Tonight I feel that I'd like to take this meeting as an opportunity to assess what the community would like to study together and accomplish together during this practice period and for the rest of our lives too. So I thought I might begin by saying what I think other people feel too is we are probably impressed, touched, and moved by the talks of our Tongariro graduates as we usually are.

[01:01]

And I think if we look at their stories we can see some good possibilities for what we work on and also some good news about what we have already realized, what a number of people have already realized. In their stories I think, I think in their stories, actually all four of those stories, I think I heard them say that they really appreciated the kindness and the kindness which they saw at Zem Center. And also they really appreciated the beauty of the life that they saw at Tassajara or Green

[02:07]

Gulch. And I think they all demonstrated some awareness of how much other people have helped them in their lives and how inspiring it is to see people help people and even a way of life which is dedicated to that. Not just helping people but helping people through awareness of how we help people or helping people in the context of awareness of how we're all connected. Not so much I personally am going to help people but because everyone's helping me I can help people or because there's a place like Tassajara where people are helping people

[03:10]

be at Tassajara, people at Tassajara can help people. Many people make it possible for us to be here therefore we can help people. Because so many people are helping us we can help people. But if people weren't helping us we wouldn't be able to do the things we're doing. And I felt in their stories they all seemed to demonstrate awareness of this. At the same time that I felt that I was touched by this awareness I also think of and have been thinking about the fact that we live in a country which has quite a different view of the situation where people oftentimes either think that they do things on their own or even when they sort of know that other people are helping them they don't mention it. And so in one sense I personally am also concerned with how this vision or this sense which I

[04:26]

heard in these stories how that might, I'll put it this way, I feel that this vision and this appreciation is there but it doesn't necessarily always ramify itself into the way we do things even here, not to mention in the society at large. So part of what I'd like to put out there is that I'm thinking about that in this community how this community which is populated by people who came here partly because of awareness of interconnectedness, how this community can realize that more. And I just, the thought came to my mind, I can't remember the story exactly but I think Dogen was, I think he was copying some text in a Chinese library, I think something like that,

[05:39]

and a Chinese monk looked at him and said, what are you doing that for? He said, well I'm copying these sayings of the ancestors so I can go back, so I can take these texts back to Japan. And I said, well why do you want to do that? He said, well so I can teach the people these teachings. I said, why do you want to do that? So I can help people, so I can save people. I said, why do you want to do that? And he didn't have an answer. And so part of what I would like to do, and which I have been working with you already on, is I'd like to continue to work on developing a common language, so we can speak the same language about what we're doing. And it was very touching also to hear Susan say that from her childhood,

[07:00]

she had a real hard time with the fact that we seem to be separate beings. And in her voice I think you could hear that actually it still, it really did bother her, that we seem to be these different people with these different eyes, and these different ears, and we all seem to be all separated. Something seems to really bug her about that. And so this idea that we are separate is a fundamental affliction which we still, which is part of our human condition, and so that's here right now. When people tell stories like we heard, inspiring stories of how they saw,

[08:18]

their eyes opened to see interconnectedness, demonstrations of interconnectedness, and how inspiring that was, and when others of us had had that vision of realizing how the fact that we're here is because everyone's so kind to us, in the next minute we can be operating from the point of view of, well I'm going to decide what to do next myself, according to what I think is best. And there is in our society that idea that basically when you push people down to the point, I mean basically most people are deciding what they're doing based on their own sense of what's right. And I tell people that all the time, like in the book Sasheen, you know, well you got to decide, you know, whether the next period is going to be helpful or

[09:26]

healthy for you to sit, you shouldn't push yourself and hurt yourself according to some idea of, you know, what the schedule is or something. But if everybody at Zen Center and everybody in the United States is deciding what they're going to do based on their own preferences or their own vision of what's right, then people might start getting isolated again. Or rather, this sense of isolation and separation seems to go right along with that. So what can we do in a country where we have actually still quite a bit of freedom and people use that freedom to basically, I don't know what, anyway, where deciding what to

[10:29]

do based on your own view tends to often reinforce some sense of isolation and independence and some idea that you can make it on your own rather than the fact that everybody helps you. How or what can we do to develop a common language that balances this sense of isolation and separateness? And then we have a practice here called just sitting and not doing anything at all, which is an expression of the intention to benefit all beings. And yet, it's hard to understand. People have a hard time understanding and they ask repeatedly, how does sitting here

[11:33]

in the mountains not doing anything help people all over the world or even help the people in the valley? What does sitting still have to do with raising money to buy a guitar for Tim or doing a ceremony for him? And again, what vocabulary and what language do we have to explain the relationship between the practice of not doing anything at all in order to save all sentient beings and raising money to buy him a guitar? What's the language by which you connect those two? How does sitting still not doing anything at all express that you feel connected to everybody and that you do everything with people? Do we have a language?

