So I, when thinking about the Bodhisattva precepts, again, I always just think of the whole ceremony. And so the image that comes to my mind today is that the ceremony begins with invoking the presence and compassion of the Buddhas and ancestors and then there is renunciation of attachments and then there is confession of karma And then there is anointment, or you might even say a resuscitation of the human being.

[01:15]

Anointment of the human being who has admitted that she is a human being. And then there is the going for refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And then, emerging from, I would say, in ceremony there is the receiving or the bestowing of the rest of the precepts. But you could also say emerging from going for refuge or taking refuge, the other precepts appear. So when one takes refuge or returns and relies on Buddha in your actual mind stream,

[02:27]

And then if Buddha is then alive in you, then what comes out of Buddha? What is the expression of all Buddha? Well, Dharma. And what is the Dharma of all Buddhas? Dharma of all Buddhas is refrain from all unwholesomeness, practice all good, and purify your mind. This early way Buddha was quoted from. In the Bodhisattva tradition, what emerges from all Buddhas is refrain from all evil, practice all good, and benefit all beings, or develop and mature all beings. This is the teaching which naturally emerges from all the Buddhas. So the precepts just are natural fluorescence and expression of all Buddhas. Natural and spontaneous.

[03:47]

Natural and spontaneous. Now, in the ceremony, we're beginning bodhisattvas. We're beginning at evoking and evoking the presence and compassion of Buddhists and ancestors. We're beginners at renunciation. We're beginners at confession. And we're beginners at refuge-taking. So because we're beginners, there is some self-consciousness, which means there's some kind of karmic attitude which is still operating in a ceremony, usually. But when the process of the ceremony is practiced thoroughly, exhaustively, to the end of our effort, then these processes are spontaneous and happen without any deliberation. and without any karmic attitude. The Buddha doesn't think, okay, now let's refrain from evil and let's practice good and let's purify the mind.

[05:00]

The Buddha's mind is that already. This teaching spontaneously emerges. So the same process applies to sitting zazen, although it is not as articulated as it is in precept ceremony. If you look at some manuals on meditation, how they describe to meditate is basically the same process as in precept ceremony. Before you sit, you get caught for incense to the Buddha, bow to the Buddha, and invoke the presence of compassion of the Buddhas and the ancestors. Walk around the Buddha, and then sit. Express your vows, practice renunciation, and practice confession, and then sit.

[06:05]

This is sort of a reiteration that process is sometimes given in meditation texts. And in a Zen temple usually, most of the monks, 90% of the monks go and sit in the Zen though. They don't all go through that process literally. But the Doshi does. You know, one priest on behalf of the whole community does that process of offering incense to Buddha. and walking around the temple, walking around Buddha, and making prostrations to Buddha, and reiterating the bodhisattva vow on behalf of everyone, for the communities, one person does that, rather than everybody walking around the temple every morning and offering instances of all the altars and so on. The doshis doing that for you, so that it's kind of more efficient. But when you sit, you can go through that whole process yourself every time you sit. When you bow to your cushion, you know, you can invoke the presence of the Buddhist ancestors.

[07:09]

When your bow is awake and your cushion, you can invoke compassion of the Buddhist ancestors. You can do that. You can call forth that with your bow to your seat in a way. When you sit, you can say, I, you know, I renounce worldly affairs. I give up attachments. You can simply confess your humanness and sit. You can go through that same process when you sit. It's the same thing. And then the bodhisattva precepts, refuge-taking comes up in your sitting. Precepts come up in your sitting. Same thing. Ru Jing, before he sat, Ru Jing always, before he sat, he always said, I now sit for the welfare of all beings. Bhagavad Gita, Samji did the same. So our Zazen is taking refuge in the Triple Treasure. Our Zazen is receiving these bodhisattva precepts. And receiving the bodhisattva precepts expresses the complexity of our very simple practice of just sitting.

