you want me to do what you thought i was gonna do

a yesterday i went to a meeting
at what's called the m
photos then education center in san francisco
and it's am organization if an office set up in san francisco at a temple called so koji
and as so corgi is a japanese photos and temple in japantown
and then
it's located on laguna street
and
sutter
and so-called you used to be on the street and bush and that's where i first went to practice
then with suzuki roshi the the zen center was a
was in a japanese buddhist sutras and temple on bush street and laguna now it moved to block
and the off and his office of this such as an organization which is at office of a large organization in japan
that administers fifteen thousand temples and about fifteen million fifteen million soto zen buddhist
are organized by this office in this office in san francisco is
a branch of that large organization in japan and they were having a meeting with the
most the american
zen priest
and with the japanese representatives of the main organisation in japan
and that just to tell you one point i was raised in the meeting one of the american priest said the heat
he got some emails or he saw something on the internet about them that the am
the level of support of the temples in japan was decreasing
and he asked the representatives of the organization japan that was so when they said yes the number of priests and soto zen is about the same but the the level of congregational support is
stable or shrinking somewhat and and another point was raised was although it may be stable is at the case that most of the people who are practicing or older people
and
they said yes said this
the not so many young people are practicing zen in japan and to some extent
there is an aging of the
zen groups in america too
the average age is going up
compared to the time when suzuki russia was alive
in the first monastic
training period talk the harz and mountain center the average age i someone calculated was twenty eight
and then about maybe ten years or late or so later somebody did the calculation again and i was thirty eight
and then in a recent praxis period i did the average age was forty three
and
now sometimes we have practice period where there are several people who were older than than the founder zen center was when he died
and nobody was as old as him when he died
so there's an aging however there are quite a few young people still coming design center and one of the reasons they come
is because and center has responded to some extent to the so-called ecological crisis
that we have on the planet
so then center has a for example that an organic farm and garden
sen and the organic so we don't use pesticides if you've like that were not poisoning earth and mere fact that earth at green gulch farm has become more fertile and less poisoned over the thirty five years that we've been there
i taught zahar also not entirely by our own intentioned but by their for various reasons we've cleaned up the land around tassajara in which is also polluted by about one hundred years of white men and women living there and polluting the land we cleaned up toss a her also
the city center of zen center that has a roof of the building covered with solar collectors so the city center is now i believe
producing enough electricity for your own users themselves some electricity back to the
does the get grid and so i'm not saying that center was doing that great but there's some work as intended to respond to ecological
in dangerous and as a result a young people who are more attuned to this now then for example when i first went to san center are kind of attractive design center as a possible community where they those who are interested can practice together and have a sympathetic environment
to develop
sustainable
ecological ways of living
and
i heard yesterday and today on the radio this thing called mac found dot org and their and their thing is the mac found dot org is for a more just
verdant and peaceful world
and
some of the members of this
group here and also didn't center have our actual members of greenpeace have some of them work for greenpeace
and somebody in his class works for pachamama the
the the charter pachamama is
what is it though
spiritually fulfilling
ecologically sustainable and socially just
so those two organizations have just no justice as part of their mission residents or mission i think it doesn't actually say justice in the mission superman has just as fuck
since it our mission is not so much of my justice and soto an organization also is not about justice in their mission statement it's about transmitting the path of buddha
and
the path the buddha has taught by

dog is angie
so some people really find his teaching and the teaching of his disciples very encouraging like one of his disciples were suzuki roshi
and the other disciples of his people find encouraging so some people want to study soto zen want to go to a dense and to learn about soto zen
and that's what zen centres therefore
is charter
and that's what soto's an organization is about
however
the young people are not coming so much
is perhaps then losing its relevance for the modern world
some buddhist priests in japan are actually opening bars to teach buddhism
some zen priests actually have some bars where they hope to
meet young people in and introduce them to buddhism in the bars because they are the attendance and bars is not going down among young people
but the attendance and temples is
so part of it with a problem with to any traditional practice is
how to maintain the tradition which is with his great resources and
wisdom and compassion sometimes
some traditions or espouse to transmit wisdom and compassion
in some in particular wish to transmit the wisdom and compassion of the buddha and a buddhist teaching so want to be careful to transmit correctly
take it so you don't want to change it too much because you might get it wrong so
among those who perhaps
got it right
could they change it a little bit and still not
it without hurting it
ha
some number of years ago someone said to me and actually a long time practitioner said to me why don't we sing
and i said well we do she say what i mean i say well
kanji his eyeballs at georgian on your hard on me dodgy show can go in guy she said i know but that's not really singing so the i suggested additions will notice it
and i said you mean singing like
summer time and eleven is easy dish or a jump on and the card news ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha like got you mean she's a yeah why do we do that i said okay well
so after doing it
so sometimes go out and how long ten fifteen years ago i started seeing
and some of the people's particularly or i would sing in in the venues where knew people would come
where young people would come not the hardcore indoctrinated
conservative
totally solves and students but the news than young people in new people who are kind of like well what's that about anyway they come and they would see this guy talking about zen and that the end of the talk he was start singing and they would come and tell me afterwards i really enjoyed the scene

