As my little son says, it's a nature call. And so anyway, my question is this, and that is, sometimes giving is really not giving, meaning giving yourself, taking literally... is not giving yourself may help take you through the steps of giving. And the second one was, what was that? Ethical conduct, patience, right? Those first three, ethical conduct and patience. And then enthusiasm, concentration, and wisdom, right? The six steps. So sometimes giving, to me, is not giving. And I gave it 18 years, and I decided not to give. Yeah, right. So one example, I don't know if this applies, but someone says, would you give me something?

[01:06]

And you say, no, I will not give that to you. But you mean in your heart that you're giving them gift of saying, no, I won't give you that. Right. So your children might say, will you give me the keys to the car? And you say, no, I won't give you the keys. But your feeling is that your gift is not to give them the keys because that's what you want to give them. If you were to give them the keys, it might not in your heart really be a gift. You might not really want to give it. So it wouldn't really be a gift. What you want to give is you want to give them the gift of being who you are. You want to give them who you are. Being authentic is the basic gift. So if somebody wants you to give them something that you don't feel is good to give, then you give them, I don't think it's appropriate for me to give you this. That's what you give them. But your feeling is a gift. Now if it's a gift, you also are not trying to control them.

[02:11]

You're just making this gift. And then the next moment you give another gift. But they might say, well, Daddy, you didn't give me what I asked for. You say, I understand I didn't give you what you asked for. I gave you something different. I gave you a different father from the father you'd like to have. But this is your true father. And I want you to be my true son and my true daughter. I want you to be who you really are and give me that, even if it's not what I want. Okay, Dad, well, I want to tell you that I really think you're a bad dad. That's who I am. And you say, that's painful for me to hear, but I thank you for being true to yourself. I'd rather have you be true and give me the true child, the true son, than to give me a fake son that's very nice. So I'll give you who I really am. That's what I want to give you, and I want you to give me who you really are, even though it's not what we're asking for, literally. Well, thank you, if I may.

[03:17]

So you answered my question. Now, more theoretically, do these precepts apply to all conditions, or sometimes if people are suffering from some sort of disorder, these precepts may not apply? The precepts, you start with yourself. So if I meet a psychotic person, I practice these precepts with that person. But I don't necessarily give this person that instruction. What I give, I want to practice giving with everyone, but what I give will vary according to the situation. So for some people, I will give a different practice than for another one. Like, let's see an example. Yeah, here's an example. There's a man, a historical person, his name is Milton Erickson.

[04:26]

And I think he lived in Arizona, a good share of his life. And I think the state mental institution in New Mexico is in Las Vegas, New Mexico. So he went to visit this person. He went to visit the New Mexico State Mental Hospital. And there was a patient there who thought he was Jesus Christ. And that was his understanding. And if you wouldn't go along with him and agree with him, if you wouldn't give him recognition as Jesus Christ, he wouldn't relate to you at all. And I guess most of the psychiatrists would not go along with that. So he didn't have much therapeutic relationship because he only had a very limited mode of relating.

[05:28]

So Milton Erickson went to meet him, and Milton Erickson gave him a gift. And the gift he gave him was, he said, I understand you're a carpenter. And the man said, that's right, I am. And Milton Erickson said, would you build me some bookshelves? And the man said, yes. And he built the bookshelves, and then he shortly afterwards was released. from the hospital. He may still have thought he was Jesus, but he found a way to relate to ordinary people as a carpenter. So Milton Erickson didn't give him the gift literally that he wanted, which is, oh, Jesus Christ, I recognize you. But he gave him something he could give, namely, I understand you're a carpenter. So you may not be able to give certain people what they want, which wouldn't be good for them anyway.

[06:30]

but you may be given something else that they can relate to that would be good. But the point is you're giving the gift that you think is true, that you think is true to yourself and that you think would be helpful. And sometimes what you give to people is you say, I don't know what I can do to help you, or I'm totally at a loss for what to do here. I feel totally confused right now. I'm just really upset because I feel, I'm just really upset. And then the person perhaps who's really got problems may start feeling some compassion for you. Oh, what's the matter? Can I help you? And they start to, you know, if you're willing to show them the pain you feel, In relating to them, they may get in touch with something other than their own psychosis. But we have, you know, this is, of course... It takes a lot of practice. It takes a lot of practice. I understand. I'm working on it. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other feedback you care to offer?

