I've been asking for song lyrics. It seems to be helpful to sing songs. And last night someone gave me a Bob Marley lyric. Won't you help me sing these songs of freedom? It's all I ever have Redemption songs, redemption songs. Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds. So they sing, or used to sing, in Jamaica.

[01:03]

So this is my, this morning, this is my redemption song and please help me sing it. When I was young, My mother used to smoke cigarettes. She smoked Raleigh's. They still sell Raleigh's? We don't know. You think so? They do? They do, good. Raleigh's, of course, are made in Raleigh, North Carolina. What?

[02:11]

And they have coupons. They still have coupons? Anyway, my mother smoked Raleigh's primarily because they had coupons. Usually on Saturday night, my mother and father would go out on the town And before she went out, she would paint her nails, paint her fingernails red. And I would watch her painting her nails. And she would usually sit in a chair next to a floor lamp and light her Raleigh and put the Raleigh in the ashtray. and paint her nails. And I would watch the smoke come up from the cigarette through the light.

[03:19]

I always thought that was such a beautiful ritual that she did. And she saved the coupons on the back of the Raleigh's, and they made these big packs. And then, after she had a lot of coupons saved up, she would go to the redemption center. At the Redemption Center you could give them the coupons and they'd give you something. So redemption means to buy back, to buy something back.

[04:26]

It doesn't mean to buy, it means to buy something back, to buy back something, to possess something again that you temporarily lost, to buy it back for a specific price, not a general price. They don't say approximately, you know, a thousand coupons. The exact amount, they count them. to buy back and to be saved, to pay off. So, today I'm going to be talking about how to buy something back, how to get something back. Get what back? Well, freedom, I guess. Or

[05:27]

your fundamental state of happiness. So the usual cycle is one detects that one has lost something, or anyway, that one is miserable or suffering, And the next thing that usually happens in the cycle is you notice that there's other people in the world and they are also suffering. When you notice you're suffering, you may then notice that you would like to be free of suffering. And when you notice that others are suffering, you may notice that you want them to be free from suffering also.

[06:32]

Out of these kinds of considerations, an aspiration is born. an aspiration to dedicate your life energy to the accomplishment of this redemption, of the freedom and happiness of all beings. As I've mentioned before, we have a practice period now here at Green Gulch, an intensive period of study and meditation. And a theme song that I have suggested for this practice period is a poem by a Zen teacher, which goes, wall-gazing in the back,

[07:47]

a spring flower opens. So right now I'm... I'm wall-gazing. It's not that you're a wall, but I'm wall-gazing. In other words, I'm trying to... Just be where I am and let it go at that. And behind me, this flower is blooming. You see the flower back there? This is a... The flower of Buddhism is compassion. So behind me is... I can't see this Buddha behind me, but it's back there. and it follows me wherever I go, and it opens if I can take care of my life just enough, not too much, not too little.

[09:04]

So I'd like to talk about this, how to take care of my life or how to take care of your life, which is the same as how to liberate yourself, liberate your mind from slavery. self-slavery. So the price of buying back your freedom is the price of the work of freeing your mind from slavery. That's the price. And it seems to be quite a bit of work. So I'd like to talk a little bit about how slavery is established. And then how slavery is abolished.

[10:12]

And then how freedom is extended. And I'll predict beforehand, so don't be frightened if I start sounding like Abraham Lincoln off and on. I might not be able to restrain myself. So now I'm going to sound like a, what do you call it, a Buddhist doctor of psychology for a while. And I proposed to you the Buddhist teaching that in order for discriminating consciousness to appear — notice that I say appear, I don't say exist —

[11:26]

in order for the appearance of discriminating consciousness, there needs to be some sense of separation. Discriminating consciousness means a consciousness which is aware of difference And it is the same as consciousness which knows things. Not all kinds of consciousness are discriminating consciousness. There is a kind of consciousness which is non-discriminating, which doesn't discriminate. But the consciousness which doesn't discriminate also does not know anything. And also, we who are living in the realm of knowledge, or as we live in the realm of knowledge, we don't know the knowledge which doesn't know.

