about about this time of year seven years ago the our country was in a similar situation and I if I remember correctly I was I gave a talk on a Sunday And at that time, this building was not... We stopped using this building for big assemblies like this because we didn't feel it was safe. And we were meeting back in the back there, that smaller room back there. And so I was giving a talk. with the United States poised to go to war or not.

[01:05]

And at that time, I just happened to notice that at that time in our class, which we have about a 10-year class of studying Zen stories, from the Book of Serenity, a collection of Zen stories. That week, the text we were studying was number nine, the ninth case in the book. Now we're on case 56, seven years later. And the ninth case in the book, I believe, is called Nanshwan's Cat. And the story goes that the monks in Nanshwan's monastery on the east side and the west side of the hall were arguing over a cat.

[02:24]

They were arguing about a cat. Nanchuan saw them fighting and picked up the cat and held it up and said, if someone can speak a good word, the cat's life will be spared. If not, the cat will be cut in two. No one could speak, and the cat was cut in two. So here we are again with people's lives being held up and the world is challenged to see if some person or persons can do something, can say something.

[03:41]

so that there won't be violence acted out in the world. So just like seven years ago, how can you be, how can I be in the face of this world being like this? Nanshuan's senior disciple, whose name was Zhao Zhou, was not present in the assembly at that time that he asked the question. Later, he told Zhao Zhou about the situation, and Zhao Zhou put one of his sandals on his head and walked out.

[04:54]

Nan Chuan said, if Zhao Zhou had been there, the cat's life would have been spared. One time the Buddha's people, Shakyamuni Buddha's clan, the Shakyamuni clan, was about to be invaded by an army and his people asked him to stop the army. He went out on the road where the army was coming and he sat. And when the army approached and they saw the Buddha sitting, they stopped and turned around and went back. But when they got back they said,

[05:58]

How can we let that sage stop us? And they decided to invade again. The people said to the Buddha, please go out and sit there again, stop them. And the Buddha said, they won't stop for me this time. and they did invade his country sometimes the Buddha can stand and sit in front of an army and sometimes the army sees the Buddha and changes its mind sometimes the Buddha even the Buddha can't show the army something to wake the army up to the futility of their behavior.

[07:06]

When it was appropriate, the Buddha tried and sat in front of the army. Otherwise, his way of working for peace was to teach his monks What did he teach his monks? He mainly taught them about how everything is interdependent. He taught them what he called dependent core rising of all things. He worked for peace and he worked for freedom. He practiced compassion to all beings he met and tried to teach all beings how to see how things happen.

[08:16]

He taught that if beings can see how things happen, how things come to be, That they will be wise. That this vision, that this understanding of how things happen interdependently is wisdom. And from that wisdom, beings will not harm other beings. And they will actually only care to protect and enlighten beings. They will work with great compassion. With whatever level of understanding we have now, we have some compassion. And we bring that compassion to our meetings with all people.

[09:24]

If our understanding is deepened and our wisdom deepened, our compassion will be more and more effective. That's what I believe. I was attracted to Buddhism by stories of compassionate behavior, by stories of beautiful activity of human beings. And the practice in Buddhism is to develop the kind of wisdom that these compassionate beings have so that we too will be able to be compassionate. So how do we develop this wisdom which sees, this wisdom which understands how things are interdependent and which gives rise to our great compassion?

[10:55]

The first step is we receive the bodhisattva precepts. The precepts, the teachings of kindness and appreciation of all beings. And then we practice what we call being upright. We practice meditation, which is to stand or sit upright, to walk upright in this world. And if we can be upright in our meetings with all humans, all animals, all plants, even with all inanimate things, if we can be upright in these meetings, our eyes of wisdom will open. We will see how beautiful the dependently co-arisen world is, and great compassion will spring forth from our heart.

[12:09]

and we will work as effectively as we can. We may not be able to stop this war, but we'll work wholeheartedly to prevent any harm. We will joyfully, in the midst of our pain, we will joyfully work to protect all beings. In the midst of our pain and anguish, we will wholeheartedly work, we will wholeheartedly love all beings. All beings. We will love all beings. We will love the leaders of our country, even if we don't agree with them. We will love the leaders of other countries, even if we hate what they're doing.

[13:11]

When we have the wisdom which sees the beauty of the world, which sees the dependent core arising in the world, we love all things and we are devoted to the enlightenment of all things, all beings. Once you see, you're basically set. How do you see? And what does it mean to be upright? How can we be in such a way that our eyes open? I say, you know, in some sense parroting the Buddha's teaching, I say we are dependently co-arisen beings. We each of us dependently co-arise with everything. We arise in dependence on everybody. That's how our life comes.