[07:36]

Yes. Kambiz, are you from Iran? Yes. The first two questions are from Iranians. As you mentioned the last questions toward the end of your talk today, I kind of, as you were saying it, I was reflecting, and somehow everything was natural and it resonated with me. So the answers were totally, totally true and one with it. The one that stayed with me and automatically I said, oops, I contracted was patience, is if I am practicing patience or if I'm, I don't know how you were putting into your words, but basically I realized that that is not something that I'm welcoming, patience. Oh.

[08:36]

It's very good for you to be aware of that. It's good. We all, there's some areas where we all are having trouble being patient. And that's the growing edge of our patience. So there's some place where we... And what I mean by patience is when you have a pain, to be still with it, to be quiet with it, to really be in the present with it, which of course is conducive to fearlessness. And I've been trying to practice patience for some time now, and... a few years ago I had an operation, a hernia operation. And after I came out of the operation, you know, I was recovering from the anesthetic, and one of the medical personnel came to me and said, we'd like to test to see if the pain medication we're giving you will be sufficient

[09:59]

So we're just going to let the anesthetic go away. And then as it goes away, you'll start to feel the pain will start to come. And then we'll give you the pain medication to see if it deals with the pain. So I said, okay. And then I felt the anesthetic gradually going away. And then I felt something coming. Yeah. And as it first started to come, it wasn't really pain. It wasn't really pain. But I thought, I think this is the pain coming. This is the first part of the pain. It's like if you go down the ocean and you see a big wave coming, you know, and you see some of those waves. They're just kind of like, just, you know, there's just a bulge out there, you know. I shouldn't say you see weight coming, but you see some energy coming by the movement of the water.

[11:05]

And then if you watch, sometimes you can feel it coming before it actually hits. And then oftentimes when it hits, it's amazingly much bigger than it looked before it hit. Anyway, so I could feel this thing coming, and then I could feel it start to start. It was so big that it didn't feel like pain usually feels. It was this huge thing coming. It was the beginning of a very big pain. And I tried to be present with it. And the medical personnel were not present. So it was me and this thing coming. And I just kept trying to be present. with it. It wasn't that bad, but I could feel it growing rapidly. Whatever it was, it was growing, and I didn't know how fast it was going to grow. But I could feel it was much bigger than... And they didn't come.

[12:12]

And they didn't come. And I got to a point where I thought, whoa, this is really getting to be something. And I had trouble being present, and I started to think a little bit about, well, what if they don't come? Maybe I should get up and go find somebody. I was having trouble really being right there. And if they hadn't have come for 20 minutes more or an hour, I don't know how much I wouldn't have been able to be there. But I was really challenged to be there before it really came even. Because when you see it start to grow, you kind of, whoa, this is okay now, but this looks like it's going to get much bigger. So there is that place where we feel like, and then there's some places where we feel like, I just can't stand this.

[13:13]

I just can't. I can't be present. I've got to scream. I've got to run away. So this is part of the practice of becoming supremely enlightened, is to be present with the pain and notice when, I can't be present. I'm resisting. I'm shrinking back. And then again and again and again. And the more you do that, the more you get confidence that the best thing you can ever do when it's painful is to be in the present. It doesn't take the pain away, but that's the safest place. And if you can be present with there, you can find that's where reality is. We find reality when we don't run away from what's happening. And So to find the reality in pain means we have to be there with the pain.

[14:17]

So we train ourselves for many years with this practice. And Buddhas, you can't make a Buddha without patience and you can't really develop patience without pain. And there are some pains we can be patient with now that we didn't we weren't able to be patient with before. And there's some pains which we're not able to be patient with now that we can learn to be patient with. The Buddha said, when King Kalinga was cutting me up into little pieces, I did not give rise to ill will towards him. And the Buddha says, you can learn this kind of patience if you practice. You will eventually be able to feel pain without blaming and hating.

[15:18]

And this is what it takes to make a Buddha. But now, there's some things which I can't stand. So I'm patient with my level of development, which isn't so good. Thank you. And I would like to wish to let go of the person or the addiction or the affliction, whatever that word is, the person, the being who believes that is not present at all the time. I wish to let go of that being, of that person who believes he is not present at all the time. Okay, good. Let go of the other persons too. Any other feedback or questions? Yes, please come. Well, thank you first for the teachings and the perspective.