[12:38]

Do we have a way of talking about this? Do we have a moral vocabulary to explain the relationship between our practice and our connection with each other, particularly our individual practice of just sitting? Do we have that? I don't think so. So that's part of what I feel is needed. And also Susan said that what she'd like to deepen in this practice is her sense of peace. She works for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. She's the editor of the newsletter. She's committed to peace work. And as you heard from her description of her life, when she's in Berkeley, she's very busy. Probably when she goes back from Tassajara, she'll again get involved with editing the

[13:39]

magazine and probably doing quite a few things again, maybe going to various other kinds of activities that she feels will promote peace. But she would like, I think, to deepen her inner sense of peace so that when she does this work, this quite active work to promote peace among people, that she has an inner peace. What's the relationship between an inner peace and this external interpersonal peace work? Do we have a vocabulary? Do we understand how they relate? I think to some extent we do, but I'd like it to be that generally speaking, the people in this room and the people at Zen Center can articulate the relationship between inner

[14:42]

peace and active social engagement. And I also mentioned in the first talk I gave that the precepts, the Buddhist precepts as particularly as taught in Zen, are a way to understand what we mean by just sitting. The precepts, you know, of the refuges, the three pure precepts and the ten great precepts which we did last night, those precepts are a way to understand the meaning of not moving. And also not moving is a way to understand what those precepts mean. When people hear not kill, not steal and so on, all over the world they hear that and they have various understandings. And again, particularly Americans, I would say a lot of Americans when they hear those

[15:44]

they figure out themselves what those things mean and then they act based on their own personal understanding, publicly and privately, of what those words mean. In Zen, we use not moving, we use silence and stillness as a means to understand what those precepts mean. But also we have those precepts to understand what the practice of not moving means. Because a lot of people don't understand that not moving means not lying, not stealing, not killing. That not moving means taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Do we have a vocabulary for that? I think it would be good if we did, so that we can connect with each other around these

[16:44]

issues and also so we can connect the precepts then are a way that we can connect with each other around just sitting. How do we talk about our practice of not moving? Between each other. The precepts are a way and so on. And another thing which I feel is that, which I also said at the beginning, is that I find the expression that accomplishing the great work of peace has no sign, that the bodhisattva who is working for peace and freedom and joy and release from suffering among all beings, this person who is working for this, has to have no fixed view about what that will be like and this bodhisattva has to produce what's called an unsupported thought. So again, America is swinging back and forth between some people who have some sense of

[17:55]

a traditional morality but they're too rigid and other people who are trying to avoid rigidity and conventional reality and then they just decide for themselves what's right and wrong. How can you have some recognition of traditional teachings of ethics at the same time not hold to them? Or a commitment to the common good without a fixed idea of what that is? Or like I expressed at Green Gulch the other day, commitment to the common good or pursuit of the common good is to pursue the good in common. So we pursue the good together. We don't go off, each one of us, one, two, three, everybody go off and pursue the good on their own. That is what a lot of people do in America. Everybody actually, not everybody, but every reasonably sane person is pursuing the good on their own. I shouldn't say all people are doing that but a lot of people are doing it on their own.

[18:59]

But then how do we work together? And there is a possibility that if everybody pursues what they think is the good on their own that somebody is going to come in here and take over and take away our freedom because we're going to be fighting with each other over everybody doing their own idea of what's good. So then in order to create some order or some peace among the people who are fighting with each other about what the good is, our freedom is going to be taken away. This is everyone. I shouldn't say it's going to happen, but there's this threat or there's this danger that we'll lose our freedom because we don't cooperate with each other. So on one side again our practice is to develop this signless, open-minded, unsupported thought

[20:05]

and connect that with ethics. And on the other side, not the other side, but anyway in conjunction with this we have the practice of the six perfections. So I guess what I feel at this point, kind of the kinds of things that I would like to throw out as the menu, and I don't know if we have time to eat it all in this practice period, are to study and understand what unsupported thought is, what signlessness is. Look at that. In other words, study emptiness. To look at the relationship between the Bodhisattva precepts and Zen, or between Bodhisattva precepts and just sitting. And to look at the six perfections and to think of ways that we can try to think of

[21:18]

practical ways that we can practice them in this community to accompany this signless meditation, this non-dual meditation. So in a way I'm doing something a little unusual here, I'm taking ethics and putting it, I'm putting precepts with non-dual meditation, whereas usually precepts or ethics would be looked at as the second paramita, which it still is. But to think of the practice of the six perfections of giving ethics, patience, enthusiasm, concentration and wisdom, and then take wisdom over it and look at wisdom as sitting, and look at wisdom as with Zen precepts. And particularly to try to develop a vocabulary for both of these kinds of practices among

[22:25]

ourselves, and a vocabulary about how they relate to each other, and then a vocabulary about how people who work on these practices, how they connect with other people who are working on these practices, to create a community. This is something that, these are the kinds of things that I'm sort of up for right now. But I also want to know where you're at in response to what I just said, but also where you think Tassajara is at, or what you think Tassajara needs to work on right now, or what you personally think you need to work on during this practice period. So, again, I said all this, but I'm also saying that this is my offering in the pursuit of good in common with you. So I would like you also to present what you'd like to work on in this practice period.

