I'd like to begin by raising the question or the issue of the basic intention or the basic motive of what we call Zen practice. And as a Zen student, I would suggest this morning that the basic motive of Zen practice is to realize peace and harmony and freedom among all beings, animate and inanimate. And in order to realize peace and harmony and freedom among all beings, the tradition

[01:11]

of Zen transmits a teaching, an inconceivably wonderful teaching and realizes, or wishes to realize, unsurpassed awakening. The purpose of this teaching and the purpose of this awakening is to bring peace and harmony to the world, to the visible world. And so in the visible world we see that this intention to realize peace and harmony has not been fully realized yet. And yet, one might still wish to devote one's life to such a purpose.

[02:21]

In terms of the current world and current events, I heard a story and I don't know all the details and I don't know if it's true, but I liked it and I wanted to share it with you. And it's a story about a U.S. Army major, a woman, who I think was in charge of a prison in Iraq. And word got out among the Iraqi prisoners, both in her prison, of course, and in other prisons, about the way she administrated and cared for the prisoners, the Iraqi prisoners in her prison.

[03:35]

And I wouldn't say, I'm not saying that I heard that the Iraqi prisoners were very happy to be in her prison, but that what they said about the way it was in her prison made the Iraqi prisoners in the other prisons want to come to her prison. And that prison, of course, has limits in terms of its comfort level, but still, the word was that she had the best prison of all the American facilities. Someone said to her, someone who criticized her and says, the way you treat those prisoners is helping the enemy. And she said, all I do is meet each prisoner as though they're a human being.

[04:40]

And I don't see that as helping the enemy, necessarily, of just being a human being to a human being. And apparently, those human beings appreciated it, or appreciate it, I should say appreciated because her tour of duty ended and she's back in the United States now. And also, another thing she did when she was working in this prison is she had this prison, which means she had her staff adopt an Iraqi orphanage. I don't know how they did it, but they took on the responsibility of caring for an orphanage. And again, the word was, the word I heard was that the children in the orphanage really

[05:46]

appreciated the way this woman and her staff took care of the orphanage and the children really loved her and appreciated her. And her superior, she was a major, I think her colonel who was her direct superior said, it seems that this is the way, the way this woman conducted this prison and also took care of the orphanage, the way she related to the Iraqi prisoners and so on, this is the way to win the hearts and minds of people, win the hearts and minds of people over to the practice of treating humans with humanity, of treating everybody you meet as an opportunity

[06:47]

to realize humanity. Another current event is that today is called by many people in this country, Father's Day. It's kind of an event that people say that. I don't know if this is called Father's Day in China or Tibet or India or even Europe. Is it called Father's Day in Europe?

[07:47]

So anyway, locally, locally it seems to be called Father's Day. But I mentioned, I talk this way so that we don't get parochial about Father's Day and think that this really is Father's Day throughout the universe. But just that we call it Father's Day today, some of us. And then once you call it Father's Day then certain things happen on Father's Day. For example, last night, a woman who calls me father and her mother and her son went shopping and they bought some blueberries because they thought granddaddy likes blueberries, which is true. And then they brought quite a bit of blueberries home and served for dessert last night.

[08:53]

But I was kind of full so I didn't eat too many blueberries. But the grandson wanted to eat a lot of blueberries. But he wasn't allowed to eat as many as he wanted. They wanted to leave some for breakfast for granddaddy. So he accepted a limited intake of blueberries last night. And this morning he got up and enjoyed some unsupervised activity. He went to the refrigerator and got the blueberries out. And there were a lot of blueberries. And then he ate quite a bit of the blueberries. And then he came and told me that there were a lot of blueberries.

[09:56]

But he thought there would be too many for granddaddy to eat. So he ate a lot of blueberries so that granddaddy wouldn't get an upset stomach. And there's still a few blueberries left. This is the way he takes care of his granddaddy. I was listening to the radio and I heard a jazz saxophonist talking. I think he plays his main instrument. Although he can play the piano also.

[10:59]

His main instrument that he's known for is this saxophone. It's a soprano saxophone. Soprano saxophone. And the interviewer, someone who was interviewing him on the radio, asked him. She said, actually he's actually kind of a student of Thelonious Monk. A lot of what Thelonious Monk did with music he tries to incorporate into his saxophone. But Thelonious Monk's instrument was a piano which can do chords and does chords. So the interviewer said, well how do you work with that because a saxophone can't play chords? And he said various things. He said, well it's true it doesn't play chords but you can actually play chords even though it doesn't play chords. You can outline chords.

[12:00]

You can draw pictures of chords with the saxophone. He said, you can do anything on anything. Which is short for you can play piano chords on a saxophone and you can play saxophone lines on a piano. And you can eat lots of blueberries to take care of your granddaddy. And you can find a way to take care of a prison in such a way that people's hearts are won over to compassion by demonstrating it. How do you practice compassion in a prison? Prisons aren't for compassion. Well, they can be.