[16:36]

They're very helpful to hear and I think they'll also be useful when I leave here. Yes. So what I'm curious about is you mentioned the terms no killing and no stealing in compassionate relationships. Yes. And I was wondering if you could say a little more about what those terms mean and how to apply them in compassionate relationships and how to perhaps bring oneself to be more compassionate in relationships. Yes. So the practice of not taking what's not given, another way to turn it around is, yeah, only just practice receiving, giving and receiving. Don't take anything. So it says don't take what's not given, but really it's don't receive what's not given. in your interactions, keep checking to see, is this a gift?

[17:39]

Are you giving me this, your time? Like people often say to me, I don't want to take too much of your time. And I often say, and I guess they allow me to say this because I'm a Zen priest, I say, you're not taking my time, I'm giving it to you. I'm giving you my time. That's my practice. If I feel like you're taking my time, then I'm losing track of my practice. If I feel like you're taking my time, I have to switch to, I'm giving you this time. You're not taking it. So similarly, if you ask for somebody's attention or time, are they really giving it to you? Or are you pressuring them to give it to you in some way? Are you taking something that they're really not giving? So look at that way of checking, you know, Like, even if someone has said, I want to assist you, you still might say to them, do you have time to assist me?

[18:47]

Would you please assist me? Are you really giving this to me? To check it out. The person might say, well, actually, I don't feel like giving it to you. You might say, oh, OK. well, I requested you give it, but I don't want you to give it when you're not really giving it. Again, I want you to be authentic and be honest with me. If you don't want to give this to me, I'll just wait until you do want to give it. But maybe there's something else I'd like to ask you. May I ask you to give me a different gift? And then I'd say, well, yeah, you can ask me. You can ask. Go ahead, ask. And you ask and you say, that I can give. I feel good about giving that. Here. So this is compassion, is to do things together, not to try to control people and not to, what do you call it, not to collude in the idea that they're controlling you.

[19:57]

You know, like, you're not controlling me into talking to you. I want to talk to you. I'm not controlling you, and you're not controlling me, and I want to tell you you're not controlling me. But you are supporting my life, and I'm supporting yours. so not to be denser than I have to be. Say again? Not to be denser than I have to be. Yes. So that seems to fit a lot under the no stealing. Is there something different about the no killing term or something specific in the term no killing? Well, if you're in a situation where you feel like conventionally most people would think it's killing to squash a mosquito... Most people would think, if you squash that mosquito, you're killing that mosquito. Unless you kind of have some, like, I don't know, special powers and you think you can talk to mosquitoes and say, would you like me to squash you? And the mosquito says, oh, please.

[21:01]

Let's call it a massage, shall we? But most people, most humans cannot talk to mosquitoes like that. So generally speaking, if the mosquito's biting you, generally speaking, that would kind of Well, should you let it just stay there? Now, once it's biting you, actually I understand that it may be best just to let it continue to bite you once it's biting you, because it will finish and leave. So the question is, does it really... And I know some people who get big welts from mosquito bites. I don't get big welts. So this is an easy example for me. If they're biting me, I can let them fill up and go away. Because it doesn't make my wealth any worse. But some people aren't sure that that's a good idea. So what do they do? It's a problem. Can you just push them away without killing them?

[22:03]

It's possible, I think. It's going to hurt their thing, though. Probably get stuck in you if you push them away. So it may harm them. So that's a problem. So what one might do as a part of practicing not killing is wear long-sleeved shirts and hats. That does reduce the opportunities. If you go around with no clothes on, with the mosquitoes, you're setting up lots of difficult conversations. Or go underwater or something to just make it easier on yourself. But there's a kind of bug at Tassajara. I think they're called deer flies. And they just kind of like eat you. They just keep chewing on you. So those are more difficult. And you try to move them off and they hold on, you know. It's hard to get them off. So there you want to really wear a lot of clothes and try to get them off without killing them if possible.