[12:44]

We can have an intuition of a knowledge which doesn't know, but the knowledge which, the consciousness which, not the knowledge which doesn't know, but the consciousness which doesn't know, doesn't know, and also it is not known by the consciousness which knows. So it might be simple for you to think of your body, not your body, but your mind cut in half, or, yeah, cut in half, having upstairs where you know things. How do you do? My name's Reb. I see you, you see me. We know each other. We have objects of knowledge. And in the basement, it's all dark. There's consciousness there, but it doesn't know objects. Okay? These two consciousnesses, these two levels of consciousness together are what we call a living being. All of us are like this. We have these two layers.

[13:50]

Okay? However, most of the time, and I shouldn't say most of the time, all the time, we live in both realms. There's one realm where we're knowing things and saying, how do you do? I see you, I know you, or I don't know you, but I know I don't know you and I know who it is that I don't know. There's that realm. And there's also a realm where we're all interconnected and we don't know one person from another. These two realms are always happening. That's our life. In the realm of knowledge, where we're operating all the time and talking to each other, where there's things that we know about, in that realm we notice differences. And in order for that sense of difference to arise, there must be a separation between subject and object.

[15:00]

This separation is really an illusion. There really is no separation. It's like we're holding hands and saying we're separate. But we must have separation in order to have an object of knowledge. And this is just... the way it is, we cannot avoid this and be a normal human being, except at very early phases of our development. For example, at the time of conception in the womb, we do not have this kind of knowledge of objects. At that time, when we're just a little zygote, we're just the kind of consciousness which knows interconnectedness. but not as objects. I shouldn't say knows. We're just consciousness which is interconnectedness. We don't know objects yet. But as we develop, after we're delivered into the world and so on, gradually we finally see something as outside of ourselves, and we know it.

[16:04]

So it's a natural part of our development as human beings to develop this kind of subject-object discriminating consciousness. Okay? This separation is necessary in order for that to happen. It's unavoidable. It's not bad. It's just the way we are. And as soon as this sense of separation, this awareness of objects occurs, something else happens, and that is the arising, the appearance, Not the real exact existence of a thing, but the appearance, the illusion of an identity. A sense of I arises. A sense of somebody is here or something's here.

[17:09]

or something's responsible for this fantastic event of knowledge. And I think it's me." So a sense of self arises in conjunction with this wonderful event called knowledge, conscious knowledge. And that self then also unavoidably You can't avoid it. It comes immediately with four afflictions. This is not optional. These four afflictions are that accompany the sense of self. The sense of self itself is not a problem. It's not a problem. it's actually necessary, again, to be a normal human being.

[18:11]

The four afflictions are a problem. That's why they're called afflictions. They afflict the living being and automatically accompany the sense of self. Before the sense of self arises, and constantly, every moment of your life in the realm of knowledge which doesn't know objects, in what you might call the unbusy knowledge, which is always there. At that level there is no sense of self and there is no affliction. It's actually the realm of organic happiness. However, down there nobody knows anything and nobody can drive a car. In the realm of knowledge we can carry on our ordinary life because we have a sense of self. Or because we can carry on our ordinary life, there is a sense of self.

[19:17]

In other words, there is a celebration that we can carry on this fantastic activity of knowledge. The four afflictions arise, and the four afflictions are self-view, self-ignorance, self-pride, and self-love. Self-view means that when this self, this sense of self arises, there is a view that this thing that arises, that this thing which appears, actually has an independent existence. It's both a view from the point of view of the self and a view that there is a self there that has a point of view. This is an affliction. This is also a philosophical position.

[20:20]

And it is also an erroneous philosophical position. And this, I'm saying then, according to this, saying that all human beings have that philosophy constantly cropping up. It is the view, it is the actual opinion that there is something there. There is somebody there. Self-ignorance goes with that very well because self-ignorance means you ignore the self. You say it's there and then you ignore it. You don't say it's there and then look to see if you're right. You don't say it's there and say, well, I think I'll check out if my philosophical position is correct. Philosophy is to a great extent the antidote to that self-ignorance because people naturally don't look to see what the self is. That comes up, that ignorance, that looking away from the self naturally comes up and you have to make a philosophical enterprise to turn around and look back to see what's there.

