The great vehicle. A vehicle that's very large. A vehicle intended for all living beings. A vehicle intended to carry all living beings to freedom from suffering and the realization of peace and harmony. the Sunday morning talks that focusing on this great vehicle. Exploring what is the great vehicle. I propose that one of the teachings of the great vehicle is that living beings are trapped, are enclosed in the constructions of their own mind, are trapped by the process of imagination and its results.

[01:26]

And the teachings are offered to these living beings offered to them to make their imagination become free of imagination. The teachings are offered to living beings who will convert these teachings into images, who will use these teachings as images and these images will liberate the images which are causing, which are the source of all suffering. Images themselves are not really the problem. The problem is we believe the images are something more than images. We cling to them as reality where in actuality they are simply the imagination of our life.

[02:39]

Imagination has the power to cause confinement and suffering and it has the power to liberate beings from suffering. Somebody went to see a Mozart Yesterday, in Mill Valley, I think it's called La Clemenza de Tutti, or Tito, La Clemenza de Tito, The Clemency of Titus, about a very compassionate emperor who had mercy. Written by Mozart. Mozart's a person who had an imagination which he used to liberate beings from . He was very good using his imagination.

[03:44]

The great vehicle is to help us use our imagination to free us from our imagination. I offer you images. which appear to help us become free of our confining linguistic consciousness. Earlier today, I was, you know, not too long ago, I was sitting, contemplating coming to this room to give a talk, listening to the wind and the rain. I thought, doesn't Moby Dick start out with a scene

[04:50]

where there's a sermon given in the middle of a storm. And I found a chapter called The Pulpit, where people are sitting in the church and somebody comes in the door of the church and the wind blows the door aside and all wet. It looks like this person did not come in a carriage because this person is soaked. And it seems like the person who came in was the person who was going to give the Dharma talk. I think his name is called Father. And he came in, he took off his wet clothes and he climbed up to the pulpit. And it turns out that in this church, this is a church in like a whaling town, maybe in Massachusetts.

[05:58]

It was a church that didn't have much space. So the pulpit didn't have room for a normal stairway up to the pulpit. And I didn't remember the name. I was happy to hear that the name of the chapter was the pulpit because someone told me once that the word pulpit comes from the Latin word which means a wooden platform but actually it's part of that when Roman ships came back from a successful mission they would take off the front of the ship and bring it in their victory procession. This raised wooden platform from the they would bring that and I think maybe the successful general would actually have this pulpit in the front of his chariot.

[07:09]

So pulpit means a raised platform has in both the meaning of a raised platform where a where religious words, where words which are offered for salvation are given from this wooden platform. But also it means the raised wooden platform in the front of a whaling boat. More closely related to the etymology of it. a raised platform in the front of a boat, but particularly relevant to Moby Dick, it's a whaling boat. The pulpit in Moby Dick doesn't have a stairway going up to it. It has a ladder, a vertical ladder to save space.

[08:13]

And when the preacher comes up to the pulpit, he climbs up the ladder which is a rope ladder with wooden rounds. He climbs up the ladder to the pulpit which is quite high. When he gets up there, he pulls up the rope onto the pulpit. Ishmael is thinking, this is a rather strange thing to do. There must be some sober reason because this preacher has a reputation for being a solemn and serious person. Maybe this signifies that he's, what's the word, cutting himself off from time. and all distraction to make a self contentment in which to refresh and replenish the meat and wine of the word

[09:31]

It seems to me that this is an image of the kind of situation in which we can study images. That it's an auspicious situation where we make a place, give up time, Give up distraction and sit or stand still. And look at the word. Look at the image. The images, the image that are coming at this moment of our life. Look at the way we are looking. Look at the way our life appears to us. The way our life appears to us is as images. But our life is not images.

[10:57]

It's just knowing our life. And to become free of knowing our life as images, it may be very helpful to be still where we are moment by moment and contemplate the current appearances. Infinite images covering another infinity which is a greater infinity. An imaginable, conceivable infinity And sponsoring this conceivable infinity is an inconceivable infinity.

[11:59]

Our life, our unimagined and unimaginable life, which we yearn for because it is our life. There is the refreshment of the meat and the wine of the words we hear. One of the images which I want to look at, one of the word images that I want to look at is the word image of control I want to say that I have had over the last 45 years a relationship with that word image and just recently I have had a change about the word control

[13:23]

I've been in a state of, well, questioning the word control but also kind of rebelling against the word control. Now, today, I don't feel rebellious about it. When I first started practicing formally, Zen meditation. I think I tried to control myself into sitting still. I saw an image of of a person being compassionate under difficult circumstances and being compassionate under not difficult circumstances and I thought I wanted to learn how to be like that person and I found out that that person and persons like this persons called Zen monks practice sitting still

[14:57]

to sit still. And I found it difficult. And I actually felt that it would help me to do this difficult thing of sitting still, which might help me become a compassionate being. If I practice sitting still with other people who are practicing sitting still, or if I practiced trying to sit still with other people who were trying to sit still. So I moved to San Francisco to sit with people and it did help to realize sitting still, sitting with other people who wanted to realize sitting still. But from the early days I still had, I would say, an incorrect understanding of sitting still and also an incorrect understanding of control.

