Today is called Father's Day. Is that right? I knew that beforehand, so I thought about Father's Day. I thought about what it means to be a father. And in thinking about this, I remembered that I think the Hebrew way of saying father is Abba. And Abba is the root of the word abbot. And I realize that thinking about what an abbot is and what a father is are quite similar. So today I'd like to talk about have it be Father's Day and Abbott's Day. Now by coincidence, I, in this lifetime, have received the title father and the title abbot, so I can speak from my own experience.

[01:07]

And I can speak loudly, but in a way I want to whisper about it, so there's a contradiction in my speech. Excuse me, kosher. Could you go to my house and get my glasses? I think they're on the table someplace obvious. Yeah, I'll try. You still go, though. That's nice. Whoa. that was very helpful though I didn't notice that I couldn't see until I tried to

[02:16]

So my talk is about fatherhood, abbothood, and Buddha's Way. Buddha's Way can be expressed infinite ways, but one way to express it is Buddha's Way is to study the self. And to study the self means to study self and other. It means to study the relationship between self and other. It means to study relationship. It means to see and admit and be honest about what I am, so honest that I realize clearly what I'm not. And what I'm not is called the other. Studying this relationship between self and other is often difficult because there's a contradiction in self and other, because self and other is not really something that can be established.

[03:41]

And yet, we live according to that separation a lot of the time. So when it comes to being a father and when it comes to being an abbot and when it comes to studying the self, they're all difficult for me. They all involve painful contradictions between my responsibility and my authority and others. Studying this relationship is something I have not done very well. I have not been a very good father or abbot or student of the way. This is simply honest. Maybe an understatement, but honest. To convey my feeling, I recite a poem called A Father's Poem.

[04:55]

This is a poem for my son, Peter, who I have hurt a thousand times, whose large and vulnerable eyes have gazed in pain at my ragings. Thin wrists and fingers hung in boneless despair. Pale and freckled back, bent in defeat. Pillows soaked By my lack of understanding, I have scarred your frail competence by my impatience and weakness forever.

[06:10]

Because when I needed to be strict, you were there to be hurt. And because I thought you knew that you were beautiful and fair, your bright eyes and hair. And now I see that no one knows that about himself but must be told and retold until it takes hold. Because I think that anything can be killed after a while, especially beauty. So I write this poem for life, for love, and for my son, Peter, age 10.

[07:22]

going on 11. That poem was written by a man named Peter Meakey. And I think that this resonates with the way I've been a father. with the way I've been an abbot, with the way I take care of myself, and also with the way I've been taken care of. I don't know if my tears are for my sons and daughters and for the students who have trusted me or if they're for myself.

[08:28]

Now I can see the eyes of the people in the back. The most important thing for an abbot is to know the hearts of the community. The most important thing for a father is to know the hearts of his children. I propose that to know the hearts of others, we must know our own heart. if we skip over our heart and don't take care of it and study it, how will we be able to see where others' hearts start?

[09:40]

Someone said to me, a man seldom dies thinking I should have worked more even a lazy man seldom thinks that a man seldom dies thinking I spent too much time studying my heart looking at myself studying my relationship with others If we study our relationship with others and if we study ourself, we will see what our work is. But what we often do, especially as men who have the title of father or abbot, is we think we have some job to do and we work on that job. We fulfill those tasks and think, oh, I must do this work.

[10:57]

I don't have time to look at myself. But our real work comes forth from study of the self and study of the relationship between self and others, between self and the environment. Welcome. When Buddha comes, you should offer him a seat.

[12:21]

Is there somebody else out there? Come in, we're waiting for you. You can sit up there if you want to. So I must admit that in my trying to fulfill my responsibility as abbot, I didn't pay enough attention to my daughter. And also, I didn't pay enough attention to a little girl that lives inside of me.

[13:29]

I didn't think that was my job. And now I see that it is my job. And that if I take care of the little girl inside of me, I will take better care of my job as abbot. But it took me a long time and a lot of suffering to see that. Oftentimes in the past when she was hurt, this little girl inside me, I would say, I would say, don't worry dear, I'll take care of them. Rather than, how are you feeling? What do you want to do now? She didn't want defense. She wanted attention. She didn't want me to eliminate those who hurt her feelings. She wanted me to take her home.

[14:31]

But I was more into protecting than listening. More into defense than than directly addressing her pain. So I was not a very good father to my own heart. And of course I did the same thing with the big girls who were practicing with me. Also recently I had a dream which I told people about here a while ago. I had a dream of being like I am, like this person who many people want to talk to. I remember Suzuki Roshi, the founder of Zen Center.

[15:36]

When Zen Center was first going, it was quite small, and he could just talk to whoever he wanted to talk to. If somebody wanted to talk to him, he'd talk to him. But Zen Center started to grow after we started Tassajara. And he said in the last part of his life, he said, now Zen Center has gotten very big. And I have to have appointments with people. He didn't need a secretary in the early days. But towards the end, he needed to make appointments. And then he also said to me one time, after I die, Zen Center will expand. And it did. So now I'm in a position where I have to make appointments with people. And so I had this dream. And in the dream, like I was going to an appointment with somebody, and then I realized I was late with an appointment with somebody else. So then my secretary came to me and said, you have to catch a 3 o'clock plane.