[21:29]

If you turn around and look back, you will never be able to really find anything and therefore the self-ignorance will drop and so will the self-view. The other two, the self-pride, is a justifiable thing. You're proud that you've got a self, or at least the sense of self really is pride in the event of consciousness. There's a kind of pride at the universe pulling this off. The universe has made possible consciousness in a very limited area of the cosmos. It's a rare and wonderful event, and the universe is proud And the sense of self takes credit for this pride. And also there's a love here, a love of this, of this thing, a love of consciousness, a love of psyche. Everyone loves the psyche. It's a fantastic event, especially a psyche which knows things. So as I've already indicated, just a little,

[22:38]

The solution or the cure of these afflictions is simply to examine the self, to turn around and look at it. If you look at it, you will not be able to find it, and when you can't find it, these afflictions will drop away. And then you'll have a self which is just sitting there functioning in its practical way, and the person is released from bondage. The bondage of believing in these creations, believing in these appearances, Another way to look at this is to look at the self and other, the separation where consciousness, where discriminating consciousness arises, look at the separation.

[23:51]

sense the separation and also notice the afflictions that crop up around that separation. Again, when there's separation, the sense of self arises right at that separation. And so, oh, I want to mention something that, another thing is that, to put it cutely, Buddha always has an address. There's no homeless Buddhas. Another way to put it is Buddhas always have a land. Buddhas are not floating in mid-air. Buddhas always appear and live in illusion. What illusions? Psychic illusion. Psychic illusion. And particularly the illusion of separation. Buddhas live right there.

[24:55]

That's their address. They don't live in the suburbs even. Well, they do, but the center of gravity of Buddha is right at that separation. Because that's the point where the problems crop up and that's the point where the problems are dropped. So this place where there's a separation between consciousness and objects, that separation place, Buddha really is particularly situated right there, because that's also the place where confusion and suffering arise. So Buddha always takes, in a sense, the worst seat, the most difficult spot. So what we need to do is we need to find that separation place. that place of separation where the sense of self also arises, and situate ourself there. And if we're sitting there, we're sitting in exactly the same place that Buddha sits.

[25:56]

And again, this place of separation is the place where also the separation between the two levels of consciousness occurs. So the place of separation is not only where Buddha is born, where enlightenment is born, it's also the place where reunification of our whole life happens, where the integration of the unbusy consciousness and the busy consciousness occurs. So, like my two hands, okay? See my two hands? Now, do you see the separation between them? There is a separation there, and the separation is, well, you see what it is. But notice how, as the separation becomes, in a sense, more and more specific, more and more specific, more and more specific, until you see how specific the separation is now.

[27:09]

It's a very definite line. You see the line of separation? See how specific it is? And when it gets ultimately specific, what happens? Hmm? The hands touch. Unity occurs at the point where the separation becomes most specific, most concrete. easiest to keep track of. The hands do not merge, the hands stay separate, but the hands merge into a new entity called, we call it joined hands. Joined hands is one thing. It's a new thing. But the hands don't blend into each other, they stay two different hands and yet they become a new thing called two hands, joined.

[28:12]

And the place where they join is the place where they separate. So in order to experience union, you have to become deeply involved in separation. the two realms of consciousness, one a realm of consciousness of difference, discriminating consciousness, and another realm that doesn't discriminate. Okay? But in Buddhism, the practice that we're trying to develop is a practice called non-discrimination. And non-discrimination does not mean not discriminating. Okay? There's a realm of not discriminating and there's a realm of discriminating. What our practice is about is to unite the realm of discriminating with the realm of not discriminating. And the union of the realm of discriminating and the realm of not discriminating we call non-discriminating. Non-discriminating is the union of the two...

[29:19]

By thoroughly immersing yourself in your discriminating process, you will be relieved from the discriminating process. The discriminating process will be integrated and supplemented by the not discriminating process and you achieve non-discrimination, which is what we call, it's a psychological nickname for happiness. for Buddha, for being awake. Also, you know, I said that my hands are now pretty far apart. There is a space between them. There's a space which separates them. And if you can make this space that separates them very specific, very concrete, then the hands will join like this too. Do you understand? But it's harder for us to make this space specific than it is for us to make this space specific.