[16:11]

I think I was trying to control myself into sitting still. And I was supported in this misunderstanding by reading certain Zen teachings which said, Zen practice is to control your body, control your breath, and control your mind. And I read teachings from other great vehicle schools from India and Tibet and China which said that the people of the great vehicles, the bodhisattvas, the enlightening beings, It's very important for them to control their mind. And also to control your mind, it helps to control your body. So when those teachings just reinforced what I was already

[17:19]

control myself into sitting still, and then I would become a great compassionate being. So I tried to control myself into sitting still. And I also tried not so much to control my breathing, a little bit to control my breathing, but particularly I tried to control my into watching my breathing. I tried to control my mind into watching my body, keeping it still, and watching my breath, and never losing sight of my breath. And also counting my breath, exhales. And I noticed that my mind, which I was trying to control, or which I was trying to use the mind to control the mind, I noticed that the that it was difficult to control the mind. To make a long story short, after great efforts, I finally pretty much controlled my mind and my body and got myself to sit still and got my mind to follow my breathing with almost no distraction for a while.

[18:36]

I got there when I got my mind and body under control I kind of said to myself, this is not what I want. This is not compassion. This is not oppression. This is fascism. This was about 43 years ago. I had this... realization that i did not want to control my mind and since that time many people i watched them trying to control their body and try to control their mind and i watched them have uh i watched them and i actually haven't from that time onward to change from trying to control the body and control the mind to change to caring for the body and caring for

[19:51]

to help the body be still, to help the mind be still. But today I offer another expression which brings this caring for the body and the mind in line with the word control. Control. But the control which liberates us is in the process of our life. It's not imposed from the outside of the process. It's in the process already. There is control in the process of our life. There is control in the inconceivable process of our life. But control that is superimposed on this inconceivable process, this is the control which I discovered long ago.

[21:00]

I should give up. Give up trusting my power to control my life, to control my body and my breath. Give up trying to control that way and in the process of giving up, enter the process in which there is control. What kind of control? The control which supports, which pulls living beings into the path of freedom. That reality is actually controlling us. We are actually helping each other all the time become fresh and free. The price of admission to the realm of freedom is to give up trying to control.

[22:10]

The attempt to control is something that appears in the imagination. One can know this image that somebody is trying to control me or somebody is trying to control you or I'm trying to control myself or somebody else. We can see that image of the imposed control on life. We can see it. And seeing it, we can be kind to it. And being kind to it, we can give it up. I heard and saw in the writings of our ancestor Dogen that once an old Buddha said, no, once a monk asked an old-time Buddha, when hundreds and thousands and ten thousands of things all at once, kind of like it is at Green Goats this morning,

[23:27]

when the wind and the rain and the trees come at you all at once, when the lights go out and go on and out all at once, what should we do? Buddha said, give up trying to control them. I would say that when only a hundred things or only six things come at you all at once, the same would be true. But when the number gets large enough, we realize it's kind of silly to try to do anything. But still we try to control, even when there's myriad things coming at us all at once. The old Buddha says, give up trying to control. Trust compassion according to your present understanding of it.

[25:13]

Trust being kind according to your present imagination of it. Stop trying to control. It is often said that in samadhi, in concentration, the mind is fully under control. The mind is fully under control means it's fully available for the practice of all virtuous activities. But in samadhi there's nobody out there trying to control the mind. The mind is in control but it's under the control of the process of tranquility. the instruction to not move or to be still sometimes it's put as don't move that instruction part of the tradition

[27:21]

But the instruction is not meaning you should impose upon yourself, upon your body from the outside a force to stop yourself from moving. If we impose from the outside and try to prevent ourselves we are moving. To hear the instruction, don't move, and just feel and say, okay, yes. Not moving is already... But to hear the instruction, don't move, and then try to stop yourself from moving, you just moved. It's similar to say,

[28:36]

Be yourself. And when you say yes, you didn't move. But if you say yes, I will, and then you try to be yourself, you just moved away from yourself. To become free of our imagination, where we are, quietly, and give up trying to control and also give up trying to control ourselves into sitting quietly. Just say yes to sitting quietly, realize sitting quietly, and watch reality reveal itself to you. And when it reveals itself to you, it liberates you from the imagination. Be silent and still and give up trying to be silent and still.