[13:04]

If you're a warrior you can surrender as an act of compassion. If you're a victor you can take care of those who surrender compassionately. You can do anything with anything. Now we have a war and we have Father's Day. How do we take care of this war situation? How do we take care of the day? How do we take care of a situation where there doesn't seem to be peace and harmony? How do we make peace and harmony out of it? The inconceivably wonderful truth is, of course, the inconceivably wonderful truth.

[14:11]

It is the truth. The truth doesn't wait for anybody to be the truth. The truth is abundant, is abundantly present in everything. The inconceivable truth is abundantly present in each person, in every person. But although it's abundant, it doesn't get manifested without realization, without understanding it, without practicing it. How can we practice this truth which pervades everything? In order to realize the truth, in order to realize peace and harmony, we need some form to bring the truth into manifestation.

[15:15]

We need some form, we need some method, we need some way. So the tradition which wants to realize peace and harmony offers a form, offers forms, offers methods, offers ways. When someone unilaterally, apparently, takes most of your blueberries, how can that be worked with in a way that realizes the truth? What is the way that realizes peace and harmony?

[16:45]

And since I'm talking, I may say something now. And what I say, in some ways, is just words. Words to describe the way to realize peace and harmony. Words to describe the form for realizing peace and harmony. And the word I used this morning will be, first of all, the way to realize peace and harmony is intimacy. But again, I propose to you that intimacy is already the case, that we already are intimate with all beings.

[17:54]

Intimacy is actually our nature, is that we're intimate. The kinds of beings we are, is that we are beings which are intimate with others. So we don't have to make the intimacy, we need to realize it. And, in order to realize it, we need, well, one way I say it is, we need to open to, we need to recognize our vulnerability to each other. We need to tenderize ourselves. We need to get in touch with our tender side, our tenderness. We need to be able to be present with each other in our tenderness.

[19:06]

And again, we already are tender, I suggest, but we turn away from it, perhaps. We already are vulnerable to each other, but we turn away from it, perhaps. And I think we can be sympathetic, perhaps we can be sympathetic to ourselves and others about how we're somewhat afraid to be vulnerable to each other and thereby open to our intimacy. How we are somewhat shy to be tender with each other. And so to support this somewhat challenging way of being together, some forms are usually necessary. Once again, I propose, we are intimate, we are vulnerable to each other, but we can ignore the intimacy and ignore the vulnerability.

[20:30]

It doesn't take away the intimacy, it doesn't take away the vulnerability, it just denies it. And when we deny it, then peace and harmony are more or less undermined. Then freedom is more or less obstructed in its realization. In order to be free together, I suggest, we need to be tender with each other, and we need to be tender with ourselves, or we need to feel our tenderness in order to be free. And again, not just because we are, and if we ignore the way we are, the ignorance becomes a stumbling block to our harmony, to our peacefulness. I'm on the verge of giving some forms, but I want to say, again, a kind of theoretical point, a theoretical teaching,

[22:04]

which is, again, basic teaching of the Buddhist tradition, that each of us, and all of us, every moment of our life, are dependent co-arisings. Each of us arises each moment in dependence on things other than ourself. We have an other-dependent nature. Each of us is actually a relational being. In each moment we arise through the support of all our relations. We do not make ourselves happen moment by moment. Right now, I live and breathe, moment by moment, through relations. I am a relational being, and I propose that each of you are relational beings.

[23:08]

You are contingent. I am contingent. You are contingent on me. I am contingent on you. I am not contingent on myself, and you are not contingent on yourself. You do not make yourself. I do not make myself. We are relational, interdependent beings. In this way, we are vulnerable to each other for our life. We are open to each other for our life, and therefore, because we are open to each other, we are vulnerable to each other. And we are tender to each other. That's the way we actually are. But again, for various reasons, we ignore this interdependence. We ignore this contingency. We ignore this tenderness. We ignore this openness. So then we have closeness, invulnerability, toughness, independence, and lack of harmony, lack of peace, lack of freedom.

[24:21]

So anyway, now, because it's Father's Day, it's a marketing opportunity, right? So on the radio, you say, what are you going to get for Dad? The guy says, well, if your dad's like my dad, he loves power tools. Now, I know some women who are really good carpenters, and they use power tools. But anyway, usually on the Mother's Day ads, they don't say, well, if your mom's like my mom, she likes power tools. But that would be a nice kind of a fun ad, actually. Get your mom a new skill saw. Or a new lawnmower. Power tools for Dad. Okay, fine. But how about give Dad some intimacy? How about help Dad be intimate?

[25:41]

How about help Dad realize his intimacy with himself and with his children? How about giving that? My dad doesn't want that. He wants power tools. That's it. Many people, actually, many people over the years have come to me and talked to me about their father. And they've told me that their father does not want to talk to them. Or that their father doesn't want to talk to them about their relationship. Their father does not want to talk about how he is a relational being.

