I had a challenging afternoon here in Berkeley, starting off by Dorit kindly offering me a chance to exercise at the YMCA. And then I left the YMCA and went to my car, but I couldn't find it. I looked up and down the street and I couldn't find it. So then I went to the police station and I waited for a long time to see a policeman, and then he filed the report. What was particularly difficult was not just losing the car, but I was going to go to England tomorrow, and I had my passport in the car. I thought I wouldn't be able to go.

[01:04]

And then when I talked to a policeman, he asked me what things were in the car, and I realized that some of my robes were in the car. Particularly, I didn't want my robes to get whatever. And so then he offered to give me a ride here. So I said, why don't you just meet me over where the car was? I'll show you where the car was. So I went over there and And I looked down the next block and I thought, could I have parked in the next block? I always parked on McKinley. And when I, when I, and there's a turnaround on McKindler and, McKindler and Alston Way. So I went to, to the turnaround and went down and parked on McKindler. But actually, then I looked down and there was another turnaround down another, there's another turnaround.

[02:05]

So I went down to the other turnaround and I looked. And there was a, I didn't see my car, but I saw a, a transponder on a window. I had one of those. So I went a little closer, and there was my car. So I didn't have to ask Holly or Elizabeth to give me a ride to Marin. Hmm? Hmm? Yeah, he told me, he said, if you're a really lucky guy, you'll get your car back today. So then I was waiting for him, and he came and he says, is that your car? I said, yes, I'm sorry to take up your time, but you did find my car, thank you.

[03:06]

But I particularly didn't want, you know, if they're going to strip the car down, He said they often do it with Hondas. They strip them down for parts. He said, I trashed my robe. But anyway, so they didn't get stolen. When I was sitting in the police station, I thought about telling you about what happened, and I thought about all the big things that we lose and how cars are not that big a thing for most of us. But my robe was a little bit hard to lose. And then also, the people who are waiting in England, I felt sorry for them. It would be a lot of work to try to get a hold of them, to tell them I wasn't coming. So some of them might be coming from, you know, around Europe. That would be too bad. So I was sitting in the police station, and I was thinking,

[04:16]

When you find your place right where you are, the practice occurs, realizing the fundamental point. So I worked on trying to find my place there in the lobby of the Berkeley police station. It wasn't easy. Well, there's many other forms and ceremonies. Any particular one that you're interested in to talk about tonight? How do you find it?

[05:28]

How? I just kind of look for it, right in that chair there that I was sitting in. Of course, it's always nearby, right? It's just a question of like... in some sense having that be the main thing. And there wasn't much else to do but then to find my place. But still, it's very subtle to really find the place where the practice of the practice occurs. It wasn't so difficult, though, because I had the feeling like I might be able to walk over here and do the class. It would be more difficult if I wouldn't be able to get over here and wouldn't be able to tell you that I couldn't make it. Like one night I was driving over here and there was a hole in a Richmond bridge.

[06:31]

It wasn't a big hole, but it was big enough so that you couldn't go over the Richmond bridge, like this wide. The cars were backed up, you know, all the way, way into all over Marin. The cars were backed up. You couldn't even get on the bridge. And I couldn't get a hold of anybody over here. That was the only class I missed. If I thought I could make the class, it was just a question of finding my place in the police station. Finding my place right where I was. Yes? Could you be able to speak about... Ga shou. So the ga shou, ga means joined or agree, Chinese character.

[07:39]

Shou means palm. So ga shou means join the palm or palms in agreement. And generally in Japanese Soto Zen, we just join palms. We join the palms. The basic instruction is join the palms and have the fingertips about even with the bottom of your nose and about a hand's distance away, a fist distance away from your nose. at the bottom of the nose and the arms away from the body a little bit. If you go to a Soto Zen center, you might see people bowing other ways though. Like sometimes they join their palms down lower and point straight ahead or even down.

[08:44]

And I don't know if anybody instructed those people to do that, but they might have seen somebody else and thought that looked cool. But usually when we instruct people, we usually say like this. So it's like this, it's not like this. Not like not like this, not like this. Oh, there are some statues, beautiful statues of whether. Gosh, show lower. Or even almost close to their chest. There aren't very many where they have to show in their faith and touching their face. But it's possible that other forms would be beautiful. And it's also possible that you might not like this one, but we do suggest that way, and then we work with that. And I could say more, but before I do, perhaps you have something more to say about that?

[09:50]

Any questions about it? Yes, I do. Okay. Yes. Yes. And some of the variations are variations that individual practitioners get into, but not... Perhaps sometimes people get into habits of ways of joining their palms, which they didn't intentionally do, or they didn't get any instruction, so they'd just do what they thought other people were doing, and maybe didn't notice the details.

