Somebody said they heard this. And this is what the person heard. I heard that the Blessed One, the Buddha, was once living in the Deer Park in Isipatana. which means the resort of the seers, near Varanasi. And there he addressed a group of five yogis who he had practiced with prior to his realizing complete enlightenment. And he says, yogis, there are two extremes which ought to be avoided by one who has gone forth on the path.

[01:21]

What are these two? First is devotion, addiction to indulgence in sense pleasure which is low and common, unworthy and unprofitable. And there is devotion or addiction to self-mortification, which is painful and also unworthy and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata, the thus come one, in other words, the Buddha,

[02:24]

has realized the middle path. It gives vision. It gives knowledge. It leads to calm, insight, enlightenment and peace and freedom. What I'd like to point out at the beginning is Buddha says that the extremes that should be avoided are devotion to sense pleasure. Addiction to sense pleasure. The word addiction and the word devotion are etymologically related. They both mean to give oneself over to something habitually. to be devoted to sense pleasure to be devoted to to be devoted to be addicted to self interest to be addicted to many things many things could be we could be addicted to many things we could be devoted to habitually it's not the things

[03:59]

It's the being devoted to them that's the problem. It's being devoted to them as something external. And to be addicted to something external, then the thing possesses us. We become enslaved by it, by seeing it as external. on the other side there is addiction to self-mortification or self-denial and to be addicted to be habitually devoted to self-denial to be habitually devoted even to the welfare of others even to serving others to be habitually related to it serving others as though they're external, is an addiction.

[05:05]

Serving others or serving self not as external, this is not addiction. Serving self and serving others where there's nothing external is not addiction, is not our habit, is not an extreme. The middle way is the path of peace and happiness which avoids relating to the world and serving the world as external. Being devoted to alcohol, drugs, food, cigarettes, gambling, shopping, romance, sex, work, money, power, control, sleep, or major league sports.

[06:49]

Being addicted to these things is the extreme, is the extreme. The things are not the extreme. Sex is not an extreme. Romance is not an extreme. Money is not an extreme. Work is not an extreme. Food is not an extreme. Alcohol is not an extreme. It's being addicted to them that's the extreme. Serving others is not an extreme. giving up your self-interest for the welfare of others is not an extreme being addicted to it is extreme being robotically altruistic being robotically in the service of others habitually that's an extreme it's less common than addiction to these other things out of self-interest and self-pleasure.

[08:00]

But some people are habitually, addictively related to others in the service area. They robotically serve others. That's an extreme. There is self-interest and there is interest in serving others in a living being like us. How can we serve self and serve other without doing it addictively? That's the middle way. One key ingredient would be if we understood that none of these things were external, that they weren't out there on their own.

[09:02]

If we could understand that, there would be no addiction. And then we would have a wholesome relationship to sense pleasure, to serving others, to being devoted to the welfare of others. and to be devoted to food, sleep, sex, money, work, sleep, Major League Sports. In commenting on the precept, there's a precept which is stated literally as not selling intoxicants, but it also implies not taking intoxicants. The commentary by one of our ancestors says, where nothing can be brought in, nothing can be violated.

[10:06]

This is exactly the great brightness. If you can eat without bringing something in, if you can work without bringing something in, nothing can be violated. This is the great brightness of the Middle Way. If you can serve others without bringing anything in, without bringing in their praise, without bringing in their otherness, without being possessed by them appearing to be not you while you're serving others, while you're serving others to not be possessed by the appearance that they're external, then you can serve others and it's not addictive. It's the middle way. In this tradition of this temple, we often speak of being devoted to the welfare of others.

[11:49]

We aspire in this tradition, we aspire to live a life for the welfare of others. Yes, we do. And living the life of the welfare of others is the life of serving others non-addictively. Serving others in a middle way, which avoids addictive, habitual ways of serving others. Which means serving others non-habitually. Not according to your habit. not according to inclination, and fundamentally not according to them being external and getting something from them or losing something to them. You're not possessed by the others you serve on the middle way. You serve others that are not external.

[12:57]

How can we serve each other when we don't see each other as external. The way that we serve each other then is called the middle way. It's the way of peace. How can we be devoted to something that's not external or internal? How can we be addicted to something that's not external or internal? What's not external or internal? The middle way. The middle way is not something out there that the Buddha has. It's not something inside that I have. It's the way that nothing is external or internal. It's the way that nothing can be brought in or put out and where nothing can be violated.