[14:17]

Everybody supports our life and we support everybody else's life. This is our true nature. And this nature is beauty. All beings are this way. And because we are this way, even though we are in anguish now, we still have a sense that there's something in us which can be a creative force for transforming the world. And that sense that there's something in us which can be a creative force for transforming this world is correct. And it's based on our nature. And until we express, until we discover the working of this nature, we suffer and we long to realize this.

[15:27]

We long to realize this beauty. I apologize in advance to anyone who has what is called Christophobia, anybody who is phobic about Christianity. But there is this deity in the Christian tradition named Mary. Mary is the queen of compassion, the queen of mercy. And as I've mentioned a number of times recently, there's a beautiful piece of music called shtabat mater.

[16:41]

And this shtabat mater means mother stood. Mother Mary stood before her son who was being crucified. She didn't stay home and weep, although that could be okay. She didn't run over and try to pull the cross down, which would have been okay. She just stood. That's what she did. This was a strong thing to do. It took strength to stand there, I think. To stand in the inconceivable pain of the suffering of her son, she stood.

[17:57]

She expressed herself very strongly And such a strong expression is remembered to this day by us. Such compassion. And although she was very strong to stand there, she was also very vulnerable. She was vulnerable to her son's pain. And she was vulnerable to the power of the Roman Empire. And she was vulnerable to everything. Zen meditation is to sit where you are right now and strongly, fully express yourself. At the same time, be vulnerable to everything in the world.

[19:04]

This is how the eye of wisdom opens when we can be that way. When we sit in this way we are meditating as the queen of compassion. She doesn't just have vulnerability to the suffering of the world. She doesn't just listen to it and look at it. She's also there on the spot. She doesn't shrink back from feeling what she feels and being who she is. She doesn't add or subtract anything to what's going on. She's completely honest and courageous and open. In the Zen tradition, we have many bodhisattvas of great compassion, but the one who is the prime symbol of compassion we call Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit.

[20:25]

And in Chinese, however, wonderfully, we have different names for this being of infinite compassion. three main names one name is listening to the cries Kanan another name is listening to the cries of the world Kanzeon but another name for this being of infinite compassion is Kanjizai which means listening to your self-existence There's two aspects to infant compassion. One is you contemplate, you face up to, you look at and listen to the suffering of the world. You stand there and look at your children suffer. You look at your spouse suffer.

[21:26]

You look at your parents suffer. You look at your enemies suffer. You listen to their cries. You let the cries in. You feel your vulnerability to the suffering of all beings. That's part of great compassion. But the other part of great compassion is you contemplate the way you exist. You look at yourself. You not only listen to your own suffering and look at your own suffering, you look at the way you exist, you look at who you are, and you can't see, I can't see, nobody can see who they are, who she is, who he is, unless you're there fully being who you are. You have to assert yourself in order to see yourself. And you have to assert yourself completely in order to see who you are, in order to be Buddha, in order to realize Buddha's compassion.

[22:29]

Each of us has to assert ourselves and look at it, and at the same time, listen to the sufferings of all other beings. Strong assertion, complete vulnerability, the two together. Attentive to all beings, just attentive. Attentive with no manipulation. Fully expressing yourself and that's it. When we're this way, our eyes open to the beauty of the world and we work for this beautiful world. Our eyes open to the interdependence of all beings, and we work for each interdependent being. And it's just the same as working for our own life. It is just the same as working for our own happiness.

[23:35]

And each of us has to do it our way, rather than the way somebody else does it, which looks good. The way other people do it may look a lot better than the way I do it, but I have to do it my way. I have to look at who I am and keep that in mind as I listen. I have to honestly say to myself how I feel and what's going on with me at the same time of listening to what's going on with you. This is not easy to find that balance. But when you find that balance, you have no time left, no energy left. All your energy is going into balancing these two dimensions of your being, of watching yourself arise and watching the world arise.

[24:39]

There's nothing left over to interfere with your vision. So for me, I have the nice opportunity, also the awesome and frightening opportunity, if I think about it, of talking to you about how to respond to this international crisis. This is how I'm expressing myself in the face of this. And I ask myself and each of you, how can you get close to this crisis and stand there and testify to how you are and how you feel without getting distracted from how you feel which is all you know and listening to others which is all they can tell you.

[26:03]

How do you find that balance? Do you want to find that balance? So I imagine that in question and answer people will have something to say about this approach, which may not sound active enough. Certainly if Mary could have, you know, sent the Romans home, she would have. Why don't you guys just go back to Rome? It's a nice place. We're okay here and... in Israel, we don't need you here. Please leave. And then can you please take my son down before you leave? But they weren't going to do that. She probably did ask him to, actually. But they didn't, apparently. And they crucified a lot of other people, too.

[27:20]

The Roman Empire, which supposedly created a kind of peace which lasted for a long time, did a lot of crucifixions on behalf of that peace. So was it really peace? I don't know. They just basically beat up everybody else. But what was the cost? So I have a story that Mary finally overthrew the Roman Empire. Her compassion finally ended the Roman Empire. But then another empire came, and another, and another. So it's kind of a question of what do you trust? How do you want to spend your life?