[16:38]

And it's now almost 3 o'clock. And then somebody else came up to me and said, I need to talk to you. And this went on for quite a while. And actually, in the dream, I wasn't worried because this is my normal life. In the middle of all that, somehow someone came to me and asked me if I could be on a, I was going to say search committee, but that has a technical meaning now, doesn't it? On a search party. searching for a little boy that was lost. And although we were looking for this boy, somehow I could see what this boy looked like. I got a vision of him. And he was about I don't know, four to six years old, sort of fairly normal size and had blonde hair and light complexion.

[17:42]

And I looked at him, I realized that he was maybe either, what do you call it, autistic or maybe had Down syndrome, somewhere between there. Anyway, he was more or less kind of like, he wasn't capable of what you might call normal social interactions. Or put another way, there's some kinds of interactions we can get into that he just couldn't get into. And I noticed that I thought, okay, I'll be on this search I'll be on this search party. And then the person who was in charge of the search party, I think it was a woman, indicated that there would be some kind of briefing about how to search and some instruction about how to do this.

[18:48]

And I thought, oh, wait a minute. I'm willing to go look for this kid, but I'm not going to go to school about how to look for him. That's too much. I mean, this is a sideline. I'm willing to, sure, I'll do some more stuff on top of everything else I do, but I'm a busy person and, you know, don't expect me to, like, go look for this kid and also, like, sit here and be told a lot about how to go look for him. It's too much. And I don't remember if it was in the dream or afterwards. I thought, well, yeah, I did feel that way, like this is asking too much of me. But then I thought, but in a strict sense, then practice, you should take everything, uh, you know, on with an intention to do it thoroughly. So I noticed that I was willing to be thorough about trying to take care of the, you know, manifold, multitude, contradictory responsibilities that I had there with all these different people wanting various things.

[19:55]

That seemed okay, but I wasn't willing to give my complete devotion to looking for this kid or even to be educated about looking for this kid and I felt a little bit ashamed of that. Somebody gave me a little snippet from a book the other day about something or other and one part that got me was that something like this that you need to you need to get a sense a kind of an unhappy sense that nothing matters until you can realize that everything matters usually that's necessary first you may think that everything matters but somehow realizing that nothing matters Maybe to go down to that pit where you don't care about anything.

[20:58]

Maybe that's necessary before you care about everything. Anyway, reflecting on this dream, I realized that really, in a sense, really my work is to look for that disabled boy. That boy who can't do anything. that boy who can't tell the difference between himself and other people. One of our scriptures says, like a babe in the world in five aspects complete, except this kid didn't have five aspects complete. But anyway, like a babe in the world, a normal baby who can't rise or stand or walk or talk. This is a description of a Buddha. There's somebody inside there who is totally disabled, who can't do anything herself, who is only enabled by others.

[22:12]

It looked like that was surprising or difficult to hear, was it? Another way to say this is, not to say that, but to go back to this thing about nothing matters and everything matters, is there's a place where meaninglessness, I wish we had a shorter word for that, but where the place where lack of meaning turns into meaning. There's a place where it turns. And the place it turns is right there. There's a very close relationship between meaninglessness and meaning. Or I might even propose that we walk around with each of us with some level of meaning, some sense of we have meaning. But maybe the way to deepen that meaning is to open up to the terrors of eternity, the beautiful terrors of eternity, where certain things don't make any sense anymore, where a lot of things are meaningless.

[23:41]

Consulting this beautiful terror, we may come back with a deeper meaning. But oftentimes we're kind of like doing okay with the present level of meaning or tolerating the shadow of meaninglessness. We don't want to turn and look at it. It's maybe scary, frightening, terrifying, terrific. Some other day, somebody, maybe me, can talk about the mother principle, which is sustaining us in a certain way all the time.

[24:52]

What is the father principle? I don't know. A few days ago the word love came to my lips and I realized that I didn't know what it was. And I thought that I had known before and I had forgotten. And I was embarrassed. To some extent I thought I should be walking around knowing what it was. So anytime somebody asked I could tell them. This is called knowing what love is and telling people what you know. I'm not criticizing that. It sounds like fun actually. Wouldn't that be nice if you knew what it was and you could tell someone? I think actually when I realized I'd forgotten that I must have thought I knew before that there was a time maybe even just a week ago when I knew what it was and I could tell people.

[26:01]

But then I thought well maybe that's more appropriate that I don't know what it is. Maybe it's more important to love than to know what love is. Which is most important, to know it or to be it? Well, kind of like we got a problem here because we're into knowing things too. Right? So even if you suddenly found yourself in the middle of love, You still might say, what is it? And try to know it. But in knowing it, in the knowing of it, you lose it. At least in the beginning of knowing it, you lose it. What is it anyway?

[27:12]

And I actually told somebody what it was, and I felt bad after I said so. I think I said it was ultimately not seeing others as objects outside yourself. It's not some particular feeling of affection or anger or confusion. It's just understanding that what's before you is not an object. It's just seeing whatever it is, period. It's just listening, period. without thinking that that sound or that sight is outside. I said that, but I feel bad saying that. I'd rather live that way than know that.

[28:20]

But being a human being, as soon as I start living that way, I know it. And as soon as I know it, I lose it. And as soon as I lose it, I want it back. You know, I said that I have the title father and the title abbot because, you know, both of those were given to me. In many ways. Do you understand? On one level, I never told my daughter to call me father or daddy or dad. I never told her to do that. And her mother never called me. I don't think her mother ever called me daddy or dad or father.