[30:24]

But if you can make this very specific, then you would immediately see the hands are joined by that space, which separates them. But that's kind of a hard assignment. It's harder than this one for most people. But actually, it could be done if you understand that this is just a concept here, and this is another concept. So usually people start, the first realization of nondiscrimination is through something like this, and gradually you can extend this realization to this, and this, and the distance between us. But usually it's easiest to catch on right here, at the finest line. And the wall gazing I referred to earlier is the practice of settling into this separation. of locating it and then just settling down into it, of locating that sense of separation and also then locating the place where the sense of self arises and settling into that sense of self.

[31:36]

By settling into that sense of self, which arises at that separation, you are relieved of the sense of self. It isn't that the self goes away, it's that you forget it. In other words, you forget believing that it really exists. It isn't that it's taken away, though. It's just that you drop your self-view. You drop the belief in it, because you no longer have self-ignorance, because you have been relieved of self-ignorance by settling into that self. If you really settle into it, you realize that it just is an appearance. It's just a wonderful concoction which arises because of knowledge. And the self is no problem anymore, even though it still keeps popping up at moment after moment. And this again, Buddhas are always localized. They're always at that location, centered at that location.

[32:42]

And also, as E. E. Cummings says, he never found a non-centered ego. Ego is always centered. Self is always centered, and Buddha is always centered at the Self. The Self is the place where our suffering arises. The Self is the place where our suffering drops. Rumi said, the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

[33:52]

Don't go back to sleep. You have to say what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are walking back and forth at the door sill where the two worlds meet, where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. The breeze at dawn arises at this door sill, at this separation where the two worlds meet.

[34:59]

This door sill, this separation where the world appears, where everybody's walking back and forth, it's right in front of you. And if you can stay awake at that door sill, secrets will be told to you. And staying awake and still at that door sill, at that place where the breeze of dawn arises, where the two worlds touch, staying there and just sitting there, behind you, the flower of compassion opens. Now I want to again remind us that this flower of compassion will not open unless you planted the seed before you sat down at the doorway.

[36:14]

So before you sit down at the doorway, you plant the seed. The seed is I have a problem. I want to be free of my problems. I want to be completely happy. And I want everybody else to be completely happy. And I'll do anything my life can give to make this possible. You put that seed down in the ground, you sit on it, and then you sit there and look at this separation. You settle into the separation so you're not even looking at it anymore. So all there is is a door sill. There's not even you watching it. There's just you not going to sleep. There's just the breeze at dawn and somebody who's, and not even somebody, there's just the not sleeping at the breeze of dawn. There's just that. That's called wall gazing. and the flower opens by itself behind you.

[37:18]

The separation is in front of you. The flower is behind you. You can't see the flower. The flower is everyone's happiness. Excuse me. That's not it. The flower is the compassion for all beings. which works to arrive and realize everyone's happiness, which you can eventually see. Okay, now is the part where I might start sounding like Abraham Lincoln. After, if the time, when the time comes, how'd it go? It reminds me, what is it? Oh.

[38:21]

There's this song, there's this song or this poem, this kid's poem about painting a bird. This is the same, this is the same story, okay? If you want to paint the picture of a bird, If you want to paint the portrait of a bird, first you get a canvas. And then you paint a cage. And you paint the cage with the door open. And inside the cage, you paint something pretty, something simple, something beautiful, and something useful for the bird. And you take that picture of a cage with those things in it, and you put that next to it, lean it against a tree.

[39:25]

And then you sit sort of behind the tree. and you wait for the bird to come. And then the thing that reminded me of this was, I forgot how he says it, I think he says, when the bird comes, if the bird comes, And I was going to say, when you're sitting there settled into the sense of separation and the sense of the self, when you're settled there, okay, when you're settled there, if you're settled there, the bird comes. And at that time that the bird comes, he says, You must observe the most profound silence. Already when you're sitting there settling into yourself, already you're sitting quietly.