[28:24]

And what is compassion? There's no form it can't take. It can pull down crosses. It can stand. It can walk. It can talk. So what is your great compassion in this situation? And what is the source of your compassion? And I once again suggest that the source of our compassion, that we really can't be compassionate if we aren't willing to take our own seat and to live in our own body, which is really hard. It's really hard to live in a human body. Not all the time. Sometimes it's fairly easy. But a lot of the times it's really hard, especially when it's sick,

[29:30]

and in pain, or when it hears of the sickness and pain of others that we care about, then being in a human body with ears and eyes that can see and feel pain is not so easy. But I think it is possible to be present even in the middle of pain. I think so. And to be present Without numbing ourselves to the pain, to actually be present and feel it, I think it's possible for each of us. I think we can find a way to do that. And finding a way to do that, again, is what we call meditation. Find a way to patiently sit in the middle of our pain, open to it and courageous in the middle of it. A friend of mine has a hairdresser friend.

[30:35]

I myself, as you may know, do not go to a professional hairdresser. But this friend of mine does. And her favorite hairdresser now is very sick. Very, very sick. In great pain. And she went to see him in the hospital. And not only was he in pain, but he was very sleepy. And she went to see him and he said, he opened his eyes and said, hello. And he said, well, you got a haircut. It's awfully short.

[31:38]

And then she told him, she said, I'm going to go to a baby shower. And he said, oh, yeah. Did you get a gift? And she said, I was going to get a gift certificate. And he said, how much? She said, $40. He said, for $10 more, you can get a $50 gift certificate, or you can buy a sterling silver teething ring at Tiffany's. They're really beautiful. we go to the hospital to visit our sick friends but our sick friends are in the hospital being our sick friends our sick friends can be compassionate to us and we can be compassionate to our sick friends our sick friends can live in their body and show us how to do it and we can go to visit our sick friends and show them that we're willing to be healthy even though they're sick

[33:04]

When we're healthy and they're sick, we have to be healthy and not sick. We have to be willing to live so that they can be willing to die. We have to be willing to walk with them into death if that's helpful. When you're healthy, the hardest thing to be is healthy. When you're sick, the hardest thing to be is sick. The hardest thing is always to be who you are. And that's the work of great compassion. That's the price of admission to great compassion, is to be who you are in the moment, without adding and subtracting, strongly and vulnerably and this practice is not doing anything because already every person is very strongly who she is nobody is weakly who they are it's only whether you resist the strength of who you are

[34:29]

And everybody is already vulnerable to all beings. This isn't something that you require. It's simply admitting your strength and your vulnerability. It's not your weakness. Your strength and your vulnerability are identical. It's not strength and weakness. Weakness is when you back away from your strength and back away from your vulnerability. That's weakness. But your strength and your vulnerability are two sides of your own indestructible nature. You can't have strength without vulnerability. And when you have vulnerability, you're strong. Because you're vulnerable at the place where you are and the place you are, the whole universe supports. So how can we each of us do our job and bring this to this crisis?

[35:35]

How can we attend to this crisis and bring this kind of presence and compassion to it? There's 200 answers to that question right now. They're all different. But this kind of presence can transform the world. Because this kind of presence tunes into and becomes intimate with the world as it's being transformed. How many people have heard the story of the Ku Klux Klan leader and the rabbi?

[37:07]

I mean, how many people have not? Can the people who have heard it already hear it one more time? This is a story about what I'm talking about. Once there was a cantor, he wasn't a rabbi, he was a cantor. A cantor is, I guess, the singer, the main singer, or one of the main singers in a temple. And he had a wife and two daughters. And they moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, from, I believe, Chicago, because they wanted to bring up their children in an environment which was less anti-Semitic. So they got to Lincoln, Nebraska, but it turns out, I was going to say unfortunately, but it really wasn't unfortunate.

[38:13]

It turns out, fortunately, that Lincoln, Nebraska is kind of the headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan. And a or the Grand Dragon of the Klan lived in Lincoln, Nebraska. And when he found out that a cantor had moved into town, he started harassing the family. I think sending letters and calling on the telephone, sending threatening letters and saying threatening things on the telephone, trying to make them uncomfortable and scare them away. Or whatever. Anyway, the Cantor's family was very unhappy, of course, to be subjected to this cruel treatment. And the Cantor, I think, I'm not sure, I don't remember the story exactly, but anyway, he started getting angry at the Grand Dragon.

[39:24]

But after some time, he changed his attitude and he said, wait a minute. What am I doing here, hating this person who's hating me? Why don't I practice my religion, which says to love your enemies? So I think the next time that they got a telephone call, he said, Something like, oh, by the way, the Grand Dragon was diabetic and in a wheelchair. So he said to the clan leader, we understand you're disabled and we would be happy to take you shopping, help you go shopping. And he said, I don't want your help, but thank you.

