The fourth main category of practices for ethical training in the six-fold precept system. So again, these six-fold precepts are these six practices, which are also sometimes called six perfections. They are included under the third aspect of the three pure precepts. So we have one version of bodhisattva training is three pure precepts. And under that way of looking at it, under the second precept, come these six. Is that clear?

[01:07]

So the three are called ethical training in the inclusive sense. And then under the second of the three, we have another ethics, which, as I mentioned before, we can look at in terms of 10 major precept exercises or 58 precept exercises. Then under these wholesome practices, under these practices conducive to awakening for the welfare of the world, comes enthusiasm, also sometimes called heroic effort, or diligence, and so on. As I said before, these six practices protect and develop the aspiration to live a life which brings welfare to all beings.

[02:25]

They protect and develop that aspiration into the realization of that aspiration. This fourth practice of enthusiasm, its root is aspiration. So aspiration is protected by these practices, but also aspiration drives these practices. So the root of enthusiasm is aspiration. And enthusiasm, the energy or effort And desire to do these practices protects the aspiration and develops it. So the aspiration gives rise to the enthusiasm. The enthusiasm fuels the practices which protect the aspiration. The aspiration gives rise to enthusiasm, which supports the practices which protect the aspiration and develop it.

[03:30]

So it goes round and round. The root of enthusiasm, the root of effort, is aspiration. And aspiration is a great wish. It's a wish, but it's a big one. As I often say, we don't usually say, I aspire to have breakfast, or I aspire to drive to work. So aspiration is a great wish, a great intention. And the root of aspiration is contemplation of karmic cause and effect, or contemplation of how we understand so far that actions have consequence.

[04:32]

So I think all of us have some understanding that when we pay attention to what we're doing and intend to be skillful, that tends to promote skill. It's not a situation where we're in complete control, and yet, although if I intend to be careful, I don't necessarily actually act carefully. Still, there's some relationship between intending to be careful and being careful. And many of us might feel that it probably is good to intend to be careful. And I think if I am careful, that does lead to the development of skill. But it's not a deterministic thing.

[05:36]

It's not a controlling thing. It has play in it. It has some flexibility in it. It's an influence. Still, I do feel maybe that if I'm careful and attentive, it does promote learning. I still feel that, I seem to feel that when I'm not careful, I usually regret it. Or more often than not, I regret it. But I'm not kind. I usually don't feel good about it. And when I am kind, I usually don't regret it. So as I contemplate action and the result, even though I can't yet see it clearly because until we're completely enlightened, we cannot see how cause and effect works.

[06:52]

We just have our own kind of like picture, our own story of how it works. As a matter of fact, the Chinese characters for the conditions around how things happen is sometimes translated as story. So we do have stories about how things work, but that's not actually how they work. Causation is much more complex than our conceiving mind can grasp. Still, once again, we do feel probably that what we do has consequence and therefore it is important to pay attention to what we're doing. Such a contemplation gives rise perhaps to the aspiration to be careful, to be attentive, to be mindful.

[08:01]

Someone told me that he Recently, it became clearer to him by watching Karmic Cause and Effect, as he understood it, that if he's not careful for how he chews his food, he notices he's more likely to bite his lips and gums, not his gums, but he's more likely to bite his lips and the inside of his mouth if he's not careful of how he chews. And if he is careful of how he chews, if he chooses to be careful how he chews, it tends in the direction of not biting the inside of his mouth as much. Although it's not a complete control thing, By observing his chewing karma, his chewing action, and the consequences of certain kind of chewing, he feels an aspiration to practice more mindful chewing.

[09:08]

He doesn't really see the whole picture of karma, cause and effect, but what literally he does see encourages him to be more skillful in his chewing, which requires, it seems, a little more mindfulness. My point being that he was actually observing his action and the consequence. And that led him to feel like, well, of course I always thought I should be mindful when I'm chewing, but now I feel even more convinced that it would be a good idea. I heard about that it was a good idea, but by watching my not doing it and the consequences, it seems like it really is a good idea to watch your lip or watch my lip.

[10:13]

I don't think you know what's going on. The same could be said to you. And it would be good advice in both directions. the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. His name was Shinryu Suzuki. In the late 60s, the Zen Center was given a place to practice in the mountains that Jim referred to earlier called Tosahara Hot Springs. And we started a monastery there. So this Zen priest went down there to lead the students in the practice of Zen.

[11:29]

The practice of Zen, which includes the practice of mindfulness. Mindful eating, mindful walking, mindful talking, mindful thinking. In other words, mindful action. It's part of Zen. So there's a stream that runs through the valley. It's called Tassajara Creek. And there's a place where the stream goes through a narrowing spot where the granite walls are closer together. And it makes actually a waterfall over the granite. At the bottom of the waterfall, there's a fairly deep pool And one time the teacher, Suzuki Roshi, went with his students down to this pool. And the students jumped into the pool.

[12:35]

And the teacher jumped into the pool. And then the students noticed that the teacher was under the water for a long time. And maybe they thought, Well, he's a Zen master. He can probably stay down indefinitely. After a while they thought, well, maybe this is getting a little long. Maybe we should go down and check to see how he's doing. So they went down under the water. And I guess they got the impression that he was not doing too well. So they pulled him out. And later he told a story about that event. And what he said was that he was kind of embarrassed about what happened because he was not so mindful. He got kind of excited and there was a gap in his mindfulness and he got excited and he forgot that he didn't know how to swim.