[10:59]

But it's still possible some other teachers would teach a different way from Suzuki Roshi. But I think actually there's fairly good agreement about how to do it, at least in the Japanese Soto Zen. In China, I think sometimes I observe them bowing somewhat differently. One of the main points of these forms is that If you work with a teacher, the teacher often will, especially in sottos, then the teacher will teach you a certain way. And then that person who teaches you that way is around to interact with you around what you do with the teacher. So it's not so much that the teacher's way is better than some other teacher's way or better than some way you might just imagine by yourself by watching Buddhists. but that when you're working with a particular teacher you can work around, you can work with the form and it can help you to develop intimacy with the teacher.

[12:04]

It can be an opportunity for you to realize your some resistance in a relationship, or the teacher may help you find some resistance to the form. Generally speaking, I speak of two types of resistance, which are similar to what I've talked to you about before in many contexts, is that once you commit to something, commit to a form, then the then one of the great challenges is how to be committed to the form and care about the form, take care of the form, but not care too much or too little. too much about the form so caring too much is a kind of resistance and caring too little is a kind of resistance or another way to put it would be yeah to try to be to be too concerned about doing it right or to be not concerned enough about doing it in the usual way the resistances to what to finding your place right where you are

[13:28]

to not care too much or too little and some people care when it comes to certain forms it seems like some people care too much and some people care too little like this robe you know the robe is another important form this robe has a form there's a way of making it there's materials to be used what colors to be used stitches to be made. And so I care about this robe, and I didn't want it to be like thrown in a trash bucket or have people spill alcohol on it or whatever. I care about this robe, but then there's about an impermanent thing. It was the right amount of care. And that right amount is that you're not resisting the event, the experience.

[14:33]

And so you might really care about joining your palms, really care wholeheartedly, but you don't care too much. And again, if you learn the form from someone, if they teach it to you, then they can often tell if you're doing it too much or too little. You see many people join their poem, and also you might know who's been instructed and who hasn't. If you see many people do it, you can kind of see this person is looking a little bit proud. And this person's a little, you know, and this person's kind of like, I'm not going to be like, you know, Mr. Goody Goody. I'll do it, but I'm not going to try to be better than other people or something. So you notice, and then you can check.

[15:38]

You can check. So in that way, the form offers an opportunity to become intimate. Does that make some sense? Yes, Kat? You know, I've never really been so obsessed with it, and the comfort form, and all the results of it, but today, I had an experience that really, I cared for a young Indian woman, and after we met with him, and Yeah, some people, they just grow up with the form and when they do it, it's really lovely.

[16:50]

I was someplace, I don't know where I was, whether I was in the United States or whether I was, you know, saw some Indian people walking down the street, you know, and I walked by them and they bowed to me. And it was just really lovely. There's something, it's a wonderful thing, just joining the palms and bowing a little bit. But this form can also be used as a training thing. And I don't know about Indian households, whether they train the children about how to do it or not. But there is an opportunity to train the form and to see if there's some resistance to the form. And then I remember one time Suzuki Roshi's wife, who lived at Zen Center quite a few years after him, before she married him and moved to Zen Center, in Japan she was the principal of a kindergarten, and it was a Buddhist kindergarten.

[18:12]

It was the kindergarten for the temple that Suzuki Roshi was the priest. And she was the principal, but she wasn't a Buddhist. And when his wife was murdered, Dhritarashtra's wife was murdered, people looked for another wife and they thought she would be good, a good wife for him. And she either said to him or to some, what do they call it, matchmaker, she said, you know, I'm not a Buddhist, I'm a Christian. And Susie Gray, she said, that's okay. As long as you have a religion, you'll be fine with it. That's okay. So she became his wife. She was asked, what's the most important thing to teach the children in kindergarten? And she said, this, Kaushal, the most important thing to teach them.

[19:15]

And... I think it's also important to teach to do this a lot, not, you know, do this toward a lot of things. Join your palms and express your reverence for many, but also for For example, for food and for as many things as you can in the world to express your reverence. And then see if you can express the reverence without carrying too much or too little in that reverence. Like a lot of people think, for example, that cars are just inanimate objects.

[20:19]

But children don't act like that, as you may know. They think that their little boys kind of can talk to their trucks and certainly talk to their toys, right? Little girls talk to their dolls and talk to lots of inanimate objects. And they sometimes feel that the inanimate objects are their best friends and that they can talk to them and tell them things that they can't tell almost anyone else. And we can say that's childish, but I think to be respectful of inanimate objects means Don't necessarily assume that inanimate objects aren't animated by you and me. Don't necessarily assume that they aren't calling out to us for some respect.

[21:32]

And maybe a lot of people don't have any problem thinking about animals. And again, children are very interested in animals. Almost all children are really interested in small animals, dogs and cats. And we may also not have so much difficulty with trees and flowers. But with man-made cars, we may have more difficulty, some of us. But in Japan, they had ceremonies for broken needles, seamstresses. have ceremonies for their broken needles. They save their broken needles, and once a year or something like that, they have a ceremony for the needles that are broken, these needles that serve them in their work.