[40:35]

And in this way, they kept doing little things, little kindnesses when they interacted with him. And finally they said, let's do something big. Let's have dinner with him. And when the cantor's friends found out what he was doing, they said, you're going too far. This is too much to have dinner with this guy. But anyway, the client leader accepted their invitation and actually asked them to come over to his house. And they went over to his house for dinner. And they saw his pitiful little dark hovel that he lived in. which had the walls covered with pictures of Hitler and things like that, his hero. And he told him his life story about how he grew up with a father who taught him to hate everything that was different from him.

[41:51]

On Sunday, instead of going to church, they would drive into the black area of town and his father would point at the black people and say, hate them. And then they'd drive into the Hispanic area and say, hate them. And hate Jews. Hate everything. And I hate you too. He learned hate. and became a leader, a leader at hating. He told them this story, and they had dinner, and they stayed for four hours in his apartment. The Klan leader's name, by the way, was Larry Trapp, and the candidate's name was Michael Wise. and his wife's name was Mary Wise.

[42:54]

Sometime after that visit, Larry Trapp resigned his position in the Klan, wrote formal apologies to the leaders of the African-American groups, the Jewish groups, the Native American groups, all the groups that he had attacked, he apologized to, and he converted to Judaism. And Mrs. Wise gave up her job so that he could move into their house. And he moved into their house, and she nursed him for the rest of his life. And he died in their house. When I heard this story, he was still alive. But then a few months later, I heard from the newspaper that he had died.

[44:05]

And he said, Before I met them, I hated Jews. But when they came to my house, I felt a love that I'd never felt before in my life. I couldn't resist. So, if we can love the world the way Michael Wise and his wife loved the world, the world will not be able to resist. The world will put down its hate. But it's not easy to stand your ground in the face of someone who is being cruel to you and love them.

[45:19]

It's not easy to stand your ground in the face of a body That's painful. And love it. And love it means not try to fix it, but receive it as it is without trying to manipulate it. Just stand there with it. And it will respond. It will be transformed in beauty through the beauty which you see in it. this is difficult work but I'm convinced that it's efficacious I've heard of it working I've seen it work I've experienced it so please stand your ground assert yourself and

[46:21]

Experience your vulnerability to all beings and your eyes will open. And you'll be able to use the treasure store as you wish. I dedicate the merit of our meeting this morning to the peaceful resolution of this current international crisis. May our intention equally... Someone told me that there's a number that you can call into the White House to express your views on this.

[47:31]

Does anybody know that number? Could you put that number in the office or maybe put it on a piece of paper and just paste it on the outside of that What do you call that place where you... Huh? Not the bulletin board, but the... The kiosk. The kiosk, yeah. Could you put it on there just for people to get? I read there's an 800 number. And there's an 800 number? Yeah. So Janet also knows an 800 number, which maybe she'll call... Do you know it? I'll call it through the office. No, I wanted to mention, though, there's a Marine County... Okay. There you go. Yeah, there's an affair.

[48:37]

The president's being accused of being sexually involved with a teenager. They create a war, but the war doesn't really happen. It's all just made up, but it distracts people from the scandal. Dustin Hoffman is a very good actor. Dustin Hoffman, yeah. He's the producer of the war. The other thing was, let's see, oh, someone suggested that we should do and invite Bill Clinton and Saddam Hussein to come to Green Gulch and receive the precepts. Pardon?

[49:43]

His parents did. What? Yes. For those of you who actually want to do some political action, next Saturday, it will be a huge anti-war march. People will start gathering at noon at Dolores Park in San Francisco. And they'll probably, if it's anything like past ones, they'll probably start marching at 1 o'clock to the Civic Center, where there will probably be speeches. And this is going to be part of a nationwide anti-war protest day. So next Saturday, the 28th, noon at Dolores Park. May I start arresting people at noon at 15 minutes at us? Thank you. Is there any reason why we're doing something on Friday? I would like to do something on Friday.

[50:50]

Well, you know, if there's some other day that you prefer, let us know. What day would you prefer, Saturday or Sunday? I think part of the reason for choosing that time was that, but not maybe was, other times can be chosen, but I think people chose that time because people who were downtown Mill Valley might be on their lunch break. So that was part of the reason. But I think Saturday would also be a good day that would work for you? Well, next Saturday, there's gonna be something at Dolores Park, so we can go to that if we can get there. Sounds like a good thing to do. All right, the gentleman in the back with the glasses, What you said, it always struck me.

[52:03]

It seemed obvious that how to deal with the bomb of Iraq and jeopardize the lives of these people. But at the same time, from what I was seeing, you know, you've got this guy lead of Iraq, you know. Well, we are doing something, right? Right now, we're doing something. We're all here worried about it. We're all here feeling the pain. The whole country's arguing about this. But so far there's no war. But this is something. This is a lot.