[13:45]

It looked like so much fun. Or maybe he thought the water was not very deep, but it was deep enough for him. So he went down into the water, and then he remembered that he couldn't swim when he saw the legs of the ladies under the water. And so anyway, he got pulled out and survived to tell the story. And I heard him tell the story, and then he said, that after that happened, he started to practice harder. In other words, observing his action and the consequence, he saw, I wasn't so mindful, and then I almost drowned. Plus also I'm the teacher and I want to set an example, I want to teach people how to be mindful, but I wasn't.

[14:53]

And generally he impressed us by how mindful he was, the way he would mindfully put down a cup or pick up a cup. Generally he was quite mindful, but in this case there was a gap and he regretted it. And he observed his karma and he aspired to practice more diligently. He aspired to practice more enthusiastically. Even though he was, you know, actually near his death, he was still thinking, oh, I want to practice more diligently. And after he told that story, we had dinner, and we're at the table with him, and one of the students said, Roshi, you said that after that happened you started to practice hard. But weren't you already practicing hard?" And he said, yes, but then I really started to want to practice hard.

[15:58]

So even an old teacher who's been practicing a long time still considers their karma, and if they see that their karma ... if they see their karma was skillful, and they feel that was good, then they feel this aspiration to practice good action. If they see their karma and see it was not good, they see, oh yeah, and they feel the aspiration to practice good karma. So they feel the enthusiasm to practice giving ethics patience, but also they feel the aspiration and therefore the enthusiasm to practice concentration. They think about how good it is to be concentrated, and they aspire to it. Concentration is a little bit different than being patient with people and being ethical with people and being generous with people.

[17:04]

When we're practicing concentration, It's not so social, necessarily. We can be concentrated in our social activity, but sometimes when we're practicing concentration, we don't seem to be talking or interacting too much, like just sitting quietly together. Of course, when we're sitting quietly and sitting still, we are actually helping others who are sitting with us. So there is benefit. There is promotion of benefit to others when we're practicing concentration. but also concentration gets us ready for wisdom. And so I'd like to point out that this concentration depends on generosity, ethics, patience, and enthusiasm. We need to be enthusiastic about practicing concentration in order to practice concentration.

[18:10]

We're not naturally concentrated. Again, sometimes if you watch children, they are concentrated. They sometimes are concentrated, but sometimes they're not. A lot of times they're not, especially like when their blood sugar level gets low. They don't demonstrate much concentration. They seem to be just sort of breaking apart into pieces. When they get tired, they have trouble being concentrated. When they're afraid, they have trouble being concentrated. But sometimes when their blood sugar level is good and they're not too tired and they're not too afraid, even when they're very little, they can take tiny little blocks and pile them up with great precision and concentration. It's beautiful to see. But to develop concentration, concentration and develop some consistency in it does require quite a bit of training, and it depends on these previous four practices.

[19:26]

Now that I'm talking about blood sugar level, part of ethics is to take care of your blood sugar level. Part of being careful is to not eat too much or too little. If you eat too little, you'll have trouble practicing concentration. If you eat too much, you'll have trouble practicing concentration. And therefore, if you have trouble practicing concentration, you have trouble practicing wisdom. So part of ethics is to be careful of what you eat. What you eat and how much. In other words, eating in a wholesome way is eating in a way that is conducive to enlightenment. So again, when you're eating, are you being careful of how you eat? Are you being mindful, not only how you chew, but how much food you're receiving and what kind of food.

[20:36]

Nowadays at Zen Center, there's more awareness of what people are eating than when I first came to Zen Center. People are more conscious of where the food comes from and what kind of food it is than when I first started practicing. I would say they're about equally mindful of their eating as we used to be. Maybe more so, because I remember sometimes when I was a young practitioner, it seemed like a lot of the other young practitioners were primarily concerned with getting as much food as possible. And sometimes after formal meals, we would compare how many pieces of bread we got. in a monastic situation in those days anyway we had no food between meals unless somebody got something on a town trip like I didn't get stuff on town trips so the only time I got to eat was those three times a day there was no snacks in those days and yeah people used to really try to get a lot of food so they weren't actually very mindful now that I think of it in the way they ate

[21:59]

As a matter of fact, now I think a little bit more about it. I remember that I was the plumber in my first training period at that monastery. I was the plumber. And part of my work was to take care of the... I guess it's called a... What's it called? Not exactly a cesspool, but what's the other thing it's called? Huh? Septic tank, yeah. Part of my job was to take care of the septic tank. And so in the process of it I got to look and see what was in the septic tank. And I saw in the septic tank lots of food which had never been bitten. Like I saw whole soybeans with no tooth marks on them. So I realized that the monks were swallowing their soybeans without chewing them because they wanted to get as much in their body as they could. They didn't have time to chew.

[23:06]

So I went to the work meeting and I reported to the monks about the monks that they were not chewing their food. They were so afraid that they wouldn't get enough to eat that they weren't chewing their food. So even in a Zen monastery, People are sometimes not chewing mindfully. Can you believe it? And when weren't they chewing mindfully? When they were afraid that they were going to run out of food. And in that practice period, there was a lot of fear of running out of food because it rained almost every day for the first two months in the winter. And the road washed out. So we kept thinking we were going to run out of food. So what people did is they ate as much as possible out of fear that it would be their last meal. But again, they didn't chew. So you see, even in a Zen monastery, people are not necessarily practicing ethics when it comes to eating.