[22:45]

And in tea ceremony, they have a whisk that they whip up the powdered tea with, and they have ceremonies to the broken whisks, the whisks wear out because they're made of very thin filaments of bamboo that are made into a very soft, wonderful little whisk. And they break from use. And then they have a ceremony where they have a big one put on the altar and they make offerings of respect to this sort of the monarch of whisks. And it's also been pointed out that in oral cultures, and Zen in a way is an oral culture, Buddhism was originally an oral culture, in oral cultures generally people feel that the world is much more animate, or they're animistic. Someone has pointed out that when we read books now, when we look at the book, we can actually somehow hear the book talk.

[23:59]

The book is like a physical object that has marks on it, but when we look at those marks, at those colors on that paper, we can actually hear something. so our participation with books and I think some men anyway when they look at their motorcycles the motorcycles talk to them and when they have children they feel similarly towards the children as they do towards their motorcycles they love their motorcycles and they love their children but when they get it when they have children when their wife has children or whatever, they look forward to seeing their children like they look forward to seeing a new motorcycle. It's a similar feeling of reciprocity.

[25:05]

Yeah, of reciprocity. So this gassho is a gesture of reciprocity. It's a gesture of respect you. Well, I honor you. I revere you. And hopefully, not only that, but I respect you. Which means I don't think you're just what I think you are. I realize that you might be something other than what I think you are. Which means also that if I don't like you, if I don't like you because of what I think you are, or if I think you're something unlikable, I can still respect you. I can respect people I don't like. Which means also I look beyond my original, my basic take on them. So this gassho, teaching children the gassho means teach them to respect everything.

[26:11]

Pardon? Yeah, yeah. Did Fred bow to him too? Did Fred bother? Did you bother him first? No, you didn't. In one sutra, the Buddha, It's called concentration.

[27:22]

In that sutra, the Buddha makes predictions of certain beings when they will become Buddhas. It isn't exactly that the Buddha can tell the future, but the Buddha still can predict what somebody will become in a certain way. And he predicted various bodhisattvas to be Buddhas. and there's different kinds of predictions that he went into, which would take the rest of the night for me to tell you, so if you excuse me, I won't tell you. I'll just tell you that the Buddha said, only the Buddha can see who the bodhisattvas in the room are. And then one of the great disciples said, well, if that's the case, we probably should, since we don't know who the bodhisattvas are, we should probably teach everyone, treat everyone as though they might be a great bodhisattva. And the Buddha said, that's right. He didn't say, no, no, don't do that. He said, treat everybody as though they might be a great bodhisattva.

[28:24]

The Buddha didn't seem to be worried about treating everybody as though they might be a great bodhisattva. He didn't seem to think that would take too much time or something. Or that you might accidentally treat somebody who wasn't a great bodhisattva like a great bodhisattva. He didn't think it would be so bad. And that's one of the things I like about the U.S. legal jurisprudence practices, is that even somebody who's accused of a terrible crime, call him Mr. or Ms. so-and-so, they still treat him with some respect, even though they think maybe this person might be guilty of a terrible crime. Or even if they're pretty sure the person's guilty, There's still the form of acting respectfully towards them. And at Zen Center, we had a very difficult thing with the abbot that preceded me, who was Suzuki Roshi's successor.

[29:31]

There was a big trauma of Zen Center, and people got very upset with him. And some people stopped bowing to him. When they would see him around the temple, they wouldn't bow to him. Some people who were close students of his, after this big upset happened, they wouldn't bow to him anymore. I'm not saying it's easy to bow to someone when you're upset with them, but I think that's part of what we're talking about here for this practice is to bow as much as possible to treat as many beings as you can with reverence. As many living beings and even non-living beings as you possibly can express reverence. Express reverence for doors, for stairways, for bicycles, for street signs.

[30:33]

So I wasn't reverent enough today. I did look at the signs which said The signs which said, you know, every third Tuesday or every fourth Wednesday, you know, I looked at those. And I was parking one of those things which are two hours for non-residents, you know. I looked at that one, but I didn't look at the good old name of the street sign. I looked at the Alton Way, but not the other one. I didn't bow to that thing when I walked by. You know, I didn't want to keep waiting. You know, I wasn't real leisurely in the car. So part of, in some sense, what some people do is they have a lot of extra time around certain meetings so that they can be respectful of the space, and the space between parking the car and going to the place.

[31:39]

It's hard, though, sometimes, to really be respectful. But that's part of what that gassho is training, is respect everything, revere everything, be of service to everything. At Tassajara, our monastery in the mountains, during the practice period, we pretty much, whenever we meet each other, we pretty much join our palms and bow. If we're working and somebody's pushing a wheelbarrow, we don't ask them to stop, put the wheelbarrow down, and bow. But sometimes they do anyway. And in the summer when we have lots of guests, we're a little bit different too because we don't want to make the guests uncomfortable by bowing to them because not all the guests who come to Tough Hour in the summer are having people bow to them. Also, we usually stop.