[23:28]

We heard from four people already, and it's on my mind, I'm thinking about, is what they've said, or how is what they said they want to practice, how does that relate to what I've just brought up? That's part of what I'm thinking about. I can see how they're related, I don't know if other people can, but I see how they're related. But if you have questions about that, or if you see some conflicts, please raise them. I have one concern, and I really appreciate what everybody has said, but I've been thinking a lot about how when you talk about creating a vocabulary, and creating a sense in which you're connected in this community, in some idea and practice of interconnectedness, I've been noticing in myself a lot recently how I cut myself off and create a lot of separation

[24:56]

between myself and others who, even within the community, but within the larger community and culture, by my attachment, it's really just a very preconceived idea of what practice is, and what my life is. So I felt like every time I get involved with some particular practice, spiritual practice or artistic practice or something, it's really impossible for me to not create some degree of separation between myself and people who are doing it that way. So I've been thinking a lot about formal religious practice, and being in a non-monastic situation, and how that could be looked at honestly. I don't see it as a problem in itself, that you're doing something different than other

[26:01]

people, but my feeling is that for a long time I was really unable to look at it honestly, these thoughts I was having, sort of in the back of my mind, that what we're doing here is right, and what other people are doing elsewhere is not. And it's really difficult for me to admit to myself that I have these preconceived ideas, because even though I know they're there, I kind of just pretend that, well that's okay, to have the idea of yourself as someone who's helping people, that's okay, because that's virtuous. So it's really hard for me to be honest about these things, I'm really open, and that's what I've been thinking of, so my alarms sort of go off when I hear about connecting as a community in a very solid way, although I really feel that's important. I see it dangerous, I'm now in trying to really establish something concrete that we do here,

[27:07]

because I've found for myself that that creates a lot of problems. Well, yeah, that's right, and it's great that you're becoming aware of that in yourself, and so, if in you, if in one person, having some fixed idea of what was good causes a problem, imagine how much trouble it would be if we all got together and agreed on what was good, how much more trouble, how much more devastating we would be, we could cause a great deal of trouble if we all agreed on what it was. So I'm not talking about that we agree on what is good, so that's not what I'm talking about. But I think I am talking about doing what you just did, what you just demonstrated, namely admitting, I think it is good for each of us to admit to whatever extent we have some

[28:13]

idea about what is good, and then admit to whatever extent we hold to that. And I think that is a very good thing to do, to notice our opinions, our values, and to notice any attachment to them, and to notice then how those attachments work. All that's very good. I've noticed for a number of years that when you start talking in the category that you've just been talking in, something in me starts to pull into itself, and a lot of alarm bells go off. And then I find that usually at some point in this kind of talking, somebody asks a question

[29:22]

or says something similar to what you just did, and you start to elaborate in another direction, and my alarm bells go away, and I stop cringing and start doing that again. And I'm extraordinarily interested in finding out what the intersection of that is, what the alarm bells are about, and what the easing of those alarms is, what it is about when you say something in one way that sets me up to fight and flight, and when you say it in another way, I'm ready to embrace it and be there. So I've just gone from fight and flight to starting to embrace it and be there, and that's

[30:26]

a lot of emotion in one half hour. So, something that sort of frightens me a little bit about this panel is how temporary it is. For instance, in this room right now, maybe at least a third of the people have just arrived recently, in the last two weeks, and in a few months' time, maybe, and lots of new people will come. And it seems that what you're suggesting, or what would be really wonderful would be for the community to form, but it seems that part of the structure of having this rapid turnover perhaps gets in the way and prevents that from really happening in sort of a big

[31:27]

and beautiful way. For instance, you right now are sort of a leader in what you can say about the community. You're just going to be here for that three months, and then it will go away, and then you'll sort of forget what it was like to be living here during this practice period, and the summer will go by, and people get very tired and come to class for you. Well, see, that's part of the flow of this community is, in a way, all the more makes me want a language, some kind of language, so we can talk to each other about what our

[32:28]

concerns are to develop, so that as people come and go, there'll be a language here, so that it won't be that, just like there already is a language in a sense of like we have a schedule, in a Zendo way and things like that, there's a kind of language established in those practices. If there could also be ways that people can talk about the relationship between these other dimensions of practice, so that the comings and goings of people wouldn't, not only wouldn't, I shouldn't say, that the comings and goings of people could be integrated into that, that would be part of the process. So again, I think about some of the people who've come down here, just for this first practice period, right? Like, Carolyn's here for one practice period probably, right? And Stuart for one, and Susan for one, and Eva maybe for one, right?