and some people really don't like zen but they love the bread we make
some people are kind of afraid of zen but they like our gardens
or you know because they liked away somebody answered the telephone
so it's not exactly that we're trying to attract people but
we are trying to attract people to especially we want to track young people because
we're going to be gone soon syllabus so be nice if they're some young people practicing so that they could carry on the teaching but it may be that you have to make good bread and
and not poison the land and
sing and dance in order for the young people some of the young people lot of the young people to come and hear about
the incredibly profound and inconceivably wonderful true dharma
but another thing that young people are interested in an actual young people but it's a key issue going on in the western world
and we live in the western world here
a key issue in the western world is justice
it's not that the key word word as far as i can tell us not a big key word in that huge country called china
so much from the chinese people about justice i hear about other people talking about justice for the chinese people but they have other agendas and also i don't hear the word justice as a big word in india
even though they speak english there are a lot and chinese are learning english to and they're learning the word justice
but it doesn't seem to be right up there in front for them
however if you look at what they're doing they actually are concerned with justice and sometimes communism's about distributive justice
but they don't use the word so much but we do in the west
so part of what i'm doing in this classes i'm offering this class as a way for us to try to figure out a way to bring the tremendous resources of this very subtle teaching from the east
about the truth and about how to be compassionate and peaceful and fearless an honest and ethical and skillful in this world to bring that together with to
but is very important concept in western society called
justice or social justice
i did a little survey or i've rental survey about surveys and
in the ancient texts or buddhism there's very little mention of the word justice course they don't have the english word justice but there's very little mention of a word which even they would translate it justice
and even in modern surveys of buddhist ethics there's very little discussion of
the word justice
i proposed your last week that the bodhisattva precepts
actually are
i consider them to be about justice but still when i say that a lot of people are buddhists were even western buddhists not to mention eastern buddhist my that they may never thought that before and certainly never heard it before
that the buddhist ethical precepts are by justice
i think they are but i think we have to have this kind of a big job and lot of work here to integrate to synthesize the buddhist teachings of essex
with the western idea of justice so that buddhist ethics and buddhist meditation will be seen to be relevant to an issue which is in the forefront of a lot of organizations and a lot of western governments and western people's hearts and young people's hearts that
part of what i'm trying to work on here with you
and i'm enlisting your participation
because it's not so much that i'm gonna tell you what justice is or how buddha dharma is about justice but rather
i am sort of relating to a basic principle and buddhist practice which is that the meaning
it is not in the words
the meaning of teaching is not in the words that teaching is given him
but the meaning comes forth for emerges
in the advent of energy brought to the word
like poetry for example
for me anyway
ah
when i read poetry i usually don't get anything the first reading i don't even hear the beauty of it usually the first reading if i hear it read particular if i hear read by the author i sometimes can hear the beauty of the words
but i usually don't get the meaning until i read it
enough to have memorized the text as they start to memorize a text by putting all that energy into it and some sense people who have a hard time member memorizing poetry have an advantage because they have for them to memorize that put more energy into it the more energy you put into the poetry the more meaning comes forth
i propose that and the same with buddhist teachings the more energy you put into them the more blood starts to flow
so i began proposing here that if we put a lot of energy bring a lot of energy to the buddhist teaching and to the word justice meaning will arise in those of you
who who give your energy to the discussion
to the meditation to the contemplation of the word justice and the teachings of buddha and also for the issue that the issue of their dynamic of their relationship
so again it's not need to tell you how this works exactly except as to offer you something to bring your energy to and to interact with and in the interaction
meeting will arise in the interaction not so much in you were in the words for you are in me but in the interaction between us this
this new creative energy will arise
so i
so we we have definitions of justice we have theories of justice
and we can also have debates about what justice is all of this can be part of this class and future discussions
but again the definitions are not just sitting there we have to interact with them the theories are not to be believed or just disbelieved but if you're going to disbelieve or argue with the theories
the point is that you bring your energy to it and in bringing your energy to it understanding can come
someone said to me just the other day i don't know if i'm being just
so just justice means the definition one definition of justice is
righteous
morally correct
morally righteous equitable bonus
being just quality of being just as for so i don't know if i'm being just
and i don't know if i'm being just either
but what i'm proposing to you is if you give your energy to the word just and to the word justice if you devote your energy to that does those concepts to those definitions to those theories and to the discussion of those definitions and theories with others