[08:24]

Now, let's see. Again, I'd like to just talk about approaching the precepts from these, you know, from, so you might say, from the human point of view or from the karmic point of view. And also Zazen. So I'll write the Bodhisattva precepts. And Zazen. And you can approach them from the point of view of Well, again, conventional point of view, okay? Conventional. Conventional point of view of approaching whatever, you know, our activity throughout the day, our practice is in terms of I do whatever. I speak, I stand, I walk, I think. In other words, karma. I do equals karma.

[09:39]

So I do, I receive Bodhisattva precepts. I practice. I practice avoiding evil. I practice doing all good. I practice benefiting all beings. I do that practice. I'm committed to that practice and I do that practice the best I can. I am obedient to these bodhisattva precepts. I align myself with these bodhisattva precepts. I want to eventually become impeccable in the practice of these bodhisattva precepts. I found this in an interview magazine. It says, if you can't be good, be careful. Is it a side?

[10:45]

Is she good or careful? Yes. Well, I can't talk about her practice or his. But, you know, she could be being careful right now. I don't know. This is Gesia, Gescheese. One of the first ways to interpret this text, the way I would interpret it is, if you're not going to be good, try to be good. If you're spontaneously good, then be spontaneous good. If you don't think you can be spontaneously good, then be careful. and follow these precepts carefully and minutely. In Soto Zen we have an expression which you may be familiar with, which is memmitsu no kafu.

[11:50]

Memmitsu. Mem means cotton. And mitsu means secret or hidden or intimate. Two together means very detailed attention, minute, careful observation of what you're doing. And no is possessive, and kafu means the wind of the house. The wind of the house, which means the style of the house. The style of soto zen is very, very careful attention to all details. of your karmic life. If you're a karmic being, and let's face it, some of us are. And that's what you confess. You confess, I'm a karmic being. Okay, if I'm a karmic being, how does a karmic being behave? With minute attention to detail. And it doesn't say, and also in Soto Zen, there is no detail which we do not pay minute attention to.

[12:55]

We say, there is not an inch of ground on the earth. where you can spit. There's no place on earth that doesn't request and deserve your utmost respect, your utmost attention to detail. So everything requires that. So, you know, like we had Oryoki instruction the other night, and some people thought, me being one of them, Well, why should we have Aureoki instruction? The practice period is practically over. So, you know, they can get through the rest of the way. Who cares? But anyway, that's not the point. The point is not that you're going to get good at Aureoki. That's not the point. The point is that we care about details here in the Zen school. even if we may never get good at Oryoki or anything else.

[13:58]

That's not the point. The point is not that we get good and perfect. The point is we pay attention to details day by day. So we can have Aureoki instruction in the last day of practice period when you're never going to practice Aureoki again. The last word from Zen Center is we care about the details. Remember that. We care. We care about little things. We care about dropping one grain of rice. We care about that. It isn't like we've got one grain of rice that we don't care. Five we do. No. We care about everything here. not in a picky, mean way, but in a respectful way. We don't even know what rice is here. Who knows what rice might be? That's why we care about everything. We don't know what Buddha is. We care, we give everything the utmost respect here in Soto Zen, a minute attention to detail. We sow robes, you know, Buddha's robes, very precious, right, very precious. So we treat it very preciously, you know.

[15:01]

Well, that's good. And we make every stitch carefully, you know, and the sewing teacher looks to see how your stitches are. And we try to follow the traditional way even, you know, not just each stitch carefully, but according to a tradition. Not so we have a perfect, a perfect robe, but so that we'll have a traditional robe. What's a traditional robe? A traditional robe is a robe like the ancestor's robe. What's the ancestor's robe like? It's a robe that has attention to detail. It's a robe which treats every stitch like Buddha. So we treat our robes with respect. But also, you know, there is a tradition, you know, if Buddhist monks or even lay people are walking around in the mountains and they find a piece of paper or a piece of cloth, you know, just a piece of loose cloth, the color of some Buddhist robe, they pick it up and shake it out and clean it up and take care of it.