[14:03]

One day in China I heard that a monk came to a Zen teacher named Feng Shui and said to him, both speech and silence miss the point. How can we avoid transgressing? And Feng Shui said, I always happily think of Hunan in March. The partridges chirping in the fragrant hundred grasses. I'm interested in ants, the insects, ants.

[15:26]

I've studied them a little bit. One of the people I study, one of the scientists I study is a person who loves ants more than I do, I think. He really loves ants and he really puts a lot of time in studying ants. He's 82 and he's been studying ants for about 60 years as his main thing in life. And he's been wondering for quite a while about where does the altruism of ants come from? Because ants seem to be really devoted to others. Individual ants are devoted to all the other ants in their colony. Where does that come from? But some other beings seem to sometimes be selfish.

[16:36]

Where does that come from? And to make a long story short, here's a summary. Well, before the summary, I'd like to mention that the most successful insects, insects which are not only most successful among insects, but most successful among living beings on this planet are ants. There are approximately 9,500 known species of ants And it is understood by some scientists that that's about half that there probably are. There's another 10,000 that haven't been discovered yet because they live in a forbidding neighborhood called the tropics.

[17:37]

Hopefully there will be tropics for them to be discovered in later. Their biomass, the ants' biomass, is approximately the same as the human biomass on this planet. A human being is about a million times as big as an ant, and there's about a million times as many ants as there are humans. So we're about the same amount of biomass, and the effects we have on the planet are comparable. Ants move comparable amount of earth around to what humans do with their tractors and bulldozers. Ants, however, have been successful like this for about 30 million years. Their edge, their advantage, is over all the other animals on the planet, except for humans, is that they're very social.

[18:41]

They have a lot of numbers and they cooperate and they're basically ants are robotically altruistic. At least most ants that have been observed. In other words, it doesn't look like the ants have found the middle way. Human beings among mammals are seem to be the dominant mammal. And we are the most social. But as you know, human beings are not, well, I take it back. Many human beings are not robotically altruistic. Many human beings, however, are robotically self-serving. Many human beings are robotically altruistic. Many human beings are robotically self-serving.

[19:46]

And some human beings are not robotically altruistic. They're just altruistic sometimes. And they're not robotically self-serving. They're just self-serving sometimes. Some people eat in a non-robotic way. in a non-habitual way. Some people serve others in a non-habitual way. And the people who are really good at that are the people who understand that nothing is brought in. Nothing is brought in when you serve others. You don't bring in happiness when you serve others. You don't bring in happiness when you serve yourself. They understand that when they're on the middle way. back to the scientific summary within a group selfishness or self-serving benefits the individual between groups self-denial altruism serves the group

[21:02]

And groups serve individuals. Human beings have the opportunity to, within a group, do something concerned with self-benefit that can benefit the self. It's not that doing something to benefit yourself is not the middle way. It's doing it addictively that knocks you off the path of peace. And of course, It's not that serving others takes you off the middle way. It's that doing it in the context of thinking that others are external that knocks you off the middle way. I'm not saying you shouldn't serve others even when you think they're external. I'm just saying when we serve others thinking that they're external, we veer from the middle way that the Buddha has discovered. The middle way, which is peace and freedom, is the path where you serve others understanding that nothing's brought in, that others are not external or internal.

[22:12]

And serving yourself in the same way is the middle way. And when we serve others, when we serve the group, it benefits the group. And it particularly benefits the group if we would do it without thinking that the group was external to us. Serving ourself benefits ourself. It doesn't necessarily benefit the group. But self-benefit is part of life, and benefiting the group is part of life. Animals that benefit the group are supported by the group. So actually I was thinking, do ants suffer?

[23:33]

I don't know. I couldn't see how they would suffer. Like you might think, when an ant throws its body in the way of its queen to protect its queen, does it hurt the ant to do that? You know, if something's attacking the queen and the ant would put itself in the way of the attacker. Does the ant experience pain from that? Maybe so.

[24:36]

But I asked before, do ants suffer? So, when the Buddha taught the middle way, he said, well, what is the middle way? He said it's the Eightfold Path, which is right view, right intention, right action, right speech, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. And then he started talking about the Eightfold Path, I mean the Four Noble Truths. And the Noble Truth of suffering, he says, well, The noble truth of suffering is this. Birth is suffering.

[25:39]

Death is suffering. Old age, aging is suffering. Association with unpleasant things is suffering. Association with pleasant things is suffering. Association with things that are neither pleasant or unpleasant are suffering. Not getting what one wants is suffering. In brief, everything you attach to is suffering. In other words, everything you see as external is suffering. Because when we see something as external, we grasp it.