i'm i'm suggesting to you that there's a good possibility
i would say and actually unavoidable
i'll come that the meaning
of our life in relationship to justice
will be realized
he also just yet i just turn on saturday at know about somebody said i were talking about the practice the bodhisattva practice of
how of the dharma of nine abiding i'm not taking a fixed position anything
have been open
which is the way to practice perfection of wisdom so we had the word justice or the word injustice
and then there's instruction about how do you understand justice and injustice
by practicing perfection of wisdom with it
and how do you practice perfection of written by not by you you practice it by way of not taking a stand in anything
and then someone said will how can you how can use fight for justice or fight injustice without taking a stand
and i proposed to that person
you first have to love the world before you can save it
you have to love injustice
before you can free people from an injustice
you have to love justice before he can fit free people from their ideas and justice
lancia injustice yes love injustice love injustice injustice me if you've got a human being who is being an unjust
is an object of love in the buddha dharma
unjust confused people or objects of compassion
buddha loves them but it doesn't like him but it doesn't dislike them but it loves them
how does would love them by practicing
compassion imbued with perfection of wisdom practicing compassion with unjust people
i'm just causes on just behavior on just situations meeting them with compassion and perfect wisdom which means you don't abide in him
which again means you don't grasp them according to what you think they mean you bring your energy to them and find the meaning
but you don't avoid unjust situations
you go to them
and when i also said you
what is it you love the world but loving the world you have to get some assistance to love the world by asking people for feedback to make sure you don't love just part of the world
again
some people just love certain in certain neighborhoods
or they love certain color they love certain colors there's some obnoxious colors that they don't love
because they find him obnoxious
so this there's no select well i shouldn't say there's no selection but we don't abide in selection
so we study in we love the world we practice compassion with the world
the whole world and so we need help to make sure we don't get too narrow so we don't just practice compassion with our family or we don't just practice compassion in our workplace there we don't just practice compassion in our church and we don't just practice compassion in a buddhist temple
with practice compassion our vow is to practice compassion everywhere which comes along with not abiding anywhere so you if you live in a buddhist temple your practice there but you don't abide there so then when you go leave the buddhist temple and wind up someplace ounce you practice it there and
don't buy their so we don't stay there you practice system miles
now if you talk about this if i talk about this way i keep thinking well that sounds like justice that sounds like a basic principle of justice is equality for all
the everybody should be loved
and we shouldn't get into likes and dislikes with anybody
so we do like some people but we shouldn't abidin that
if we want to realize perfect wisdom
and if we want to realize justice
i propose that too
and of course if we see people we don't like we shouldn't abide in that
we should practice should practice not abiding with was with those we don't like and practice justice with them treat everybody equally
even though of course everybody eats read differently i mean everybody respond to differently but there's some way to be just with them to be righteous with them and that's the way of being basically treating them equally
although differently
he treat all people and young people differently but there's a way to treat them equally
what's the equal way
it's the just way with the just way it's called nine abiding is called loving them without abiding his compassion connected with perfect wisdom so i propose this is a if the i'm trying to work here with how does the teaching of the body as meditation
how does the boys office compassion and body sought as wisdom work with justice this is just me some just working on it with the a little bit here
hey the me that's enough for starters
to see if you can if you can start playing with it now bring your energy to it said enough for starters
where did you play
okay greatest thing
charlie
think maybe when you said about poetry coming coming to life in meaning coming forth when you study it never as it applies to song yeah play the songs to and many many religious traditions have songs
with words like like our chance
do you what why why doesn't vote buddhism have
castle
it does it does have those kinds of songs and like the heart sutra is a song and like be what is a t and we have the studio mir samadi you know the hockey goes on my the meaning of the the the teaching of such as has been intimately communicated
by buddhist and ancestors now you have it so keep it well getting it called the song
of the dual mirror somebody who didn't know miller has no melt butter in chinese there's a melody
didn't they haven't they have a melody and chinese but as
it's kind of even the try if we do if we did with if we canada with the chinese did if we try it i mean they would either think that we're really silly for successfully copying them or they would think that we're really silly for unsuccessfully copying them
okay so there there is a in in the context in which these things were composed there is a song and the had a song there but when we listen to their song we don't hear it because we haven't done it enough we didn't grow up with it we haven't learned that singing so we don't hear the melody
but the melodies of asian music of indian and chinese and tibetan and japanese and korean music
we don't hear it the way they do
and we'd also don't make the same sounds as they do
if you go there and you listen to the music you
it doesn't sound like ours but you you start to get moved by it and when you learn how to do it with them you enter into the level of meaning which happens when you put a lot of energy into vocalization and singing and poetry and
you just said singing when you put a lot of energy into it some meaning comes
and they they they have traditions of training people how to do this
chinese poetry an old days was only recited by highly trained musicians chinese
you know educated people played fit or instruments but they also played their voice there was supposed to be able to play instruments it was people to write poetry compose poetry and will do the calligraphy and also be able to sing it
as part of their training
and if if if you went to that trainee you huge from early age you would hear that you would hear that music
he would endure you know
but the the word melody is as a different meaning there than it does in the west we live in the west so if i sing a song and it can i like summertime in fact when i sing it because i saw a song it for some number of years and because i've heard to for some number years it has some meaning from
me and those who hear me and they somehow even here in the words of teaching a buddhism
and sometimes they change the word of our songs
for example that summertime it says so hush little baby don't you cry so i changed it to so rest little baby even while you cry
that i change the words
to to make it more clear that it's a song about
a but
practice of justice
so if i keep singing
and used keep singing
and the city and we sing together in meditation retreats
pretty soon pretty soon
it'll be clear in the west that we had in the zen tradition we say that singing is part of it and also if i keep dancing and you start dancing or keep dancing in the buddhist context the present context it will become clear that dancing is part of
they danced in asia but the way they dance an asian doesn't look like the way we dance in the west it doesn't work like a minuet
actually looked more like the minuet than it does like the tangle but recently at a session at green gosh recently like last december someone came up during the dharma talk and asked me to do the tango with her and i did
in my robes
and she's she's quite a good dancer so it actually he worked
she made me a successful tango dancer there during that session
so in a way you could you could say well we we were making the initial partial excursions into the understanding the profound understanding
we haven't yet reached the most profound understanding of the buddhist teaching for but we're starting and also we haven't really
made it completely western yet
so i would think that we will actually it will be it will in order to actually become fully alive there needs to be singing and dancing as part of the practice
agree and when it and hopefully that will come before buddhism dies on the planet
cause if it is the costs
you know if you can get it could get weaker and weaker however there's certain things which attract people still
so it's it's it's like the ecological crisis is the crisis in buddhism to it's like will will it become more relevant before the current generation disappears so the next generation will find it meaningful
and a big part of buddhism is what i'm talking about is adapting buddhism back adapting the buddhist teaching to become relevant to the issue of justice
part of the we i'm talking about that but as an adaptation that buddhism should be flexible
and it always has been that's how it could move from india to central asia
to tibet to china to southeast asia the to korea to japan to san francisco to you that it can do that it has as flexibility thing it doesn't hold and day you people must be japanese you people must be chinese it says we're chinese and we want to
trump give you this gift but were chinese so we do it and we give chinese gifts but we want you to receive these chinese or japanese or korean or vietnamese gifts and we want you to make them american
hey sir john
heard of play was so
something
i was here justice just use now
yeah so some buddhist cars with say that justice is actually
ah
what's the word equivalent to or dharma or dharma
dharma is equivalent to justice some people would say that git and or the way things are the way such as all is an equivalent to justice
however there's complications in that
does you know there's there's some problems there's some have to be careful with that
some quite a bit of work needs to do so that doesn't get misunderstood
avira