[33:29]

So, but Susan's going to go back and practice with Buddhists in the Bay Area, Stuart, and Carolyn are going to go back to practice with Buddhists in the Bay Area, Eva's going to go to Japan for a while, and so on. So they're going to go back and be in the Buddhist community, and what we work on here, they will take with them, and the people they meet will hear about Tassajara and will come to Tassajara partly, somewhat in relationship to what those people say happened at Tassajara and what they hear people at Tassajara work on. So the work we do here, you know, so it just is, we got what we got, right? We have some level of flow, and we have some different definitions of community, like this is the community, this is the practice period is the community, the year-round community includes a lot of other people, and then people are circulating between here at City Center and Green Gulch and Berkeley and so on. This is what we've got.

[34:32]

Is there some way so that we can have some ongoing process of where we're learning and developing an ethical understanding among ourselves to go with our community life, yes? One of my experiences is that over the years there is a language that we've learned, in our terms of non-treating substance and things like that, these things we can refer to each other, and we know what they mean. But in a real way, when the practice period starts, we drop it,

[35:34]

because this other language that we've learned is acceptance, so we try not to use the words that people don't understand. So the real way we speak is not using the language. So it's like every practice period is fresh, in order to include everybody. And then as the practice period goes on, some vocabulary develops that the new people wouldn't have understood at the beginning, that might not even have been there at the beginning. So by the end of the practice period, there's like DCA means something, and everybody can use it. And maybe that's a good thing, that Zen Center has certain teachings that are flowing in and out of it,

[36:41]

like unsupported thought and dependent co-arising and so on, but we don't use them at the wrong time. So maybe that's part of our principle, is that we don't use a lot of our good teachings with people that wouldn't understand them. So what's there in that? Sounds like there's some lack of attachment to our good stuff, because it's useless in certain situations. So maybe that's part of what we learned. Thank you. This is interesting. It just occurred to me that there's our vocabulary of words that we share in common, and then there's many levels of depth of vocabulary, that includes how we do things together,

[37:43]

ritually, and how we conduct our lives, that may reflect the words that we share in common, but kind of form a subtext. What I was going to say before that, was that what Rev's talking about is... I didn't think of studying it in quite those terms exactly, when I thought, if I ever did, about what I was going to study this practice period. But basically that's what I've been trying to figure out most of my life, I guess, is how to set right what I perceive as being evils

[38:55]

at work and the world around me. And I've been doing... I've been sort of preoccupied with that long enough to realize that that's not very easy. I've met a lot of disappointments, and I've met a lot of people who are unsuccessful, and I've studied enough of history to know that the old axiom about the road to hell being paid with good intentions has the ring of truth to it. And yet, I think my basic motivation, if anything, is stronger. And why I'm living in a community

[39:58]

has a lot to do with my sense of how shared language and shared commitments foster a more realistic understanding of what is right and how are people held. And why I'm living in a Zen community has a lot to do with recognizing that we owe everything to something

[41:01]

which we don't understand. So, sitting in Zazen, it's always been kind of difficult for me to understand how exactly that relates to what are sometimes very obvious things that should be done to set the world to rights. And yet, we have to do them without bruising anyone or making the situation worse. And that requires a great deal of generosity and patience, et cetera, which I don't have a lot of.

[42:02]

And somehow, well, my faith is that the practice that we do here is kind of like the seed bed in which generosity and patience, skillful means and things like that can just flower up. I'd like to just make something else clear about what I'm saying, too, is that

[43:06]

this is kind of a very vivid example. I'm not opposed to Zen center having a vision. I'm not opposed to that, whatever that means. I think maybe I am, I think I am probably opposed, not opposed exactly, but I would be very suspicious if there was like one vision that everybody at Zen center had. I don't think that's what we mean by Zen center vision, as it's vision which we all agree on. I don't think that's vision. But I think there have been times in history when that has happened, when there was a vision that a whole bunch of people agreed on. And of course the prime example is Nazi Germany.

