The vow, which we just recited, was written by a Japanese Zen master. I think he said something like, we have the opportunity to be compassionate towards fools. Did something like that, remember? if a fool should appear, this is an opportunity for compassion. And then if the fool started to become our sworn enemy, this would be another opportunity for compassion. And this is like, this is an avatar of the Buddha coming to us and saying, here's an opportunity for compassion in the form of a sworn enemy. Sometimes we might think someone's an enemy and if we check with them they say, no, I'm not your enemy, I'm your friend. But we're talking about just somebody who actually says, yeah, I am your enemy.

[01:04]

That's right, I am. Well, they're both calling for compassion, both the sworn enemy and the person who tells us, I'm your friend. They're both calling for compassion. They're both giving us an opportunity to realize maturity in Buddha's wisdom. When we have maturity in Buddha's wisdom, we will be able to respond in very wonderful ways to sworn enemies and sworn friends. We'll be able to respond in a way that's appropriate to their awakening. We will become awake When we see what they're giving us as an opportunity for compassion, we will become Buddha. And when we're Buddha, we'll be able to teach others to do the same. We can start now, spreading this teaching, but we'll be more effective in transmitting it when we have maturity in Buddha's wisdom

[02:19]

which comes in the maturity of it, means that we almost never would be fooled by anything into thinking that this is not calling for compassion. Or in thinking that I'm not calling for compassion. Right now, I'm calling for compassion. That's so. I must know if I am, right? Do you see me calling for compassion? You don't? And when I tell you I am? I'll consider it. You'll consider it. Yes, please consider that I'm calling for compassion. Now, of course, if I call for it and you give it to me, I might be spoiled rotten. But calling for compassion could include that you tell me I'm a spoiled brat.

[03:21]

That could come from compassion that you could say that to me. And I might be able to see. Thank you so much for saying that. I needed that. And the story I told this morning, someone said that they appreciated the talk but they didn't understand the story. It was a story about two people walking along on a road and a white rabbit ran across the road. And the white rabbit ran fast across the road.

[04:29]

And maybe the story went fast across the road too. There's more stories about these two people and most of them have the following form. They're walking along together, and they see something, and one of them asks the other one, what's that about? In this case, that question was not given, but Uncle Me said what it was about anyway. So you're walking down the road, a rabbit runs across, what's that about? And he said, it's about, well, first of all, it's swift. That's what it's about. And then, well, what do you mean by swift?

[05:32]

And he didn't say swift from one side of the road to the other. He said swift like a commoner becoming prime minister. Usually, before you become prime minister, you become an advanced minister, a high minister, before that a medium minister, and then before that a low minister, and so on. Usually it's not go directly from one to the other. But in this case, it was like going from one side of the road to the other, like going from being a peasant to a prime minister, like that. But Dungshan said, such a venerable old fellow still says, still talks like that. Well, what about you? You could say, after generations of being prime ministers, temporarily fallen into poverty.

[06:48]

And then in poverty, you could then quickly, maybe, or slowly, return to prime ministership. But this is saying you've temporarily fallen into poverty after generations of great wealth. You don't have to get rich again. You're already in a prime minister family. It's not a matter of quickly or slowly. You're already there. But because of your poverty, it's hard for you to see your wealth. I'm saying that. And when you see, when you're temporarily falling into poverty or you're temporarily on one side of the road or the other, you might think you could rapidly get rich or gradually get rich, which both are true.

[08:05]

But what you might not understand is that you're already rich and you're so rich that you can be poor and not lose your basic nobility. However, poverty can make it hard for us to see our nobility. But if we practice compassion towards our poverty, we will see our nobility. And our greatest nobility is that our nobility is not the slightest bit separate from poverty. So we need to be kind to our poverty in order to wake up to our nature. And our current nature is that we are purely noble beings

[09:09]

who are associated with poverty. And all the forms of poverty that come to us are skillful devices trying to get us to learn how to be compassionate towards them. And some people are rich, but they don't understand that their wealth is also calling for compassion. So even though they're rich, they don't realize that if you took away all their wealth, it wouldn't change their basic situation. But most of us don't have that problem. Well, maybe we do. Yeah, maybe we do. Maybe a lot of us feel like if our wealth was taken away, we might not be able to say, thank you so very much.