[26:41]

When our mind makes things external, we grasp it. And as soon as we grasp something, we crave it. I should say, as soon as we see something as external, we crave it, and then when we crave it, we grasp it, and when we grasp it, we suffer. So everything that we see external as external, we grasp as external, and we suffer. All of our experience is suffering when we see it as external, crave it, and grasp it. And what I just explained is the second truth, which is the cause or the origination of the suffering is due to the externalizing, craving and grasping. Okay, now how can we address the situation where we might be in a place where we're not at the middle way, where we're in a situation where we serve self, where we relate to our birth and our aging and our death, we see our birth, our aging and our death, and we relate to them as external, and we crave in relationship to them?

[28:16]

where we see alcohol and food and other people's external and we crave them and grasp them and suffer in that situation? Or when we think of serving others, and we see them as external, and we crave the activity, and we grasp the activity, and we suffer, or we crave the people we're serving, we see them as external, we crave them, we grasp them, and we suffer. In that situation, how do we proceed? The Eightfold Path. First part of the Eightfold Path is, for example, to be aware of why we're even going to practice the Eightfold Path. What's the reason for practicing the Eightfold Path? Well, because it's the Middle Way. And it includes being aware of this tendency to grasp. It means we have right understanding, and right understanding is we understand that we are inclined towards

[29:21]

being addictively self-serving and or being addictively other-serving. People can be both self-serving and other-serving and be addictive in both directions. Some people are not addictively altruistic. They aren't addictively serving others. They just occasionally serve others, but they actually do it in maybe not a very addictive way. It's possible. But unlikely unless they're also not addictively serving themselves. So some people just addictively serve themselves, some people just addictively serve others, and a lot of other people addictively do both. Whether they're serving self or others, they do it addictively. In other words, they do it in the sense that they're possessed by the externality. In that situation, we have suffering, a lack of peace.

[30:28]

And then what is the practice? To be aware of this situation. That's kind of like right view, to understand the situation. And then to have right intention, which is perhaps, I wish to live for the welfare of all beings. I wish to learn how to serve others non-robotically. I wish to learn how to serve others appropriately, not habitually. Not according to my habit, but according to what is of service. In order to do that, I must learn to see others as not separate. So here I am in a situation of more or less addictions to these extremes, more or less suffering. And I hear this teaching and I wish to have the intention to serve others by walking the middle path.

[31:31]

Somehow finding the middle path and walking this middle path and in walking that middle path, serve others. And what does that look like? Well, it looks like right action, right speech, right livelihood. So it looks like... it looks like being compassionate to everything that's given. Being compassionate to everything that's given leads to realizing eventually that what's being given is not external. Everybody you meet is given to us. Everybody we meet is given to us. and nobody's external. Everybody we meet is given to us and nothing's brought in. By compassionately responding to whatever is given, we enter the heart of great compassion.

[32:36]

Here we are again, struggling to find the middle way, but finding that we're not there, that we're a little bit off, that we're a little bit craving, either craving towards serving others or serving self. We notice that, we respond to the situation by being compassionate towards the situation. By opening to the situation. By opening to others and opening to the fact, to the appearance that they're separate. Opening to the appearance that they're external and opening to being aware that we have craving in regard to other people and things.

[33:42]

That we open to the appearance that we're trying to bring things in. and be gracious to that. Practice generosity towards that situation. And then again, we practice ethics and patience and concentration. And in this way we gradually settle into the place where we realize that others are not external, that food's not external, that alcohol is not external, that work is not external, that gambling is not external, that nothing is external. And then we sit on the seat of the Buddha

[34:48]

We sit on the seat of the Middle Way. I just thought that maybe Feng Shui always thought of Hunan in March.

[36:14]

Because maybe one day in March, long ago, he was sitting in the middle way when he heard the partridges chirping. and smelled the hundred grasses and nothing was brought in. Right now I experience all of you how delightful how wonderful if you're not external and nothing's brought in. So I've heard that the Buddha said that generally living beings do surrender, are devoted to extremes.

[39:45]

Just now when I spoke, a lot of people moved. I just thought, oh, everyone was still before I spoke. Almost no one was moving. except the kitchen left, but all of you were sitting really still. Maybe not all of you, but when I spoke, there was a lot of movement. I wonder what happened then. Anyway, again, the Buddha, I heard, has said that people are generally inclined towards extremes, devoted to extremes. and excuse me they're inclined to the extremes or they're involved in the extremes and the extremes are that they're devoted to it's the devotion it's the addiction that's the extreme part so people are generally devoted to self-serving or other serving and then I wonder should we be devoted to the middle way should it be devoted to it should we surrender ourselves

[41:09]

to a way that's not external? Should we surrender ourselves to the way we are right now? Should we surrender ourselves to the way we are before we try to get anything? Could that be the middle way? To be devoted to the way you are right now without trying to bring anything in? To take care of the way you are before you try to get something? To live the way you're living right now without trying to get something? And then to act from that place of not trying to get something. To act, to speak, to think from the place where you're not speaking or gesturing or thinking to get something.