[26:47]

Their father does not want to hear about how they are relational beings. My father does not want to talk to me about our intimacy. Someone says, many people say, my father does not want to talk, he's afraid of our intimacy. So many people say, they think my father's afraid of our intimacy. I say, are you afraid of your intimacy with your father? Yes. Does your father know he's afraid of his intimacy with you? I don't know. Or yes. Did you ask him? Yes. Did he answer? No. Did he answer? Yes. Did he say he was afraid? Yes. No. All kinds of possibilities. You can do anything on anything, with anything, for anything, by anything. There's possibilities here. If you're open to this, vulnerability to this relationship.

[27:52]

Someone also said to me, my father is a very intelligent, wonderful guy, but whenever he talks to me, he just talks about himself. So one of the forms you can use in relationship, in your relationships, one of the forms you can, modes you can use in your relationships, to manifest, to realize the relational quality of your relationships, is with conversation, dash, with a bilateral, bilateral communication. You can talk to somebody in a unilateral way, but you can also learn to talk to somebody in a bilateral way. There's two sides to the relationship. How do you manifest the two sides, moment by moment?

[29:02]

They're both there all the time. How do you manifest, how do you make it bilateral? Father, Father? Yes? I want to talk to you about something. Would that be all right with you? What is it? I want to talk to you about our relationship. Do you want to talk to me about our relationship? Yes. Matter of fact, I'll tell you about our relationship. It's this, and it's [...] this. Excuse me, Father, excuse me. I was wondering if you'd like to talk to me about it,

[30:06]

but not so much just tell me about the way it is, but you could tell me how you see it, but would you also please ask me how I see it? Would you be willing to do that? Father might say yes, but then go right ahead and not practice that, but then you could say, just a second, I want to check again. Now you seem to be telling me about your side, and now you're telling me about your side, but not asking me if I want to hear about your side before you tell me. Do you want to hear about my side? And may I ask you to tell me about your side? Could you wait to tell me about your side until I invite you? And could I wait, and I'll wait to tell you about my side before you invite me,

[31:08]

but I would like you to invite me, and I would like to invite you, Could we talk, could we start relating this way? Would it be possible? And father might say yes, and you might say, does this seem like kind of awkward? Is this kind of awkward for you? And father might say, no. And then later father might say, yes, it is awkward, I don't know how to do this, I never did this before. Many parents of little children do not think about being bilateral with the children. Not all of them, but many of them, because they're children. You have a relationship, but you don't like do the relationship with children bilaterally. It's unilateral, you tell them what to do. Maybe not about some things, like playing catch or something, or making cookies,

[32:10]

but a lot of things you're just unilateral, because you have to be. Because it's getting really serious. It's like, you can't be bilateral with prisoners. In other words, you can't be, under tough situations, forget humanity. It's too rough, you can't be bilateral with kids when the situation is dangerous. In other words, our interdependent nature evaporates under certain circumstances. You can't apply it when things are really rough and dangerous. We think that sometimes. I'm suggesting, how about looking at that that truth is always the case. It isn't that when we're getting along well, we're interdependent, and when we're fighting, we're not interdependent. It may be a little closer to when we're getting along well, it's because we realize our interdependence,

[33:13]

and when we're fighting, it's because we're ignoring it. We're in danger of harming each other when we ignore our intimacy. When we get tough, and try to be invulnerable, then we have war. Or anyway, disharmony, and unpeacefulness, and unfreedom. Sometimes in Zen we say we have two ways of harmonizing body and mind.

[34:15]

Or two ways of harmonizing bodies and minds. One way is called just sitting. The other way is called going to the teacher and studying the truth together. The practice of sitting in meditation, like yesterday we had a day when several people sat in this room all day, or sat in this room all day, and walked in this room all day, and ate in this room all day, and we have this setup, this form of sitting meditation. And part of the reason for that sitting is a way, a form, to make yourself, to make your body and mind harmonized,

[35:17]

peaceful, and free. A way to intra-psychically, or intra-somato-psychically, or within your body and mind, to harmonize body and mind, by sitting, and having an intimate conversation between body and mind while sitting. Moment by moment, being so intimate, and vulnerable, and tender, with your experience, being tender with your experience of having a body sitting, being tender, and vulnerable, and intimate with your body walking, that you gradually can open to the intimacy of your body and mind. And when we, I propose, that when we learn

[36:20]

to open to the intimacy of body and mind, and also intimacy of this body and the other bodies, and this mind and the other minds, but starting with this body and mind, become so intimate with the sitting, that the sitter and the sitting are so intimate that there's just sitting. And that's the name of our practice. Just sitting. Meaning that we sit, and sit, and sit, and the more we sit, the more tender we become, the more we open to our experience, and become more intimate moment by moment with the experience. So, in the intimacy, there's no longer really

[37:22]

sitter separate from the sitting, or person separate from the sitting body. There's just sitting. Just intimacy. Which is always there, of course, and now it's realized. So we say just sitting, but you could also turn it the other way. The sitter and the sitting are so intimate, there's just the sitter. There's just the sitter, there's no sitting. There's no sitting separate from the sitter. There's just the sitter, or just the sitting. Or there's just you being yourself, your interdependent self. Or there's just your activity. This is one way, this is one of our forms we use to realize intimacy of body and mind,