[10:20]

I have no complaints whatsoever. Maybe we would have trouble doing that if our wealth was taken away. And I'm not asking anybody to burn this place down, but if it did, it might be hard for us to say, oh, This is calling for compassion, not calling for blame. Still, the fire department comes out and tells us, cut the grass around the house. Thank you, Amanda, for cutting the grass. Did you cut any more grass today? You aren't hogging that job, are you? Everyone is welcome. The fire department wants us to cut the grass around the house. Amanda's doing that. Thank you, Amanda. So we're trying to take care of this place. We're trying to be compassionate to it.

[11:22]

And one of the ways we try to do that, express that, is by cutting the grass around it. And so on. But... If there's a fire, certainly that fire is calling for compassion. Yes? There's another story and I can't quite remember it but you're such a great storyteller that resembles the the jewel of this case 56. It's the one where the prince didn't know he was a prince and he was shoveling poop. You know that story? I do. As a matter of fact, this story I just told is basically referring to that story.

[12:27]

Would you like to tell us a story? So the story I just told you is a story where one of the monks, Dongshan, is referring to this other story which Jackie is bringing up. So the summary of this other story is after generations of great wealth and nobility temporarily fallen into poverty. It's referring to a story in the Lotus Sutra where this young person, usually said to be a boy, wanders away from his home. And he becomes lost and can't find his way home. And the longer he wanders, the more destitute he becomes. And in the beginning of the story they don't tell us that his family was very wealthy.

[13:36]

Thank you. But anyway, he wanders and wanders. He wanders for 50 years. So by that time he's gotten quite a bit older. So maybe he's 55 or 60. Anyway, he's lost, he's destitute, he's emaciated, he's filthy. And while he's gone, then the story goes back to his parents who are looking for him all the time, constantly thinking of him, wondering where he is, wanting him to come back. And they are and have become even more sort of like inconceivably wealthy. which is our basic situation.

[14:50]

We are inconceivably wealthy. The whole universe is supporting us. And we're sharing our wealth with the whole universe. That's our basic situation. And they have realized it. And they still want their boy to come back. They want their girl to come back and receive this. And by chance, after this long period of time, he wanders into the place where his parents live. And as he gets close to their house, which is a grand palace, he sees it and he thinks, uh-oh, I'm not in a good neighborhood. Like if you find yourself in Brentwood or something like that, where they have people like driving, security people driving around, check in to see if anybody unusual is on the streets.

[15:52]

Anyway, he felt like if those people see me, I think he actually saw his parents and their attendants, if they see me, they might apprehend me and force me into labor, or even I don't know what. And so he says, I better get out of here. Meantime, his parents see him, and they're overjoyed and they send their servants, their attendants down to apprehend their son and bring him up to the palace. He sees these attendants coming all dressed very nicely and he thinks they're coming to apprehend him and put him into forced labor. And he's so afraid he passes out. And then his His parents say, oh, I get it. He can't believe that these people are coming to bring him home.

[16:54]

So he tells his attendants, leave him alone. No, sprinkle him with, what do they call those salts, ammonia? What are they called? Smelling salts. Smelling salts. So give him smelling salts and sprinkle some water on him and tell him he's free to go. And so they do revive him and tell him he can go. And he's so happy. He's so happy that he can go and he runs away. And he says something like, I think he says it the first time he says, and he feels like he'd gotten something he never had before. He was worried about being in big trouble, but now he's had a little bit of a release from this trouble, and he's very happy. And then his father gets this idea, and I believe his father dresses up in rags, dirty rags, and puts I think maybe dirt on his face and stuff, and then goes down and finds his son and says, Hey man, I got a job for you.

