than consciousness. Well, this is, first of all, it's a one-to-one thing, for starters, okay? You are aligning yourself. Now, you could do it with a group of people that are aligning themselves.

[37:26]

but when you first do it it's between you and the Buddha and you feel that you're separate from what you're aligning with and so there's two problems one is people feel like they're supposed to like what's the word yeah they're supposed to be separate from something that's in some sense more developed than they are and that feels bad There's some separation at the beginning. Facing that separation and continuing to relate and meeting this thing, you realize you're not separate. So it's no longer a matter of upper and lower or putting yourself down, although you put yourself down sort of to enact the sense that you're below this high attainment. You do that so fully that you're not in separation. Now, part of what... And then you really... are happy to be one with this Divine.

[38:32]

And then, in addition to that, to do it in a group, if you found the virtue of this and you could show this to other people, other people would say, wow, then they join it. Because you actually want other people to join this because what you're bowing to is not just some Buddha, but you're bowing to how all beings have this character which the Buddha represents. And you actually want beings to wake up to how this represents the reality of their life and how they can enter it and realize it. rather than feel separate from the reality of their life, which the Buddha represents. So then when the group thing starts happening, then there's this danger. And you can feel that, I think, that you want to have a group, and also you can sense the dangers of the group. So people both want to have a group because you can do things in a group that you can't do by yourself.

[39:34]

With the support of a group, you can, well, for example, it's easy to sit today have trouble sitting today by ourself. So there's a lot of practices which you can do wholeheartedly in a group which you can't do by yourself. And also, with the support of other people you can do it, plus also you can do it if you feel like you're supporting other people. If you know that people need you and you think it's good, then you feel like, well, I should go because if I don't go it's harder for them, and vice versa. If they don't come it'll be harder for me. So that group thing is part and parcel of this particular paying homage thing and cutting through duality and all that. It also applies to cutting through the duality of the people. And I'm bringing up, how come people have a problem with this? I think they have a problem with it because as you get into success, actually, the more you see how good it is to do the practice

[40:36]

And the more other people feel that there's a danger of lowering of consciousness, the more we feel not separate from the greatest consciousness, the happier we are. And the more that people see that, the more they want to join that. But when they join that and also appreciate how wonderful this is, to not... to not appreciate people who are not appreciating or to feel sorry for them and think they're lesser because they're going around feeling all separate from high consciousness and separate from other beings and they're miserable. And you say, if you would just join this. I think I told this story last time at No Abode. I was... I was trying to get my passport. I was in the passport office.

[41:39]

I'm just going to put that story over here for a second. It's related, but I'm going to put it over here, the passport story. It's kind of relevant, but it's kind of a big story. So I'm going to go back to John now and see how he has something more to say. You're not really putting yourself below it. It's possible to prostrate yourself without feeling below. Yeah, you don't have to have the idea of attainment. You can just have the idea of bowing. When I go into Zendo and bow, I don't really think I'm going to attain anything by the bow.

[42:44]

I just do the practice of bowing. It's just a tradition, so I just do it. And then sometimes when I do it, I think, this is interesting what I'm doing. I sometimes think, wow. Particularly if I'm bowing to Buddha before I give a talk, because I know I'm going to give a talk. on whatever to people, but they don't bow to somebody before they talk. You know what I mean? Like college professors usually do not bow to, I don't know, if it's a physics professor, he usually doesn't bow to Albert Einstein before he gives a talk. He doesn't give a talk. And even some gurus, they don't come in and bow to somebody before they give a talk. They are it. But in the Buddhist tradition, almost all of the people still, before they give a talk, actually a formal talk, they bow. So it's an interesting quality of our tradition that the teachers bow to the teacher.

[43:47]

The teachers bow to the representative of reality before they talk about reality, or before they become a representative of reality. They show other people, bow to a representative, And again, that they're bowing to a representative which is a representative of something that's in them and the other people. So when I do it, usually I'm not thinking of attaining anything. However, I do wish to attain duality. But at that moment, I'm not trying to do that. However, I do wish for that to happen. At the time, I'm just bowing. And in the bowing, this understanding develops. Along with doing perhaps a chant, he's reminding me of this reality, that our bodies are not really two, not really separate.