[29:22]

And I don't think her mother ever, oh, I think her mother probably maybe said, go ask your dad. But I think, I don't remember exactly, but somehow she came up with calling me daddy. And now sometimes she calls me father. She decided to do that in a house where it would have been all right if she called me Reb. She gave me that title, Daddy and Father. She gave that to me. Even though she gave it to me, still I don't feel worthy of that gift, but she gave it anyway. And a community of people gave me the title Abbot. This is a gift to me. These people let me play this role of father, of abbot. There's no such thing as these kinds of things without people giving it to somebody.

[30:37]

Also, there's some giving and making the baby in the first place. You can't have a father without a mother. Now these days people think you can have a mother without a father. I don't dare comment on that scenario. I'm not up to date on that. But I say you can't have a father without a mother. You can't have a mother without a child. And you can't have a child without a mother. And you can't have a child without a father. And you can't have a father without a child. It isn't just that you can't have a father without a child. You can't have a child without a father. So all these things make each other. This is Buddha's main teaching. This is the content of the Buddha mind.

[31:44]

It's called dependent co-arising. That everything comes forth from all directions in the universe to make each thing. And the fact that everything comes forth to make each thing is that thing's authority. And everything has authority because everything is the arrival of everything else. Everything is the realization of the rest of the world. And that makes each thing important, and that makes everything matter. But somehow, unless nothing matters, we don't give up everything and look and see that everything deserves our complete and thorough attention. because everything has this great radiant authority.

[32:46]

Everything. This is Zen. We say there's no place in the world you can spit. There's no spittoon in the universe. In other words, there's no place you can spit. There's no place that's like a low-quality place. that you can like, okay, well, I can spit there. That's not an important place. There's no place on the earth like that. There's not one place. Now you might say, that's rather inconvenient. You could just stop spitting. Can you hear me okay in the back? I'm not telling you to stop spitting. I'm just saying that if you spit, you should realize you're spitting in a precious place. And maybe you should brush your teeth first before you spit. Just like when you go to have your teeth cleaned, you know, and the dental hygienist is going to help you clean them even more, why don't you clean them a little bit first?

[33:57]

And then she or he will be more likely to realize that your mouth is also not a place that can be spit into. that it's a clean, soon to be well-lighted place. Again, this stupid boy doesn't know any better. He can't tell, oh, this is a good place and this is not a good place. Oh, this is a place where I respect. This is not a place I respect. He respects every place because every place is his life. He has no place where he says, oh, this isn't my life. He's too dumb to figure that out. He just thinks life, [...] life. Not like, oh, this is my big... a basal responsibility here.

[35:00]

And this is like a measly family responsibility. This is my responsibility to all sentient beings, you know, to the big community, to the cultural evolution. And this is just like some little thing over here. He's too dumb. Or he doesn't think, oh, now that's something that should hurt me. And sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. If they splash mud on my party dress, it's not going to bother me. I took my daughter to see this movie, Song of the South. Is it a Walt Disney movie? When she was about three. And there was one scene there where a little girl got put on a party dress. and she was going to a party and I think she ran either into her brother or anyway some big boys she ran into and they were teasing her and they pushed her and they pushed her down and she fell into a mud puddle and she got her party dress all muddy and I think somebody said oh we can get you another party dress actually they couldn't get her one that nice because she was a poor girl

[36:24]

And she didn't have, like, two nice party dresses. But they said, oh, we can clean it, or we can get you another one. I forgot exactly. You remember the story? But the point is, she didn't want to go to the party anymore. She didn't want to, like, okay, snap out of it, kid. Here is a new party dress. Now go to the party. She was too hurt. She didn't want to go to the party anymore. She didn't want to sing and dance. She wanted to cry. And she did very nicely. And my little daughter sitting next to me burst into tears at that time. And she was inconsolable. I told her that it was just a movie. She was inconsolable. She was not going to stop crying. She had enough of the movie. She didn't want to play anymore. She wanted to go home. And so we left. But, you know, at that time, I didn't really understand her motivation.

[37:29]

I didn't really understand. I thought it would be okay to cry, to watch somebody cry, to cry a little bit, and to continue watching the movie. But that wasn't the way it was for her. And last winter, in the mountains, I understood that mind that does not want to play anymore because her party dress got mud on it. That's just the way it is sometimes. And I heard that little girl. And I dedicated myself to give her more attention. To not protect her from that kind of experience to listen to it. So my daughter taught me about myself in that way. Also, I thought, when she was first born, I gave her baths.

[38:38]

And so that was one of my tasks at home. I gave her baths. Her mother didn't. And I thought about that, just in thinking about this talk, I thought about that. And I also used to wipe her bottom, wipe the various stuff off there. and put powder on and stuff. When she was eight, I told her that I thought she was getting too big for us to take baths anymore. I was pretty much the same size, but she was getting bigger and bigger. She was getting to be more and more like her mother, physically, closer in size and shape and the way of moving.

[39:42]

And she said, well, why? What's the reason for that? And she didn't like this idea of me not taking baths with her anymore. And I must confess, at first I said, I'm so ashamed. At first I said, well, your mother thinks we should stop. I know that's bad. I learned because I went and told her mother. And she said, don't put it on me. If you don't think so, forget it. Do you think it's appropriate to continue now? What do you think? And so I realized that I could speak from my own, my own feeling about it.

[40:46]

And I thought about my own feelings. So then back in the bathtub again, I said, you know, I don't want to, it's not because your mom thinks we should stop or actually also your grandmother. That's not the reason. I said, wouldn't you think it was funny if your mom took a bath with your grandfather? Wouldn't that seem funny? And she said, yeah. I said, and do you notice that you're more like your mom than you are like me physically? She said, yes. And do you notice that you're getting more and more like her? And she said, yes. I said, well, that's the reason. It's just kind of funny. It's something funny about it. And it's getting more and more like that. Every day you're starting to be more that way. And it's getting to be more like your mom and your grandfather.

