Welcome to this blessed valley. There's a feeling of gratitude for the blessing of rain on the land. And there's also a feeling of sorrow and shock at the appearances of extreme violence and cruelty. I offer this morning gathering as a vigil

[01:01]

and a guided meditation for a peaceful response to the suffering and cruelty and violence that appears in the world. In the last talk I gave on a Sunday here, I noted that all around this temple, starting at the gate, you may see the word zazen.

[02:20]

It's one of the names we use. Did you see the word zazen? And it's on bulletin boards around the temple too, saying the times that there will be formal periods of practice of Zazen. And so last time I talked to you, I gave a talk which was kind of wondering, what is Zazen? I guess not all of you were here for that talk. Were you here? You were? You weren't. Well, I'm still wondering, what is zazen? And let me tell you, I don't know. However, even though I don't know, I can still keep wondering.

[03:25]

I'm devoted to the practice and I don't know what it is. And even though I don't know what it is, I say what it is. For example, Zazen is not Zazen. That's why we call it Zazen. Zazen is a word for our unceasing effort to free all beings from delusion so they may realize peace. But I don't know how that happens, but that's what we're devoted to. We're devoted to an unceasing effort to free all beings from ignorance, from inattentiveness, from

[04:38]

unkindness so they may dwell in peace. And that's our practice and sometimes we call it zazen. We also call it the precious mirror awareness, the precious mirror samadhi. And during this fall practice period that we're in the middle of here, almost every day we sing a song. And the song is the song of the precious mirror, Samadhi. It's a song about a concentrated awareness of Buddha's wisdom. Buddha's wisdom which realizes peace.

[05:44]

We sing a song about being mindful of that and being calm and present with Buddha's wisdom. Another name for our practice is the self-receiving and self-giving samadhi. I also don't know what that is, but I am devoted to that practice." We sing that song too, almost every day. The song of the undistracted awareness, undistracted mindfulness, of self-fulfillment through awareness of how we receive and give ourselves moment by moment.

[06:50]

And in that song, at one point it says, when we express the Buddha mind, seal, in our three actions of mind, posture, and voice, when we express the Buddha's mind seal in our three actions, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha mind and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. This is a claim that if we practice this way, the whole world will realize peace, will realize the Buddha mind seal.

[08:01]

The Buddha mind seal is intimate transmission is intimacy of all beings. The Buddha mind seal is the intimacy and peace and harmony of all beings. This is what Buddhas are transmitting. And the message of the songs is that We already have this. We have this transmission. It is the reality of our life. We have it. And since we have it, we have also the responsibility to take care of it. And part of the way we take care of it is to remember it. And in particular, to remember it with each of our actions, to remember it when we speak, when we think, and when we make postures, when we sit, when we walk, when we recline, when we stand, when we listen, when we talk, and every thought to remember

[09:35]

the truth of peace and harmony. And from this undistracted awareness, more actions will arise, and the actions will again express the Buddha mind. These three actions, I almost am tempted to say, however, but I won't say however. Did I say however? These three actions that are opportunities to express the Buddha mind seal of the intimate transmission of reality, which is peace and harmony,

[10:45]

this opportunity is occurring in the place where these actions arise. And the place the actions arise is a place called consciousness. Or they are arising in the conscious mind. And the conscious mind is a place where there's violence sometimes, cruelty, inattentiveness, The conscious mind is a difficult place to remember the Buddha mind seal. And that's the very place where we're being told to remember it and express it. Was that like really clear? It says, if you express the Buddha seal in your three actions, and now I'm telling you that the three actions, these three kinds of karma,

[11:47]

arise in consciousness, and consciousness is a difficult place to remember anything except, what about me? And it's kind of easy to remember in consciousness, I want to get in control of what's going on here. Consciousness is in a place where there seems to be somebody. That's the way it is in consciousness. There seems to be somebody and there often seems to be somebody else. And the somebody else often seems to be separate from the somebody who is always there. This is a... So the place to practice expressing the Buddha Mind Seal is in a place where things are appearing deceptively. The somebody here also is like not understood very well usually.

[12:52]

And there's a feeling in the room of consciousness of desiring power and desiring that this somebody who is there is in control over what happens. That this somebody is in control of her pleasure and pain. This is a hard place to remember teachings of expressing Buddha mind seal. But this is the place it needs to be expressed, because this is the place where we have the action. This conscious mind where there's somebody there is not the entirety of our mind. It's just the conscious part. We also have an unconscious part. And there's nobody there in the unconscious part. And the unconscious part is most of our cognitive life.

[14:00]

Most of our mind, in terms of events, most of our mind, there's nobody there. But a small part of our mind which I call consciousness, there is somebody there. And also, even though it's small relative to the fullness of our cognitive processes, there's a whole world in there, you know, with galaxies and universes. In that little mind there's enough going on so that we can have a lot of problems. There's enough going on that we can be impatient uncareful and suffer. And that's the place where our action occurs, that's the place where these three actions occur, where we have the opportunity to practice

[15:04]

unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace by expressing, in all of the actions that are there, expressing the Buddha Mind Seal. Every moment there's this opportunity. And every moment it's often difficult to remember the practice of peace, which nobody knows what it is. But even though I don't know what it is, I'm still trying to express the Buddha mind as these fingers are moving. I'm not consciously moving these fingers, but I see they're moving, and while they're moving I want this movement to express the Buddha mind, seal. I'm not in control of this talking. I, the one who is here in consciousness, is not doing this talking. I don't know how this is happening. I can tell stories but I really don't know.