[44:49]

You have your body, I have my body, yes, but they're not two. They're one. And Buddhas have their body, and I have my body. And they're not two, they're one. But if I don't venerate them, I feel like they're two. And if I don't venerate other sentient beings, I'll probably feel like we're two. But by venerating, by paying homage and praising, we cut through to a whole. But we have to do it, usually, and to realize it. And do it so wholeheartedly, we're not trying to attain anything in the process. Still, tensions can arise. Prior to realization of non-duality, there's some tension. Plus, those who are, I don't know what the word is, who are incandescent in their practice, inspire other people to join, and if they also enter that practice, they also become very bright, and you get a group of people that are very bright, and it's a wonderful thing.

[45:57]

and they're bonded in this practice, but then can somebody come in and disagree? And of course we hope they can, but there's a little bit of a tendency, there's a danger that they'll be encouraged to get over their resistance and just, you know, surrender and enter this wonderful place. And I think some people are actually quite wise to sense the danger of plunging into a group bond. They want to, but there's a danger in it because group bond tends to lower consciousness. It's even group bond about to have the highest consciousness. So some people just stay away from groups because they're afraid of that effect, of them being forced to agree with the group and get out of touch with their own values and their own sense of reality.

[47:00]

They're afraid that they'll be overwhelmed and lose track of themselves. So we don't want that either. We don't want them to lose it, but we also don't want them to stay away from the group to avoid it. But that's what a lot of people are doing. They're staying away from that because probably sometime in their past they have lost it. because they joined the group in their consciousness and went low. And maybe they hurt someone who didn't agree, or whatever. A lot of terrible things can happen around this dangerous process called the realization of truth. Yes. But it also is an opportunity to experience acceptance. Yes, it is. So in that lowering of the consciousness, that's an individual process within the group? It's not the whole group that necessarily lowers their consciousness? Well, yeah, the whole group doesn't lower its consciousness, but all the individuals tend to lower their consciousness individually.

[48:07]

So, not all of them, but there is a general pressure to lower your... In a group, when there's strong bonding, there's a general pressure to lower your awareness of not being. When a group of people strongly agree on something, there is a pressure, a psychic pressure, to become less aware of the differences because it's hard to appreciate the glory and the brilliance of agreement when you're also aware of disagreement. And sometimes, if you yourself have become either by repression or just by transformation, you just don't feel any difference in the group. And you're just really high on, boy, we're just totally in agreement here. We're working together on this. It's just beautiful. If you're feeling that and you see someone who doesn't agree, you might feel a little bit of annoyance with them.

[49:09]

but you also might feel love and complete acceptance of who they are at that moment and know that they could change. Definitely. And feel great about the fact of how you feel love and acceptance of them and are really letting them be different even while they irritate you. Okay? That would be great, right? They're irritating you by being different but you completely accept them for being different and you want them to be able And you would like them to be like you, who is acceptance of, you know, and they're like finding everybody else irritating, you know. They think all these other people are different, you know, they're really pissed off at everybody. And you feel love for them. At the same time, you would like them to get over it. It's very... But some of them just want them to stop resisting. And they're your friends too. So this happens in groups. Like somebody saying to this person, you're in the wrong school.

[50:13]

You know, and this person feeling, oops. And then spending years like, don't tell anybody I'm worshipping. Or just stop worshipping. That's not what we're doing here. I'm not going to do that. Rather than, oh, this is a Zen center, so I actually can, I can actually disagree with everybody here. Even though that disagreement is not, is going to somewhat frustrate the intensity of You get a bunch of people together. At the beginning, there's no agreement. And they feel, who are these people? I don't agree with them. They're different from me. There's not, you know, the consciousness is quite high. Vigilance is quite high. Feeling separate is quite high. And it's kind of uncomfortable. Can we find some common ground here, you know? you start to find some common ground, you start to feel a little bit safer, a little bit more comfortable. And then if you could find common ground, everybody join the common ground.

[51:21]

And now we can do this together. Like at Noam Bo, we have work period, you know, and people, generally speaking, seem to have this common sense of, hey, let's have work period, fine. It's lovely. Very few people here, I don't want to work. There are some people who are feeling that way. Even though there's a kind of group feeling of, hey, it's fun, we work period for a little while. And they don't hear much complaints like, I don't want to do work, can it be okay if I don't work? And then we say, yeah, it is okay to work. And then these people aren't going to look down on me if I don't work? They might, but maybe not. So just recognizing that this is the way the psyche can work, doesn't have to, but it can. It's the 13th fairy thing, you know the 13th fairy principle?