[41:46]

And she kind of could see that. So that was that. And then a few minutes later she came into our room. And she stuck her head in the door, and this stuck her head in the door, which is not her usual way. Usually she just barges in, as though she owns the place, and says, she used to say, me be mibble, which means me be in the middle. Okay, you guys, separate, let me be in the middle. But she didn't. She acted as though our room was not her room a little bit and stuck her head in, which she almost never did. It was kind of like, can I come in? A little recognition here of separation. Because that's what was starting to happen. I was separating from her. I was separating from someone who...

[42:53]

you know, from the time she was born was kind of like as close to me as anything could be. Someone who could vomit in my face with total impunity. Because what was inside her was the same as what's inside me, no difference. But now I had to start to separate from her. It seemed appropriate. It's part of growing up. So she stuck her head in the room as though it was maybe somebody else's room now. And she looked sad. And her mother said, are you sad? And she said, yes. And she said, your dad still loves you, you know. And she said, I know. but you're growing up she said I know and you could see in her face this this beautiful tension between a girl who had become separated somewhat from her father and a girl who could see a horizon of something coming and she didn't know what it was but she was happy about it she was looking forward to it you know it was the room was big

[44:24]

And now, many years later, I don't know, many, anyway, a decade later approximately, now I feel like, oh, it would be funny, it would be, now I can hardly believe that I would be in the bathtub with her and I would be wiping her fanny. I can hardly, it seems very strange now that I was so close to her in that way. But now my relationship with her is more spiritual. And it's difficult to find it. And it's painful to give it enough attention to discover how we're still connected or how we can reconnect. I knew what love was when she was first born. The instant I saw her, I said to myself, oh, now I understand. what my parents meant when they said, I love you.

[45:32]

Because I felt a love that I'd never felt before at that moment. So I did know what love was, but when I knew it, I lost it. And now I have to find it again. With this stranger, with this person who takes care of her own body, this big thing, So there is in our heart and in everything about us an authority. And this authority is given to us by all things. And for the purposes of our development we have a father to look at

[46:42]

and to see and to give, to look at and to give authority to, so we can see it eventually in ourselves. We loan it to him. In spiritual matters, we can loan this same authority, our inner authority of our heart, we can loan this authority to a woman, too. We can have a woman father in that sense. A woman who becomes an external reflection of our inner authority. And we can work with that to help us find it. But again, this is difficult because we have the expression now, giving away our authority. But somehow we need to project it outside to see it, because we have trouble seeing it in ourselves.

[47:51]

I thought you knew you were beautiful and fair, your bright eyes and hair. But now I see that no one knows that about herself, but must be told. And who's going to tell you? Of course a mother can tell you, but really I propose that the father must tell you too. The mother does tell you. Your mother needs to tell you too. But usually she doesn't tell you by saying you're beautiful. Usually she just looks at you when you're quite young. She looks at you while your father is still giving you baths. And she looks at you and she says, you are beautiful beyond any measure. You are the universe. You are everything. Nothing is more important than you. I am totally devoted to you.

[49:01]

She doesn't say that. She says, you're just like me. I care about you just like I care about myself, even more. And she just looks at us, and we see that, and this is important. But later, our father, who we give that authority to, who didn't come from his body, he's out there. He's not us. He's another thing. He's external. He's the guy who comes to visit from out of town. He goes out during the day and comes back. He plays with us, hopefully. And we give him authority. We respect him so that when he tells us that we're beautiful, it works.

[50:08]

I don't feel, actually, that the problem is on the side of giving the father the authority. I think people do it with incredible generosity. I think that little girls and little boys give that fleeting image, that guy who's not around very much, they just see him coming flying through town, and they zap out the authority. They throw it at him and say, here, take it. Dad, here. You can be my dad. I want a dad. Yeah, I'd like you around more, but I'll give it to you even though you're just visiting for a moment, because I need to see it. I need to hear it back from somebody. So actually, my father left me when I was 11. Before that, he told me many times that I was beautiful. Many times. He told me I was strong. He told me he wanted me to be able to hit that ball, tote that barge.

[51:14]

Lift that bale. He told me he wanted to. He told me that he loved me. And he told me that I had to do it myself. That was helpful to me. But then he left. And so I went and I found that same authority. I gave it to my algebra teacher. I gave it to my football coach. I gave it to my track coach. And they received my gift and they gave it back to me. And they said, you're beautiful. You're great. And they told me over and over until it took hold. One time is not enough. Because we don't know that about ourselves. But we must be told and retold until it takes hold. And telling ourselves is not the way. although I'd have no problem with that, the other thing is necessary.

[52:18]

So the problem is actually on the other side. We have been given that. We fathers have been given it very nicely. We have to now do our job. We have to tell. We have to put that boy and that girl in our heart and walk around with it and adore it and say we see it We have to do that. And I have not done a very good job of that. But I say this, I say all this for life and for love and for my son Peter, age 10 going on 11. Can you remember when we all used to take baths together?

[53:50]

We did, you know. We used to be in the bathtub together. But we weren't skillful enough to wipe each other's fannies. Anyway, happy Father's Day, and please call your father and tell him something, even if he's dead. So I call my father right now, and I say, thank you. Is there a book I can find for you?