[24:11]

So people go to Zen monasteries not because they already are mindful, but sometimes they are, but sometimes they go because they want to learn how to be mindful, and sometimes they find out how to be mindful by noticing how unmindful they are. And then again, when you want to be mindful, When you hear about the precept of mindful, and you receive it, and you aspire to it, and you notice you're not, you feel regret and embarrassment. And little by little, over the years, you get a little bit more and more mindful. That's how ethics works, in that way. And also to be patient with your present level. And then, again, considering karmic cause and effect, you feel the aspiration to practice these practices. And you feel the aspiration to practice concentration. And you also again notice, it seems like when I eat too much, or the food's too rich, if I drink too much coffee or sugar, I notice that I'm very nervous when I'm meditating.

[25:34]

hard to concentrate, hard to relax, hard to calm down, because I ate too much. And then again, if you eat too little, you also notice hard to concentrate. So again, as you watch karmic cause and effect, you aspire to practice ethics more. If you practice ethics more, you could practice concentration better. You try to practice concentration without practicing ethics, you notice you're quite unsuccessful. And again, when I first started practicing at Zen Center, in the early days of Zen in the West, a lot of people came to practice Zen, came to practice Buddhist meditation. They heard about Buddhist meditation. And so they went to Buddhist centers to practice concentration. They thought, you know, part of one type of meditation is concentration. That's the kind that a lot of people thought was meditation.

[26:36]

So they went to Zen centers and other Buddhist centers to practice concentration. They didn't even necessarily hear about the previous four. Matter of fact, they were glad they didn't hear about the previous four. they particularly didn't like this ethics one lot of because they grew up in a situation where they weren't fortunate enough to be given ethics teachings which they found inspiring so my experience is for myself and others who are trying to practice concentration there was a lot of frustration and lack of success in concentrating because we didn't understand we had to practice these previous ones. So one example would be somebody sitting in meditation trying to be concentrated and they kind of notice that they're distracted. And then they try to get less distracted by being mean to their distraction.

[27:42]

Or they try to be less distracted by feeling unhappy that they're distracted, and so on. They're hoping that unhappiness will get them into concentration. Whereas unhappiness is not one of the practices on this list. So if you notice you're distracted, what's the first practice to do with distraction? What? I can't hear you. Welcome it, yeah. If you're distracted and you welcome it. It doesn't mean you like distraction. You might. It doesn't mean you hate it. You might. Those aren't the practices. They aren't on the list. It doesn't say first practice is like and dislike. Matter of fact, sometimes we say in Zen, if you're free of like and dislike, you're on the path.

[28:46]

If you can just not get into likes and dislikes, but not being into likes and dislikes means you're into giving. So you welcome, you say thank you very much to distraction. And as soon as you say thank you very much to distraction, you relax somewhat and calm down somewhat. Got distraction? Welcoming to it? You just calm down. Bring more welcoming to it, you calm down more. Then bring ethics to it. What kind of ethics? Well, like pay attention to your posture. Are you sitting up straight? Pay attention to what you eat. Pay attention to how much you sleep. And so on. Start paying attention to your actions. That also calms you down. And then be patient. Be patient with what? Be patient with your discomforts, be patient with the hardship of sitting, any hardships that come up. Be patient with insults, like if other people when you're sitting come up to you and tell you that you're a lousy meditator, be patient with them.

[29:52]

Be patient with yourself, insulting yourself. Be present with the difficulty of the practice, you calm down. You're already starting to calm down. Now, Let's think about generating a lot of enthusiasm about concentrating. And what is concentration like? Well, it is focused, but it's not focused too much. And it's not focused too little. It's focused the right amount. It's collected. Concentration is collected, but not too collected. Most people are not collected enough. Does that make sense? Around what they're doing. Most people are not concentrated. Most people are a little bit too distracted in their actions. But it's possible to get overly concentrated, or I should say, overly collected.

[30:56]

And so, in the process of concentration, there needs to be some enthusiasm, some effort to collect, to bring ourselves here to what's happening. Like, for example, here, to bring yourself here right now with what's happening right now. In other words, you can practice concentration right now. How? By being right here. by collecting yourself to here. Also to collect yourself to now. Just let go of your whole history, your whole past, just let go of it. Don't kill it, just let go of it. And also don't think about the later part of this afternoon.

[32:01]

or this evening, or tomorrow. Just for now, for the sake of developing concentration, let go of future and past. What does that leave us with? Now, when you give up future and past, what sometimes happens is a demon comes to try to get you to go back to future and past. And it says, this is boring. The present is boring. And what do we do if a demon comes to us and says the present is boring? Welcome it. Welcome, demon. If the demon comes and tells you that being present and calm is boring, and you start arguing with the demon, the demon has just become successful. But if you say, welcome, the demon is not functioning very well.

[33:06]

There's a kind of myth or... What is it? Anyway, it's a story that there's these demons who live in the world, and if all the human beings are running around crazy, totally distracted and confused and mindless and stingy and frightened and unethical and not concentrated, what are the demons doing? They're like totally relaxed in their palaces, sitting in hammocks, drinking lemonade, because they have no work to do. They're totally on vacation. because their work is being done by the people. However, if the people are concentrated, which means the people are enthusiastic, patient, ethical and generous, then the palaces of the demons start having earthquakes and they drop their lemonades and their hammocks fall on the floor.