[16:07]

I'm responsible and I want this talking to express the Buddha mind seal. I want this talking to do that so that the whole world will express the Buddha mind seal. I'm wishing to be mindful and I'm not in control of being mindful. But sometimes it seems to happen and I never regret it. Sometimes when I'm walking around the world, on the street, and in airports. Usually it's young men who ask, when they see me with this haircut, the ultimate haircut, and my traveling priest robes, when they see me they sometimes say, Are you into martial arts?

[17:23]

And I often say, yes. And then they often say, what kind? And I say, Buddhist. Zen Buddhist. I imagine that the historical Buddha was a martial artist. I imagine when I hear stories about her, that when she was attacked and treated with violence, she was able to come back with a non-violent response that sometimes seemed to almost immediately realize peace. But sometimes it didn't immediately realize peace, and it took several responses before the peace came. But she just kept trying. Attack after attack, she came back with the miracle of blessing and kindness towards violence.

[18:38]

I see a teaching there that if we keep coming back with compassion to violence enough times, the violence will melt away, that it won't be able to hold up against the continual offering of generosity and carefulness and patience and diligence and calm and wisdom which the Buddha offers in the face of violence. To some extent, if you want to talk about subtle violence, there's often violence in consciousness where there's somebody there. And sometimes the somebody that's there is us or me. And that apparent person, that self, is often trying to control what's going on.

[19:48]

And trying to control what's going on is the origins of violence. trying to control others and trying to control self is to some extent an act of unkindness. And it is endemic in consciousness. There is a desire in consciousness for what is not the case. There's a desire in consciousness for what is not real. There is a desire to be all-powerful and in control.

[20:55]

And specifically, in other words, that things go the way the one who's there wants them to go. Control is not the same as wanting things to go a certain way. For example, I could want there to be peace. I could want all beings to go on the path of peace without trying to control them on the path. So if I see someone and I want that person to walk the path of peace, and they walk off what I think is the path of peace onto a path that I think is not peace, the path of peace is for me to be generous to them, to he or she who is walking not on the path of peace. If there's an impulse to get them back on the path of peace,

[21:56]

I'm generous with that impulse. If it's in them, I'm generous with it. If it's in me, I'm generous with it. I often think of ... I think I was on ... no, somebody gave me up. a planner. Now people have electronic planners, but back in the old days they used to have paper planners, like little books that had dates and times and then instructions about how to plan. But I remember at the beginning of this planner it says something about ten ways to control your life. I have been refraining from following those ten ways.

[23:09]

I don't remember what they were. I didn't memorize them. I've actually memorized ways of giving up trying to control. I'm trying to remember to give up trying to control, for example, you. And I'm to give up trying to control me. I'm trying to be mindful of giving up trying to control life. And I am living in a place where I seem to be. And in that place there is a deep impulse to control. There is a will to power that lives there. And the path of peace is not to annihilate the will to power which lives in consciousness. It's not to eliminate the impulse to control the peace process.

[24:16]

But the impulse and the will to power do live in consciousness and they really stir things up. So if you have a hard time remembering, no matter what happens, the unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. If you have trouble, you have a lot of company. All the other consciousnesses are challenged by their basic situation. So lately I've been repeating a story about different types of awareness, different types of mind, different types of cognition, different ways of knowing.

[25:54]

So one is which I and I am familiar with, is consciousness, because I live in consciousness. I'm quite familiar with consciousness, where things are appearing. But there's another, as I said earlier, another form of cognition, which is unconscious, and I'm not there. But I live there. that unconscious cognitive process completely surrounds and embraces and supports the consciousness where I appear to live. A big part of my life is where I'm not. And it supports the place where I appear to be. And those two forms of mind interact intimately and harmoniously.

[27:02]

They never fight. One supports, the unconscious cognition supports the conscious, the conscious constantly transforming the unconscious, and the unconscious never says, no thank you. It completely surrenders to the influence of the troubled mind of consciousness or the peaceful mind of consciousness, whatever. It doesn't argue. There's nobody there to resist. And there's a third cognition, a third mind, which is the Buddha mind, which is not the least bit separate from either or both of these other minds. It is actually the intimate transmission of reality. It is the intimacy of these minds, and in the intimacy of these minds, both within and between, in that intimacy

[28:03]

the path of peace is realized. one of the ways the Path of the Priest is realized is to remember it in consciousness and to treat everything in consciousness in a peaceful way. So if you are lucky enough to notice that somebody is trying to control things, And that that's quite stressful to be trying to control things.