[16:06]

It isn't just the Buddhist road that you take care of like this. You take care of everything in the world like this. So, you know, people around here go around and pick up molly mugs and return to the kitchen. And they don't grumble and say, you know, what jerk left it here? They don't say, who wasn't mindful? They just take care of it. They just take care of the part and they take it back to the kitchen. Everything went down. minute attention to detail, very careful observation of the precepts in the karmic level. And if we can completely tune into this karmic level, completely accept that we're human beings, and as human beings, we're outside of creation, you know? There's me, and then there's the rest of the world, and I do things to it. This is delusion. This is karma. But if we apply that karmic attitude to these precepts, we generate merit. And we generate merit, and we generate merit, and we generate merit, until finally that merit is so great.

[17:13]

In other words, finally we're so thorough at this practice that we transcend the karmic point of view. And then we switch to the other side, ultimate point of view. Not absolute, ultimate point of view on the bodhisattva precepts. ultimate point of view on zazen, which is not I practice the precepts, which is not I practice zazen. But I have just admitted that I do practice zazen from that point of view. I have admitted I practice zazen, and I also practice confession. And I confess that I practice zazen from a karmic point of view, and I approach zazen to some extent like I'm doing it, like I'm going to go do zazen. That's the way I am. And you can call me on that, you know? And I'll say, I did... Yeah, I did practice the body's precepts. I did try. I tried, I tried, I tried.

[18:14]

I did it. I did it myself. Some days I did well. Some days I didn't do well. But anyway, I was practicing from that point of view. And I practiced from that point of view. I, you know... with a good feeling because I know from stories that Buddhist ancestors all practiced that from the karmic point of view for a long time. If you watch them, when they're acting like karmic beings, they are very carefully being karmic beings following the bodhisattva precepts. They're carefully examining the little details of their conduct past karmic beings. They're carefully, you know... refraining from evil, practicing good, benefiting beings, they're carefully not killing life, not stealing, so on and so forth. They're carefully trying, I should say, they're carefully examining that precept to see if their behavior aligns with it. But by that thorough practice and exhausting personal effort, to the end, they reach the practicing the precepts from the point of view of liberation, liberation from karma. and they actually enter the practice of zazen, enter the practice of precepts, which is no longer I practice zazen, but all beings practice zazen and bring me along.

[19:22]

All beings practice the bodhisattva precept and bring me along. Through the practice of all beings zazen, my zazen is realized. Through the practice of all beings, practice of the bodhisattva precepts, my vow to practice them is realized. And not before that. And now I'm liberated from zazen, and kinging, and oryoki, and evil, and good. Now we're just plain old liberated, with all beings. And they're liberated before me because it's when they're liberated and when they're doing the practices that my practice is realized. These are the bodhisattva precepts. This is bodhisattva zazen. There's also personal human zazen, which is great and generates lots of merit, and personal human precept practice, which is great and generates enough merit so that finally you practice this other way.

[20:23]

So again, on the side of karma, I confess my belief in the reality of an independent self who does things. And by confessing my belief in an independent self, I go beyond the independent self and witness the self being realized by the arrival of all things. That is, I see the dependently co-arisen self by admitting the non-dependently co-arisen self. By admitting the independent self, which doesn't dependently co-arise, which exists all by itself, by admitting that thoroughly, I gradually come to see the dependently co-arising self. Which means to see the dependently co-arising self is to see Buddha, is to see Dharma. By admitting the belief, my belief, my belief in the independently existing self, my belief in the reality of my independent existence, by admitting, by confessing my belief that I can do something all by myself, that I can practice Zazen and Buddhism and

[21:40]

and cook and walk and talk by myself by admitting that point of view and the belief and the reality of that thoroughly I go beyond that and go beyond my beliefs doesn't mean I don't have them anymore I go beyond them I'm free of them and then I can see the self which is not independent I can see the independently co-arisen self someone said to me I won't specify this person's age, but this person said, I want to devote the next step in my life to studying dependent core rising. And when she said next step, I thought, next step is the rest. Next step is like, I got five more minutes to live. I want to devote my life, the little bit that's left, to the studying dependent core rising. Or if it's more than a few more minutes, if it's several years, okay, I devote the rest of my life to dependent core rising.