[34:26]

And the leader of the demons said, get down there and get those people agitated again. So they come and they say, you know, meditation is really boring. Being patient is really, you know, not the thing to do. You should get angry when you're uncomfortable. If people insult you, you should attack them. You're a fool to let these people bother you like that. If they insult you, insult them back. You don't just sit there and listen to it. Don't say thank you. You're crazy! You're a fool!" And of course, if the person's skilled at meditation, they just say, Oh, I must be doing quite well for you to be visiting me. I heard you'd come when I got really concentrated, and here you are. Amazing! That's what happened with the Buddha, supposedly. You know that story of the Buddha? The Buddha got really concentrated, and his concentration was he was focused, he wasn't distracted, but he wasn't too concentrated.

[35:37]

He was flexible. So concentration is being collected, but also open. You're focused like being here, being now, but not closed to past and future. and not close to everything around you. You're open to everything but not distracted by it. You're not concentrated by excluding. You're concentrated by being open and not distracted by everything you're open to. So there the Buddha was, sitting still, and the Buddha said, I'm going to sit still until... I'm not going to move until I realize wisdom. And then all these demons came to try to get him to move. And he just said, welcome, welcome. Thank you for coming. Thank you for attending the enlightenment ceremony. So nice of you to drop by. It's going to be a big night. Good that you're here. Go get a good seat. Watch this enlightenment happen."

[36:39]

So the demons gave up. They realized that they just get met with compassion. Their assaults would not disturb this concentration because the concentration was supported by compassion. These first practices are compassion practices. They're ethical training and compassion. But again, this kind of concentration is not just a tight focus, it is a focus that's relaxed and open and light. It's not a heavy forcing ourselves into concentration. It's a presence, it's a focus, it's open. And maybe you can see how it depends on the previous four. Now with this concentration, we're very much ready to open to reality.

[37:48]

What's reality? A part of reality is what we think is going on. Namely, we think that we're separate from each other. We think that other people, it looks like other people are not us. That's part of reality. However, that's not true. But part of reality is that things appear in an untrue way. Part of the Buddha's teaching is the way things look to us is not the way they are. And they do look to us that way. Part of the teaching is that we naturally see untruth. We innately, from the time we are born, we see untruth.

[38:53]

And what's the untruth we see? Well, we see that things are existent, are existing separate from us, and that we exist separately from things. Things look like they're solid, and existing on their own. And then we feel that way about ourselves. Things look permanent. We see them change, but we see them change from one permanent thing to another permanent thing. That's how they look. So the Buddha teaches that people see things in an erroneous, mistaken way. And when people hear about this erroneous way of seeing things, and if they practice ethics, one of the practices being to tell the truth, they say, yeah, I see the way Buddha says things aren't. In other words, I see the way Buddha says is a mistaken way of seeing. I admit it. And also, Buddha teaches that when you see things mistakenly as existing separate from you,

[40:04]

or when I see things separate from me, I naturally crave them. But you don't crave things that aren't separate from you. You crave things that are separate from you. And when you crave them, then you reach out and try to get a hold of them. And when you get a hold of them, when you think you get a hold of them, then we have the beginning of stress, of suffering, of discomfort, of dissatisfaction. This is the basic story, you know, the Four Noble Truths. The truth that there's discomfort or the truth of discomfort. The truth of discomfort is that discomfort depends on misperceiving and craving and clinging. And that misperceiving and craving and clinging can be brought to an end by a practice.

[41:08]

What's the practice? The practice is ethical training applied to misconception. We've got the misconception, now we need to practice bringing generosity to misconception, ethics to misconception, patience to misconception, enthusiasm to practice those practices with misconception, with unreality. And we need to be calm and concentrated with misconception. then we can see the misconception as what it is and not fall for it anymore. And therefore there won't be craving and clinging and suffering. Perhaps I will talk more about what I said later, but I will now stop. It's somewhat before certain people's nap time.

[42:12]

So I will stop now before your nap time and see if you have any questions or comments on what has happened recently here. A moment ago you spoke of enthusiasm and I think the word that you used was not so much desire but aspiration. Yeah, aspiration. contemplations I've contemplated is the level of aspiration, if you will, or desire, and when it becomes something that I'm having a gaining thought, trying to achieve something for perhaps self-satisfaction or reward to myself, as opposed to aspiration and an ethical standard.

[43:38]

Could you hear what he said? Again, I said earlier, remember, the context, before coming into practicing these practices, these practices are based on the practice of presence, the practice of restraint. so when i'm practicing enthusiasm i have at its root another practice where i'm trying i'm now devoting myself to enthusiasm and watching out for if i'm trying to get something from the practice of enthusiasm now if i notice that i'm trying to get something from practicing enthusiasm So I'm practicing presence, and then I'm practicing these practices. Now I'm practicing these wholesome practices. I did giving ethics, patience, time to enthusiasm, and I notice here in the enthusiasm that there's an ethical problem, and the ethical problem is I forgot about the first practice, which was to do all of these practices in the context of not

[44:54]

trying to gain anything. So even if I notice that there's a gaining idea, I say, oh, there's a gaining idea, but I welcome it. I let it be there. I'm not cruel to the gaining idea, but I know that if I don't take care of this gaining idea in my practice of enthusiasm, this gaining idea will undermine the enthusiasm. It'll drain it. The practicing effort with a gaining idea will drain the effort. But when I notice this draining thing, if I bring kindness to it, the drain ends, pretty much. So acceptance. So accept the gaining idea around, for example, enthusiasm, and then the gaining idea will be pretty harmless. Matter of fact, the gaining idea will be opportunity to practice the things which will support the enthusiasm.