[30:37]

We cannot control. But there is a beneficial control in reality. What we need to do is allow ourselves to enter into the reality where body breath and mind are controlled as not controlled into the Buddha way controlled as being freedom and peace. In concentration the mind can move or not move. Both can be allowed and in either case The mind serves peace and ease.

[32:11]

And it's very difficult to trust the process and give up trying to control. The chapter called The Pulpit in Moby Dick has the image of being in a place where you're letting go of past and future, where you're letting go of being distracted from being present.

[33:43]

And then there's another chapter in the middle of the book called The Line. I think it's called the line. And it means the rope line that's coiled up in the middle. This line, this rope line, which is coiled up, is connected to a harpoon. And the harpooner usually stands on the pulpit, on the raised platform. of the boat stands out in the pulpit holding the harpoon connected to the line. When the harpoon's thrown, if it hits the big whale and sticks in the whale, the rope starts to unravel with almost inconceivable speed and power.

[34:50]

And the person in the boat has to be quite careful because if they by any chance get anywhere near the unraveling of the rope, I shouldn't say anywhere near because they are near to it, they're in the boat with this rope, with this line, and it's unraveling with this great force. And if they are, they will die. But to be in the boat with this rope and to be enough to not be entangled in it is the peace and freedom of this life.

[35:55]

which the book is trying to guide us to. The book is all about finding a way to be on that boat with that rope, with things coming at us. And also that rope isn't just coming from one place, you know. It's coming from all directions at once. The boat is moving. It's constantly changing. The rope's going all... It isn't just unrolling nicely. It's going all over the place. It's coming at the... Sailor from all directions at once and if the sailor doesn't give up control. There is a very good chance If the trailer is trying to control the sailor will be caught We are trying to control we will be caught but in that situation being caught will be probably instant death or very fast death So there's death There's infinite life and freedom, and then there's being on the land, which is hell, because you don't know where the rope is.

[37:11]

The land means you're not paying attention to your imagination, which is unraveling. But if you can pay attention to your imagination as it's unraveling, you can see your imagination. You can see the rope. And you can be present with it. And you can give up trying to control the rope. You cannot. Once the rope starts unraveling, no human being can control it. Of course. But a human being can be present with it and give up trying to control it and find a way to be and finding that way to be with this intense unfolding of cause and effect. That's where peace is. And if you go someplace where you don't see this rope unfolding Well, you can't practice.

[38:23]

You're just trapped in your imagination which you do not see the tremendous energy of the mind unfolding. All of us from now on have the opportunity to find this pulpit moment by moment to be present there, to give up trying to control. The rope is unfolding. And be present with it and give up trying to control it and realize that every moment of that unfolding, every object that comes is the Buddha Dharma. No matter what it is, no matter how it comes, it is the Buddha Dharma. and to give up trying to change what's coming into something else to welcome whatever comes in silence and stillness with again not trying to control myself into silence not trying to control but finding silence and stillness in the process by giving up trying to control myself into silence and stillness

[39:48]

People will come into this room next week. Again and again they will enter this room and sit. They will walk and they will sit and they will leave the room and they will return and they will sit and they will walk and they will leave the room and they'll walk back into the room and they'll sit and walk and they'll walk. They'll do this all week here to practice. Being here. Being here. Giving up trying to control. Whatever's coming. And things will come. Things will come. All of us, whether we're sitting in this room next week, we all have the chance to sit still and be quiet. And then, no matter what comes, to give up trying to control it and realize, realize the way of peace and freedom.

[40:56]

And verify it in this world. This teaching, this great vehicle teaching, is a teaching for heroic spirits. who are willing and want to live in the middle of their life and give up control of the world. I have a children's poem which I can't read because it's too dark, but I'll read it at question and answer. No, I don't want to read it. I'll read it at question and answer. It's a poem about sitting quietly and giving up trying to control.

[42:05]

It's a poem about being in a cage. and becoming free of the cage by the imagination. But I do have a song which I've often sung, which again, I think is somewhat appropriate for today. It's an Etta James song. Etta James is a woman who lived in the 20th century and part of the 21st century. Great singer. A great dragon singer. And I would like to sing one of her songs and change the end somewhat. If I may, Ella. I mean, Etta. The way I sing it is like... Boom, boom.

[43:08]

Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I can do it. I'm in complete control. That's what I tell myself. I got a mind of my own. I'll be all right alone. Don't need anybody else. Gave myself a good talking to. No more being afraid. but then I see you and all I remember is how I want to surrender all control you're taking myself away Buddha you're making me want to stay Buddha way May we enjoy the storm.

[44:19]

May we enjoy the storm.

[44:26]

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