[22:46]

I said, well, what do you want to devote your life to dependent core rising for? And she said, so I can realize that I'm not alone. You know, it doesn't have the faith until you experience it, right? I mean, I wish you experience it. that, it's just borrowed knowledge. It's an act of faith, yes. Faith is, not again, not belief exactly, but faith is that you do the practice of studying and kind of go rising. Yeah, but that's something that you can't study. You just have to experience it. I mean, how can you... Well, I'll talk to you about how you can do it. I'm now on the verge of teaching you how to study the pinnacle. What I mean is you can't grasp that. You can't grasp it. You can't grasp it, but I can talk to you about how you can study something that you can't grasp. But you don't experience it with your mind.

[23:47]

No, you don't. I can talk to you about how to realize something that you don't experience with your mind. It's just talk. It's just talk, right. It's just talk. It's not the experience. It's not the experience. So until you experience it, it's an act of faith. Yes. And faith is the be-all of Buddhism. Without faith, it is totally zilch. Because without faith, you won't do anything. Without faith, you're not going to do the program. It's not going to work. So faith is, this is all act of faith until there's realization. Does one have like a... The realization is the maturity of faith. Does one have little moments of that realization? Yes. And those little moments can become bigger moments? Yes. But not bigger moments. No, not exactly bigger moments. More moments. More moments. More moments and deeper moments. More and deeper. More and deeper. And then before you know it.

[24:48]

Before you know it, yep, and that's right, before you know it. It's always before you know it. First it happens, then you know it. And to know it doesn't always happen. It doesn't matter if you're free and liberated. Who cares that you know? A lot of people know stuff, but what good does it do to them? Okay, so another way to put this in terms of the study of precepts is I confess my belief in the reality of independent precepts. I think, you know, that there's a self to the precept of not killing and a self to the precept of not stealing. In other words, in order to approach these precepts from the point of view of understanding with my mind, I need to sort of like identify them and deal with them somewhat separately. So that's the way I do deal with them. Like I try to not practice, now I'm looking at, now in this situation I'm looking at not killing, now I'm looking at not stealing, now I'm looking. So I confess that I do sort of think of them in terms of independent precepts. And again, by admitting how my mind works and deals with these precepts as independent precepts, which have self-existence, then I go beyond that and realize the dependable arising of the precepts.

[25:57]

the dependent core arising of precepts is that there are no independent precepts. They're all totally interdependent to creating the other ones. But in order to actually feel the impact and see the difference between seeing the dependent core arising of the precepts and the precepts as independent things, I have to admit that that's the way I see them and I have to work with them that way. You can't skip over the karmic approach to the precepts and jump into the dependent core arising approach. You have to do it on the karmic level first. Martha? Just a conversation we're having. It seems to me that the Pentacle Rising is not outside of knowledge or words either. No. Knowledge and words dependently. It is in knowledge. I felt like in some ways you were saying that Pentacle Rising is an experience that is It doesn't exclude mind, but it isn't mind.

[27:01]

Dependent co-arising is not an experience. Dependent co-arising is how experience appears. All experience dependently co-arises. It can appear as words, yes, definitely. That's why we talk. The Buddha talked. He spoke dependently co-arising words to people who are dependently co-arisingly hearing about dependent co-arising. But the realization of dependent co-arising is not a mental thing. And it's not outside of it. If it was outside mental thing, it would be a mental thing. Because how would you put it outside? Dependent co-arising is non-dual. Okay. So, let's see. Maybe some examples would be good. Do you want to ask a question, Sylvia? Yes?