i was thinking of us

i know

that god is everywhere
anymore
two

i'm going on
i specifically
judaism is region
christianity religion
wow

the other replies
justice is and what you said before you

it makes you realize that
right and playing with them being playful with these words
what call to be
in zen zen is known
perhaps more than almost any other kind of a may not be
i'll just say then is known perhaps more than any other form of the buddhist tradition to be are involved in sincere wordplay
the dog and for examples very playful with words
and he brings so much energy to his words that they really starts spinning around and jumping all over the place in a very playful way and i thought ah
being playful with words is part of what happens when you bring your energy to it and as you give your energy more and more you actually start to relax more and more with the words and the worst start doing all kinds of amazing things which reveal the truth
so being playful with these words and daring to say for example that
ah the bodhisattva precepts are justice
or that the dharma is equivalent to justice to play with that and then but don't stop there and hold that but keep working with it invite people to debate you
and say it a conservative buddhists say to liberal voters and say it to jews and
christians and also in is islam islamic law is a big deal
law is a big deal there but blogs a big deal and buddhism to the dharma can be translated as law and one of the meanings of justice in the west is legal justice so there's justice in terms of human rights for individual rights there's justice of distributive justice and there's
legal justice for the three of the main meanings are three main headings under which justice as discussed in the west
but it is in buddhism these are not really discussed or directly
in the text in all tax now part of what we can do is also do ethnographic and anthropological study of buddhism in realize oh they haven't they just don't use that word in in and also in ancient texts they didn't use the word but the society that grew out of those texts
had it
so playing with the word justice and god and love
the bodhisattva precepts are dimension of love or dimension of compassion
not stealing is an aspect of compassion not lying is an aspect of compassion
compassion
he's justice
however there could be justice
without what people think of as compassion i i can you could kept her just relationship with someone like distribute material with the person in a way that they felt was just and equitable
but without a feeling of real of love and devotion to all those involved
enemies people who don't like each other who who actually don't feel compassionate towards each other we'd actually could be compassionate towards each other by being just
by just not stealing from each other it's a kind of love but they wouldn't think of it as lot they're just think okay i'm not stealing from this rat
and they're not they're not stealing from me
so it's a dimension a basic dimension and important a very important dimension of compassion i'm i'm saying that you
by the way i just recently
heard about this movie called charlie wilson's war
you know better movie
i didn't get that done recently fortunately as a democrat
charlie wilson's war
it's a good
what about it
my name is charlie wilson
i was looking at it and i just thought oh this is charlie wilson and he he he's not at war though exactly