[32:45]

If we're walking, we usually stop, join our palms and bow, which slows you down a little bit. In a green arch, it's somewhat less. I usually bow to people, but some people I feel like don't want to bow to me. because they're busy, so in most cases I just say hi. But I often bow, I bow quite a bit at Green Gulch too. But I don't bow on this generally. But I would like to do it more if I could. Any other questions about gassho? Yes. In the meditation hall at Zen Center, when we come into the room, we usually step in with the foot

[34:04]

that's nearest to the hinge of the door or yeah so if you're stepping into a door that turn that has a the side of the door here and the hinge is here that's the door that's open then you would step in with your left foot and then when you stepped out you step out with your right foot because you step up you step in step with a foot that's nearest to where the door pivots And then we usually bow when we enter. We go to our seat. When we get to our seat, we adjust our cushion. We join our palms and bow. And that bow is to the place we're going to sit. And it's to the people on either side of the place we're going to sit. It's to the people nearby, but it's also a bow to the place because the place we sit is called actually the Bodhimanda or Bodhimandala.

[35:14]

It's the circle of awakening that we're going to sit in. So each of us is sitting in a Bodhimandala or a circle or a place of awakening. The word dojo, if you've ever heard the word dojo, that dojo means a place for awakening. They use dojo for judo and aikido and karate and other martial arts, but it actually means a place of awakening. So we first bow to our seat, then we turn and we bow away from our seat, and the bowing away from the seat is to bow to everyone. So that's the way we formally sit down to express our respect, particularly to our seat and to these people nearby. and then we bow away, and then we... The second bow is a non-particular bow. It's a bow, a general bow. And I guess some people are doing it here.

[36:16]

Anything else about that practice, that form, that ceremony? Yeah, right. So the first question is, is there some pressure between the palms? And actually, it's usually recommended to actually have the palms So there's some pressure. And if you have your elbows raised, it's easier for them to be flat. And Elizabeth noticed that there's a stained glass window which has Rikuroshi's hands in the skasho posture, and it looks like this. That's because he broke his hand. He broke his fingers. moving rocks in japan so this this i think this finger here didn't straighten so his gaisho looked like this but he taught that way yes

[37:54]

Are we ready to move on to another topic? Yes? Can you say something about prostration? Yeah. Prostration. Generally speaking, there's a number of different ways of doing it. physically. So there's, there's this, there's a standing, standing, joining palm is gassho. And then bowing like this, it's one kind of bow. So it's a standing bow. And then there is what is sometimes called a maybe half bow, which is like this.

[38:59]

Do it. To go down on your knees and then touch your forehead to the ground and lift your palms and your hand up. That's in a sense a half prostration. That's also called khao tao. Khao tao means touch the head to the earth. And I think maybe they had kowtow in China before Buddhism came. Kowtow is similar to the way Muslims bow. In Islam, they bow kind of like this. I don't think they raise their palms up, but they bow like this. So the kowtow or the half prostration is like that. But in Buddhism, in most of Buddhist schools in Asia, But also in India, too, they did it this way. Sometimes you put the hands down flat first, and then when you get down, you turn them with the palms up, and then you lift the palms up.

[40:06]

And one understanding is that when you lift the palms up, you're lifting Buddha standing on your hands, and you're lifting Buddha up. So for that reason, you want your hands to be sort of parallel to the ground, not tilted too much, otherwise Buddha slips off. But then there's a full prostration where you go down and then you spread out. That's a full prostration. And it's not done so often in... not done so often, but sometimes done. I saw a beautiful ceremony where some Catholic nuns were ordained, or some Catholic women became nuns, and they did that full prostration.

[41:14]

And I think priests also do a full prostration when they get ordained. Is that right? They do a full prostration, and then they took this big tarp and put it over them. There were about, I don't know, three or seven of them. And they moved this tarp over them. They buried them under this tarp. And then they pulled the tarp off and stood up. So that frustration was kind of like a ritual death for them. up, I guess, dying to the world and being reborn in Christ. But I thought it was a beautiful thing in a way, just to sort of go down and be buried and then come up again. And the understanding of, there's many understandings of prostration. Again, you could, it partly means reverence and respect

[42:17]

But in prostration in particular, which is somewhat the same as expressing respect, but particularly prostration has the emphasis on cutting through duality towards what you're bowing to. So when you join your palms and bow to someone, That's also an opportunity to cut through the duality between yourself and others. Frustration is more, even more, emphasizing cut through duality. And there's a verse that we do, that we can do when we prostrate. And the verse is, person bowing, person bowed to, their nature, no nature. My body, other bodies, not two.

[43:21]

May all beings realize truth. Plunge into the unsurpassable mind. Live in boundless truth. Person bowing, person bowed to. Nature, no nature. This body, the other bodies, not two. cutting through the duality, plunging into truth. That's the kind of attitude of the verse and attitude of the prostration. There's respect, there's reverence, but also non-separation. Same nature. We have the same nature as everyone we meet. In truth, we have the same nature as everyone we meet. And the prostration is an exercise in that our bodies and other bodies are not truly two.