[52:24]

The 13th fairy, you know that principle? Well, it's a story of, what's it called, Sleeping Beauty? Is that what it's called? It happens. Yeah. It's a general, in any group, it's a phenomenon in any group. You have this beautiful creature, a female in this case, a baby, beautiful baby girl. And so they're going to have a party for the beautiful baby girl. So they invite all these dignitaries. And they invite 12 fairies. and I guess they just had a seating shortage or something. They had 12 ferry seats for this big celebration of this beautiful life. But they didn't invite the 13th ferry. Now, the 13th ferry didn't get invited, and the 13th ferry didn't like that. But the 13th ferry, also because the 13th ferry was not in the group, the 13th ferry was not bounded, so the 13th ferry could feel different, and the 13th ferry then

[53:31]

came to the party and said, you didn't invite me, so I'm going to curse this baby. So the one you leave out can curse, can hurt you. So you want to like include them and suppress them or, you know, or like just put them in another solar system. Because if you include everybody, Got a problem? But that's normal. If we don't include people, we've got a problem. And being willing to deal with the problem is a dynamic situation, because if something happens and you have problems and just have everybody agree, you know, that's just really simple. So when somebody disagrees, there's some tendency if... But again, at the beginning of a group, when everybody disagrees, there's not much pressure on the people to agree.

[54:34]

Except inside, each one of them wants to find some way to get over what it feels like they don't agree yet. Because then you don't, you know, what are we going to do? And so you see how it goes both ways? Before you get it, you're a little uneasy. After you get it, most people are more comfortable. But then anybody who's different feels really uncomfortable, like, I was reminded, it seems to me, when I was first coming to Zen Center, a lot of encouragement that I heard was, in varying form, enter the schedule, give yourself over to the schedule, and observe your resistance. But that didn't seem to mean don't do the schedule. It still means join the group, do the group activity, receive the work that's offered, receive the food that's offered. Study resistance, but not... So I was hearing, it seemed like earlier on,

[55:39]

something that almost would caution against that kind of training. That kind of what? Training. Like you come and you give yourself up to the training. What I'm saying is definitely a caution against that kind of training, yes. Not against that kind of training, it's a caution in that kind of training. So one would still take up the training? One might. one might take up the training and offer the training in that sense, and then with the caution that watch your resistance, but don't suppress your resistance. Yeah, you could do it that way, right. And then there could be another way of putting it, which I do just because of my personality, rather than saying, rather than you say, I forgot how you put it, but you put it, how did you put it? Description of the program?

[56:42]

Yeah, enter the schedule, give yourself up to the schedule, okay? So I don't say that to people because then they think I'm telling them to enter it and I'm telling them to give themselves up to it and me. So I put it more like, we have this schedule. It's a gift to you. You want to do it? And then, you know, and you have some resistance to doing what you want to do? I'll help you with your resistance for what you want to do. rather than help you with your resistance to me telling you what to do. Some people, that works fine for them to tell people what to do and then help the people with their resistance telling them to do it. But that would be one kind of Zen Center and I'm talking about another kind. But in both cases, still, whichever way you put it, there's a possibility of people saying, okay, I want to do this and I want you to help to what I want to do. And I want to be with other people who want to do this too.

[57:47]

And then we have the same problem, no matter what the form is. And then you have the people who don't want to do it. Yeah, and you have the people who go to the Zen Center, who do not want to do, which is the same as, I want to do it, but I resist. So most of us resist whatever we want to do. And there's two basic ways of resisting whatever we want to do. To lean into it, and the other is to lean away from it. One is to say, I want to get up and meditate in the morning, but I also don't want to get up and I want to stay in bed. That's one way. The other way could be like you stay up all night, you're staying up to do it. Or you get up and you're just full of energy and you're going to go there and be the best meditator in the room.

[58:49]

You're overly into it. Too much. You're not upright with it. You're not just doing it. You're the best at it. Are you going to get something out of it? That's not just doing it. That's a resistance to the form. The other one is you're going to try to get something else other than the form, like more rest or protect yourself from it or whatever. So some people, like we call resisted in the sense that they defy the tradition, they defy the form, they rebel against it, right? That's one form. The other is you kind of like... some word more than acquiesce, more than surrender. You don't just surrender to it. Appropriate, yeah. Yeah, appropriate is more than surrender. Like I surrender and I get it. Something like that. Anyway, some kind of like leaning into the form is one way to resist it. And leaning away from it is another.