[53:06]

The world's putting a lot of energy into trying to get this person, this government over there, to disarm themselves. So this seems pretty good so far. It's just, do we need to take this next step? That's not clear to some people that's necessary. Can somebody come up with something that will resolve this without killing people? Isn't there some way? We're trying to find it, right? I would think, just keep trying. Just keep trying, keep trying. Just keep saying... No, we don't. No, we do not accept that you don't let us go in and see what you've got. No, we don't accept it. We're going to keep saying we want to look, we want to look, we want to look, we want to look. Just keep saying that. Just keep putting energy into stating what we want. Talk, talk, talk. Until somebody finds a way to say it that's so effective and so beautiful that people wake up.

[54:11]

Or not just talk, you know, make a rainbow that stands over a rock for three days straight or something and talks. You know, somebody come up with something that convinces people that the way of peace is best. Who's going to come up with that? So what we're doing so far is we're doing various things, but so far it seems okay. I don't feel bad about people talking. I think it's okay to say blah, blah and blah, blah. It isn't that harmful so far. I think what's happened so far is okay. Just the next step, I don't see that it has any... likelihood of benefiting it I don't see this gonna help anything at this point to go drop some bombs and even if he disarmed that still wouldn't be the end of it because he could arm again we still have to make friends with these people if we're not friends with them they will they will they will continue

[55:18]

to do something to defend themselves. We have to do more than just get them to stop what they're doing now. We have to do something more than just get them disarmed now. We have to have a good relationship. We have to respect them somehow. If we don't respect them, they're going to say, these people don't respect us. They got all this power. They don't respect us. We got to defend ourselves against them. Any moment they could attack us because they think we're sleaze. If we don't really respect all beings, then those beings we don't respect are going to be frightened by us. And the more power we have, the more likely they're going to try to defend themselves. And the only way they can defend themselves is to have defenses approximately equal to our power, which means nuclear or whatever, right? So we have to make friends. How long is it going to take? Well, we just keep working on it until we realize it. In the meantime, we're going to have problems. Like this. Yeah, we should work on that too.

[56:35]

Got a lot of work to do. So David and Helmut It was suggested to me that it was difficult to accept, but I actually bearish it now. My take on it is after calling to actually call an Iraqi embassy and suggest, I think, extremely humbly and full knowledge of being an American, they consider allowing inspectors in. And that seems to also mean international effort at this point is for individuals to call them in and to basically plead with them to do that. Sounds okay.

[57:39]

So he's suggesting that we as citizens beg, humbly beg, beautifully beg, them to let us do this I personally don't see any problem in expecting these sites I also think it would be alright if they called us and asked the UN to inspect our sites too I think it would be fine for the UN to inspect the United States military sites too I'd be happy to have that happen I'd be happy if you people inspected US military sites I see no problem in that why don't we offer that You wouldn't inspect us if you let us inspect you. Beautiful.

[59:01]

That's great. Yeah. Yeah, part of what's going on is the usual, you know, what? The usual kind of like, you know, face-saving thing. It's part of what's going on. But we have to also be sympathetic to people who got that problem, right? It seems to me your reference to the Romans this morning was an app. I've written this sort of app somewhere. There is no NAFLO rival, it seems to be, in the U.S. right now. The actions that we take now cast a shadow further into this era that we're in, down the road. The other thing to consider about the fact is that correctionators, to a large extent, can defend themselves And the other tenet that comes to Buddhism, it seems to me, is the idea of nothing is forever.

[60:06]

And so the idea of waiting right now, it seems appropriate to me, because this man is not going to live forever. He's a very unusual man. He has not one secret service but five. They don't spy on each other. He's very paranoid. He doesn't live for two days in any one place. He's a very unusual character. I could say he's a little nuts in some sense. And that's going to go away. That's not going to be forever, isn't it? Well, not necessarily. You know, the direction of people is different than just one man. The leaders are very strong. Things change. You know, leadership is important. You get two leaders going and people will go along with them, either to a function or otherwise. It can change things.

[61:09]

In the story that you told about the cat, what can we do that it would be tantamount to pretty much sample on top of it and see if you can catch. What's at the heart of that action? I think at the heart of the action that can do that kind of thing is a vision of reality. If you can open up to what's happening to you, you'll also open up to reality. If we don't open up to what's happening to us, we close off reality, how things are really coming to be. If we can understand the pentacle arising, we can do outrageous acts of salvation. Like, I don't know what, like putting a shoe on your head or whatever. Anyway, you can do the beautiful thing once you see the beauty of what's going on. Once you tune into the dimension of beauty, then beauty starts coming through you.