[55:08]

I will... I'll put some copies in my basket. In the office. And you can go get one. For your very own. What am I saying? What am I saying? Will you make it two coffees? I will make several. If you remind me, when more people come in here, I'll say that again. I'm glad I didn't write it, otherwise I'd be famous. Anything else here?

[56:09]

Yes? In the beginning of the talk, you said that... Could you come closer? Could those chairs come closer? Sure. I just feel like I like to whisper these things. I'm sorry. Right up here. Really?

[57:32]

All right. Thank you. There's a chair here. I think the most important thing I got out of your talk this morning was, I mean, the element of people are really giving you authority to be the father. Seeing it from that point of view, seeing it a different way. You mentioned about the mother being the sustainer. I suppose the father, traditionally in our culture, The husbanding resources or whatever to try to make it so the fabric's not going to be missing on the heels.

[58:36]

Yeah, that's the husbanding part of the husband. But, you know, that's more like a conveyor belt. Actually, it's like you're conveying things from outside into the family. What I was emphasizing is the family gives you something which you give back. I was emphasizing more the mirror-like. Practice is not so much about being a conveyor belt as it is about relationship and reflection. Because you can still sort of like be a self in the middle of the process That other way. So husbanding is important, but I was trying to emphasize the issue of authority and that it's given to you. So that is the main point. And so our job as fathers is to somehow give back what's been given to us.

[59:40]

Sometimes we don't even know what's been given to us, unfortunately. We don't know how much people give us. We don't realize that. I mean, you know, and particularly if you have a position like Abbott, people come and see you, you don't know what they feel. But they're oftentimes feeling like tremendous presence that they've given you. They give it to you and then they feel like, wow. Wow. Before people come into a room to talk to me, they're kind of like, they're trembling, you know, because of what they put into the room before they even went in. They did it. And I gradually am learning what this, about this. Yes. Yes. I don't know exactly the words that you use, but I'm going to tell you this.

[60:45]

It may not sound really great. We need help. We need help to do it. You remember Jeff Parker said he was fairly close to the community. Well, why don't you tell me what you heard? You know, part of me said, well, can't I do this myself? You know, this little boy says, well... Do what? Parent myself. I think it came up in conjunction with some class I had saying how much we need this outside. You're beautiful, you're okay, so on. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, right. I'm thinking that, you know, what if some of us don't have that? Yeah, I don't think you can do it yourself, no. Even when you do it yourself when nobody else is around, still you experience a voice coming up.

[61:46]

If you're just sitting there talking to yourself, it doesn't really, it doesn't do much for you. One time I was talking to somebody, I was in a conversation with somebody and they were going on and on and on and I was, my energy, I was losing my energy and I couldn't, I couldn't rouse myself and I also didn't have enough energy to get out of the conversation. And they were like smothering me. And it was somebody who was talking nonstop, you know, and wasn't giving me space to politely, you know, say like, you know, hello, you know. I didn't have energy to say, hello, do you want this to be a monologue? I couldn't say anything. I was just like going down, down, down. I was lost. I was done for. My only hope was that he would stop and leave me alone. And inside, a voice came up inside of me, which is not me talking to myself, really. It's this voice, you know, it's this chatter, and it said, I love you, Rebbe.

[62:51]

And I relaxed. My energy came back. And I think I probably said, you know, great, nice to talk to you, see you later, or whatever, you know, I just, I had my energy came back so I could take care of myself. That's what I mean by, it's that kind of thing. But just talking to yourself basically just tires you out. Even if our parents didn't care for us, there's some, but I hope, Well, your parents gave you some of it, otherwise you wouldn't be here, but they didn't give you enough. Almost no one gets enough. Or sometimes they get too much. Almost no one gets the right amount, and we have to now get the right amount. So we find our true authority. Sometimes we think too much about something of ourself. We overly value it or underly value it. But to tune into the precise respect... for what we are. To see action that way, we actually need another face. We cannot see our face.

[63:54]

So we need to look at another face to see our face. And by looking at another face, we can find out who we are. We can find our authority. Our authority is right out there in the world. We put it out there. The way it looks is telling us about precisely exactly what we are and what we are exactly. is the most wonderful thing. It is Buddha. What you are exactly is what is called Buddha. But you can't, somehow we can't turn back and see it, because you can't see your face. We must see Buddha's face to realize Buddha. We have a Buddha face, but we cannot see it. We need another to see it. Yeah, but that's just the way we're built. We've got a face here, but we can't see it. But we must see the face because it's Buddha's face. Once you see Buddha's face, you're fine.

[64:58]

And so we must be able to see Buddha's face everywhere. That's what Buddha's face really is. When you see in every person your Buddha face. And that's what practice is about. It's about being willing to interact with people, to go into the difficult situations of relationships, to be upright and honest and to be flexible and gentle, then you can see Buddha's face. And patient, too. And you can't do it yourself, by yourself, alone. And also, nobody else can do it for you. You do it with other people. And fortunately, you are never alone. So, it can't happen. You can do your part, everybody else can do their part, and you can realize what's called Buddha's Way. It is possible, it can happen, and you can't do it yourself.

[66:03]

And you have a big responsibility, too. Yes? Yes? Was there a scale to this? As you were talking, I was thinking of like the great white father in Washington sort of thing. Just to hear your thoughts on how this scales up to like bigger relationships, more abstract relationships that also seem to have like a quality deludedness to them. Like our custom, big national, big national communities. Well, I personally almost never gave George Bush any authority, so he couldn't give me anything back. If you give somebody authority, it's a risk.