[38:23]

intimacy of self and other. And over the years, Zen students spend thousands of hours sitting, tenderizing, making themselves vulnerable, opening to their interdependence. Which is always there, but little by little, over the years of practice, you get more able to tolerate the truth of your relational nature. And the other practice, the other side of it, is we say go to the teacher to study the teaching, to study the truth, to study interdependence. But you can also say go to the father, or go to the mother, and study the truth. Go to the teacher

[39:35]

and study the truth. Go to the teacher in order to see the truth and hear the truth. But also, how about go to your father to hear the truth, to see the truth, to study the truth. How about go to your mother to see the truth? Fine, go see your mother, go see your father, I have no problem with that, but how about this other agenda when you see your father or see your mother? To realize the truth in the meeting so that this meeting cannot just be a nice meeting with your mother or father, but a meeting which will realize peace and harmony in this world.

[40:36]

How about when you go to see your children or grandchildren? You go, you travel to visit them and you remember that the way to realize peace and harmony is to go to that meeting to study the truth with that person, to study the truth about these blueberries. How are we going to deal with this blueberry situation of doing granddaddy a big favor by eating almost all of them? It's quite a challenging situation. To treat this little person as a human rather than as, I don't know what, subhuman or superhuman. So when I see him later,

[41:43]

you know, I didn't have time to talk to him too much because I was on my way to talk to you. When I see him later, I think I might bring up the blueberry situation with him again and maybe say to him that before he does me favors like that he could talk to me. I was actually around, but he didn't consult with me. He didn't think, oh, you know, hey granddaddy, I think you might get upset, you might get a stomachache if you ate all those blueberries. So I'll eat them now, okay? He can do that. He can talk like that. And I could say, well, let's go look at the blueberries, see how many there are, and so on. Rather than I'll decide about the blueberries, how many will be going where? They're my blueberries. You guys got them for me, remember? It's Father's Day. They're mine.

[42:46]

And he'd say, well, they're yours, granddaddy, but we got them for you, remember? So really, you wouldn't have them if it wasn't for us. Well, that's right. And you wouldn't be having this conversation with me if I wasn't here. How can we be bilateral, granddaddy, about this blueberry situation? And I might say, yes, that's my point. Let's find a way to do this in the future, shall we? Let's have an understanding about how we deal with fruits, which you like so much. How do we deal with that? How do we work with that? How do you be bilateral with the teacher? How does a teacher bilateral with a student? Of course, there's a difference between grandfather and grandson,

[43:51]

between teacher and student. There's a difference. But they're totally interdependent, the two. There's no teacher without the student. There's no grandfather without grandchild. How do they realize their intimacy? How can they learn and make agreements of forms that will support them to realize that someone came running at me to hit me. That's his that's what he wanted to do. He wanted to relate to me, but he he didn't he didn't want he wanted to be tough about it. And as he started running to me, I said, don't hit me. Don't hit granddaddy. Don't hurt granddaddy. On some level he knows

[44:57]

that I'm bigger than him. And that I can hurt him easily. And on some level he's very afraid of how much bigger I am than him and how I can hurt him. So he seems to actually now toughen up and pretend like, you know, I'm a strong little boy and I'm going to hit that guy. And he's not thinking about the fact that the guy could hit him back harder than he can hit the guy. Because he kind of knows this is my granddaddy I can pretty much hit him as much as I want to some extent. He's to some extent he's desensitized himself towards me. He's he's ignoring how vulnerable he is to me. He can see how vulnerable I am to him. He can see that he can hit me. He can attack me. He can jump on me. He can bite me. He can scratch me. But because he kind of

[45:59]

is not being so much aware that I can bite him and hit him and scratch him he turns that side off. And so then he can run at me. He can run at me to realize his intimacy with me. He wants intimacy with me with his muscles and everything. How is he going to use his energy and still be intimate with me? He wants it. But if he's too much aware of how vulnerable he is he's then he stays away from me. So when he's aware of how vulnerable he is he shrinks away from me. And when he ignores his vulnerability then he says now I can get the intimacy. Now I can exercise the intimacy. How can he how can we learn to do that where I don't scare him away by making him aware of how vulnerable he is to the bigger man at the same time let him come near to me

[47:00]

without ignoring that. It's... It's difficult. When I was a little boy I was playing with my female cousin. She was a little older than me but in the process of playing with her in a sense heard the wind got knocked out of her. I think I hit her in the stomach or something. And I thought I was playing with her. I was trying to be I loved this cousin I was enjoying being intimate with her but I wasn't aware I'd lost track of my vulnerability so I lost track of her vulnerability. In the fun in the daring to be intimate with her I kind of ignored how dangerous it was for me. And how dangerous it was for her. How we can hurt each other. I lost track of that