[59:53]

And most of us have trouble doing anything that way. And then forms, traditional training forms are offered for us to find that we, that we, you know, and get help finding that whatever we're doing is that way. But you need to, usually you need some training form like that because other forms where we do that, like we go to a movie or we eat lunch, these diapers, or we serve somebody dinner, or we clean the house. Those other forms, since it's a form, but since it's not a traditional form and nobody's there training us, we don't notice our resistance. And if we do, usually there's nobody there to help us. So we set up some forms so we find out the imbalance in our relationship with them. Again, rebelling, or too much into it.

[60:54]

Like what we call surrender plus. And usually what people mean by resist is defiance or rebellion. It's the four minus. But just surrender is like period. It's just like in surrender there's just one Buddha. At the first, you know, like, I don't know. That's sort of what John was talking about. I'm going to get something out of this bow. I'm going to get something out of this relationship with Buddha. The other one is, I don't know about this relationship with Buddha. I might get swallowed up or I might become a little Buddha-phile or whatever. How about just bow? Just like period. Don't add on to it that you're a Buddhist or a Taoist or a Christian or a Jew. Just bow. Don't add on to anything.

[61:57]

When you eat your lunch, like I'm thin or I'm... I'm going to get something out of this. Just eat your lunch. This kind of thing, most people need to be trained. So then we have a training for that, and then you can resist that training. But that's what the training's about, is to find this way of doing it. And there's dangers. There's dangers. And again, there's wisdom in people who resist the form because they see the danger. But the resistance to the form because of the danger you could actually just see the danger, period, and not resist the form. Just say, I just accept that there's danger, and I'm not going to shrink back from the form just because it's dangerous, because the forms are dangerous.

[63:01]

So then you can be like not resisting and just do the form, even though you know that even though you just do the form, there's still danger. And avoiding the form doesn't get you away from the danger. So it's actually... Good to use the form, but don't think, okay, now it's just one Buddha. Okay, great. There's no danger. No, there's still danger. Because now everybody's going to come to you and say, boy, that was really cool. You just did that. That was great. There was no resistance one way or another. You'd realize Buddha right then. Yeah, let's form a group. So like I say, resistance is not without reason, without intelligence. So it's good, in a way. So in a way, part of what you're bringing up is how to keep alive and well this consciousness

[64:05]

in any part is not completely bonded with how to keep that alert and awake and free and willing to be expressed. Yes. I see that resistance, that back and forth. I see it in my difficulty. In one part I'm seeing that I'm not grateful if I'm not completely myself. And the other part is that I'm seeing that I cannot do it alone. I need guidance. You're not fully grateful if you're not completely being yourself. But you can be somewhat grateful and still not fully be yourself. Again, you could have a group of people that find something to be grateful about. Like Thanksgiving, right?

[65:07]

You can have Thanksgiving dinner. Everybody's feeling grateful. It feels really good. We're all together. Like, I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful that we're not at war. I'm grateful we have food, okay? and then feel like everybody feels that way, and I better not bring up that there's something I'm not grateful about. But I do basically feel grateful, but I also have some problems, you know, that Uncle Fred's drinking too much. I'm grateful about that. And if I am aware of that, if somebody comes over to me and says, how are you feeling? I feel like I can't tell the truth. Because if I bring up that I'm worried about Uncle Fred, then it's like the harmony and happiness of the kind of like... So I'm having trouble being who I am even though I'm kind of feeling grateful for who I am.

[66:11]

I'm having trouble too being who I am because who I am could derail the celebration of this occasion. So this is part of what I have to learn how to do is how to get this gratefulness. I'm happy. Everybody's happy. And there's a problem. And how can I be me now? who sees a problem in the room. That's who I am. It's not that I'm right. Who knows, maybe Uncle Fred really hasn't been drinking. I might be wrong. And that will help me also with my I'm happy to be with all of you. And is Uncle Fred okay? Let's go look. So rather than try to bomb the whole situation, I dare to bring up how I am and give myself to the group as a gift, not to manipulate, not to make everybody get up.