[46:02]

Does that make clear? You're practicing enthusiasm. You notice this fault in your practice. You're trying to get something from it. That actually weakens the enthusiasm. But then if you take these other practices of generosity, ethics, and patience and apply them to the thing that's weakening your effort, it stops weakening your effort. And then the effort comes up stronger again. See how they all work together? You're doing one, two, three, four. You get to four, you notice there's something wrong with... with one and two. You go back and practice one and two, that fixed the thing wrong with number four. So they go back and forth between them. It's one, two, three, four, but then you notice when you get to four that you're missing something on one or something. You go back to one, and then come back up through two, three, and then you're back to four, and four is stronger. Because you purified it with the first pure precept. You have to keep going back to the first pure precept to purify the second and third precepts. The impure tendencies that come from delusion of trying to get something or feeling separate from something and craving something, they keep popping up.

[47:10]

So you have to be patient with the practice, the process where the defilements keep coming up. You say, oh yeah, they're there again. They won't stop coming up until complete perfect enlightenment. So patience isn't something you do at the beginning and then you stop. goes all the way through. Generosity, all these practices go all the way through to Buddhahood. Thank you. You're welcome. You want to come? You don't want to come. This morning, your example of the month of truth is the longest. Yes? Could I repeat what you said for the sake of this audio-visual event?

[48:18]

He said, I told the story of the monk who threw his things out the window and the gentleman said, it doesn't seem quite right if he did it out of fear. Is that what you said? Yeah, I didn't think he was afraid. That's the point. I thought he did it out of generosity. That's the point is when you do it out of generosity, that cures you of your fear. Yeah, if he was afraid, I don't want to be afraid. I already know how to do that. Usually it's like the robber's coming, I'm afraid, and then I get aggressive. I either want to attack or run away. He didn't run away. He was right there and said, hi, here's my stuff, man. I'm right here. He wasn't afraid. In other words, the way I understood the story was he was not afraid. He wasn't afraid of the robber, and he wasn't afraid of losing his stuff. And he wasn't afraid of being generous. As a matter of fact, he understood, I imagined, he understood that giving your stuff away is the path to fearlessness.

[49:21]

And so he gave his stuff away, and he then became for me an inspiration to generosity and fearlessness. Rather than, if I give my stuff away, what will I have left? It was like, if I hold on to my stuff, what will I have to give? Or, you know, what about them? So I thought he was not afraid, and that's what inspired me. Because I already knew how to be afraid and violent. What I didn't know how to do was to be generous and then wish I could give even more and be joyful. Does that make sense? Thank you. Did you want to come up here, Oscar? Welcome to Sacramento.

[50:30]

Thank you for driving all this way. Thank you for driving down to the Bay Area to practice with us. You're welcome. So I understand that delusion is not the same as enlightenment. I also understand that they're not separate. How is it that two things can be different without being separate? Well, like a mother and a daughter. What? He said, how is it that things can be separate but not different? Yes. So when we say that delusion and enlightenment are not different, Do you say not the same? Are different? I thought that's what I heard. Yeah. Delusion and enlightenment are not the same.

[51:31]

But you could also say they're not completely the same. And they're not completely different. They're not completely the same means they're a little bit different. And not being... Completely different. They're a little bit the same. So how are they? How are they different? Well, they're different because But before we get into the difference he his question was how can they be different but not separate? Mothers and daughters are not different. I mean are not the same But you cannot have a mother without it. We can't have a daughter without a mother you can't have a mother without a child and The child and the mother are not the same. They're different, but you can't have one without the other. So you can't separate. If you separate the daughter from the mother, or the child from the mother, you don't have a mother anymore. You only have a mother depending on a child, and you only have a child depending on a mother. Now, I said mother and child aren't the same, enlightenment and delusion aren't the same, but it may be better to say they're not completely the same.

[52:42]

They're kind of the same. For example, mothers and daughters are not completely different because they're both female. Mothers and sons are not completely different because they're both human. So they're not completely different. but they're not completely the same. So enlightenment is similar to delusion in the sense that both enlightenment and delusion are not separate from anything. Neither one of them are separate from anything. Delusion, however, is to think that there is separation. Enlightenment is to understand that there isn't. So they're not completely different and they're not completely the same. And to say delusion is, even to say delusion is enlightenment isn't quite right. And to say delusion isn't enlightenment isn't quite right either. But to realize that it's an illusion to say that they're separate,

[53:46]

To realize that is liberation from our natural misconception. But to think that they're not separate and to hold onto that, then you'd be separating yourself from the non-separation and grasping it. Thank you. Would this be a good time to ask one more question? Sure. Yeah. Recently I've been feeling pretty frazzled in my practice or my practice feels kind of frazzled. I've been preparing for this retreat and preparing for a trip and feeling not so well recently and my formal practice has sort of gone down the tubes and now I'm going to be traveling in the near future and I'm concerned my schedule will be irregular and I'm not sure exactly what my activities will be and I'm concerned that I won't be getting back to my practice for a while while I'm involved in this trip and I wonder if you have any advice how I could

[55:02]

how I could address that feeling. What feeling? It's a feeling of concern and some trepidation about losing my practice while I'm involved in travel. So are you asking me if I have any advice about how to take care of concern and trepidation? I see. So, I would advise me and you and all of you, if you have any concerns, to be generous towards them. And to be ethical with them. And to be patient with them. and to be enthusiastic about being generous, ethical, and patient, and to be concentrated with your concern and trepidation.