[23:04]

Try to like not hate them. Try to say, okay, you're eating me, and this is really painful, so try to gently get them off. Now, I heard a story about Suzuki Roshi, and this is the story. I don't know if it's true, but in the early days of Tassajara, sometimes the kitchen was just thick with flies, regular house flies, and the students... the students thought he didn't want to kill the flies. And Shizigarashi said, kill the flies. Put the fly strips in. But I don't think he said hate, he didn't say hate the flies. So in that case, he suggested that they do this thing called kill the flies, even though he, on another occasion, somebody brought him some fish, brought fish into the monastery, and he ate the fish.

[24:12]

And later, I saw him and he was looking for his bowls, his Buddhist bowls, and he couldn't find them. And he said to me, I think I lost them because I ate fish in them. So he was, I think, he knew that usually in a Buddhist temple you do not, especially a monastery, you do not eat fish. But he didn't ask for the fish, I don't think. But somebody gave him the fish and he ate it. So he felt some compromise there. And then afterwards he was feeling like, I think he was meditating on the cause and effect that if you take your monk's bowls and receive fish in them, it's kind of a problem. There's some problem there. So I think that we do not eat meat in the Bodhisattva way with no problem. We have a problem if we eat meat because was there killing involved here?

[25:20]

Now, what if a fish jumps out of a lake and falls in the ground? Somebody said we should put it back. What if you find a piece of fish on the road miles from any lake? Maybe it fell out of somebody's car or something. And the fish is dead. Then can you eat it? Would it be good to eat it? The thing is to question this kind of thing, not to say, oh, of course, no problem. There is a problem here about when we eat, there's a problem about whether this is being given and whether there was killing involved. It would be nice if the animals who wanted to give themselves could speak English and just come up and say, I'm going to die now. Here, take my body. That would make life simpler. You know, fruits, when they fall off of the tree, in a sense, they're saying, hey, eat me.

[26:25]

You know, that makes life simpler to eat fruits. It's kind of simple. But then you say, well, what about growing the fruit tree? Do they kill animals in order to grow the fruit trees? There's no end to the sense of what, you know, is this, you know, to look at these precepts and to meditate on them, one, to wonder, is there killing here? Is there stealing here? We don't know, but we keep looking at that. We don't know if we're being compassionate with each other, but we keep thinking, am I being compassionate? Am I being kind? I want to be kind. I want to be kind to deer flies. Do I want to be kind to deer flies? No, I don't want to be kind to deer flies. I hate deer flies. I want to kill. Nobody thinks that's kind. But sometimes you might actually feel like, oh, poor deer fly. You know, this really hurts. Before they land on you, you might think, oh, poor deer fly. I'm going to protect myself from you so that I don't have to hurt you. Because if you bite me, I have real hard trouble.

[27:33]

If you really bite hard, you know, or if you're with a human, you know, I say, don't hit me so hard because if you hit me that hard, I'll hit you back. Hit me softer and then I'll be able to, you know, Like my grandson comes to me, pinches me, says, does that hurt? No. Does that hurt? No. Does that hurt? Yes. Does that hurt? That's enough. Please stop. I don't want you to hurt me anymore because if you hurt me more, it might be hard for me to keep being your loving granddaddy. So again, you check your patience. And when you feel like you're losing your patience with grandchildren and deer flies, just start giving a message. Please, make it easier on me. I'm getting to the edge of my patience. I don't want to kill. I don't want to steal. Don't make me so hungry that I'll steal. Don't push me so hard that I'll lie. Always be working with these. Never be sure. Because being sure... This is not killing.

[28:34]

This is not stealing. That's kind of not very compassionate either. That makes sense. I will think about it. Yeah, think about it. Think about these precepts. Thank you for giving your time. You're welcome. Thank you for giving your question. Thank you for giving your listening. Please, Arlene. Arlene? You don't want to come all the way up here? You don't want to get some exercise? Okay, here comes Arlene to say she's not sure if this is a joke or if it really happened. And she's also not sure whether jokes really happen. Arlene, good to see you. Yeah, so a friend of mine said once, she said, I think it was a Dalai Lama, I'm not sure, but I guess there was something flying around and the Dalai Lama just went like off to a better life.