[44:28]

They appear to be two, but they're not. And the bow is exercised in getting over that. And again, the standing bow can be done for that purpose, but usually we don't do many, many standing bows in one place. It's the full bows that we usually do repetitively. And sometimes people do many, many full bows over and over to cut through the illusion of separation. That's the main spiritual import. That's the ultimate, I should say, spiritual import of the prostration. The near import is respecting everything.

[45:32]

The deeper input is everything is not separate from you. Yes. Yes. Upon entering the room, stepping... Yeah. I didn't know about this, but I guess some people are bowing outside the room before they open the door. Do you do that? Do you hear about that? Yeah. So the attendant says, bow at the door. And I discovered this because some people, when they came into the room, they closed the door and then they turned around and bowed to the door. They thought they were supposed to bow to the door. So it's at the place of the door, bow.

[46:37]

We have an altar there, I think. Yeah, which I don't mind, but in my room you go by an altar to come to see me. So some people bow at the door. at towards the altar which seems fine other people just come in the room but if there's not an altar there when you enter the room you do a bow upon entering of respecting the space then move in front of in in in the case of a formal meeting to move in front of the teacher and do three prostrations but some other teachers do it differently they have the person bow at the altar in the room, and then do a prostration, and then do a standing bow to them. The way I'm, hmm? Three, often in practices, we do three or nine. And nine is three times three. So three is a very common number of repeating things.

[47:41]

So, and three, of course, we have in the... For some people, three is a very important number. They think three is where it's at. Two is not so good. Huh? I like three. Number three. You do? Yeah, a lot of people are... We have these three treasures in the Buddha, Buddhism, you know, and three bodies of Buddha. We don't have two bodies and two treasures. We have three treasures and three bodies. And generally speaking, when we repeat things, we do them three times or nine. And some people think that three is really something essentially important about three and the nature of reality. And two is very much about the nature of illusion, is two. So there's one and three, and two is kind of like the troublemaker. It's kind of like me and the universe, right?

[48:43]

Me and them. It's not me and them and one more thing. It's just me and them. It's not me and half of them and half... The two is kind of the problem, and we kind of like surround two with one and three. But anyway, a number for repetition in a lot of practices. Physical things and verbal expressions, often done three times. When we start before a talk, we do a chant traditionally three times. So it's very usual to do things three times. Or once. But not usually twice. And also when you're giving gifts in Asia, you can give one of something, but usually don't give two. And don't give four. Because four... Four in Chinese and Japanese, it sounds like death.

[49:46]

The word for four and the word for death sound the same. So four is not so good and two is not so good. So if you give something, it's good to give one or three or five. Six is okay. But don't give four in Asia. They don't like that. And two is kind of like It's more than one, but it's kind of stingy. Why not three? You know, but don't... Don't care too much about that or too little, okay? Any other forms? Anything else about prostration? Yes? I have a question about bowing. Actually... Do you always bend at the hips? Can you sort of break the back? Or is it better to keep the back always straight? And can you bend at the knees?

[50:49]

When you do a standing bow, you mean? Again, if you look at Asian people, they often, when they bow, they often bend their knees when they do a standing bow. They often bow like this. You see a lot of statues of people bowing with their knees bent. And some people bow with their legs straight and their back kind of like a board. It looks kind of nice sometimes, but you can also bend the knees, which takes a little tension out of the back. I think just considerable flexibility about how you... Yes? Iron? being a full bow and then going to the knees, or is it a different kind of movement?

[51:54]

Again, this is not so strict, but usually we bow a little bit before we go down. Bend the upper body forward a little bit and then start going down. And then kind of sit down. and then go forward. But some other people might, I guess, go like this and not go all the way down, not sit all the way down, but go from here, forward. That's also okay. And the sitting, and you can also have your feet up like this. You can be up on your toes like this, or you can go down like this. Both ways are fine. This way of having him like this, you can get in a position to get up again.

[52:55]

You don't have to put him back into that position and get up. Does it matter if the head touches the ground before the hands? Let's see how I feel about that. Go down like this. I think the head, it's strange for the head to touch the ground before the hands. I think that, I think the hands, it's good for the hands to touch before the head. Now this is, this is a little bit sexist. She's an emergency room nurse and she said, that a lot, when women come in from bicycle accidents, they have a lot more head wounds than men. She says, apparently women don't use their hands when they fall off bicycles as much as men do, or boys.

[53:57]

So, it's good when you fall off bicycles to use your hand, not your head. Huh? Yeah, use your hands, not your hip. So, yeah, so I think when you go down, it's better to use your, Use your hands. You can put your hands down like palms down at first. Your head. I think it's good not to put your head down first. I think it's better to put your hands down first. Either palms down or palms up. But hands and arms first and then put the head. Yeah, well, this is a, you know, here. There's also a way of bowing prostration which is called five-point prostration. And there's a verse for each point. Which, you know, I could tell you sometime if you want to know the verse. But then there's a verse for the right knee, right arm, left arm, and head.