[67:07]

But if you give them authority, they can give it back to you, possibly. They might not, but the thing is, I won't say you have nothing to lose. I won't say that. But you won't realize your way unless you give somebody authority. So I wouldn't necessarily start by giving my authority to somebody far away that I don't know very well and is going to have trouble giving it back to me. So start with somebody close, somebody you can see with your face, with your eyes, somebody you can talk to and get a response with. You work your way up from a situation with somebody that you think is capable of receiving your gift and able to pass it back. Watch and see if the person, he or she, watch and see, do they have relationships already where people give them authority and they hand it back? Do you see that already? Do you see people respecting them and then feeling respected?

[68:10]

And so that's a person you might think, well, maybe that person I could do it with. And you could explore. You could even say to them, you know, if I gave you a lot of authority, would you give it back to me? And then you could sort of like talk to them about that and see what came out of a risky statement like that. Once you develop one, two, three relationships, where you've given and received, given and received, received and given, once that starts happening, you can extend it out to giving George Bush some authority. I gave George Bush some authority one time. I asked him more than once. When I listened to him and watched him, just listening to him and watching him, I gave him a little authority. I say, he's worth listening to a little, at least. Right now, anyway, I'll listen to him. The fact that I'm willing to listen to him as he speaks or as I see his image on a TV screen, the fact that I'm willing to do that comes from my authority.

[69:19]

I'm Buddha. I care about George Bush too. I have compassion for him too. I have compassion for people being executed over the hill here in gas chambers. I have compassion for the guards. I have compassion for the people who pull the lever. I have compassion for the governor. I have compassion for the parents of the children that were killed. I have compassion for the killed. That's my authority. That's my authority. Each of us have a compassionate heart that has immeasurable authority. When you listen to someone, you give them some respect. But that's because of your authority. If you then give them some authority, which you do if you care enough to look at them, you're giving them a little authority. It may come back. So, for example, I looked at George Bush on TV one time, you know, during that broccoli controversy.

[70:21]

Remember that one? He said, I think he said publicly he didn't like broccoli and broccoli farmers got all upset because they thought it was going to hurt their business or something. The president is putting down broccoli and his wife stood up and said, I love broccoli. And the broccoli farmers sent various special Chinese cooks and stuff to make special broccoli dishes to get him to like broccoli. Remember that? I don't know much about George Bush, but I follow this closely because I love broccoli. And I do not want the flow of broccoli to stop. Want to give me a Father's Day present? Send me some broccoli. Do they have broccoli candy? Anyway, I'm not done. I'm not done. Now I'm going to tell you about George Bush. Because I saw him on TV.

[71:22]

after they told him about this big thing, you know, and he's out there on the lawn or something, and they're interviewing him, and he said, look, I'm 65 years old, I'm the president of the United States, I don't like broccoli, and that's it. Don't make me eat it. And I felt some compassion for the guy. I thought, that's good, George. That's honest. You know, well, you don't have to eat broccoli. It's okay. You're a big boy now. You're wrong, but you're a big boy. You know? I gave him some authority. And that was okay. And he gave it back to me. I felt good giving it to him. I felt like, yeah, be a man. That's okay. It didn't hurt anybody. In fact, it was helpful. And he wasn't putting down broccoli. He just didn't like it. It was okay, you know? So... And if you pay attention, you might see opportunities to give people at a distance some authority and feel that when you give it to them, it warms your heart.

[72:28]

It warms your heart to feel some compassion for people who have done various stupid things, even people who you think do evil things. To close your heart to evil makes you susceptible to it. It can't hurt you if you don't see it as external. I've never tried this, but I just say, a tiger in the backseat of a Volkswagen is not dangerous. If you're in the backseat with it. Do you know what I mean? I haven't tested that, though. But if somebody wants to set up the test when I'm really old, I'll go in there. Somehow, the hard part is to get in the... Somehow, if we could just suddenly be there in the back seat, I think it would be okay. Yes? Yes? Excuse me, but what was your name?

[73:31]

Barney? Sam. Sam? And what's your name? Patricia. Patricia. And what's your name? Dory. Dory. One of the images in your talk that's very powerful for me is the image of... The teardrop pillow, you were there when I used to be strict. I wonder if you could reflect a little bit more on the parent, father, mother, doing the best they can, and still the child that's submissive, the parent doesn't understand. How do you develop that compassion for your own hurt? How do you develop compassion for yourself and your mistakes? Yeah. Number one, admit your mistake. That's almost all of it, actually. Once you admit it, you've forgiven yourself enough to let yourself admit it.

[74:32]

If you haven't forgiven yourself, you can't really admit it. Most of forgiveness is being honest. Once you're completely honest, that's pretty much all you need. That's enough forgiveness, actually. As soon as you're honest, you are forgiven, like that, boom. And if you are admitting it to yourself, that shows you've forgiven yourself. When you still haven't forgiven yourself, you're holding back a little bit, saying, well, you know, it wasn't that bad. That shows you that if it was as bad as maybe it was, then you wouldn't have trouble forgiving yourself. Does that make sense? This is important. If it doesn't make sense, talk about it. And the forgiveness is not just coming from yourself. It shows that if you admit completely what... some non-virtuous way of caring for the loved ones, if you admit that, you not only forgive yourself, you are also forgiven simultaneously by them and by Buddha. It happens in both directions exactly at the moment that you completely admit it.