[40:36]

But when the bird comes, what's the bird? Enlightenment? Yeah. When the bird comes means when the breeze at dawn comes up. When you see, when you actually can see the sense of self coming up and see how it's made and see that there's nothing to it and be relieved of it, be relieved of believing in it and seeing that it's just an illusion, even free from the attribute of not existing. When you see that happening, at that that's the bird coming and at that time when this forgotten self appears at that time don't get excited at that time you've been quiet all this while you've been sitting there quietly quietly watching yourself watching yourself watching yourself watching this place of separation with the faith that buddha will appear here you've been watching this quietly

[41:44]

unmovingly. He also says, I forgot one line, he says, don't worry how long it takes for the bird to come. The quickness or longness of the bird's coming has nothing to do with the quality of the painting. Some of you may have to wait a long time, may have to be settling there a long time before this forgotten self appears. But when it appears, observe even a more profound silence because now you have a tendency to get a little excited because what you've been waiting for is appearing. So at that time, stay still. Stay still? What for? Isn't this the end? No. This is kind of just the beginning of compassion. This is actually the wisdom phase.

[42:48]

This activity, this exercise, this meditation practice that I'm describing is born out of compassion. But it's a wisdom practice. You now see what the cause of suffering is and you're relieved of it. Now the compassion phase starts. You've been calmly, quietly, unmovingly emptying the self. Now the self is completely emptied. That's what it means by the bird coming. But when the self is emptied and you feel relieved of self-oppression and self-clinging, there's a tendency to get a little excited. there's also a tendency to get frightened as you approach that place. But I won't get into that now. So I'm saying after you've gone through the fear as you approach complete settling into this place, you've gotten past that fear and you've really settled there, and now the sense of self has been forgotten.

[44:03]

even though it keeps reappearing, you also keep forgetting it, and you have no fixed idea, and you're relieved, and you have insight. Now the compassion phase starts, but you have to keep practicing the practice which led you there. You can't now say, okay, I've got insight so I can screw up. You have to stay calm, even calmer, because now you've got something to be excited about. Before that, everything you were excited about was actually just troublesome. Now you can be excited because you actually see what's going on. You're relieved. Now even more sit still. And in the story it says, observe the most profound silence and then paint the door shut. Or you could say, now that you've understood the illusoriness of the self, the emptiness of the self, the freedom of self from all categories of existence.

[45:08]

Now that you've seen that, consolidate it. Trap it. Trap that realization in the cage of your body and mind. Settle into it and let it settle into you. Steep yourself in the forgotten self. Steep yourself in freedom. from a limited view of the self. You know, one time I went to Suzuki Roshi and I said, well, you know, practice seems kind of easy now to me. And I said that because the first couple years of my practice were really nice because it was always hard. I never had a shortage of problems and challenges. I really enjoyed having a very concrete cliff to climb and wall to hit my head against.

[46:15]

And I got to a place where it kind of got a lot easier. And I went to him a little bit worried, saying, it's kind of easy. And he said, well, practice may be easy for you for a while. And then he took a piece of paper and he folded it over. And then he leaned on it. He said, when you fold a piece of paper, sometimes you keep your hand on it for quite a long time before you fold it again. You know, like in origami. You might think, well, you fold a piece of paper, got it folded, now I can fold it again. But actually, if you press on it for a long time, it actually makes the fold a little, the fold actually settles into itself a little bit more, I guess. So you sit on that fold for a while before you flip it again. And sitting on the fold is not that difficult. So sometimes in practice you get to a point like this where you've done a lot of work and you actually have realized emptiness of the self and you've got a nice relief through that insight.

[47:28]

But you should sit on that for a while. Just like you sat on the seed of compassion until it blossomed into wisdom, now sit on the wisdom until it blossoms into compassion. And again, you don't know how long that will be, but sit on that for a while. And then the time will come, something will happen, and spontaneously you'll think something, you'll feel something, you'll see something, and that will be the first step in compassion. So again, in the story of the bird, Paint the door shut, okay? Then paint the bars away. Paint the bars of the cage away. So then you've got the bird sitting in midair. Then paint a branch under the bird and put leaves on the branch and put insects in the air and the sun in the sky and blue sky.

[48:37]

So in the same way, sit on this insight and then paint in a society around it. Paint in a society which has war and homeless people and has... a country called America, which is very wealthy, and yet doesn't seem to want to put much energy into raising its children. Pain in a world like that around this wisdom, around this bird, And then watch carefully again and see if the bird sings. If the bird sings, that's a good sign. That means you can sign the painting. So in our society, once we have been able to really get in touch with true compassion, then we have...