[62:12]

And when people see beauty, sometimes they snap out of it. Sometimes a soldier, you know, the only thing that can stop a soldier sometimes is a beautiful woman or a beautiful man. Somebody really that shows, that reminds them of what they're really interested in. And sometimes the beauty is not necessarily the beauty in the usual sense, but beauty in a sense of the person being really wise. This is what converts beings. So three people had their hands raised. Paula and what's your name? Janice. Janice and I forgot your name. Frederick. Frederick? Can you hear him? No. Why don't you stand up because people can't hear you, Frederick. Can you hear him now?

[63:15]

Yes. If you talk that way, they'll be able to hear you. We can hear you. Yeah. We can hear you. If you turn around, the people behind you can hear you, but they can't hear you unless you turn around. Yeah, revolving would be fine. That's all I have to say. I forgot what I was going to say. Why didn't Ron and Mikhail get together? Or whoever was before Mikhail. And just sit down and get to know each other. And I love the story of the Jewish cantor taking the discussion away from hatred. I get tired of the discussion being... around who's looking at what, I think it's important that the American Buddhist community rephrase the conversation, just like the Jewish Cantor rephrased the hatred that was shown again.

[64:23]

I wonder if the American Peace Movement doesn't buy into the aggressiveness by being aggressive, by being pacifists who are acting aggressively. Seems to me it's a case of a couple of men who can't look at their control issues. So they're wagging their instruments to each other. So maybe, let's look at rephrasing the controversy. Like you had mentioned about loving. And we could host the Iraqi and Middle Eastern people. in Washington. I pay for them to be the president at Congress. Thank you. Paula? Why don't you stand up too?

[65:29]

Never mind. It's sort of what Frederick was mentioning. And when you were speaking, the connotation of resistance is aggressive. in a sense. And it occurred to me that what I feel uncomfortable with conversations like this in here because they become about out there and that, you know, in a grand sense, frequently pacifist movements, group movements feel naive rather than innocent to me. And I was trying to understand what that meant to me. It seems that naivete is knowing that something's wrong. I mean, innocence is knowing that something's wrong, but naivete is thinking you know why it's wrong. And if we look at that in ourselves,

[66:36]

where innocence is versus . Thinking that you know the causes and conditions, it becomes less resistant than more creative solutions, more artistic solutions. That's all. You're next. If you want to still talk. I would like some advice on what is right action. In your talk, I was asking myself what I could do. And seven years ago, I remember what I did. I teach public junior high. And seven years ago, I lit a candle in the room and made a piece over there. why this would not happen. I was told by the administration that that wasn't acceptable.

[67:36]

And I stopped lighting my candle. What came up for me as you were speaking was that I want to light the candle again, light the candle again, and make it very clear what that candle was there for. And so my question is, what is right action For me, I felt like I gave in last time. Uh-huh. And I don't want my action to be aggressive. Uh-huh. Oh. Yeah. Action. Well, what does your candle mean? It's hoping that violence will not occur. Hoping that violence will not occur. And let's see, hoping that violence will not occur. And you feel that, so that's your statement.

[68:45]

I hope violence doesn't occur, and I would like to light a candle as an expression of that hope. I would like to hold peace. I would like to hold peace. And the candles symbolize holding peace. Maybe that's how you feel right now. That's you. Now what about being vulnerable to the administration? So for example, go to them and say, this is what I want to do. What do you say? Maybe they say no. Well, then where are you? Then who are you? Do you have the same thing to say again? Or something a little different? If it's the same thing, maybe say, when can I talk to you about this again? Or how about this? Or how about that? Just keep being you, but don't forget them. The fact that there's somebody resisting you is actually what's going to help you really realize what you have to say.

[69:52]

It's fine to do something on your own. It's fine to... Light a candle as an expression of holding peace. But you can't really express yourself unless somebody tries to blow it up the candle. Then you can really say, oh, wait a minute, just a second, before you blow it out, I'd like to talk to you. Or can I put my body between you and the candle? The resistance to what you want to do is what helps you really realize what you want to do. You can't fully express yourself unless somebody opposes you. Fortunately, most of us have some opposition. But if you want to do something and nobody resists you, you don't find out how much you want to do it. And anytime you really want to express yourself, almost anytime you really want to express yourself, there's going to be some resistance to it. But that resistance helps you find out what is really what you want to do.

[70:54]

So, for example, the candle is only one of the ways to do that. But there's some other way you can do it that will be arrived at through interacting with the resistance. I don't know what that will be. When a sculpture goes to marble, the marble resists her. She just doesn't go up to marble and go... And you have a sculpture. She relates to it and it fights back. And it slips and turns and gives her all kinds of problems. But she doesn't, you know, blow up this marble in anger. She keeps working at it. But the marble resists her. It doesn't immediately go to what she wants it to be. And if she can keep lovingly relating to that piece of stone, even though it keeps frustrating her, we have art. So the administration is helping you really realize the art of your heart. If they just give in to you, then it's just like some idea you have of what's beautiful.