[42:17]

Could we be devoted to find that path? This path which would be peace. And if I find myself not devoted to this path, this is middle way, I say that if I'm compassionate to myself and to my experience of suffering when I'm not devoted to this path of being who I am now without trying to bring something in, being who I am now without trying to get something, if I veer away from that practice of being who I am without trying to get something, to be compassionate to the suffering that arises when I get off the path of the middle way.

[43:25]

And by that compassion to be brought back to being myself prior to trying to get something. to be myself before anybody is external to me? Do I wish to devote myself to that path, that middle way? I know some songs about the addiction to sense pleasure. I know some songs about addiction to the separate self. And now I'm trying to think of some songs of addiction to serving others.

[44:34]

Does anybody know any songs about addiction to serving others? They're less common. Yes? Do you know a song of addiction to serving others? There's a song, the title is, I want to be happy, but I can't be happy unless you're happy too. There's a song which is, I want to be happy, but I can't be happy until you're happy too. I don't think that's about addiction to others. I think that's the middle way. But thanks for the offering. Does somebody have another possibility of a song about addiction to serving others? Yes? There's a song by Britney Spears called I'm a Slave for You.

[45:42]

Ha ha ha. Do you know it? Do you know that song? You just know the title. I think that's a good one. I'm a slave for you. I'm a slave for you. I know a lot of songs which are I'm a slave for me. But how about a song in the middle way? That's a tough one. Yes? Bridge over troubled water might be a song in the middle way. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think so. Do you know it? Pardon? Do you want to come up here and sing it? No? Okay. Yes? Amazing Grace, a song in the middle way?

[46:44]

Yeah. I think that's right. I think that Mason Grace is a song of the middle way. How about You've Got a Friend? You've Got a Friend? Well, it's a little tricky. Because you might think that that might be a song of something external. That person who's talking might be saying, and the person who's listening might be thinking that the friend is external. I think the grace, the amazing grace would be to realize that these friends, the friends we've got, are not external. That's a bridge over troubled waters. When you realize all your friends are not external. So you cannot be slaves to your friends because they're not external. And they can't be slaves to you because they're not external. They can't possess you, and you can't possess them.

[47:47]

You can serve in a way that's the middle way, when you see the people that you're serving are not external. And when you see the friends who are serving you are not external, then you've received an amazing grace. And in order to receive this amazing grace, we have to be compassionate to all that happens prior to receiving that grace. We have to be compassionate to all the suffering that comes when we think people are separate from us and that we try to grasp them or avoid them. If we're compassionate to that, in that openness to this suffering that comes from not being on the middle way, opening to the suffering of being addicted to sense pleasure and addicted to self-denial, addicted to serving others. Being present and compassionate with that suffering, we open to the grace which shows us the bridge over troubled waters, the troubled waters of addiction to these two extremes, or rather, these two extremes which are these addictions.

[49:02]

Does anybody want to come up and sing A Bridge Over Troubled Water? Okay. So we could do Amazing Grace. Does that have to be a Christian song? No. We can do Amazing Grace or we could do The Little Light. Because a lot of people know Amazing Grace, right? Should we do Amazing Grace? You are? Okay, come on. And you can join her. You can do it in a way we can join, okay? Okay, we've got Bridge Over Troubled Waters. There's a microphone over there. Okay.

[50:10]

Okay. When it's cold. Tap it. I'll start with the verse and then the chorus, you know. Okay. When it's cold outside When you're on the street When tears are in Your eyes, I will dry them all. I'm on your side. Oh, when times get rough. When friends just can't be found, like a bridge over troubled waters, I will lay me down like a bridge over

[51:35]

troubled waters I will lay me down Thank you. Was that a Middleway song? Was that Middleway? Okay. Alright, now let's do Amazing Grace. You know that one too? Okay. What? What? Somebody give a tone. Amazing grace How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now I'm found.

[52:47]

T'was blind but now I see. T'was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace that fear relieved how precious did that grace appear I first believed. Sally, would you come and do the little light? You know the little light?

[53:54]

Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. this little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine this little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine this little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine [...] all over I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. May our intention...

[55:06]

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