yes
that

right
this contrasts with
our legal justice
someone has to be brought to justice
someone can feel some satisfaction
hear about that
satisfied
yeah

punishment

it often turns out to be it often turns out to be a unsatisfactory to all concerned yes but there are stories were on
where on
the person has done some unskillful thing and were punishment is involved but were all concerned fields that there's justice like the story i told last week this person did this is terribly cruel things
and then the this rabbi came to to give him his punishment
i was his punishment
that he would like
go through this process of repentance that was as punishment and i think maybe mean a lot of people would feel that that punishment was just and that and that justice also enlightened them and liberated him
and i have no story and was like wow i could tell you about that occurred in japan for somebody killed an innocent person and yeah and he was brought to trial and convicted in he admitted he did it and he was sentenced to death and between
the time of
and between the time of his sentencing to death and his execution
tremendous energy was given to him to help him
meditate on what he had done and come to terms with it and this in this story he basically became enlightened prior to being executed and was totally at peace with being executed and he basically had a successful wife
so there's the that particular societal situation that they sentenced to death but they also gave him a tremendous amount of moral support to evolve morally to basically a successful life before he died so his life was shortened by the execution
but it seems very just treatment he got in his case that he died and i'd happily and willingly and but he didn't wasn't able to do that by himself he got a lot of help in this process
so it it but this but this wasn't there a case where that the reason for doing it was because the family thought that they'd be happy if he got killed out that wasn't the point of this particular story the society felt like there was best for society and for this person in
this case was it was good for society in and i and i think good for those who heard the story to hear the story of this man coming to terms with what he did becoming basically enlightened and accepting
execution has part of the process