[56:12]

And by the way, if you happen to have any frazzledness, if you have a frazzled something, a frazzled person or a frazzled practice, the same would apply to those frazzleds. And then the context of practicing compassion towards frazzledness and trepidation, the context for that is that there's no separation between being frazzled and unfrazzled. There's no separation between being fearless and trepidatious or trepidatious. There's no separation. To remember that, be mindful of that. So you've got the trepidation and the frazzledness. And remember that the Buddhas are totally there with the frazzledness and the trepidation. And what do the Buddhas do with trepidation?

[57:14]

They bring compassion. The Buddhas bring compassion to trepidation. What do Buddhas do with being frazzled? They bring compassion to it. So, okay, there's the There's the down the tubes, whatever. There it is. The Buddhas are bringing compassion. I'm going to join the Buddhas. Compassion towards this state. That's a formal practice. That's a formal practice of Buddha, is to formally practice compassion towards everything. Thank you for inviting me to join the Buddhas. Yes. Do you want to stay back there and ask your question? I'm troubled, I guess, by the... You're troubled by bringing... I'm troubled by bringing wholesome action to...

[58:25]

He's troubled by the idea of bringing wholesome action to evil. Okay? I'm worried that in the face of a Hitler or a Kanye Rouge or a Saddam Hussein, that that may not be the most wholesome action. And I'd like some... So I heard him say something like, he's concerned about bringing wholesome action to evil. So I just want to point out that the Buddha teaches that if you have evil, the Buddha teaches to give up the evil. Well, like let's say you had ill will. That could be an evil, right? So if you have ill will, give up the ill will.

[59:32]

That Buddha recommends that, right? Any problem with that? Okay. So now you see ill will in somebody else. Somebody who wants to kill a lot of people. So how do you give up that ill will? Well, you bring... loving kindness to that ill will, just the way you did with yourself. And you're concerned that that wouldn't be a good idea, right? So, the example of the Buddha, I just want to make clear the example of the Buddha, is when the Buddha was met with somebody who was trying to kill a lot of people, the Buddha went up to that person and told that person, I'm your friend. And they talked for quite a while, and the person didn't believe the Buddha, even though the Buddha tried to say, well, I really am your friend. I'm just, you know, I'm nothing but your friend. And the person didn't believe it, so then he decided he was going to kill the Buddha. So the Buddha walked away, and the guy chased after the Buddha but couldn't catch him.

[60:40]

And the Buddha said, I mean, the guy, the murderer said, why can't I catch you, monk? And the Buddha said, because I stopped. And the guy woke up. So the Buddha met this murderer, this mass murderer and serial killer. He met him with friendship. And this guy was converted. But there's other cases where an army was coming and people asked the Buddha to stop the army. And he went out in front of the army and sat in front of it and they stopped. And he went back. And they came back again and the people said, would you go out and sit in front of him? He went out and sat in front of him and they stopped. He went back. Then they came a third time and the people said, they're coming, would you go out and stop them? He said, no, they won't stop this time. He still was friendly to them, but he didn't sit in front of them that time because it wouldn't work. So you doubt that certain violence should be met with compassion.

[61:51]

In other words, you doubt that the compassion could convert the violence or convert the evil. And sometimes there's not sufficient skill in the compassion to convert it. So in that case, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that you go and try to meet the evil with insufficient skill and compassion. Maybe you should just step aside. That's part of martial arts sometimes is the force is so great you just step aside and let it go by. You don't have sufficient skill to, like, wake it up and snap it out of its delusion. So in that case you probably should say, this is too much for me. This is a job for Superman, not me. So part of this practice, part of enthusiasm, now that we're on that topic again, part of enthusiasm is rest.

[62:59]

Part of having a lot of energy is resting. And there's two different ways of understanding resting. One is when you're fatigued, rest. sit down and meditate in a relaxed way, or just lie down and go to sleep. So one depiction of Zen is when you're hungry, eat, but not too much or too little. When you're exhausted or when you're fatigued, rest. So part of enthusiasm is to take care of your blood sugar level, And ethics supports that. Another part of enthusiasm is to know when you're exhausted and to know when to rest so that you can come back with energy again. But another meaning of rest is give up practices which you already know how to do and you've done enough. Don't necessarily keep doing things which you... going over lessons which you've already learned.

[64:05]

move on to new lessons, new challenges. That's one kind of rest. Rest at things that you're not learning from anymore. That's part of enthusiasm. And move on to a challenge. The other meaning of rest is rest, let go of things that are too advanced for you. So if there's some evils that are too much for you, Give it a rest. Don't try things that are too advanced. In other words, don't try things that you won't be successful at. Or another way to put it is, don't try to do good things that are so hard that you'll quit in the middle. It's not good to try to do good things and then stop halfway through. So if you're going to try some rather challenging, wholesome practice, this is a place where it's really good to have practitioner comrades or teachers so you can say, I was thinking of trying this practice.