[71:58]

But beauty is not my idea of beauty. Beauty is not your idea of beauty. Beauty is what happens when you and I work together, struggling together. It's what comes out of that interaction. You know, the sculpt, the work of art is motivated by the idea of the artist. But it's more than the idea of the artist. It's the idea of the artist interacting with the resistance of the media. And that's a painful struggle. But if you can keep loving through that pain, you get art out of it. But you can't back off of your idea, either. As long as your idea is your idea, that's your idea. If your idea changes, fine, then that's your idea. You have to stand by your idea. But you have to love the resistance, too. Shrinking back from either one will undermine your art.

[72:59]

You can't give in about who you are. There's no way out of it. But you can listen to the other and let the other change you. Yes. Say it again. Boundaries is part of it, yeah. Right. Right. You have a boundary. I have a boundary. Yes. Yes. Why don't, what? Right. Yeah, if you're not kind to the person next to you, it's not going to work to be kind to the person three blocks away. It's going to, yeah, or Iraq. We have to be kind to these Americans, even these Americans who disagree with us.

[74:05]

Even Americans who want to, I don't know, do something which we think is really pointless. We have to be kind to them. We don't have to agree with them Again, when you already agree with somebody, you know, again, that's nice that you agree with them and you can be kind to them, but your kindness hasn't really gotten a chance to work. It's when you don't agree with them that you can see your kindness really start to work. So yeah, let's be kind to those who agree with us, but also the ones who don't. Let's be kind to them. And who knows what's going to happen in this crisis, but it builds the seeds for a time later. And maybe America will be a place that won't do this again. We'll see. That's right. Let's deal with the person who's closest to you. Now, of course, as someone mentioned to you, all the things I said don't apply to your mother or your children. You don't have to be kind to them. That's too hard. Skip your mother, skip your father, skip your daughter, skip your son, skip your wife.

[75:10]

Just deal with people a little bit farther out that practice all this stuff. Mothers are too hard. You know, it's too hard to love your mother. You have to wait for other people to go first now. Anybody else? Yes? When you look at what? When I look at the situation that's developing between the United States and Iraq that's happening today, there are many similarities that had developed in 1991. Yes. But we're dealing with a very different administration. Yes. When I look at all the action that Bill Clinton has taken, this is very common character. And we're looking at probably a more few state administrations than there was in 1991.

[76:12]

Even the Central Intelligence Agency is doing more humanitarian issues now than covert missions. We've got a female Secretary of State. There's been some major changes in the administration, but the action seems to be the same. And so I'm wondering if, in fact, what the administration is doing is essentially a reflection of the general populist of this country. Yes. Right. In the last seven years ago, I think the only place that had major demonstration in opposition to the Gulf War was San Francisco. The only place in the country. Huh? They had them too? Well... What I heard was, anyway, that San Francisco is the only one. And I think we are an unusual place.

[77:14]

But this time, it is more widespread. And it's obvious, you know, like Ohio. And places like that are also strongly opposed to it. So it is different this time. There is more opposition. The UN is not a support. There's not as much support for this. It's not as clear. It doesn't look like quite as much of a picnic. So there's some more hope. that this won't happen again, but we'll see. Let's just keep pressing on this because it seems like there's more possibility that it will be effective this time. Even though San Francisco is kind of an unusual place. Breck? Someone over there waiting? Yes? He was the only black man who went directly in the skillet.

[78:39]

And he did his interviews in many cases. It's called clandestine relationship. I haven't read it yet. Yeah, that's the way, yeah. Go meet your enemies. Doesn't mean they're not your enemies, but you can love your enemies. You can love people who say they're your enemy. It is possible. That's what we're here for, to do that outrageous thing. Yes? I used to work in protective services. So I taught myself in order to do my job. and not be an enemy, either way, because I was there, that I had to find some way to show that I respected them.

[79:44]

Because in my eyes, they could see respect, but they didn't know what I was thinking, but they could see respect rather than hate or distrust or dislike them. Right. That I thought they were obnoxious or whatever. And so I would find some very superficial ways sometimes that work anymore than the way they call them hair, their lack, their sense of humor, their color choice, because I knew it would reflect in my arms. It's all the difference in the world, and that's what's missing. I was saying something very obvious, I don't want to know that. Right. But if we could just find a way that they could, in some even superficial way, show some respect for each other, because it is about staying in place, and it's about feeling this. And that's why we might have more, and that's really scary. Right. Yes. As a middle extent, what I see myself, what has happened past history,

[80:45]

That's a continuation of the same pattern. sat down, I guess we have to take responsibility that we created that personality also. We helped that personality to create it. And the reason is we supported him seven years to build up these missiles. Now we are asking him No, we don't like the way. Now he has to check you. And they feel like only we really certainly feel that what he said, that why this is invading the privacy. I mean, you can't come to see what we are doing. And we have no right to see what you are doing. And it will come through evacuation. To order us, it's really hard for Middle Eastern, as you said, not to respect them, not to trust them, and not to hear them.