[29:47]

And that was that. So I just thought I'd add that to the mix. And I also appreciate what you just said about grandkids, because I was there with mine. Did you hear what she said? So some person, you don't know who, the Dalai Lama's being indicted. Yeah. Some flying animal was near this person and they squashed the person, but they wished, they squashed the animal person, but they wished the person a better life, a better birth, rebirth, when they did it. So they chose to do this thing which looks like killing, but they did it with the best intention that they could do it at that time. You could also, without squashing, just flying around, you could wish all the insects better lives, even though they've got more of this one. You could say, when this one's done, I hope you have a better one later.

[30:50]

And that's a traditional thing for Buddhists to do, is to wish all the living beings better lives. But at the moment of death, we might wish them a better rebirth because it ended this way. So, yeah, so it's, that's a story. And we don't know if it's a Dalai Lama. Yes, please come. Morning. Morning. Afternoon. Afternoon now, okay. I want to thank you for your beautiful talk, first of all. You're welcome. And I'm sorry you didn't sing today. You're sorry I didn't sing? I am too. And I know we talked, you spoke a little bit about reincarnation and I wanted to ask if that's a necessary way of life, to think that way, because I think sometimes when I go back to my Catholic religion and think about the heaven-hell thing, like it's a way of controlling or a way to scare people into...

[32:15]

living a better life which is not a bad idea I guess but the animal thing kind of coming back is something and I have a hard time with the concept is what I'm trying to say so I wanted to know what your thoughts are about that well the first thing that comes to mind is that you do not have to believe in the teaching of rebirth in order to be a good person You don't have to be a religious person in order to be a good person, one could say. In other words, you don't have to believe in the presence of Buddhas, for example, in order to be a good person. But if you wish to teach the Buddha Dharma, you certainly have to encounter the historical fact of the tradition.

[33:18]

The tradition started in India and had the person who founded it, one of his basic teachings is and was, there is rebirth. He taught that. But he didn't teach it by belief. he taught it by direct perception. He actually saw past lives. And he could actually see people dying and being reborn. And not only could the Buddha see that, but lots of yogis can see people die and be reborn. Or he could see people die and see how that person dying is a condition for the birth of another person. And so this issue is part of what the tradition deals with. And so, but you don't have to believe in it, but you sort of have to, which you are, you have to deal with that people are talking about this. And you are dealing with it. And one way you're dealing with it is saying, well, how do I deal with it?

[34:24]

And I would say the way you deal with it is the way you're going to be dealing with it for the rest of your life. You're going to be thinking about this here and there when you hear about this stuff, and you're going to be dealing with it. So the basic teaching of the Buddha way is called the middle way. And the middle way is the middle way that things are. And the middle way is that they don't last and they're not annihilated. So the person you are right now didn't last to the person you are right now. But also the person you are right now was not annihilated even though that person is gone and we have a new person. Who you are now is a condition for who you are now. Who you are now doesn't last into who you are now, but it's a condition for it.

[35:28]

So if you meditate on this, that will apply to the issue of the person you are some time from now when people say, well, she seems to be dying. The person who seems to be dying doesn't last into the next person who seems to be dying. And that person who seems to be dying is a condition for the next person who seems to be dying. And then we have the person who seems to die, who seems to have died. That person doesn't last, the person who died. But the person who died is not annihilated. She's a condition for something else. We don't know what. at this point, most of us, but she's a condition for something. She's not like completely annihilated with no effect. So I would suggest that you just keep meditating on this business of cause and effect and meditate on the thing of you changing all the time.

[36:36]

And if you meditate on impermanence, that will lead to your eventually coming to understand all this stuff. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Yes, please come. Hello. I had a question. You were talking about pleasure, and from what I understood, you were saying that pleasure was like a manifestation of self-clinging, or was related to self-clinging? No, I'm saying that to be focused on my own pleasure is the source of misery. Pleasure is pleasure. Pain is pain. Displeasure is displeasure. They're just different ways of experiencing.

[37:41]

And also there's what we call indeterminant. I can't tell whether it's pleasurable or painful, sometimes called neutral. But we usually do, we always actually feel pain, pleasure, or in between. That's a normal thing for a living being. Buddhas also feel. Like the historical Buddha again, he actually had back problems, and sometimes he couldn't sit up and give talks. He had to lie down and have his senior students give the talks. And at the end of his life, he got sick. He ate some bad food, and he was uncomfortable. He was in pain. So the Buddha, the Bodhisattva leading up to the Buddha had pain, and the Buddha had pain and pleasure. But the Buddha is not concerned about her own pleasure. She's not focused on that.