[55:04]

So it's right knee. So actually the way they recommend it is you come down first on your right knee, then on your left knee, then your right arm, then your left arm, then your forehead. And then a verse for each one. But not the head first. I think that's kind of dangerous. Dangerous and noisy. Don't use your head as a landing pad. Use your knees and legs and forearms and hands. I would suggest. Yes. This is not on prostrations. Are we done? Do you want to move on from prostrations for now? Is that enough on prostrations? Okay, next. I wanted to hear something about the place of chanting.

[56:04]

The place of chanting? Well... Again, in an oral tradition, originally, that would be the way that people would remember the teacher planting them together. And even with the rise of writing within the history of Buddhism, when Buddhism first arose, writing was very rare. It started up in China somewhat, but it's very rare now. So Buddhism was mostly orally transmitted, and the monks got together and chanted in groups because even chanting it by yourself, you could forget it and get it wrong. And there was a tradition to chant things forward and backwards and chant things in verses. It has ways of catching mistakes. And also in Buddhist texts, the early ones, there's lots of repetition, too.

[57:06]

So that first, I think the first meaning of the chanting was to be able to remember the instruction, but then also not only lose the teaching, but also so that you would have the instruction in you. So you wouldn't have to be in a group to remember the teachings because you could remember certain meditation instructions orally. So it's partly to keep... protect the teaching, but also so that each individual person would be able to carry certain meditation instructions around with them so that they could practice it. People often speak of, particularly Zen, as being silent meditation. Actually, in Zen and in the Buddhist tradition in general, People are meditating on texts.

[58:13]

They're meditating on teachings to a great extent. Meditation is the text. And by the way, the Latin word meditation means originally recitation. The Latin word. So that's the one of the first meanings because monks did not live together and they got together and one of the main things they did when they got together because they didn't live in monasteries at first was they would chant scriptures to recapitulate and maintain the instruction and sometimes they probably would find out that they had misremembered the teachings and then in the recitations and the recital of the text, they would learn that again.

[59:17]

Another meaning of chanting is to generate positive energy and then use that positive energy as something to give. Monks don't have lots of money to give necessarily, but they always not always, but they usually can do the teachings and then give away the merit of the recitation for the benefit of beings. That's another reason for chanting. Another reason for chanting which is maybe a little bit more difficult to understand is that not only is it beneficial to chant for a number of reasons. Number one, to not forget the teaching. Number two, to have the teaching available for meditation. But another reason for chanting is that the people, the beings who gave the teachings like to hear the teachings. Or the Buddhas who are currently living like to hear the teachings of previous Buddhas.

[60:21]

Zen masters like to hear the teachings of former Zen masters and Zen masters like to hear the teachings of current Zen masters. And if you look at Zen stories, A lot of the Zen teachers would ask the visiting monks who are coming from other monasteries, what does your teacher like to hear? They like to hear about it. So enlightened beings like to hear the teachings of enlightened beings, contemporary and past enlightened beings. They like to hear them. So reciting texts to enlightened beings who can hear you, now, even though you may not see them, they are with you, listening to you. Avalokiteshvara is listening to you. And Avalokiteshvara likes to hear you recite Buddhist teachings. And then, there's the various virtues in and of itself, and then there's the virtue of generating the merit, and then chanting scriptures for the enlightened beings to listen to is extremely beneficial.

[61:31]

It's very meritorious to give the gift of teaching to those enlightened beings who want to hear the teachings. And then that gift that you generate by giving this wonderful gift, their favorite gift, the best gift to give an enlightened person is teaching. That's their favorite gift. And giving them that gift is very meritorious. And then you take that huge merit and give it to people who need it. You look like you heard something unusual. Is that right? That you look... It's like angels and things? What about angels? You have problems with angels?

[62:32]

Huh? I like the idea of angels, but... It's a what? It's a pretty idea. You like the idea of angels? Yes. It's not that I say, oh no, there isn't such a thing. It's not like that so much. It just doesn't seem to relate the way that other teachings relate to our life. It just seems more fantasy-like. It seems fantasy-like. Mm-hmm. Well, I'm not saying it's not fantasy-like, but do you see Bernard there? I do. And you don't think that's fantasy? But you see? I'm aware that what I see is really only what I see, but I also believe there's something out there.

[63:37]

Yeah, but don't... but what you see, do you understand that that's a fantasy? No. He's not at all fantasy. But what you see is entirely fantasy, 100%. Do you see that? Okay. Yeah, so that's the teaching that I'm suggesting to you, is that what appears to you, the appearances that you're dealing with, like the appearance of me is not me at all. I am not at all how you make me. I'm not an appearance at all. However, I'm the basis of the appearance that you're making out of me right now. But the appearance is entirely fantasy. There's nothing about the appearance that you have of me that's in me.