[81:54]

And there's really, truly, a lot of suffering. And this is an excellent way behind the face, sat down face. But that's the whole face of the people. We are ignoring the whole war. Therefore, it's time to build up. This is a wonderful right now that's happening, that everybody is opposing to this war. And I feel really good that it's a good start that we hear each other, that we want to hear it also. you know how easy it is yeah it's easy disrespect is really easy really easy

[82:59]

Yeah, I think we should respect everybody involved needs respect. And if anybody we don't respect, basically they won't listen to us. If you respect somebody, they think you're fairly intelligent. And if you don't respect somebody, they think you're crazy and they're right. When we don't respect people, we're crazy. We're just crazy. Life is always beautiful. That's Buddha's vision. Buddha respects everybody, but Buddha also can say no. Buddha can say no. You can say no. But you say no out of respect. Not out of looking down at somebody. Those people can't hear you. Yeah, please stand up and tell the story so they can hear you.

[84:12]

And Brucka's in the back so we could all hear him. A long time ago when I was just a puppy, I had worked in a... A prison that was the Massachusetts equivalent of Vacaville. So it was for mentally disordered alcoholists who had been accused of crimes. And I worked with a psychiatric social worker who had been there quite a while. It was a very interesting story. This was during Vietnam. And we used to have tours come through to tell us how the Kinsian or place works all the time. They're well-meaning people. Sometimes they were young people. And one time we had a tour come through, which was the Harvard Law and Gary Defenders, and they could practice in Massachusetts in some matters, probate court, through civil commitments for mentally insulated people. And so they came through and they started talking about how awful the place was.

[85:14]

And Dan, my colleague, said to me, how do you feel about Vietnam? And they were all like, it's really awful. That's what I could do. That's two different sort of morality. And he said, well, what do you do about Vietnam? And they said, well, you know, sometimes we go to a protest and stuff. And he said, well, would you like to know what you could do here? And that wound up starting the Hartford Voluntary Defenders Program in prison. We wound up getting all these guys out to civil facilities, shelters, halfway houses that had been in their indefinite life commitments just because nobody knew they were there at all. So that's my story. I don't know what .

[86:15]

I always think that when I think of . And I feel sad when I feel pain about Paul. And it's not like being so far from something that is real, or something real in the sense of what they really want. And sometimes it's . What is the situation that's happening? And I think for me, I think I have worked more looking at just seeing a result of . And we support it. It just . .

[87:30]

You know, it's kind of hard to separate out, but for me, I can associate with . And it's the fact that we appreciate it. But yeah, . I felt . I think now . What would you think if, instead of going to the plaster of Mill Valley, where we would essentially get water?

[88:31]

Because that means the ferry terminal, in order to be in the hospital. Ferry terminal? Because that's where people are coming in from the airport and stuff? Well, there are a lot of people who come here. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that might be a good place to do it. One time I went to a vigil outside of San Quentin. At the time that, was it Robert Altman Harris? It was when he was going to be executed. We did this vigil outside, you know, and... was raining and windy and so we were there chanting quiet for a while and then we chanted and you know we got all wet and our our scriptures got all wet then we finished our service and and one of the people who was instrumental in organizing the

[89:35]

the event, who invited me to come and lead the service. Afterwards, I think maybe even she said something at the beginning, but afterwards she said, I feel so futile doing this, you know. She felt like it wasn't going to stop the execution, and it didn't. And I said, uh-huh, yeah, I guess so. So we dispersed, and I don't remember exactly when it hit me, but I think maybe as I was walking back to the car, and from then on for quite a long time, I felt this great feeling of love. Just this great positive feeling. Even though we had done something which might have been very insignificant and kind of foolishly ineffective, It generated a feeling of love, which I didn't feel just in myself, but it seemed like I felt it in a whole group of people. So, that's what the demonstration, that was the effect of the demonstration, is to create a feeling of love.

[90:47]

It wasn't strong enough to stop this execution from happening, but it did have that effect for me, and it looked like it had it for other people, from what I could tell by the way they felt. It was more than just, we did the right thing, or we were successful. As a matter of fact, to be successful sometimes You don't get to what you want sometimes. Maybe it doesn't create the right feeling. I don't think anybody got what they wanted out of that thing. As far as I know. Maybe somebody did. Is that just made me think that sometimes it's reactive, though, not the result.

[92:02]

Often it's reactive, so not the result, but it is of a greater importance. At an interpersonal level, it's a part lesson for me to learn. It's just a long time to learn that people I would talk to, people would talk to me about things. It's much more needed to see there and hear it. Yeah.

[92:26]

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