[49:53]

a wonderful society to try to put it to practice in. And you have to figure out what kind of things you're going to paint in around this wisdom to let it function. Part of what I want to mention is that One of the most influential thinkers in the West is a man named Adam Smith, who wrote a book called The Wealth of Nations. And what he proposes in that book is actually, I believe, very wise in describing the human being and the human motivation. And one of his main theses is that enlightened self-interest, you can actually trust it.

[51:08]

And also part of his thesis is that human beings naturally will use any capital at their disposal. They'll make all their effort to use any capital at their disposal to facilitate self-interest. He's proposing that the people are just like this. And he's also saying, you can trust this. This is okay. But what most people don't remember or don't know is that before he wrote this book, some years before, he was a professor of moral philosophy for 10 years. And he wrote a book called principles of moral sentiments. And in that book, he spent basically I think seven out of eight chapters describing what he calls moral psychology.

[52:15]

And in moral psychology, the key point of moral psychology is a thing he calls sympathy. And sympathy, if you hear his description, is basically the same as compassion. So enlightened self-interest can be trusted, but it must be grounded in compassion. Then enlightened self-interest can be trusted. Without being grounded in compassion, self-interest is not trustworthy. But self-interest is endemic in the human psyche. You can't avoid it. And there's no need in trying to get rid of it. The question is, since it's there, how can it be trusted? It can be trusted by infusing compassion into it.

[53:21]

And in order to infuse compassion or base it on compassion, you not only have to have the desire to be compassionate, but you have to have wisdom to make compassion real compassion rather than, again, your self-centered idea of compassion. I'm getting closer to the Abraham Lincoln section. There is a new book out which is called Democracy and its Critics. And in this book by a man named Dahl, he describes the two great democratic moments in history. One is the democracy of the city-state, the Greek and Roman city-states. The next is the democratic moment

[54:25]

17th, 18th century constitutional governments. But he's saying that he feels another phase in democracy needs to occur because these constitutional governments still have various kinds of inequities which exist in them. inequities in education and resources, inequities related to minorities, and inequities related to power. And I kind of feel that most of us here are concerned with justifying or rectifying these inequities and that uh... this this is one possible kind of branch or tree in which to put this bird or not put the bird maybe but put around the bird because we can't control this bird all we need to do is

[55:47]

create a situation around this bird to let this bird do its job. So our job is to, as helping beings and as happy people, is to develop this insight based on the seed of compassion. And then if this insight is developed, then extend this insight. Bring the results, bring the flower of this self-emptying into society. to do its natural work, its spontaneous work, which is basically to bring others to have insight so that they can see, or bring others to develop compassion and then develop insight and then apply their compassion. And another part of insight which makes this process possible is the intuition of the fact that we are all interconnected, and that we are actually connected to all diverse beings, and that America

[57:15]

The wonderful thing about America is that we do have diversity. We have, in the actual world that you can see with your eyes, you can really see the diversity that is true. I mean, it's not the same diversity that's really going on in the realm of direct experience, but it's a metaphor of reality. There really are all kinds of different kinds of beings all interconnected. So in that sense, I never thought much about democracy when I first started practicing Zen. It didn't seem to be relevant at all. As a matter of fact, I had kind of a low opinion of democracy. But if we can develop enough insight and therefore empower our compassion, we may be able to make democracy work.

[58:26]

and alleviate these inequalities and these inequities among beings. But we need this, we need wisdom, because if we just direct, it's okay to go out and directly try to help people, no problem with that. But if we do it without the aid of wisdom, we will tend to become discouraged. Because if we believe in ourself, we also develop some fixed ideas about what is helpful and who is being helped and what is right and what is wrong. And all these fixed opinions will inhibit our work. So the wisdom not only gives rise to our deep compassion, but it also protects us from burnout in our work. Won't you help me sing these songs of freedom?

[59:32]

It's all I ever have, redemption songs, redemption songs, redemption songs. Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free ourselves from our own minds. and allow us to go to the redemption center and pick up the presents. It's actually pretty simple but it's very hard.

[60:19]

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