[67:20]

Fix Uncle Fred, but just who I am is somebody who's concerned about him. And in the midst of all this celebration, I want to mention, how's Uncle Fred? And then we all look at him, and maybe he is fine, or maybe he's not, but we're all doing it together again. But there was a chance there that somebody would say, how come he's not a problem when we're all having such a good time? And he asked us to look at Uncle Fred. But sometimes everybody looks at Uncle Fred and they find out, oh, Uncle Fred's having a stroke. I'm glad you brought that up. Or Uncle Fred is drinking too much. Let's take him for a walk. But there's a danger when you bring it up that people are going to say, you're interfering with the happiness of the group by asking this question. And we feel that in ourselves. Like, if I bring this up, will that derail the happiness of the celebration? It might. And if we find a way to bring it up that we're upright and soft about it, it's more likely we can bring it up without derailing the happiness of the group and without suppressing the truth that we're feeling.

[68:38]

That's the art. How to be yourself given that there's pressure for you to go along with some good feeling. And sometimes there's even pressure to go along with a bad feeling. Everybody's feeling bad about something. But you don't. And you don't want to hurt somebody or punish somebody. But you don't. But they feel good and they feel some goodness, some strength in agreeing to hurt this person. But you don't. So in that case, you kind of, maybe I should just not mention that I don't want to hurt. but then I'm denying myself. So I can see why they want to hurt this person. I understand, but I don't want to. And now I can be myself and bring that up there and raise the consciousness of the group without me looking down on those people. But the awareness is dropping because they're wanting to agree on the punishment of someone.

[69:46]

They enjoy the agreement, but they're doing something I don't agree with So now I have to realize that I'm representing the not-lowered consciousness. ...consciousness in there without looking down on their lower consciousness. So come inside and bring uprightness and encourage them to stand up, because in themselves, too, they have a disagreement, too, someplace. They have uncertainties, but they're enjoying the nice feeling of agreeing with everybody. See how it works? This is the challenge. And again, this is why people want to stay away from a situation where people are agreeing because it's so dangerous. But it's dangerous being outside of a group where they're disagreeing for various reasons. Number one, you can't accomplish much by yourself. And also, stuff inside stuff that's dealing with this is just under, you know, it's not being... revealed. So that's the advantage and the danger of a group, and that's the advantage and danger of not being in a group.

[70:53]

Or that's the disadvantage of a group and the advantage of the group and the disadvantage of not being in a group and not in a group. But in fact, whenever you're in a group, you're also not in a group. Everybody's always different from this group thing. Each person is. Nobody's really the group. But for the fun and advantages of group, we kind of pretend like we're all the same. Okay? That's normal. Yeah? I have been holding on to constitutions and various forms. Constitution is like... That the Buddha constitutes reality. Yeah. Confession. What? It has an apology of like safety and harbor, you know, like that idea. Yeah, right. There's something nice about like the deity constitutes the reality. But the disadvantage of the deity constituting the reality is it's hard to have one deity.

[72:03]

It's then you have a deity plus the rest of us. Plus, the other people who don't see that deity as constituting it are, you know, they're off. So, in the Catholic Church we have the Pope, seems to be, seems to think that not only does Jesus constitute reality, but the Catholic understanding constitutes, not even just Jesus. even other people who think that Jesus doesn't have it, they don't have the right image which constitutes it. So you can even narrow down the image to have this diamond-like thing that constitutes the reality. And everybody else who's orienting towards that same thing but not quite clearly, they're a little off. And people who don't orient towards it, Buddhists, are way off. So this pope is going to have trouble

[73:06]

dialoguing with the other traditions. But on the other side, he'll have an easy time having a war. It'll be easy. He'll be very effective in promoting war, which I would say is... I would say that a lot of people that are responding to him are responding in a really skillful way. Rather than saying some things they could say, they just say stuff like, I don't think that's helpful, or something like that. Within the church, yeah. They respond quite helpfully by not freaking out with this constitutional, constitutive attitude towards the form of the deity. But there is this strength in that view. It's calming in a certain way in the short term.