[38:44]

She's not thinking, how can I have this kind of pleasure and how can I get this kind of pleasure? If I did that, would that bring me pleasure? So I should do that. But if that would give me more pleasure, maybe I should do it. The Buddha is not focused on this. The Buddha is focused on the happiness of others. But happiness isn't pleasure and sensation. Because you can have a pleasant sensation and be focused on your own pleasant sensation. And if you are, you'll be miserable. Like I have a friend who, when he was a kid, every time he took a shower, he'd cry during the shower because he knew his mother would make him get out before long. He loved showers. And his mother made him take showers, but limited it. So he would cry during the shower because he was so pleasant and he knew that he was going to be forced out of there pretty soon. So it isn't the pleasure that's the pain, it's the clinging to the pleasure.

[39:46]

It's the self-concern about the pleasure. That causes pain. So if you have pleasure and you think, I wish everybody else had this. If you have something to eat, you think, I'd like everybody else to have this good food. You still might eat it, but you really are focusing on, I wish everybody could eat like this, and you really mean it, and that is the source of joy. But like, I'm eating this, and I better not give this away, because if I give it away, I might not have anything left for me. That's the source of misery. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Any other comments today, this morning, this afternoon? Yes, please come. You've been kind of answering my question.

[40:50]

It has to do with I've been feeling a lot of anger arise at different times. And one thing I was aware from what you said was that it's probably not the same anger all the time. It's always a new anger, always fresh. Even though my mind thinks it's the same anger I had yesterday. Yes, right. Even though your mind thinks you're the same person you were yesterday. So I've been aware of the anger and it's a bit of a distraction in terms of relating with other people because it's sort of a... It's an affliction. Right. It makes our relationships with people painful. And it also can hurt them sometimes. Not all of our afflictions hurt other people, but a lot of them do. So the things that cause us suffering also sometimes cause other people suffering. Like our anger is painful for us, and sometimes then we treat others in unkind ways as a result of it. Or even if we don't treat them unkindly, it pains them to see us treating ourselves unkindly.

[41:58]

Like to see a child who's punishing herself is very painful to some other people. What I'm getting is it has to do with compassion again. Yeah. Towards the pardon. Towards the anger. Be gracious. See the anger as a gift. See the pain as a gift. And if you do, joy will come from that reorientation towards it. Also then practice patience with the pain that complements the gracious attitude towards it. I don't like anger. I don't like hatred. But I vow to practice graciousness towards hatred it's not easy to be gracious towards hatred, but I vow to be gracious towards hatred that I have towards myself, towards others, that others have towards themselves, towards me.

[43:12]

And again, it may be nobody ever really can do this, but even though they can't, I still would like to be that way. And the stories I heard of people who received graciously received hatred, when I saw that, I thought, I want to learn that. Well, I can see it has to do with having a preference that I don't feel the anger. Yeah, and be gracious to that preference, too. Be gracious to the preference. Welcome it. Not like it. Welcome it. Yes. From the growing edge of Buddha. Thank you.

[44:17]

What does ten shin mean? Literally, the characters, ten means heaven or celestial, and shin means truth, So literally it's heavenly, celestial truth. And then as a Buddhist technical term, it means ultimate reality. But it also has a meaning in colloquial Chinese, which is to be kind of like a kind of genuinely childlike. And when Suzuki Roshi gave me that name, he said, Tenshin means reb is reb. Like somebody says to me, who are you? I say, reb. That's Tenshin. So it puts the genuineness of a child, it juxtaposes it with ultimate truth.

[45:24]

Both of them. That's a nature call. Nature call. Yes. All right. I was just wondering, given the thoughts about anger, does it ever come to a point where the thoughts are just so thick that you can just see them as thoughts and then you kind of laugh? Yes. It just becomes really thick and you just like sweep it away. Well, first you laugh, right? First you laugh. And the laughter sweeps it away.

[46:26]

In the historical stories of the Buddha, it doesn't say that she laughed when she was enlightened. But there's a number of enlightenment stories where the person laughs. This whole universe is really a wonderful joke.

[46:54]

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