[65:12]

Do you think this is about right for me? And sometimes your teacher might say, you know, I think it's too advanced. Some of you maybe have never sat all day long for seven days. Right? So, if you asked me, you said, I haven't sat for seven days, you know, from like five in the morning till nine at night. I was thinking of doing seven days of that. What do you think? I probably would say, why don't you try one day first? See how that goes. And I might say to you, actually, how many periods have you actually sat of meditation? You say, I've only sat one. I might say, why don't you try two? Why don't you do one and do walking and then do another one? See how that goes. And if that goes pretty well, that's basically what the day will be like. One period walking, another period walking. So if you can do that, then let's try a day. And after the day goes, let's talk about it.

[66:14]

Then after the day goes, somebody says, how did that go? You say, well, it was really hard. They want you to do another day. And after the day's over, how'd that go? It was pretty good. Let's try another day. How did that go? It went quite well. OK, now maybe try seven. Now when you do try seven, it'd be hard. And you might think in the middle, geez, how did I get into this? But you still might be able to finish. But if you're not careful, sometimes you get in the middle of a challenging situation, which is good to do. But if it's too advanced and you quit, it's kind of demoralizing. So we should be careful. Part of enthusiasm is to be careful. Again, look how enthusiasm is based on ethics, of being careful. Not eating too much, not sleeping too much, not taking on things that are too challenging. So if some big, huge evil is coming and you ask your teacher, do you think I can go meet that evil with compassion?

[67:19]

The teacher might say, no, I don't think you can. I think when the pain of that evil comes on you that you're going to tense up probably and come back with violence. Okay? But if you could... Really be compassionate to the evil. If you had that much skill, then the potential would be that you could convert it. It's possible. It's possible that some great sage could have met Hitler and snapped him out of his insanity. It seems that he was insane. It's what it seems like. Seems like he was really mentally ill. And a lot of mentally ill people have a lot of power because they're so afraid. It seemed like he was terrified. I don't know, but it sort of seemed like. It seemed like he was terrified of some horrible demons. He didn't know how to practice. I see very little ability to practice loving kindness in the person, except the dogs.

[68:24]

So it's possible that someone could have turned him around. But aggression towards him just seemed to fuel him. He was attacked a lot. He knew how to fight back. So cruelty just seemed to fuel him and his friends. But it's possible that some great, compassionate, skillful person could have snapped him out of it, but there was not such a person. And even the Buddha, the historical Buddha, had some family members who tried to kill him. And he could not convert his family member. But he did keep meeting that family member with compassion. He never had ill will towards the family member that was trying to kill him. And he received some food from a person towards the end of his life, which was poisonous. And he was very careful to protect that person.

[69:30]

from attacks from his students. He didn't hate the person who gave him the poison. He had no ill will towards him and he also wanted to protect him from any of his students who might have had ill will towards him because he gave their teacher poison. Inadvertently. The question is, do you aspire to be That skillful, that compassionate, that you can meet any being with compassion, I do. Am I at that level? No. If certain kinds of evil come at me, I probably would tense up, lose my patience, not say welcome. When the pain gets really, really big, you have to be highly trained to be able to say welcome. But the Buddha taught that you can learn by consistent long practice you can learn to say welcome to extreme extremely difficult situations as you can say welcome to the most severe illness the greatest pain but now we sense that we have a limit to the pain we can say welcome to if we keep living more pains are going to come to us

[70:55]

And potentially some really big ones will come to us, unless we die right now. You know? Frightening states may come to us. Forgetfulness, mental illness, Alzheimer's, fear, disease, they may come. Do we wish to practice compassion? I do. Can I do it now? I don't know. But I want to. I aspire to that. How can that aspiration be cared for so it gets stronger and stronger so that no matter what comes to it, it just comes back with compassion? This is how to make that aspiration that strong. Right now, it's not that strong. But this is how to make it so strong that no matter what comes, it will keep burning. and keep fueling all these practices. These practices protect the aspiration, which fuels these practices, which protect the aspiration, which fuels these practices.

[71:58]

OK? I'm wondering, do you see efforts that you have to make towards making money so you can make a living so you can eat, are those contrary uh necessarily contrary to uh giving a Did you hear his question? Do I see activities related to livelihood as contrary? Right? We have to make money. Okay. So, the answer is that we have a practice called Right Livelihood. And Right Livelihood means that you do something to offer people... You do something which is a gift. Right? You work. You make an effort. And you mean this effort to be a gift to the world.

[73:04]

And you have no expectation. You train to make this gift with no expectation. That's your livelihood. You do need to be, in the sense of practicality, probably not wise. I would think to go drain all your bank accounts and just depend on that gift producing what you need in return. He said, it might not be wise to drain all your bank accounts You need to work as an offering, but without the expectation that you'll have yourself and your needs taken care of. But you just said to have the expectation. I don't think it's... It doesn't seem like it jives with the teachings up there that have that expectation.

[74:09]

It seems like you haven't basically abandoned that. This is a teaching which says... Do you aspire to live without expectations? That's the question. And you're questioning that. You're not sure you want to live without expectations. So I'm just saying that at the root of the Buddhist tradition is the practice of going and asking people to support you. To go and ask people to support you without expecting that they will. the livelihood of a professional spiritual being whose profession is spiritual life, the livelihood of a person who's devoted to enlightenment in ancient times was to go to other people and ask them to support, to go to somebody and say, would you please support me?