[29:05]

And somebody has on a power trip, if you can see that, if you can see the trouble that's being caused in consciousness by these impulses, then there's an opportunity to be kind to them. And by being kind to them, they will be, their harmful, their harmful consequences will be, will be, what's the word, liberated. So simple, so difficult.

[30:24]

How simple? Whatever arises and whatever action arises with whatever arises, let that action express the Buddha mind. Let that action express the mind of peace. the mind of peace which doesn't grasp what peace is or argue about what peace is, doesn't grab what war is or argue about what war is. It just meets peace with compassion and doesn't hold on to it, and it meets war with compassion and doesn't hold on with it. Simple, right? But not easy.

[31:25]

Not easy to do that, and not even easy to remember to do that. So if somebody slaps me in the face, it might not be easy for me to remember to think, to think, to say, and to gesture, welcome. It might not be easy to remember it. And even if I remember, I may say, not in this case. I remember, but I'm just not going to do it. This is just like, doesn't qualify for the Buddha mind. It's not going to get it. It's going to get some other mind. Well, it's already got another mind, the mind which is, no way, you're not, this is, I'm not, I'm in control, and you're not going to get by with this. I saw some words on one of those screens and said, the attacks in Paris will probably cause or influence a more aggressive response.

[32:40]

And I thought, what does aggressive mean in this case? Could aggressive be more energetic? Or does aggressive mean more violent? Do we have to get more violent in response to this violence? Or can we be more energetic in being peaceful? Can we see the violence as another reminder that we need to practice peace, that there hasn't been enough demonstration of it? Has there been enough demonstration of violence to show that there's not enough demonstration of peace? And some people say, no, there hasn't been, so I'm going to do more violence because I'm not going to switch to peace yet. But there comes a time when maybe the violence will But then, once you're convinced that you want to practice peace, then you have this hard job of remembering it and giving your actions to it.

[33:53]

So I'm pretty well convinced, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty convinced by what I just said. But I'm convinced of doing something and I'm having a hard time practicing. And when I have a hard time practicing, I usually, some people maybe would like me to do it, some people would like me to stop doing this, but usually when I forget to practice, then I often remember to be kind to myself for forgetting. And a lot of people come and tell me that they've forgotten, and I'm usually kind to them. And if they forget and they don't tell me, it's harder for me to be kind to them. But when they actually notice it and tell me, it's not too difficult for me to say, great, that you noticed that. And when I notice it, I say the same to myself, good boy, you noticed that you slipped up, that's good, rather than something mean, just because I got distracted in the turbulence, in the power trips, in the controlling impulses flying all over the place.

[35:29]

I want you to be at peace, but I'm not trying to control you into it. I don't think that's helpful. I want you to be at peace and I also want to be patient even if it takes eons for you to be at peace. I don't want to say, I want you to be at peace and if you're not at peace in two weeks, I'm done with you. I don't want to do that. or even a year. I'll give you one year to be at peace, and if you don't do it, I'm going to stop wanting this, and I'm going to just start being mean. Maybe that'll help. I don't want to get to that. I haven't seen it's helpful. So there's a lot of people who appear to be forgetting about peace

[36:34]

A lot of people in this community sometimes forget about peace, and I'm one of them. So I'm simultaneously somebody who forgets about peace and somebody who remembers about peace. And they're both happening at the same time. They're intimate. And the one who remembers is kind to the one who forgets. I don't know how much longer there's going to be forgetting but as long as there's forgetting I want there to be remembering to be kind to the forgetful one. I don't know how much longer there's going to be inattentiveness to what's going on but for as long as that's going I want there to be generosity and carefulness and patience with that

[37:44]

in attentiveness in this consciousness and in this consciousness of other consciousnesses. Right now I don't feel a clear request to say any more. But if you have any questions, we have a question and answer period later, and you're welcome to come and bring up whatever and whatever, there's quite a bit included in that, so it's pretty open.

[38:51]

The teaching of suchness, intimate communion, Buddhas and ancestors. Now you have it. So keep it well." See, I didn't control this wire getting hooked on here. See? I'm not in control. Now some of you may think, you made this wire get hooked on this thing. And it's staying on it. Now I fell. I'm not in control. It's clear to me at this point. Earlier it was all tangled up, did you see? Did you see at the beginning it was all tangled up? And I thought, oh, here's an opportunity to demonstrate patience rather than something else. Like, who did that?

[40:10]

Who made this knot? Who did that? Was it you? Was it you? Who was it? Who did it? I don't know who did it, but it was an opportunity for me not to blame anybody and to practice patience. And it didn't quite cross my mind, but now it does, how wonderful it would have been just to spend the whole talk trying to unravel it. And then you could also practice patience. But then at a certain point you probably would say, This is amazing. Here we are all together watching this guy trying to untangle this knot. And, you know, we're all supporting him to do it.

[41:14]

We're all being patient with him. He doesn't seem to be very good at it. But he's, I think he's kind of patient. And I feel like I'd like to go over there and get control of the situation and untie it for him because I know how. Does this sound familiar? May our intention equal...

[41:43]

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