[44:11]

Hitler and his friends were visionaries, in a sense. Hitler spent a great deal of his time at a drawing board, designing buildings. They were going to make Berlin into a city, much more beautifully designed, and just make Rome look like nothing. And just look at the way they organized some of their demonstrations and some of their events, how nicely choreographed they were. Those people had vision, and they had a vision to create a homogeneous society, to clean it up, to get rid of anything that wouldn't look cute in the vision. They even designed buildings, they even drew pictures of the buildings that they designed in ruins to show what they'd look like a thousand years later in ruins. And what I'm concerned about

[45:13]

is that we people who have different visions find a way to talk to each other about our different visions and be connected to each other even though we don't agree. As it is now, even in Zen Center, and certainly in wider groups, people who agree, they agree. But people who don't agree just go off in different directions. And that creates strange groups of people. These homogeneous groups can be, you know, homogeneous groups get to be like another self, except a bigger one. So, what I think is sort of good about Zen Center already is that we already do, somehow, we must be somewhat doing what I hope we would be able to do because we do talk to each other already, we are connected to each other already,

[46:16]

and we already don't agree. We already do have different ideas about what Zen Center should be, or what practice is, or what good is, or what bad is. We already have these different ideas. And I think we do share something because we do relate and we do stay connected and we do talk. And I would just like to have it be something that's more articulated and clearer, but not to make everything uniform. I don't want that. And I think that a kind of vision that's nobody's idea of what a vision would ever look like will come out of all of us being our individual, unique, disagreeing people that we are. And if we can find some way to work on this together, yeah. Well, actually, I think Vickie was... Vickie had started from before. So,

[47:19]

I think the Zen Center is different from American society in a fundamental way. It's more like the Amish. Some groups think like that because we share a moral system and set of values in a way that America as a whole doesn't. And, you know, when we come to Tassapara, it's like the system that Galen was saying with the guidelines, the schedule, that common language we do have. But beneath that common language is the language of the precepts, which I think everybody shares. And if you follow the guidelines, it's very difficult to... Well, maybe it's not very difficult, but it's a little bit more difficult than to break precepts.

[48:23]

I mean, while you're sitting there, it's hard to break precepts, usually, in a major way. And a lot of us have taken precepts and a lot of us who haven't taken precepts talk about lying and, you know, not stealing and things like that as real issues in our lives. So, I don't know exactly how this relates to the topic that you brought up, but I think that there is a... Basically, although we act as individuals, I think that our sense of self is already tempered by a shared beautiful dream called the precepts.

[49:24]

I don't know. There was kind of a tie between Mary, Patty, and Stuart. I share what I hear is your concern and Daniel's concern about... how to... for me, how to learn how to act politically without being attached to my ideas, without... self-righteousness, you know, anger, or at least an awareness of those things. And...

[50:31]

I like the idea of talking here as a community about what it is we do think and what we do believe the precepts mean and how sitting relates to acting. I'd like you to talk more about how having a shared vocabulary and language plays a role in what the role is. I can sort of see it, and I can certainly know how important language is and how it affects our thinking. We affect language and language changes constantly,

[51:35]

and I know that. But I just have some notion that you have... that there's kind of more behind what you're saying than I understand. You seem to have some... you're more than I do. Yeah, well, part of what I have in the background is that I have an actual text on Zen precepts that I was thinking of lecturing on which would introduce a vocabulary about how our sitting practice is related to ethics, is related to society, and that's part of... But I don't want to make that turn into the way it is, either. Because, I mean, my delivery and my understanding of these would keep saying that, but at the same time I want to tell you before I start talking about that stuff that this is not...

[52:37]

These precepts are saying that the precepts are not something which somebody tells you what they are. We have the Bodhisattva precepts, but these Bodhisattva precepts are not something which my understanding is the understanding or your understanding is the understanding. We have the precepts, but we have all different understandings of them, and yet there is a correct understanding, too. But it's not a fixed thing, because it's not a thing. It has no sign. And this radiant light of the precepts is our sitting practice, too. So, if we can understand what the precepts are, we will have the right understanding of ethics in which to help each other and society. But the right understanding is not my understanding, but my understanding will be offered. But I want other people's understandings to come forth, too, because the correct understanding is arrived at

[53:40]

when the abbot puts out his understanding and people who don't agree with the abbot put out their understanding. And in the meeting of all these different understandings, the reality starts to manifest. The vision dawns on the universe. But I want to get you involved, not only in response to what I offer there, but also in when I offer it and what other things we work on, so that there is a sense of participation with this, so that when I leave it doesn't feel like the summer happens and you get depressed. You keep working on this. You have a way to keep working on this stuff because you have a process vocabulary, a way of asking each other, what are you doing sitting there? What are you doing here? You have a way to talk about that

[54:41]

so you can answer the question and the person can say, but why are you doing that? You can get down to what you're doing with each other if you develop a way to talk. And there is actual substantive material which would be put into that to help it develop that I have in mind. But you also have a lot of background of substantive material too, from actual political work, from actual human suffering, from current problems in this environment here, in this society here, and the culture at large. We have all this material and how to proceed with this in the spirit of quiet, stillness, peace, and all these other values which we share and none of us have the monopoly on what they mean, but we have these values, including the value that we have