[48:00]

and then there she was but the wind knocked out of her. In other words she looked like she couldn't breathe you know the diaphragm gets knocked or something. She looked like she was going to die. I was really frightened of what was you know of the situation and then her breath came back. So we were intimate and I was enjoying that and she was for a while and then the wind got knocked out of her and we were suddenly very aware of how vulnerable we are. But we got over it and then my uncle came in the room and said to me if you ever do that again I'll kill you. And then I felt the vulnerability again but now really really strongly I felt very tender to this big man saying he's going to kill me if in my relationships with his daughter

[49:01]

her wind ever gets knocked out of her again. So then I thought okay well you can't play with girls because when you play with girls if their wind gets knocked out of them which does can happen but then you'll get killed. So just stay away from these vulnerable creatures. Go play with people that aren't vulnerable and if you play with people that aren't vulnerable then maybe you also can be not vulnerable. When I was a little boy I grew up with a lot of boys who were older than me.

[50:01]

They lived right around my house and they were We lived in an apartment building together and there were boys that were two years older than me three years older than me four years older than me and five years older than me. From the time I was about one and a half till I was about six and these bigger boys for some reason or other instead of using me as an opportunity to show how strong and invulnerable they were by dominating me and beating me up they played a game of kind of like enacting how they were vulnerable to me. Of course I knew I was vulnerable excuse me they played a they played a game of demonstrating how they were vulnerable to me. In other words how if I climbed on them they would fall down or how if I could sit on them or how I could wrestle with them and you know kind of pretend beat them at the wrestling they would enact

[51:08]

or pretend as though they could be hurt by me or they were vulnerable to my strength and in that awareness of their willingness not to beat me up not to dominate me not to make me the reason why they look strong but rather to use them as a show of how strong I was I could also easily remember and be aware of how vulnerable I was to them how they could easily hurt me anytime how they could easily dominate me anytime I could see my vulnerability to them because they could show me theirs and as a result I grew up being aware of my vulnerability to big boys but still be able to go be with them and interact intensely with them and not be so afraid of them in other words be intimate with them and they could be intimate

[52:10]

with me this is my great good fortune that I grew up with boys like that kind of like the lady who takes care of the prisoners so I was their mascot rather than their underling it promotes it didn't make me tougher it made me more aware of my weakness because I wasn't afraid to be aware of my weakness with them made me more aware of how they could hurt me the fact that they didn't it made me more aware of how they could hurt me

[53:13]

conversation learning to have conversations which are bilateral is a form to harmonize body and mind going to each person as an act of going to the teacher to study the Dharma going to the father going to the mother going to the sister going to the brother going to the child going to the lover going to the teacher to study the truth together intimately going to each person to learn to be vulnerable and intimate and tender to realize peace and harmony remembering that in each approach treating each person as a human

[54:14]

which they are when they're human treating each animal as a person treating each animal as a meeting as an opportunity to meet and study the truth some people are actually quite good at meeting animals non-human animals as an opportunity to study the truth some people are actually more able to feel vulnerable and tender with animals well good extend that to your relationships with humans learn to have conversations which are bilateral learn the difference between I'm going to do this and

[55:18]

I would like to do this what do you think? learn the difference between I'm going to do this also learn the difference between doing it without even talking and just doing it without even telling anybody and going to somebody also to yourself when you think also with yourself when you're going to do something talk to yourself and say I'm thinking of doing this what do you think? maybe somebody inside will say what are you going to do that for? or that's not a very good idea I'm too busy to talk to myself about what I'm doing I'm too busy to talk to you about what I'm doing okay, that's called pretending to be invulnerable and that's not a tender way to talk I'm thinking of doing this

[56:22]

I would like to do this I think this would be good do you support that? can you agree to that? do you want me to do that? what do you think? such ways of talking, for example for some fathers to talk to their children that way is something they never have done and if they did it they would be awkward hardly able to form the sentence I'm thinking of doing this what do you how do you feel about this? the mouth has never formed those sentences before with the child maybe with someone else the mouth formed that but with the children to talk this way to a child

[57:22]

even a little child or an adult child not to mention that if you haven't done this and you're now in your 60s or 70s you're having your ability to learn new language patterns is more difficult you're losing control of your muscles in your tongue so this is going to be difficult to learn at a late age so if we're trying to learn together with our aged father or our aged teacher some teachers don't know how to do this either they're teachers but they still haven't learned how to be intimate with the students so they would have trouble learning this and the teachers who don't know how to be intimate with the students they need to go to the student and learn how to study the Dharma with the student in order to serve the

[58:24]

function of teacher and the father needs to learn to do this with the child in order to realize the function of Dharma but it's hard to learn this new way of talking but I think it although it's difficult there actually will be great rewards in learning this new way of talking to people someone said to me when I was talking about this someone said to me who do you have to talk to in this way and I said everybody I meet I could learn this with it would be awkward like at the checkout line in the supermarket I was thinking of buying these things what do you think generally speaking