[74:10]

Yes. The other way is that the deity represents the truth. Yes. It seems that that could be problematic as well. Buddha represents it. Christ does not. No, no, no. If you say Buddha represents it, then Christ can also represent it. Well, that's what I think, too. Yeah, that's what the represent means. It's just a representative. It's not it itself. So there are other ways to represent it. As a matter of fact, I often think of the example of St. Jehoshaphat was a Catholic saint up until, I think, the 19th century. when the Catholics became more educated about Buddhism and realized that Saint Jehoshaphat was actually Buddha, that Jehoshaphat was a way of saying bodhisattva. And they heard about this bodhisattva, and when they heard about it, what he was representing, they could see, oh, that represents the divine.

[75:18]

That's a saint. Then when they heard about this person, this Bodhisattva, this Bodhisattva guy, they made him a saint. But when they found out it was actually a story of Buddha, they removed him from the list of saints. But I think Buddhists could see that some of the stories of Jesus are stories of a wise person. And some Christians can see that the stories of Buddha are stories of a wise person. But some can say, yes, it's a wise person, but not as wise as this, because this is where it's at. In relation to what Shogo said, that The operative being the exclusivity of it, because I would then have to also confess. I mean, I see that the Buddha is both constitutes and represents. I don't have something exclusive about it.

[76:20]

Yeah. Constitutes. Well, the problem with saying constitutes is that it... it does interfere with other forms that are different. Then a different form doesn't have the same constituents. Therefore, you have a problem there in dialoguing. Yeah. The Buddha's saying, my story represents about you. but actually the story is not really me. I'm not really that story. The representation of me is not me. This thing about being born and dying, that's not the way Buddha is. The truth that the representation is trying to clue you into is not the representation. Excuse me, the truth that the representation is trying to clue you into is not

[77:31]

Yeah, it's not the representation. The concept of Buddha is not Buddha. And representation is a concept. Yes. But without concepts, most people can't find out about Buddha. Like I was turned on to Buddhism by seeing pictures. The representation of Buddha in the form of a person sitting in meditation attracted me to Buddhism. I thought, oh, that's beautiful, just sitting like that. But that picture isn't Buddha, but it's something that attracted me. And if I think that that's it, then I have to sit that way and I have to be Japanese you know, and sit on a tatami mat. And if people don't sit on tatami mats, they're not real Buddhists. And that's the way a lot of Zen students feel, like without the tatami mats, it's not Zen.

[78:36]

What am I doing when I say that that is Buddha, that the bell behind your head in my line of vision is also Buddha? I don't know what you're doing when you say that, but if you actually think that the bell is the Buddha, the Buddha is saying to you, no, it's not true. What Buddha is, is actually the fact that you don't come or go. It's the fact that you're already fundamentally in a nirvanic state, that you really don't arise and cease. That's the way you really are. And everything's that way. Everything's at peace already. Now, we had somebody come into human form and enter into nirvana to represent that. And without somebody appearing in a representational form or a way you can conceive of, you can't listen to the teaching which will help you enter into what is beyond that representation.

[79:55]

namely a Buddha who's always here, namely a going that's always here. A peace that's always here is represented by somebody appearing, achieving peace, and then passing away. So he said, that's also part of our nature, is that we come and go. But when Buddhas come and go, part of the coming and going is dimension. Going is illusion. And that samsara is an illusion. And if you understand that, you will realize that samsara is always simultaneous with nirvana. Which bell? What is it? This bell, the reality of this bell is the same as the reality of you. But most people do not learn that the reality of the bell is the same as the reality of them.

[80:59]

Usually they have to listen to some kind of representation in a human form, if they're humans. So the reality of the bell manifests, the reality of the bell, which is the same as the reality of humans, manifests as a human. who then talks to the people to tell them that the reality of this manifestation and them and the bell is the same reality. Which is that bells don't go, Buddhas don't come and go, and you don't come and go. But in the realm of coming and going, the person comes and goes, the person has a face, the person hears words, And it's possible that the bell can teach you the Buddha Dharma, but the Buddha Dharma usually comes through the Buddha Dharma manifesting as a representation which then talks and affects bells and walls and things and bounces back to you to wake you up.

[82:16]

So the thinking that images constitute is something about our psyche, and needing representations is also something about our psyche. And we today are talking about the fact that we have these two tendencies, and one tendency, if you stick to it, will undermine dialogue with other traditions. The other tendency which the Lotus Sutra is proposing allows dialogue between different traditions and is potentially more peaceful. And lower consciousness. What? And lower consciousness. It's lower consciousness? No. The lowness of consciousness I was referring to is what occurs when you join a group who agree on some teaching or some practice. which we have here, but we need to watch out for the danger of agreeing.