[55:43]

generosity, ethics, patience, and so on, but we also have no generosity, no patience, no ethics, no enthusiasm, no concentration, and no wisdom. That's part of our value system too, fortunately. But what that means is not something that I get to decide myself. Penn? I'm well encouraged to hear you say, to use the words together, participation, community. You have a picture of the fact that you're here anyway. You know that one of my real issues is how to have a voice. Part of having a voice is a joint communication process

[56:45]

of how I find my voice and then how I'm able to allow that voice to be heard, which is greatly in a way that it can be heard and responded to in the community, one-on-one, and then in the community, and then as we are like a bigger community, how that impacts the audience. Recently, right before you came out, I think, well, we had a dog meeting. Yeah, I heard about that. And I was astounded, not as a dog owner, that too, but that we came together around something kind of mundane, how we're going to deal with our dogs.

[57:47]

And we got together and we talked and we listened to each other and we expressed our concerns. And so I think oftentimes for me the common language is not so much a linguistic problem or a verbal problem as it is a problem of intention and what direction we want to take with our dogs. And that's been very problematic for me here. I just wanted to say something. Last summer I had mentioned to someone on staff that I'm disappointed that there wasn't a process by which one could be heard in the community. And there was talk that I was given that you misunderstand. This isn't a community. This is a monastery. So even to feel that there is an interest and a seedbed of community here in this group of people that does fluctuate

[58:50]

and it does change in space every three months or so, that we have the heart and the intention to come together as an ever-changing group of people and try to meet on some level where we can each express and be heard and it feels, in two cases, a lot of social to feel safe and feel supported in that. Whatever we can do to foster that feeling here for however long each of us is here is, I think, one of the firm foundations that we establish in ourselves towards promoting world peace. Whether it's a language of good service or whether it's a language of each person's intention. What is our intention in being here? I'm just really encouraged that there's an interest in opening that up and it's one note.

[59:54]

Stuart? Well, echoing what Mary said, I wanted to address the issue that usually we think of language as being a vehicle for the expression of ideas, but also vocabulary often sets the parameters of thought and concept and sets the limits of understanding. And I'm wondering whether the problem here is not having enough vocabulary, not having enough language, or really of needing to say something that goes beyond the vocabulary, of needing to break the limit of vocabulary and say something that is not already expressed in the vocabulary that we do have.

[61:01]

And whether it's a problem of having the vocabulary or whether it's a problem of breaking the vocabulary, whether new words need to be introduced or some understanding beyond what we already understand, the meaning of those words needs to be introduced. Maybe we need a vocabulary to address the limitations of vocabulary we're already using. And a vocabulary which we will create ourselves so we can all use it. And the other thing that I was thinking about in this discussion is the questions that are being raised, the issue of the nexus between emptiness and action, and between just sitting

[62:02]

and ethical action, doing, is a really interesting one. I think that there needs to be clarification. The function of talking needs to be clarifying. And I couldn't help feeling over and over that one of the important issues that would need to be clarified is the relationship between conventional ethics and Buddhist ethics. I think that usually in conventional ethics we think of conducting certain kinds of activities or conducting ourselves in a way to create actions that will do good in a conventional sense. And that that's ethical action. And I'm not sure that that's exactly what's the same, identical as what's meant by ethics in Buddhist ethics. I have some understanding,

[63:11]

and I'm perfectly willing to surrender, of Buddhist ethics as being that the end of action is not to serve political and material good, but that ethical action is that action which is conducive to enlightenment, which is the other direction, I think, from the conventional sense, which is that the function of enlightened activity is to produce socially defined good. So when we talk about ethics, then I think it's important to clarify what the relationship is between Buddhist ethics and the conventional sense of ethics, that is to say, doing political good, or obtaining something that would be politically defined or conventionally defined as good. For me, that's the two-doubles gap

[64:19]

between the rastrophobia and self-denial, and one that most people think of in modern world as just being compassionate to somebody, which I don't feel like I have the language or the candidate to understand what I have, but I do think I have some experience, which is very likely to be used here. There's another place in the university gap, which has more to do with how basically translating this stuff... I have a vocabulary that I talk to myself about what's going on, what I'm doing, what I did, and what I'm doing in my mind, and who I was, and so on.

[65:23]

And it's not always very clear to me because that is the same thing as... So, to my point, is the kind of vision that we're talking about. It's like Stuart was saying, that's a very different kind of ethics than trying to make some decree that's more to do with being able to look at something that people may not expect. And so I often use... Anyway, I have something to request to keep what we talk about closely tied into what we're actually doing. And how we relate to each other.