[59:34]

not generally but quite often when I go if I go to the sometimes if I just go into some supermarkets not Whole Foods in Mill Valley where I know almost everybody but if I go into some supermarkets in some parts of the country people are frightened by my haircut and sometimes by my costume it's unusual to see somebody who appears like me so sometimes people are afraid of me so if I then in addition to that in the checkout line say I'm thinking of buying these foods what do you think even though it seems to me that I'm making myself vulnerable to them and I'm being tender with them they might be kind of frightened of me they think they're frightened of me they think they're frightened of me but I think they're frightened of the vulnerability that they start to feel when somebody comes and says hi this is where I'm at what you're going to tell me

[60:34]

something about yourself I didn't ask for this I'm just trying to do my job you know you keep keep your thoughts to yourself please mister well I'll keep my thoughts about myself to myself can I ask you some things about yourself can I do you feel ok about performing this service for me well the people might be frightened it might be awkward but if you can somehow get through that process and get out the door after you leave they can reconsider what happened who was that guy what happened there oh he was just like super weird I hate that guy you're vulnerable to people like thinking you're not so cool if you ask them certain questions but you're also vulnerable to realize peace and harmony

[61:35]

it could be with everybody you meet but again you don't have to like push this on people you can say could I ask you a question are there any specials today at the store yes there are what are they blah blah blah blah good and do you like your job is this a good place to work do you feel ok about what I'm asking you is there anything you'd like to ask me well this is great that we're having this conversation but actually people are waiting so probably we should maybe

[62:41]

talk later so I can help the next customer fine thank you good talking to you yeah it was and I hope to extend such conversations with the next person if they're up for it like how are you doing today I'm fine would you like to know anymore no but a lot of times with people in situations like that we think I don't have time to realize the unsurpassed wondrous Dharma with this person I gotta let this person go by and the next person go by and the next person go by but someday maybe I'll stop and have time to realize the Dharma with somebody

[63:42]

but when is it going to start if you pass up almost everybody you meet and again this unilateral thing is I can't I can't do this I'm deciding I can't do this why don't you ask the other person maybe they will agree with you but even if they agree with you that you can't do it that you can't have this conversation still to arrive at that conclusion together you just realized it a little bit how many times how many meetings do we have where we pass this up because we think it's not appropriate there's not time blah blah blah but really I'm scared of it I'm scared of what will happen you know who knows what might happen if you bring this up definitely definitely you might frighten the person but the most awesome thing of all

[64:44]

the most frightening thing of all that the person might be opening up to is that they might be missing out on their life and your question reminds them of this they think they're afraid of you and what a weirdo you are but really what they're afraid of is missing out on their intimacy with all beings that's really the most that's the big problem and the consequences of that which are lack of peace and lack of harmony you and I can do anything with anything how to be intimate with people in each moment you have tremendous creative opportunities how do you be bilateral how do you be intimate it's there there's so many possibilities but if we're not

[65:48]

looking for it then we may miss it if we don't want it if we don't get in touch with what we want it and the necessity of it we might miss it on the other hand if we do want it and we realize how necessary it is we may be able to stand upright and meet the humans we meet and meet the animals and meet the trees and meet the cars and meet the rocks with this kind of vulnerability and intimacy and all that happens we may be able to do it and I think this will be our way to contribute to peace and harmony in this world please consider ways that you can do this with everybody you meet

[66:48]

not just the teacher not just the father not just the mother but everybody give your very best and gently ask gently invite other people to do it with you it's not the pale moon that excites me that thrills and delights me

[67:51]

oh no it's just the nearness of you it's not the pale moon it isn't the sweet conversation it isn't your sweet conversation that brings this sensation oh no it's just the nearness of you I like this other part here it says I don't know how to do the melody of this but I need no soft light to enchant me if you will just grant me the right to hold you so tight I think that's a big part of it we have to ask for the right to be close to people we can't just go in there

[68:53]

we have to be bilateral about being bilateral we can't be unilateral about being bilateral and it's not really other people that's so great that's why it says it's not your sweet conversation it's not your lovely face it's not your great intelligence it's not your beautiful body although those are nice it's the nearness of you it's our intimacy so people don't have to be so attractive or unattractive it's the intimacy between us we're intimate with attractive people we're intimate with unattractive people it's the nearness it's the closeness it's the intimacy that's why nobody is excluded everybody is an opportunity even beautiful grandsons

[69:56]

may our intention equate with the opportunity for healing and bliss may the true merit of love be displayed that I referred to here I thought it would be good to talk about here one was I'll say it and you can add to it what's your name again? Peter Peter asked when you have like an animal like human animal or some other kind of animal and they have this they seem to have some motive to reproduce which manifests

[71:04]

in many ways but anyway it looks like sometimes there's some kind of sometimes setting territory in order to promote reproductive opportunities or being competitive with reproductive competitors and we see that in to some extent we see manifestations of that for example teenagers in high school people trying to like make people think well of them and talk badly of their competitors to make people think their competitors are like ugly or untrustworthy or dishonest or something hoping that an aura of attractiveness will be created around them we see this among humans or even even saying bad things about people you see are competitors in terms of like dating situations and