yes number

how is notified
practicing
while seems to me
that somebody in that
social situation was an abiding in him being a ruthless evil murderer
somebody was practicing compassion towards him
also see that
in that story i don't really know but in astoria didn't feel like the people were abiding and that he didn't do any wrong and then know and that the really was no issue or that i didn't kill him but he was abiding in in this story here to that the people who helped him were not necessarily and biting and he should be he should be executed or they weren't michelle
the abiding and he should be released
the man confessed that he did this he was he was he was a robbery in the process of the robbery he killed some people just sort of for register round
he didn't really intend to but he did
and he had him a history of being brutalized and traumatized so he was totaled
he was he was he was a person who you could say with the result of decades of injustice
he led an unjust situation
and i think that and then he didn't he did this terrible thing and created this great harm which he confessed to but then somebody didn't like let them stop themselves from being compassionate to him
and gave him a looks like just exactly what he needed thanks to the assistance to evolve in this you know spectacularly successful way
and to go from being extremely unskillful
the being
unusually skillful and kind and
happy
and also feel terrible about what he did but happy that he is no longer that way
somebody was not abiding in in in a situation i think in order to help him that way i'm not saying that people were perfect but they they somehow guided him to be able to do this
and he had enough time from the time is a conviction to his execution did go through this evolution and there was the intention that he would go through this evolution
almost almost as though since we're gonna take his life we're going to make him successful
it's almost like
while there's people like that
maybe we should all offer our lives to be taken that way
you know
if you can train me like that i'll give you my life you can do what you want with it if you will bring me to that pulled that point
and in some sense ah yeah
there's pretty stories like that you know like
somebody meets the border beasts makes the teacher and teacher says will you give your life to me and the person gives their life
and they become enlightened
yes
have a thickness on the versions
i just
just as seems like it is about it
story of
so
just about justice
yeah
nine a from here the way
seriously so much of what you've taught me over the years so my story about justice involves compassion and
he attempted assault the the reason non-self and does my story kind of meet those standards and somebody else's story that just leaves and other set of standards maybe whether businessmen have read to do in the way they should
that's another just story yes and it seems like when you talk about justice department will come up with these different stories
and then somebody does up somebody has to feel
it feels the somebody has to be a winner winner as some effects to way that you wouldn't want to talk about not a of solidity sonar justice
and the locking just like at last year to say you're in your example is a good one of so this this is a particular struggle you have her on the word justice and you haven't end and it's kind of related to what i say before some me so how can you fight against injustice if you don't take a stand
and so you're you're you're you're taking a coming at that that same area with us
from a flight that from a different angle
the proposal is here's part of the proposal of the tradition of the my honor them for the software tradition is that those who learn how to practice not abiding
can convert those who are poor abiding
that when someone who is abiding
ah meet somebody who is not this they have a chance to realize that they're suffering is coming from them being stuck
the one who is not stuck can teach them that their big stock is really kind of the fundamental problem
well as i said here before it is the job of those who know how to play and sing and dance to teach those who don't know how so people have the ideas of constant the eight stories of justice
songs of justice dances or justice but they don't know their songs and dances they're overly serious they they attribute substantially to the story they have justice so they can't play with it and if they can't play with it they can't understand it
they just stuck in a little box
of their story and they're suffering if they meet somebody who knows how to play with their story of justice that they have a story of justice to but they know how to play with it and they can teach the other person how to play with it when a person feels that
they start to feel their suffering slip away they start to feel some life flowing in them again
you know they start to notice their their rashes and their seizures are subsiding
so the proposal here is that in in the area of justice we we want to bring the body surface
miraculous powers which come from love that has no abode we want to bring not that bodhisattva spirit to meet those beings all over the world we have a particular in the west to have ideas of justice that are very important to them and they're stuck on that their rigid about
and that their suffering because
the the word justice is important to them the idea of justice important the principle of injustice it is important to him and we're not trying to talk him out of what they think it's important
we're trying to free them from your attachment and abiding in what they think it's important
so they think something important fine
i'm here to support you thinking
that it worked out there is important but i'm also here to teach you to lighten up and start singing and dancing know i can't do that i i got a hold tight is just justice thing yes but
watch me watch me play with it see i happy i see our fearless i am notice how frightened you are
that you lose your grip on your idea and actuality of justice so if even if you get your just as you're still scared death
whereas my justice which i don't get and i don't have
i'm not frightened
but i can still give you my justice and except yours wouldn't you like to be like that everybody would
okay this is easy to say
but
i i really think that week that we should go to this word with some attention and rigidity and play with it
we give our energy to this word and know and the surrounding principles and issues and all the fear and tension around it and teach ourselves and others how to be played together around this word
okay
okay all right elizabeth elizabeth
the situation
yeah you are you are and i'm trying to teach you to
yeah and i'm trying to teach you to play with it

sing a song about it right now

yeah
i don't care do whatever you want
summer time
and the justices sleazy
the fish are jumping and they take advantage of me
you
so rest little baby even while you cry one of these more names you're going to rise up singing you're going to spread your way then you'll take to the sky and
until that morning and there ain't nothing can harm you
with singing and dancing standing by
but if you start singing and dancing you'll break your arms and legs
when the tractor com you have given away you won't be able to sing and dance
so this is year this is your colon this is your test of your playfulness and you're saying honestly i don't know how to play with this situation i don't know how to relax okay fine
i would like to help you relax and be playful for this
yeah
i know
three yeah you know you know it very afraid
physically yeah
yeah
for anybody in this world
yeah in the face of what can the of yet but when you stand up don't tense up when you stand up
stand up and then say i'm standing up but i'm also getting out of the way see you later i'm not i'm standing up but i'm not standing up to hurt myself i'm standing up as a demonstration of my flexibility
i can be someplace out there on to be here but i came all my i did wouldn't be a special trip here to stand up and to get into say no i don't agree with this but i'm not gonna get tense about that and i can like get self righteous about that not me i'm just playfully thing i don't like this and i got my lawyer
here you know how to play with you and i'm standing up to you but i'm not going to be tense about this however if you're afraid then it's easy harder to relax on the other hand if you're relaxed it's assuages the fear the more you can be playful the less you will be afraid
the last week com
when you're caught in a fear yes
well relax and relax be playful start singing
start dancing
and remember
relax
relax with everything
meet everything with complete relaxation whatever
and then you can say stuff like i disagree
and then somebody can say no you don't and you can say you're so right
i disagree you said that before i know i'm saying it again i can't help it it just keeps coming to i love to say i disagree and i really mean it but i also am just playing to tell you i disagree
right
i think this is just
i do
and then somebody can come and say to you know you don't and then you can say no i don't
because you know you can say that
without abiding in either position and yet your karma your background is such that you millie feel it again and again
and again and then some day you don't sunday the person who disagrees with you you realize that they're telling you your story
and i propose that in this kind of negotiation justice is realized
but it's it's a painful process
and it's it's supported by being playful and relaxed
and as and before him in before we learn how to be playful and relaxed around issues of justice and right and what's right and what's fair and what's equal before we learn how to do that there's some fear
so we can't wait to start practicing this until there's no fear because we're going to have fear and as long as we don't practice it so we have start practicing before we get over our fear
and as we get better and better out at the fear calmed down and eventually the fear will be dropped by this practice
he yes laura