[83:32]

And one of the dangers of agreeing is that we become unconscious of disagreement because it's so pleasant to agree. One of the dangers of a group agreeing is to become intolerant of people who don't agree. Because the people who don't agree could potentially undermine the good feeling of agreement. And not just the good feeling, but the efficiency of agreement. If we agree on something, we can all work on it together and accomplish amazing things. you know, like 12 apostles of Jesus kind of agreed on something, I think, and they accomplished amazing things. And I don't know how much that group consciousness dropped in order for them to accomplish that stuff. But actually, they seem to have allowed some difference.

[84:36]

Like Paul seems to be very different from those 12 apostles. Hmm? I was just... He's a different... He comes accurately. Yeah, he's not part of the group. Right. And that's really a great thing that he wasn't. But he was allowed to be different somehow. So he also accomplished a great deal which was related to the power of the group, of those twelve, that they had some effect. So groups are very... have this tremendous efficiency or, you know, function. And they're dangerous. The great things that have been accomplished... have been accomplished by groups. And the great harm that had been accomplished had been accomplished by groups. Some terrible, some people have done some bad things by themselves, but... Well, you know, I don't see it that way.

[85:39]

The mutuality of, like, if one person's a painter, they're not the only condition that's brought about the painting. But that's not exactly a group activity. The painting isn't a group activity. That's what I mean, in fact. I agree that that's the way people see it, but I see it as a group activity. Because of all the forces that... Right, right. It's a little different from this kind of group bonding. it doesn't have so much danger of the group bonding until the person becomes, until the work of art becomes a national treasure. And then you have the group bonding problem. Yes. But the Renaissance, you know, there wasn't a Renaissance, you know, excuse me for saying so, there wasn't a Renaissance in Siberia. Didn't have one there. There was a group event.

[86:45]

The not having a renaissance was a group event, too. The people up there and the reindeer and all those trees, they came together and they did not produce the sculptures and paintings and music in Italy with those people. And then those individual people get to put their name on something, which a whole culture created. And part of the culture was that somebody gets to put his name on this thing that the group, that the culture created. Before that, people did it on the church. The church was not made by one person. There was an architect maybe, or 50 architects. There were stonemasons, there were painters, there were sculptors, but nobody got to sign the cathedrals. But in the Renaissance, they got to start signing them. In the Renaissance, the cathedrals, people are signing stuff. But that's part of what the Renaissance was, was a culture where we could talk about a person doing a painting and a person being the architect of a church and a person being the head stonemason.

[87:55]

The culture changed to think, the culture changed in such a way to think things that people make the things. And that was a great thing. a great delusion, which produced this beautiful art. Yes? I'd just like to open it. I'm aware of the theory of group formation. It's claimed that for high-performing people, so high-performing groups or high-attaining groups, let's say, that the first stage is forming, but the second stage is storming. And that's allowing as much diversity in forming it before you create norms. And then once you create the norm, it is with a broader understanding of what the diverse opinions are, and that makes a stronger norm to go forward. And one of the downsides of that is you're saying a lot of groups don't want to go through storming. They feel very uncomfortable, and then they get to the point where they reform these wonderful, and they get to the point of having to reform in all unravels, because all of that's suppressed.

[89:06]

and adverse feelings come out at the moment before. Right. And in addition to what you said, I would mention that this scenario you're talking about, the very best ones were ones when the norm or the product or the decision still had some people who didn't agree. That's the very best ones. The ones where everybody on the team agreed When you look back, we're not as amazing and powerful as ones where some people still agree at the very end. And I've heard that one of the main things about this is that at the beginning phase, there's a lot of goodwill to work on this together where people have different opinions, but they do share that they want to work together. But of course they have different ideas of what that is. And to allow them to disagree through the whole process, and some people will shift from agreeing to disagreeing and then back to disagree, to allow that and to have that all the way to the end is usually what you find in the very best decisions, the very best creations.

[90:19]

And marriages? Yeah. I think so. And juries? It's a characteristic of reality. Okay. Very good. And about the passport will be later. So we could have lunch now, if you'd like. May our intention

[90:51]

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