[72:06]

so that we see that in human beings and other animals and then the question is how to be how to work the peace and harmony under those circumstances that's how I heard your question would you care to say it another way? did I did I characterize your question somewhat? to some extent you know I sometimes say that some human beings are not very competitive you know and if reproductive opportunities are available some humans even some of our perhaps great aunts or uncles have said well you go ahead you go out with him or you go out with her or you marry him or you marry her some people often are generous that way and not very competitive but those people don't tend to be our ancestors our ancestors actually are kind of like in some ways the ones that said

[73:09]

no I'll go first I'll marry this person you don't have to I'll do it I'll have kids with this person those are the people who our ancestors tend to be the selfish ones in some ways so we inherit this kind of like me first attitude when it comes to like reproductive opportunity so it's kind of in our nature that we're the successors of those who made the arrangements for such things to occur more or less selfishly but not everybody is that way but they don't they don't tend to reproduce and in some societies they've done some research and the murderers have more kids in some sort of primitive society they've noticed that on the other side my daughter told me

[74:14]

that she went to a birthday party and her boy who she loves very much but is somewhat sometimes he manifests in a form which she calls obnoxious obnoxious he's running around doing various things and this girl who's one of his close friends came and sat down next to her crossed her legs and talked to her just you know chatted away while he was like rampaging in the area and then he came over to her and I don't know how it came up but he let her know that he wanted to marry her this convivial calmly conversant young lady next to my daughter and she said why don't you marry some other that other girl over there I don't want to marry you I want to marry this guy and my grandson said

[75:15]

but I want to marry you and and she said I don't want to marry you I want to marry him and I think I think maybe he said well how come you want to marry him instead of me and she said well because he's nice to me and you're not I said girls don't want to marry guys that aren't nice to them she told him that he kind of went hmm so he's working with that to some degree so sometimes girls do say that and I don't know where that comes from you know did somebody tell him to say that or did they really feel that way or what but anyway she told him that but sometimes girls who do not want to marry guys that are mean to them still marry guys that are mean to them even though they don't want to they do it sometimes because sometimes the guys that are mean to them scare them or whatever or pressure them or somebody pressures them and they actually get married to people who aren't nice to them and have kids with people that aren't nice to them

[76:16]

and sometimes the people that are nice to them don't marry them of course the most horrible I guess version of it is that some people rape people and have children in rape which you know the mother often really does not like at all but then there's this baby so she takes care of it in fact so this baby is born sometimes for rape and you take care of the baby but there is that terrible karma in their conception this happens in this world so this is the kind of place we live where rapists reproduce sometimes so how do we how do we work in a situation where we where we have this kind of strong passions where we do not ask for the right to hold someone close to hold someone tight we don't say may I have the right to be close to you

[77:17]

we just try to be close without saying do you want to be and we have this impulse of like I want to be like my grandson I want to marry you she doesn't want to marry him what do we do with that so I guess at some point anyway somehow it comes to us we meet somebody or hear something that somehow makes us feel like you know it would be good to ask for the right to be close to someone that that would actually be more enjoyable rather than taking the closeness getting the closeness without asking somehow it dawns on us somehow we see that that actually would be good even though we still might feel the impulse to be close to someone who we don't know if that person wants to be close to us we might say well if I want to be close

[78:17]

to this person maybe I could ask that person if they want I could tell that person I could ask that person if they want to hear about how I feel and they may say no I don't want to so then we may have temporarily no opportunity to say you know I'd like to be close to you they don't even want to hear about that so then part of being close to people I think is being patient with them and sometimes not wanting to be close to us some people do not want to be close to me they don't and even if I say could I talk to you they don't want to talk to me either or even if they tolerate me talking to them if I would tell them that I want to be close to them they might say well you know I don't feel comfortable being close to you I'm not ready for that so I have this feeling of wanting to be close but they don't want to be and I need to be

[79:18]

patient with that if I want peace and harmony and if they see me being patient with and accepting and patient of them not wanting to be near me that may make them slightly more interested in me or slightly more willing to consider being close the possibility of being closer to me or learning more about me if I demonstrate to them the willingness to practice patience with their perhaps repulsion towards me and what's your name? Kara Kara said a related question to this segue over this if how would you put it if trust has been broken or something like that? I answered the question I answered her question huh? yeah so her question

[80:20]

was something about if someone if someone doesn't trust you for some reason various conditions have given rise so they don't they don't trust you they don't trust you to be near to them how do you deal with that? and so was the answer about being patient part of it? and also you may be the one who doesn't trust the other person and you can be patient with your lack of trust of them too you can be patient with you not being you not being patient with that you don't want to be near to them because not wanting to be near being repulsed by someone and not wanting to be near them is not necessarily all that comfortable either but that is the way we feel sometimes as a matter of fact I I once had an experience like that where I was driving