[64:38]

Not anything about it. All the aspects of the appearance are aspects of fantasy. 100%. Shared fantasies, yeah. We can have shared fantasies. The people in Oakland, a lot of people in Oakland share the fantasies that the A's are a wonderful baseball team. You know? And some people in Berkeley, right. Some people in Oakland don't, right. Some people in Oakland share the fantasies that they're not a wonderful baseball team. So people do share fantasies, definitely. Some people share the fantasy that the A's are not something to care about. Right? But those are fantasies. That's not what the A's are. The A's are not like what people think the A's are. Not zero.

[65:41]

But the A's are the basis of these different fantasies. Couldn't make these fantasies without the A's. So if you have fantasies about angels, I would say that's fine. That's not what angels are. And angels are the basis of your fantasy of angels. And your fantasy of angels is different than your fantasy about Bernard. But they're both fantasies, except that in one case, you seem to be able to say it. In the other case, you're not sure you're ready to say that it's a fantasy. And angels, the function of angels is to wake you up to your fantasies. when you're ready. You could say about anything that didn't exist you could have a fantasy about it and you could stay with it.

[66:52]

But there might not be anything there. Yeah, like a self. But there's no basis. There's no basis to the fantasy of self. But angels are a little different, I think. I think angels are based on people's experience. As a matter of fact, enlightened people's experience of beneficent forces in the world, of people that are helping you out that you can't ordinarily see. Like some people are helping you out. They're people. They're helping you out. I wouldn't necessarily say that all the people that are helping you out that you can't see are angels. I think angels are a particular type of helping being that send you messages about the people who are helping you that you don't know about.

[67:55]

But we often know that there's people who are helping us and then later we find out that they had been helping us for years and they just didn't tell us. And then somebody finally tells us what they were doing for us all those years. That they were, you know, they were putting money in our bank account we didn't know. You know, putting money in there. And then somebody tells us about it. The person who tells us about it in such a way that we understand it could be called, that could be called an angelic function of the one who brings the message. But the person who brings the good things we do not see the way we somehow find out that this ordinary person was doing this good thing. So the ordinary person doing the good thing that we didn't know about, strictly speaking, some people might not call that an angel. Some people say they do call those people angels.

[68:59]

But angel means a messenger. It's an angel's mark, the one who tells you about third this stuff going on that you don't know about they're not necessarily the one who's doing stuff and a lot of enlightened people have said that this kind of message message in about the nature of divine activity it's not with them divine activity they're more than the ones that tip you off to it yeah you don't said angels Right? Yeah, so I'm telling you, so you use angels, that's what angels are. But that function, a message about divine function, the messenger function, I think is something that some of the people we think are the most interesting people that have lived, they have direct and indirect experience, direct and indirect experience of this kind of function. In other words, indirect, they figured it out.

[70:01]

They were going on. They thought, oh my God, they actually understood that it was going on. And they could prove it. But it was indirect, through inference. And some of them also had direct knowledge of it. In other words, they experienced intimacy with the process. The angels themselves, the messengers would also have different levels of understanding, too, of what they're doing. Some of the messengers might not know what they're doing. They might not even know that they're doing it. For example, my dog doesn't do it so much anymore, but particularly right after she had a bath, she would go out and try to find something really stinky to roll in. She didn't like the smell of what we call clean. But anyway, in either her newly cleaned or in her normal level of cleanliness, if she finds something really stinky, she would roll in it.

[71:10]

And it seemed like what the dogs are trying to do is they roll in something particularly foul to bring back to tell the other dogs about it. So they can tell the dogs what they found, let the other dogs smell it, and then they can bring the other dogs to the source of the odor. But they don't necessarily know that they're serving as an angel for the other dogs. To tell the other dogs about a gift of the gods. But some people do know some angels would have awareness of their messenger function. Some angels can identify themselves and their purpose and some cannot. But this is all fantasy in terms of the way this appears. But the actual, there may be some basis to it. But some things, there may be something besides, how would you call it, a self, an independent self, that there's no basis of.

[72:18]

And maybe angels are too, I don't know. I really don't know. But if you think about what Buddhas are, it's not just fantasy that they exist. They also can exist by reasoning. If you think about what Buddhas have said that they're up to, then that would lead to understanding them as being something which is quite concrete. Because what a Buddha is, is not something separate from you. What a Buddha is, is actually the way you are practicing together with everybody else. That's what a Buddha is. But the way you're practicing together with someone is not like another person exactly.

[73:26]

But it is an important thing. Your friendship with someone is an important thing in your life. and the actual function of your friendship and the function of your friendship with all other friendships and the way they're all working to help each other, that's what Buddha is. That's what Buddha is. It's the way everybody's helping each other. But you can't exactly, you can't get a hold of that. You can personify it, as people do in history have personified that. That's a certain transformation of that actual Buddha into a person. And then there can be fantasies about this, but the fantasies do not function. I can imagine how you and Ivan and Vera are helping each other, but my imagination of that, or how that appears to me, if I see it,

[74:33]

If I see an appearance of how you're helping Yvonne and how she's helping you, if I see that appears to me, that's based on how you're actually helping each other. But it's not how you're helping each other. It's just a fantasy about it. And what Buddha's, the message that Buddha's tell us, which are brought to us by angels, is that how everybody's helping each other become awake. That's what Buddhas are. That's what they say they are. Yes? Actually, I don't know if they like to, but they'd rather not have to. They'd rather you weren't meditating. That's what they like best. Huh?