[66:25]

In terms of developing vocabulary, which helps me in a way to understand that how I talk to other people, and how I serve them, and whatever else I do during the day, is the same as what we talk about. It really is practice. Thank you.

[67:39]

It seems to me that Tazahara exists because people wanted to exist and after 25 years come here to find some dimension of their life that is not fulfilled, of course, by the so-called world at large, which has always been, as I understand it, a traditional reason for having monasteries, and that the intimacy that we seek is not the intimacy that we have encountered in the world at large, but the intimacy that is found in silence, that is found in the Zen-do, perhaps in this practice, and the mass in Christian practice. That's all. And while I think it's necessary a definition,

[68:54]

I'm at a stage in my life where I'm more and more wary of words and definitions, and don't believe we'll ever know what we're actually doing here, but that the doing of it, we already have a vocabulary, that the doing of it is the doing of it, that the path is the goal, and that there's something afoot, abroad, in the world at large, that some archetype in our nature that brings us here that we skirt, we look for a definition, but we can't find it. And that's the vital thing. If we're looking, we've got to find it so much. And that's already in place, that the instruments, that even the articulation is there. If it wasn't, this place wouldn't exist,

[69:59]

if it existed for as long as it has. All of this is not to say that I don't think it's a good idea in some respect. It's one of the supports of our life, it's necessary, that we don't turn it into some object. And I think the idea of monastic practice versus community, that this is not a community in the normal sense of the word. That this is something that would come to find as different from family, different from our community, different in every respect. We're trying to define what that is. We've never quite reached the final definition. That these practices right now, these traditional practices, are metamorphosis and change.

[71:00]

We're bringing all sorts of disparate... You brought up many points, and I wondered if you wanted to keep making lots of points, or whether you want some interaction. I just want to make some points. Okay, keep going then. I just want to run off the table. It's not finished. Wait a second, let me finish it. I'm finished. There's something unique happening in a place like Tassajar, in our time and place, that I don't think there's any precedent for. I wanted to respond to several things you said,

[72:01]

but most importantly, what I said again in my introductory talk was when sitting Zazen, the ancestor's teacher walked up to him and said, What are you doing here? And he said, I'm not doing anything at all. But later he said that what he was doing was something that even the ten thousand sages don't know what it is. What we're doing here, nobody knows what we're doing. And that's my favorite thing about what we're doing, is that it is too... you can say whatever you want about it, but you can't touch it, you can't define it, you can't take it home, you can't not take it home, okay? Now, we got that in place, and we're doing that perfectly. We're actually doing something which nobody knows. The practice that we're doing

[73:06]

is actually not difficult. We're doing it already, and that's why we're supported, and that's why we're successful so far. But the lack is how many people at Zen Center can explain the practice. Not that you can explain the practice, or you can explain the practice, and your explanation of the practice is the explanation of the practice, and that's what the practice is, because that's not true either. How many people can explain it, period? And how many people are interacting with those who are explaining it? Explanation of our practice is difficult because nobody knows what it is. And in the explanation of this practice, which nobody knows what it is, there's an ethical dimension, and therefore the ethical dimension, nobody knows what that is either. So I'm saying, I would like us to explain what this thing we're doing here is, which nobody knows, and to talk to each other about it, and not to define it.

[74:08]

Oh, you can define it, but that's not going to define it. This person, I just read this book, oh no, I didn't read the book. I heard about this book. It's called The Possession, and the person says something like, you know, words can never make it. Words can never say it, but it really is interesting what words can say. Um, I was, when you made your outline of what you would like to offer, in listening to all the responses, it occurred to me that I would like you to offer something simpler than what you proposed to offer to begin with. Um, because when you begin to try to construct what I think

[75:09]

is going to be a technical, technical kind of vocabulary, um, what people who already are burdened with more vocabulary than they need or could possibly use, um, I think you have to, in some sense, mine their minds from underneath. And so what I would like you to do is, is, um, if you're, if you start with, um, practice. When you say mine, you mean, you mean like, like coal mining? Yeah, only tunnel up from underneath and let the whole thing fall down. How about going down in and bringing out the ore? Well, it'll be alright if there's any ore there. The problem, the problem with most of us, I think, especially at Zen Center, is that we have this sort of California miasma of over-education.