not really liked each other
yeah
like me and my students

a common goal
achieve that goal
yeah right me
say
also think that
the
you are still young
okay there's different points
i walked in
everybody's walking around the world
they were all part of buddha
is that your story
yeah is that destroy you just told me the story
my story right now listen to try to continue to this just seem right but then i'm sure what i'm saying to you is that are you abiding in history
yeah so i tell me
not not true
my tongue is move that way how the way i'd tell he wasn't true but i wasn't initially abiding anything to say that to you
are you biting industry
ah a little while a little sufficient a little counts yeah that's enough at in a little bit counts to make you afraid
yes you are
are you abiding in that
it looks like any apple
looks like a year so that that's a main things don't abide in the stories which you
pardon
nine not afraid of it
not mature i need you to be have different opinions otherwise is no point me coming over here
but
i there was wrong i just pointing out that it comes from you if you can be afraid i'm an app that okay with me i'm not abiding you in i modded i don't have this agenda like you should not be the way you are
if you know if you're afraid that's fine with me
yeah why i that's enough for me what you said so far he told enough of the story for me to ask you how you practice with it
it was
no
i'm not
yes john
i was worried it might be helpful
energy
yeah the styling of western
now
to think about the quality
the what qualities yes qualities read last week we talked about masculine feminine
right
i don't know much about
justice western precedent it rises from judeo christian traditions of evolution
gospel
residence and it seems to be a very masculine concept of justice that we fight for justice
be different than energy
describing coming from buddhism or be much more family
sadly
loving just described
it just strikes me that
yeah me who is just as relevant western what you will say is the to have to marry yeah western has to see that are lacking
yeah so that that does one picture of what benefit the buddha dharma might bring to the western ah
if issues and ideas of justice that the western idea that wouldn't maybe the someone masculine western presentation of this very important word justice is very important concept justice
which you know these organizations are you are really they're really concerned with justice
but this partly it's partly being presented in the background as a masculine thing
and there's a may maybe a more feminine approach to it coming from asia and and buddhism like i heard one one now psychologist typified the west as a power centered
concept and the east as being an empty centered concepts the empties hundred million more feminine so the picture in the west coming from like greece is of zeus the most intelligent and powerful being at the center of the divine mandola administering thunderbolts all over the place
in controlling all the other
you know and in a picture book zoo sitting on his throne looks a little bit like a judge sitting on our
it can like a judge a celestial judge very intelligent very powerful at the center of the picture whereas an east is more like everybody sitting around a big hole you know there's nothing in the middle and in even the leaders are sitting around the empty center
and these two actually these two pictures of how things work would be a nice merit would make a nice marriage
and south africa
there was forgiven
they say around
yeah even injustices
yeah yeah
i heard this one guy being interviewed i think terry gross was interviewing he was a guy who had been taught tortured
and and his torturer one of his main torturers came forth and confessed
that he did this and terry gross i asked him as the the person had been tortured if he if he thought this guy should be given amnesty
are you know partial amnesty or something like that
and the guy said
not partial i think it should be given complete amnesty he's come for it is confessed he's a he's apologized i think it should be completely ah
forgiven
the course that the person that that's the person has the most authority to save her
but he really felt that way he said if it comes forth and but doesn't and doesn't feel sorry that i don't think it's ready to that we're not we're not really forgiven them he has to really be sorry and he was he met the guy in the guy was really sorry he felt not satisfied
yes
that
yeah
the phrase it seems to suggest

yeah
justice

opening yourself to being very close to what it whatever it is
korea said ability
have a just solution
and it became a seamless south african hearings the if they had to say your sorry that they had to give a lot of detail and and that to really go into exactly if it didn't know how he felt who i think there's
yeah so that kind of intimacy i could feel okay i can see how that you're human yeah yeah on a on a much reduced scale sometimes people come in confessed to me
and sometimes they tell me something they've done that they feel bad about and on
i sometimes tell them i don't understand what the problem is
and then they told me the rest of the story
you know then they tell me the details make a hole or okay
i see what you're saying but sometimes they give me a kind of a reader's digest version of it and it sounds like well not quite why you bought you know why waste your time confessing that
but then when they put the colors in the details or tell the second half of the story then i got home okay if they'd told that the first place i just would have listened
but when they told us abbreviated version i didn't quite understand what the problem was i find me
and they didn't realize when they told me when they tell me the abbreviated version they didn't realize it was an abbreviated version they thought they'd actually confessed with the problem was
it's kind like in a dream you know he have a story but you'll realize that it's not the whole story and dream go to me when you when you write it down you realize all of that wasn't the whole story
yes
he said something about and pointed out and
justice