[75:35]

So are they the same as the Buddhas and the angels? Are demons the same as the Buddhas? It could be your own thoughts. Pardon? It could be your own thoughts. Well, that's the way, it actually does usually, it often does come to you as your own thoughts. And that's the way you usually notice it. But basically there's a, if you're running around crazy, you know, like, trying to hurt people, they're trying to get people under your power. If you're trying to get more money and power, or you're trying to hurt people who have money and power, in other words, if you're caught up in greed and hate, the meditation demons are happy to just relax in their meditation country clubs. I mean, in their demonic country clubs. And they don't have to work. because you're already totally taken up with other demons of greed, hate, and delusion.

[76:38]

But when you start calming down, then the meditation demons, their houses start shaking. They don't want to, but they have to go to work. And they come to distract you from your meditation, which is upsetting the homeostasis of ignorance. which has a certain, you know, momentum. It has a certain palatial establishment. And it's starting to get destabilized by the meditation process. So then thoughts and images come to you to distract you from being present. And they're supporting you too. Actually, they're supporting you to deepen your commitment to meditation. If you start settling down, and again in the story of the Buddha, the Buddha starts settling down to attain the way, and the demons come to challenge him, and when they challenge him and he doesn't slip, then his resolve deepens through the challenge.

[77:55]

You can be committed enough to settle down and draw resistance and challenge. In fact, calm people get more, generally speaking, get more testing of their calm than uncom people. Calm people get a lot of tests. They're attracted. And then if they don't get disturbed by the calm, they're calmer than they were before they got challenged. And then, As the calm gets deeper, a more great challenge comes. And the great challenge for Buddha was the challenge which almost got him to quit, which was that he thought he was going to practice by himself. And then he realized that pushed him to a deeper level of concentration where he was no longer practicing by his own power. And there was no more demonic challenge to give up and let it, you know,

[79:05]

they reconciled themselves to that this commitment was unshakable. But we don't go to deeper levels, or we might not go to deeper levels of commitment to being present unless we get challenged. Is there some question about that? I mean, I was trying to make it not sound dualistic to me, that you have these negative things that tear you off, and then these angel messengers, but I think it's good. Do you understand? The negative forces and the positive forces are all supporting you.

[80:14]

They're both supporting you. Some people support you in a positive way and some people support you in a negative way. Everybody's supporting you, though. Everybody's supporting you to become a Buddha. Everybody's supporting you to realize that they're supporting you They're pushing you to realize that. Are they all Buddha? No, it's not that everybody's Buddha. It's that the way everybody's helping you is Buddha. The way everybody's supporting you is Buddha. And for some people to push us in a way that we do not feel that they're helping us, pushing us to have a deeper understanding of what being helped is, that being helped isn't just my idea of being helped. So this afternoon, what idea did I have about what help is? Did I think that having my car stolen was helping me?

[81:19]

So in what way did me not finding my car support me in the practice? Well, it put me into this situation in the police station of looking in the police station for where is my police car. Now, if I had found my car and had my lovely little snack of green gulch soup and zucchini and marinated tofu, would I have been looking for my snack after my exercise would I have been looking, where is your place? Find your place. Would I have been looking for my place? Maybe. Maybe. But I might have thought, hey, I already found my place. This is delicious. But to find your place in the police station, and these guys sitting next to me with cell phones helping me,

[82:31]

When he's my cell phone? Your cell phone doesn't work. Oh. To be sitting there waiting for the police but not knowing that they ever would come. Was that situation supporting me? Did I realize it was supporting me? Did I feel the Buddha's there with me? Was I challenged to practice? I was looking for it. Was that situation helping me? Of course it was helping me. Could I see it? It was hard to see it. It was hard to see how having my car stolen, passports, not even, I don't know what, my passport lost. It was hard for me to see how, ah, I'm being supported to live. Any questions?

[83:45]

No. C.S. Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters. That's a very interesting book. Yeah. It's called Screw... Screwtape Letters. Screwtape Letters about... About his nephew. Yeah. Yeah. What? If you have any suggestions of the next yoga room class in November and December of this year, please send them to me. I will respectfully consider whatever you suggest. Thank you very much for your support of me and each other.

[84:58]

And if you want to thank everybody else for their support of you, go ahead. And when is your baby coming? I want you to have a safe delivery. You're welcome. Thank you. Wasn't it lovely? You're welcome, Linda.

[86:01]

I'm ready to sign up. Do you remember parking your car in the other place? Pardon? The car? I remember parking it on one block over from where I parked it. Once you found it, you're like, ah. Yeah, I remember. I had a weird car experience a bit. Yeah, that's good. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[87:01]

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