[18:03]

I'll give you food and housing if you do this job, which is shoveling elephant dung. And the son is very happy, doesn't recognize his father. The son's very happy to have this job, and he accepts it and goes to work and does get food and housing. And he does that for a long time. And then the father goes back to him again and says something like, you've been working here a long time. And the son goes, mm-hmm. And you're doing a good job. And the son goes, mm-hmm. And I'd like you to be sort of in charge of this excrement shoveling crew. And he says, okay. And I'll give you a raise and so on too.

[19:06]

And if you need anything, just let me know. And he accepts that, and he works at that, and he's very happy. And his confidence is building. He's coming from extreme poverty, but he's getting some confidence that he can be skillful and wealthy. Temporarily falling into poverty, But he's actually originally in this very wealthy family. And he's getting confidence. He can't quite believe it yet, but he's getting more and more confidence. Finally, after a long time further, his father comes down and invites him to come up into the house, where he was afraid to even be near before, and learn about the business of the house. So in this house we have stables too, but we also have the main house where we handle a lot of stuff, a lot of business, a lot of jewels, a lot of negotiations with the leaders of the country.

[20:20]

They all come here and I want you to learn the business. And the son says, okay, he's got confidence to do it. So then he does that and he becomes even more confident. And then the father says, you know, you're like a son to me. And he can hear that. And then finally he invites these leaders of the country to come and witness that he's now telling them, this young man actually is my son and always has been. And now he can listen to that. But it wasn't like he had to go through that process of training, but really he was always his son. So it isn't really like a commoner becoming a prime minister. It's like a commoner waking up to their Buddha nature. But sometimes we have to shovel a lot of stuff and enjoy it.

[21:25]

and be grateful that we have this job of shoveling stuff and be patient with it and tender with it and enthusiastic with it and calm with it until we can realize, oh, I have this nature, this Buddha nature, which is temporarily fallen in poverty and ultimate truth. and now we're hearing about this, but by practicing joyfully and more and more confidently dealing with the excrement, with all the terrible things that appear in diluted consciousness, by dealing with them with kindness in the form of generosity and being careful and patient and enthusiastic and calm, we awaken to our original fundamental state.

[22:33]

And then we can help others do the same. So that's a longer version of temporarily originally or fundamentally in a noble situation. We are, all of us, is the context of the Buddha. We are where the Buddha is born and grows up and is realized. We're the womb. But also another factor in this making the Buddha is a Buddha who is sending Dharma to us while we're in this womb of sentient beings. We're in this womb of Buddha nature. But we're also getting teachings which help us be grateful for this opportunity. And part of the excrement is not being grateful.

[23:40]

So if we're not grateful, we practice compassion towards not being grateful. And when we practice compassion towards not feeling grateful, we discover the truth in not being grateful. and also the truth in being grateful. Grateful also has truth in it. So that was a story that Jackie requested. That was a short version of that too. But Zen is very much about that story. We had this training program and see if you can be grateful for this training program. This training program is not reality.

[24:43]

This training program is skill and means. It's opportunities to express Buddha way in response to this opportunity. So we can develop more and more confidence and be more and more ready to accept the overwhelming love of this world. but not by pushing away the images of small-scale love or even large-scale cruelty, but to meet them as though, hey, here's a job of shoveling the excrement of cruelty. It's a job for you. You want to shovel it? Yeah. We'll pay you to deal with this excrement, excrement of human delusion.

[25:46]

We'll pay you to take care of this, and you'll get more and more confident that you can take care of this cruelty, this unkindness, this terror. we'll train you to be good at dealing with it. And we'll also feed you so you can keep working. Thank you for doing this work. It's not really true what I'm about to say, but I'm going to say it anyway. I've never been so insulted in my life.

[26:49]

That's not true. equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Humans are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[27:43]

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