prickly poppy
yeah

no

can i start conceptual yeah yeah

i am
okay

inside the practice

and understand
put on dot com
i can
yes
okay i am
yeah so if you in this class can think of some way to bring that dimension of injustice
or
or or a bring in the pain that's involved in the neighborhood of justice if you can find some way to bring that out in this venue
and then we'll see if week how we can practice with it

pardon
wanna get it
here
or somebody wants you to
you know
to be aware of what he wants
last one sided
is one sided
how is one sided
yeah
now she said what she wanted she wanted to tell her story and he he wanted her to stop
he heard enough that he to you her enough for is actually kind of like it stop
in it that's painful
i'll be a new story
and if it's a me out as pain that be a new story that they could tell
so as some pain in the room
right now around this issue
maybe that would be
a rich way for us just to proceed i thought dumb i've had listened with brought up quite a bit a painter she's a situation where she's standing up to someone who she's afraid they're going to physically hurt her so
i thought we were working with the dare anybody else has some situations where they're actually feeling
pain and fear around some issue of
what diggers fine too but but he doesn't do word to skip over those
give you know please acknowledge those as real in the room problems the people in class are having right now which are bigger than any other problems in their life right now
and if you want to bring up any of you have anybody in know has any any actual the use a grounded you so let's help talk about your body or somebody's body okay
hi welcome those kinds of things right in his class to work with elizabeth
me
issue
why did here

wow
would say

forgive them
talk about
something was wrong
to me it makes it very difficult for me
condition for i have a lot more
so for me this is money that i think
a very hard for them
i feel very uncomfortable in after social justice
and yet i'm encouraged by checking
not to be generous
you're extremely uncomfortable position easily afford to pay them his money but then what would i be doing
walking step by step just the here today that
yeah from from forgiving
but why
yeah
from hartford from project forgiving and also perhaps being generous in a certain way you'd beat your actually being generous and another way right now which maybe they don't really appreciate but actually being generous because you don't have to do this no you don't financially need to do this you're doing it for some
as as a gift yeah
yeah
and if they will if they would go into more details about what they did then that would make it you'd be more ready to do something different than what you've been able to do so far
we can't forgive the person before they tell us a certain things
so this is the appreciate to which everybody's brought up and so we have two more meetings and it it might be nice if you could bring a real you know painful issue to to discuss i in the group of you feel comfortable
for already a letter about it
and if you don't want to say it in the group and i can bring it up in a group but everything got to important men we have enough ground now to start actually working with
like elizabeth actually presented her own current mean
main event around justice in her life if you have any things like that in your life
i welcome you to bring them forth
and
hi charlie wilson wrote an interesting matter which i didn't get to an ipad i like to bring it up
later
ah okay
let's try to make this
a grounded discussion in the next two weeks as much as you again this is something which
i think perhaps
i think one more yes

to eat animals is unjust yeah a lot of people feel that way

hello

okay
okay
said that's enough analysis with this is this is an issue of your concern of of justice in regard to animals were if we eat them and i think probably everybody in his room
shares this question maybe maybe somebody who doesn't but i wouldn't be surprised if every person is room is troubled around what deep
just relationship to this issue of eating animals is i i'm always paint markers myself not always but
much of the time
of course the gringo to find not eating animals had green gulch it is not so intense
but on
lot of other times it becomes more intense but even a gringo just somewhat an issue is animals and will eating thing
how much should you be contributing to supporting it because i agree authors we have you know like to offerings at most meals the vegan and non-vegan so some people are gringotts beer like even dairy products
involve
you know the production of
male offspring's from cows which then what do you do with the males so
in some sometimes drinking milk
is relates to killing balls baby balls and eggs
your some sense disturbing the chickens and so on so
even at gringotts the big and non-vegan thing is kind of a painful issue of how do we have justice around the food in a basically so-called vegetarian but there's two kinds of vegetarian and as some people green got into gringotts food but they aren't vegetarians they're just
eating non animal foods except and some events maybe some even vegas aren't vegetarians they just leave i mean i did not vegas they just eat vegan food so all these different kinds of people even within the zen center community where there's no meat or fish served there still as dairy products and eggs
so under sugar right and then his coffee you know bananas
the previous tensile no bananas because of what it know
the too far away and also you know and then there's so we were eating i were eating clip her fairly closely produced fair trade coffee
and there's some people are like going over the hill to starbucks
so we have all even with an even within this kind of confined rain of zen center we have this issue of justice around this particular issue so we're struggling with this and this is that this is the realm of justice are working with the struggles so please bring these painful issues to us
in his class next two weeks please thank you