[75:38]

If someone hurts you, if someone hurts you, if your parents hurt you, If they misunderstand you and you soak your pillow and they come in and they admit and they're honest about what they did, what more could you ask? Hating themselves, you know, ripping their hair out, that's easier by far than admitting what it was. Pulling your hair out is not as bad as admitting some mean thing you've done in your heart. If you do that and your child sees that, not only will they forgive you, but you'll be showing them a wonderful lesson, which they will maybe be able to do someday with their children. Because we are impatient. We are weak. We are stupid. A lot of the time. That's just the way people are. Humans are born blind. and unconscious, more usually.

[76:41]

But you can learn to be honest. And honesty and uprightness in your stupidity will release you. Yeah, what if you do? Basically, I wouldn't say plan on it. But I would say, don't plan on stopping, because as soon as you plan on stopping, you might think you did stop, and then you're in big trouble. Because you think, hey, I did that, but I'm not stupid anymore, so it wasn't really a problem. Now, for now, lately, and from now on, I'm going to be doing the right thing, so that must have been right, too. People actually think like that. And these people, of course, in addition to being, making mistakes like everybody else, they have no way to save themselves admitting that they're wrong plus they have no way of showing other people how beautiful it is to admit that they're wrong and also to let them recover from the wrong the wrong was basically that they weren't honest that's basically what the wrong probably was they weren't honest and because they weren't honest they didn't understand us how can a dishonest person understand you

[77:58]

Not much of a chance. How can you lie to yourself about where you're at and then see where somebody else is? If you're strict with yourself in an inappropriate way, then you're going to project it out on your kids. If you don't take care of yourself, that process is going to pervade. if you're honest about not taking care of yourself, if you're honest that you don't have time for your inner boy or your inner girl or both, then maybe it would occur to you, maybe I think I don't have time for my kids either. So if I don't have time for my kids, maybe I should go on a vacation. Maybe I should temporarily disqualify myself from this great honor I've been bestowed by them and go away until I'm willing to take care of myself. And therefore, take care of them. If I'm too busy to pay attention to my inner child, my inner girl, my inner boy, if I'm trying to talk them out of what they're feeling and tell them to shut up and grow up, then I'll probably do the same thing with the other kids.

[79:11]

Even if I'm told that it's not good. We have all these important things to do. We don't have time for children's stuff. Shut up. And then, of course, we also have these values which we want to instill. Fine. But if they're that good, maybe if you just showed them, that would be enough. If they're that good, why do you have to force them to do it? It's like during the communist times in Eastern Europe and Russia, you couldn't get out of those countries because leaving was an insult to the ideal socialist society. Why would you want to leave utopia? It's an insult. You can't go. It's for your own good that you should stay. So we force ourselves and other people to do things which we don't really believe in. If we really believe in them, we know all you got to do is show it, and if it's good, they'll do it.

[80:15]

However, if they're your children, even if you show it and they see it's good, they still have to not do it because they need their independence. Later, if it's good, they'll remember to look back and say, that was totally cool. You know? And children get that stuff like that, you know? Like the Zen Center children walk by the Zendo, they just look in for like a flash second, you know, and they see the whole thing. They see sitting straight, they see the people adjusting posture, they see the bowing and the chanting. They get like 99% of it, they get like that. If you took them away five years later and said, would you please reenact Zen Center? They could do it. 99% or high percentage they could reenact. The feeling, not just the form either, but the feeling, the quiet. They could say, no, it didn't feel quite like that. It didn't smell quite like that. No, no, they know exactly. But they aren't going to do it now. You can't get them in the room. And if you do, they're going to squirm and wiggle and rebel. Because they've got to be different from their parents, who are religious fanatics. Which is, that's what they have to do.

[81:19]

Let them do it. It doesn't mean they didn't see it. It doesn't mean that they don't go to school. And everybody said, boy, your parents are really cool. That's really neat. Like my daughter, she comes home and kind of complains and kind of bragging of how much her school teachers and school friends kind of think it's cool that her dad's a Zen monk, a Zen priest. Like in her biology, in her chemistry lab, her biology teacher came to visit her in her chemistry lab, and he said, how's it going? And she said, I'm really having a hard time with chemistry. And he said, what? Why? You did really well in biology. And she says, well, yeah, but biology was like plants and animals, and I could understand that stuff. I could see it. But chemistry is about this microscopic, invisible world. I can't see it. And the biology teacher says,

[82:20]

But Ted, you're the daughter of a man who spends all his time looking at the invisible. And then the biology teacher calls across the room to the chemistry teacher and says, you know, what is the Zen essence of chemistry? And the chemistry teacher says, formaldehyde. So, you know, she's kind of embarrassed and doesn't like it, you know, but she's also kind of proud that her dad does something that her chemistry teacher and her biology teacher are kind of, like, really interested in, in a way, you know. But she's not going to do it herself, no. But there she knows she's growing up living in the middle of Zen stories right at her high school, right? You know? And her headmaster, too, thinks it's just totally cool and everything. But she's got to be separate, and she's not doing anything.

[83:26]

And this form of religion is not for her. But she's learning it. And anything good about it, she sees. And the bad stuff about it, she sees. So she's learning it. But we don't require her to do it. So anyways, this is the great painful dance. Yes? I have a further question about what you said about admitting it is the same as most forgiveness, because I often find that admitting can lead to a lot of hair pulling. Maybe you're using admitting in some other way. Yeah. So it's easy for me to talk about hair pulling, right? Because whenever I try, I get very frustrated and give up. But I'm actually saying this. This is just try this on, okay? What I say, generally speaking, what I say, please give it a chance.