[81:22]

on a motor scooter near my house I lived in a kind of slum where a lot of Native Americans lived in Minnesota and there was a bar near my house and there were Native Americans outside the bar and they were drinking and you know sort of falling all over each other and fighting each other in their drunken state and as I drove by I had this feeling like I don't want to I don't want to relate to these people I just didn't I was repulsed by them I didn't want them to be my friends and but then I felt ashamed of myself that I just felt not good about my repulsion and I just felt like even though these people were drunk and disorderly and dangerous I didn't necessarily have to feel like I wanted to get them out of my life

[82:23]

but I did so I that feeling of repulsion and avoidance actually motivated me to learn about Zen because I thought that Zen practice would help me not be repulsed by dangerous drunken disorderly people It's possible to feel compassion towards people like that not easy necessarily you have to train quite a bit but part of compassion is to be patient with the discomfort of being near them part of compassion is to be generous with people who are in difficult circumstances part of compassion is not to think that I'm better than a drunk disorderly person even though I may not be drunk and disorderly it doesn't mean I'm better than them just like even though I didn't take lots of blueberries from my grandson

[83:25]

this morning I'm not better than my grandson who took them from me and I just went home actually after the lecture and talked to him about this and it really seemed like he kind of understood and his mother was nearby and I said you know if you if you want to if you if there's some fruit and you want to protect me from getting upset stomach I'd like you to ask me about it beforehand and his mother said well you know I'm trying to get him to ask before he takes food too but if I'm not even awake and he gets up I don't feel like I can ask him to ask me I actually don't want him to ask me and I said well I was already awake you know but he he didn't ask me so I said to him and he said he kind of said okay I don't know if he'll do it

[84:25]

but it was the conversation went pretty well and he you know he's four and a half he understands this kind of stuff pretty clearly now so but do I think I'm better than him you know it's possible think well I'm better than him but you don't have to and similarly if someone's being competitive you don't have to think you're better than them or worse than them in order to be intimate with somebody who's being competitive and to be intimate with your competitive side yes thank you I'm wondering

[85:26]

if you can be patient I definitely will try to be patient and yes I agree that communication for it to feel enlivening for both parties needs to be bilateral I totally appreciate that comment but in some relationships where there's a power differential the person who is in the position of power has the majority of the responsibility for the safety of that relationship so like when you're talking about grandson you know coming fiercely the child is

[86:27]

responsible for the adult not hitting the child back we kind of all agree with that but sometimes in relationships where there's a power differential the person who is in the position of power for whatever reason isn't able to maintain that responsibility and they may even do something or attempt to do something that is harmful to the other person be it through lack of awareness selfishness or whatever it may be now in that situation the person is not in the position of power if they want to communicate or maintain that connection and the other person is not taking responsibility it's sort of inevitably a one sided conversation because the other person is doing all the work so it seems like there has to be sort of each person recognizing their responsibility and in some cases it may not be equal and I guess

[87:28]

the question in that is I'm wondering if you can say something about what the skillful practice would be for both parties where if that kind of harm has happened where responsibility lies and any encouraging words you can say about how one can practice making apologies well if the person who has more power has in some way hurt the other person then if the person doesn't know and nobody is stimulating them to ask then it's kind of hard to go forward somebody has to tell the person the teacher or whatever that they've hurt the other person or that not so much that they've hurt the other person that the other person has been hurt in the way that they've cared for their relationship so that

[88:29]

somehow the other person has to get that message which and it may be hard for the person who has been hurt not knowing maybe not holding a responsibility yeah like to sort of expect the parent or the grandparent to know that they shouldn't hit the child so if the child is expected to ask the parent for the apology I think that that's not appreciating the power of rational relationship do you know what I mean like well sometimes the not being aware of what was what was harmful is harmful yes right but then if they were harmful and also were not aware that they were harmful then how do you help them wake up who's going to help them wake up because they're in a state of not knowing that they were harmful yeah they weren't very aware when they were harmful plus they didn't even know that they didn't register

[89:29]

they weren't in touch with the relationship enough to register that they were harmful so somehow it would be good if somehow they could get that tip if it's gone that far so in the case of my grandson he does these things to me like he kicks me and bites me and hits me and also tries to hit me with things and so I sat down with him and I told him maybe I shouldn't have said this but I said you know in some ways it doesn't bother me so much for you to hit me because I'm bigger than you and it doesn't hurt that much but I still think as you get bigger it's going to start hurting me plus I don't want you to get in the habit of hitting me because then you're going to hit kids so I'm going to ask you to stop hitting me and he said kind of like he registered that and said but what happens what should I do his

[90:31]

mother's listening and his grandmother's listening too said what should I do if you hit me and I ask you to stop and then you hit me again what should I do and then if I ask you again to stop hitting me and you hit me again what should I do or what should you do and so we were talking about that with him and so we said well should granddaddy hit you back if you hit him three times and he tells you three times not to hit him and he hit you back and you keep hitting him should he hit you back and he didn't think that was actually a good idea and then and then his mother said I don't think you should hit him as hard as you can said to me and I said I agree and then his grandmother said I think if you're going to hit him you should hit tell him that you hit him three times and you asked him asked him you hit him but not to

[91:26]

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