[76:12]

And so when you say words like ethos, or precept, you're touching off all kinds of, uh, little sparks in all these various heads. In all of our heads. And they immediately go in all these different directions. And there is, there is confusion and misunderstanding before you even start to talk about the vocabulary. So what I'd like you to do is some destruct, deconstruction before you construct anything. I mean, be really, really simple. Well, uh, you know that, that, that may be the best way to do it. And in that sense, I wouldn't offer anything, and if people could tolerate that, that I would spend the whole practice period just trying to find out where you guys are at. In the realm of your present understanding of this stuff. That's fine with me too. To try to get it out of you,

[77:13]

what you, I mean, I mean, do you think there is a relationship between this and that, or not? If you think there isn't, okay. If you think there is, what is the relationship? And if you think there isn't, why not? What do you think, you know, what's the non-relationship you see there? So that might be actually the most creative way to proceed, is for me to offer nothing, and just mine you people. Or, you know. Well, maybe you could do that. You're the great smart hope in this situation. You have to be the, you have to be the point of the drill, unfortunately. Thank you. Oh, Jim, did you? Oh, yeah. I've had a theme sort of running through my head for the last few weeks. I keep, like, sometimes when I get that going, I start seeing it everywhere, and I've been hearing it through almost every comment made, and it keeps coming up to me, and the words are mutual respect.

[78:15]

It seems like it's at the bottom of the basis of precepts. Mary was talking about it, she was talking about the dog meeting. Jim's comments, Daniel's, peace action, would require, it seems to me, mutual respect. So I just keep hearing this come up. I just throw it out as another set of words. Also, in your initial remarks about the common, pursuing the good in common, I heard mutual respect in there also. So anyway, I just throw out some more vocabulary words. I don't know, I might be missing a couple of points, but I'm trying to understand why you want to create a language

[79:17]

for a practice that's been going on for 2,000 years, that has been based on this direct experience, and how my whole process since I've been here is constantly trying to create a language, and the way there's always creating these problems for me. The idea of trying to create a language now is going to bridge the very gap that I happen to have been to. It just makes me feel really confused, and what is your purpose in trying to do that? To convey this to somebody else, you don't know, is impossible. Everything anybody's ever told me about this practice just sort of fell apart. But I would still describe it that way. So I'm not exactly sure what the purpose is of creating this language. Um...

[80:19]

Let's see. I don't know if I understood your question. What? Could you ask it more simply? To create a language to express what to me seems to be... We don't have to create a language, OK? We've got a language. And the language we've got is, I would say... Maybe this is throwing too much into it at this point, but I would say the language we've got is our problem. Our problem is basically our language. So that's another way to say what I'm saying tonight. What is the purpose of that? I'm proposing that we develop some common way

[81:24]

of using this language that we all are sharing in some way so we can become, you know, so we can set ourselves and other people free. And so we can understand the relationship between all of us. And so we can express with our language respect and love and understanding. Language is what releases us from our bondage and lets us do that. Because language is what's stopping... To whatever extent we're blocked is set up by language. And we are released from that bondage by the way we use language. And we also have language right now in our heads

[82:27]

about what language is, too. Through which we understand or don't understand what I just said. But the Buddha talked, you know. That was the main thing he did. I know, but what happened? Didn't he have anything to do with the words? Yes, but... And that's why he didn't want to talk. Because he realized that. But then people didn't get it when he didn't talk. So they talked. And they got it. So it's true that what it is has nothing to do with the words. But having nothing to do with the words does not mean you don't talk. But this is part of the, you know... This is part of the mystery of the whole thing. Is that his words are kind of mysterious. But, you know... Again, part of my feeling is that, you know...

[83:30]

We talk a lot as Zen centers. Yes? Anyway, we talk quite a bit. And which is fine, you know. We have chats with each other quite a bit. And I wonder if... Are these chats... Are they liberating people left and right? If so, great. Let's keep it up. Okay? If not, let's make our chats liberation. That's all I want to do. Is that reasonable? You're not sure? Well... Don't think about it. Oh, do people know how to do the Pali... How to do the Pali refuges? No? So there's Buddha,

[84:30]

or, you know, Dharma, and Sangha, right? Which, when you do the refuges, you say, Buddham, Dharmam, Sangham, right? And then, so first you say, Buddha, Buddham, Saranam, Gacchami. Okay. Saranam, Gacchami. You say... So the first time you go through, you say, Buddham, Saranam, Gacchami, Dharmam, Sangham. The next time you say, Dutiam, which means two, or second. Dutiam, P. And so the next three, you go Dutiam, P, Dutiam, P, Dutiam, P. And the next one you go, Tatiam, P, Tatiam, P, Tatiam, P. Does that make sense? After you say, Dutiam, P, and Tatiam, you say the same thing. Right. The first time you just say it. And the second time, now I'm doing it a second time. And the third time you say, now I'm doing it a third time. What is P? Well, actually, it's a mispronunciation.

[85:32]

It's British, but it's really Pi. It means 3.14. Sangham sarvam gacchami Dutiam e buddham sarvam gacchami Dutiam e sarvam sarvam gacchami

[86:32]

Dutiam e sangham sarvam gacchami Tatiam e buddham sarvam gacchami Dutiam e sarvam sarvam gacchami Tatiam e sangham sarvam gacchami

[87:19]

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