[84:30]

Reflect on it. then look into the reason of it. Check it out to see if it makes sense. And if it does, you might consider actually practicing. So what I'm saying to you is, I'm really saying something quite radical. I'm saying that if there's any energy left for pulling hair, you're not using that energy to admit. I'm saying, try on using all your energy being totally devoted to admitting what's happening. And I say, at that time, there will be no energy left for pulling hair. Pulling hair is another version of crying over spilt milk. It's just emotional indulgence, which protects you from just straight-eyed, ice-cool eyes seeing what you did, not messing around, just saying, boom, I did it, and here's the consequences, and I see them. You don't have to say good or bad. You see. You see. It leads to discovering little people's confidence. It leads to... you know, draculating bills. It leads to psychotherapy bills.

[85:32]

It leads to court cases. It leads to misery, distrust. You see that. When you see that, you learn. When you learn, you act right. I'm really saying that. But it's very hard to be completely thorough in admitting the consequences. Like, I also tell this story over and over. I'm driving with my wife I see a traffic jam. I turn to avoid it. I see it, that's stupid. What do I say? How do I admit that it's stupid? I say, that's the stupidest thing I've ever done. My wife says, even when you confess, you compliment yourself. That's why you need a mirror, you see, because you think, oh, I admitted it. You know, people come to admit things to me. They say, I admit it, and they're pulling their hair out. I say, wait a minute, leave your hair alone. I don't see you really admit it.

[86:34]

I see you holding back a little bit. I let people come in to see me, and they say, I'm sorry, I'm a little late. Well, what's the little part? You have to tell me you're a little late. The doctor came to tell me that I was a little late. Or you want to tell me you're late. I don't talk to people this way. This is what you're thinking. I'm thinking, what's the little part? Do you need the little part? Why don't you just say, sorry, I'm late. See the difference? Sorry, I'm late. And sorry, I'm a little late. Did you want to apologize or did you want to excuse yourself? Well, I'd like to apologize, but actually I hope to excuse myself too. It wasn't that bad. I'm sorry I did it. I'm really sorry I did it, but it wasn't that bad. I'm really sorry I did it, but really I didn't do anything at all. I didn't do anything wrong. Really, it wasn't that bad. You know, give me a break. Basically, come in and say, give me a break. Fine, I'll give you a break, but first of all, what did you do wrong? Why are you coming in here and asking for a break? Oh, well, I guess because I did something I don't feel good about. He thinks thou dost protest too much. I really think that there's a very powerful thing called being honest, called confession.

[87:43]

It's very powerful. It melts the root of non-virtue. It's effective. If you're beating yourself up while you're confessing, If you're making wisecracks about yourself while you're confessing, you're not into it completely. If you're really thorough, you have nothing left. You're putting your whole mind into admitting what's happening. If you can admit what's happening around your non-virtue, you might be able to admit what's happening around your virtue and about things which aren't really virtuous or non-virtuous. In other words, you'll be able to let things be the way they are. And then you can wake up from the dream and be supreme. So I think you can think about it, try it out. It's hard, though. It's hard to be thorough about anything, especially about admitting your non-virtue. Yes.

[88:45]

I would like to be thorough in my forgiveness, and I certainly am not. And I can approach it from the point of view that If I were a new I, I know I'd be a whole lot better off. And just from a very selfish point of view, I would like to be a whole lot better off. But... I would like you to be too. Same thing. If you admit your non-virtue, when you admit your non-virtue, you'll be able to forgive. You will be able to forgive when you admit your non-virtue. I guess I don't see the connection. I'm speaking of forgiving other people. That's what I'm talking about too. If you don't do it with yourself, if you don't forgive yourself, you're not going to forgive other people. You ain't going to do for the other what you don't do for yourself. If you don't forgive yourself, you won't forgive the other. And you won't forgive yourself unless you admit what you did because forgiving yourself abstractly doesn't count.

[89:53]

I mean, it's a nice theory. Like, I'll forgive myself. But when it comes down to it, well, not this. I'm not even going to admit this is bad. I'm not going to notice it. Forgiveness happens right on the actual admission of a particular thing and not sort of like a general vague kind of thing like, well, I kind of was late or I kind of wanted to hurt you. Indicate precisely what you mean to say and say that. Indicate precisely what you did. And without any kind of like, just drop everything else and just say, I did a bad thing. Here's what I did. That's enough. Even take away I did a bad thing. Just I did this. And say it with your whole heart. That shows that you've forgiven yourself. If you're still kind of like resisting forgiving yourself, you're also resisting admitting it. Well, you open your heart to how bad something is and feel it completely. You just forgave yourself. And if you can do that with yourself, you're not going to hold back for other people.

[90:55]

It's not like they do worse things. People don't do worse things than me. But I think they do when I don't admit what I've done. So, confession and forgiveness. In the Bodhisattva practices, there's the vow to confess our non-virtue. And this practice of confessing non-virtue is done up to the attainment of complete enlightenment and after. Even after becoming Buddha, you still continue the practice of confession of non-virtue. But you're an enlightened person and you're Enlightened people are very quick, very thorough, completely quick and completely thorough at admitting non-virtue, and therefore they're completely forgiving of themselves and others. And that makes me almost say what love is.

[91:57]

Love is being honest about what you're doing, admitting your non-virtue, forgiving yourself, and simultaneously forgiving others. You don't know what their non-virtue is.

[92:09]

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