[75:14]

And then if they don't, you say, thank you very much. And if they do, you say, thank you very much. As a matter of fact, you say, would you support me? And if they don't give you anything, you say, thank you very much. And you feel that they're supporting you. And you teach them the gift you're giving them. You're giving them the gift of asking them to support you. You're giving them a chance to support you. And also you're teaching them that you're asking them without expecting anything. You're showing them that possibility. Like right now I'm talking to you and I wish to offer you my words without expecting that you understand me. without expecting that you'll say thank you, without expecting that you'll appreciate it, I'm still giving these words, and now I might add on to that, would you please support me? And you might say how, and I might say any way you want. Please support me.

[76:18]

Please support me. I ask you people to support my life. I'm begging you to support my life. Thank you for your question. Your question has given me opportunity to ask all these people, to support me. Thank you. You gave that to me. I didn't ask for it, but you gave it to me, so now I can ask everybody, please support me. But I do not expect, I should say, and I also aspire to not expect any particular form of support. I'm just asking you, and when I ask you, I give you a chance to support me. You had it before, but now I've given you a special engraved invitation to support me. And you can watch. Some of you can say, well, I'm just going to say good afternoon. That's going to be my support and see if that's fine with him. And I'll be trying to be grateful for that. Okay? That's the thing.

[77:23]

Can such a life work? But it is a gift to ask somebody to help you. I believe that. And I try to ask people to help me. And I feel good about asking people to help me, and they usually feel good about me asking them to help me. Sometimes they say, can I help you? Like Clem said to me, can I help you? Earlier today. And I said, well, right now, this is sufficient. Thank you. Just asking was enough. And later I said, came up to him and he had some tea in his hand and I said, could I have some tea? And he thought I wanted him to give me his tea. But actually I had a green tea bag which I gave him. I gave him my cup. Huh? I placed an order with you. And he thought I wanted his tea. And then he said, oh, I remember now. I'm supposed to be helping you. And

[78:26]

Yeah, so do you all remember that you're here to help me? Do you remember that? Do you remember that? That's what we're here for. This is the thing. This workshop is about training in helping the world. So now your question is, how do we get the help from the world we need? Well, one of the ways you get the help from the world you need is by asking the world to help you. And particularly... Not only ask so that you'll get the help you need, but ask as a gift to the world, so you help the world by asking the world to help you. Try it and see how it goes. It doesn't mean draining or filling gas tanks or bank accounts, necessarily. I don't know. If you say to somebody, would you please help me? They may say, sure, would you help me? And you may say, yeah. They say, would you give me all the money in your bank account?

[79:27]

You might say, sure. But let me check with my partner first. Let me ask my grandchildren how they feel about it. You know? Because, you know, they probably would like me to check with them. And you may go check with them, and they said they don't want me to. But even though they don't want me to, I'm going to give you some money anyway. Because I, you know... I don't think they're right. I think I should give you some. And so on. It's an ongoing process of negotiating what the meaning of these practices is. These are all flexible. They're not fixed. But the foundation of this condition of Buddhism is to ask for help without expecting it. To ask for help as a gift. And to receive gifts as a gift. And it's been working for quite a while, somehow, this process.

[80:29]

And there's many examples of where teachers and students have caught each other doing it improperly. Like some, just one of the rules for begging is, don't just go to nice neighborhoods. Or, you know, don't pick certain houses and not other houses. And don't threaten donors that you'll tell on them if they don't give you something. There's rules like these because some monks did that. And some monks had the other problem is they only begged in poor neighborhoods. And the instruction was you shouldn't just beg in the poor neighborhoods to be so you're like really super poor. You should beg equally. You should give rich people a chance too to support you. Don't just be compassionate to poor people. Be compassionate to rich people. And the real way to be compassionate, the thing that really unleashes our compassion is when we understand that we're not separate.

[81:35]

That's what really helps. But you have to do these practices to warm up to that. So you can walk up to poor people and rich people without being tricked by the appearance that they're separate. Okay, thank you for your question. Yes, would you like to come up? No? Okay, speak up please, Linda. Embrace and sustain? That's fine. Mature. [...]

[82:39]

To Buddhahood. Well, the way the Chinese characters that we use, each one of the three pure precepts starts out with embrace and sustain. So first you embrace and sustain what it says is forms and ceremonies. So we have forms and ceremonies of practice Like we have this sitting posture is one of the forms we use. So you use that form to see if you can practice sitting with, you know, in the understanding that you're practicing sitting, but you're sitting, you're beginning sitting or you're middle sitting or you're advanced sitting, whatever. You understand that's not separate from Buddhist sitting. So that's using the forms. Or you study Buddhism, or you do a prostration, or you eat a meal. You have all these forms that we use, and we use those forms to see if you can do them without trying to get something from them, right?

[83:54]

That's embracing and sustaining these forms to see if you can restrain any kind of dualistic attitude towards them. That's the first one. Then we say embrace and sustain. The next one is embrace and sustain all good. Well, all good is all the good practices. So embracing and sustaining all good means embracing and sustaining these innumerable bodhisattva practices. And then it says embrace and sustain all beings. That means to embrace them and relate to them in such a way that they mature, that they evolve, that they become fully developed as bodhisattvas. Okay? Same thing, just a slightly different language.

[84:55]

Is there nothing else right now? Well, how about a little bit of traveling music or walking meditation?

[85:18]

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