[28:02]

You know, you're talking about this, the conventional part of the precepts. In which way, in which way, it's not a little... that we can get stuck in the international part and reinforce the duality and separation by practicing. See, it's important that I have seen maybe the danger of reinforcing the duality and separation. In which way we are not going to get stuck in that ring force? Yes. How? No, we will get stuck. It will. Yeah, we already are stuck. So, since we're stuck, the way we practice the Bodhisattva precepts will be a reiteration of our being stuck. It will also be stuck. As long as we're stuck, everything's stuck, including the Bodhisattva precepts, including Zazen.

[29:05]

In the realm of being stuck, we're stuck in every way. But this is a very wholesome way to be stuck. And this way of being stuck will eventually lead us to liberation from this process. Because we admit over here, we're confessing, I'm stuck, [...] I'm stuck. And that's part of this process. Before you practice these precepts, you say, this is a stuck person who's not going to try to do it. But this whole process is generating positive energy. Let me just say a little bit more, and that is, I was thinking about, you know, applying this, you know, I'll just talk a little bit about dependent core arising, how you would apply that in the process of, before realizing it, but still start studying dependent core arising in terms of precepts. Okay. And so I thought, instead of calling the ten great precepts, I would call them the ten crises. Okay.

[30:10]

And I think I chose that word because I had in mind a Chinese character, which I think some of you have seen. They made it into a Hallmark card now. It's a Chinese character, which means crisis, I believe. And it's composed of two radicals, which are also characters. And the characters are opportunity and danger. So these precepts, these 47 precepts, are crises. Because there's a danger in them, and there's an opportunity in them. And the word crisis, again, you know, I just showed you the etymology of the Chinese word for crisis, right? Then I look up the etymology of the word crisis. crisis, which I already knew, but I looked it up again. And it comes from the Greek root krinen, which means to separate.

[31:16]

And the root image of that etymology Brother David taught me was asyl, Crisis is like a sieve that you separate things, so something can fall through, you know? And the meaning of the word crisis also, the meanings are like, synonyms are like crossroad, head, pass, juncture. And the shared meaning there is a critical point, a critical point or a critical state of affairs. These precepts are like critical points or heads or crossroads. where opportunity and danger are pivoting. And then somebody asked me after class, how come Norman and I are interested in etymologies of words? And I said for myself, it's because, first of all, that the word etymology comes from etymone. Etymology means, an etymone is an early form of a word

[32:21]

is looking at the early form of the word in the same language or an ancestral language. And it comes from the root etymon, which means the true sense of a word, or etymos, which means true. So studying etymology, you're looking for the ancestor of the word and also the truth of the word. But you see what you're also looking at is the dependent co-arising of the word. You're seeing how the word dependently coerose over history with human use. And the truth of a word is its etymology. It's not what it used to mean. It's what it means now and what it meant then, [...] way back. The whole story of the word is its dependent coerising. So I'm studying the dependent coerising of the precepts, the dependent coerising of these crises, So I was thinking of what's the crisis, you know, in terms of the ten great boys have for precepts.

[33:27]

You know them, right? Not killing, not stealing, and so on. Each one is a crisis and an opportunity. So what do you, they're crisis in handling. You're handling something, you know? And again, as I told you before, the word for Wholesome comes from kusa grass, which is a grass that Buddha recommended to make meditation seeds. And this grass is sharp and you cut yourself on it. It's a dangerous material. Buddha recommended that the monks use a dangerous material to build their meditation seed. These precepts, each precept is dealing with something dangerous, something that can get hurt or be hurt. But if you can handle this material skillfully, you can make a good meditation scene. So I thought about what is the material that's handled in each of these ten great precepts? The first one, not killing. What's the material being handled? What is it? Life. How can you handle life? How can we handle life in such a way but not kill it?

[34:34]

Well, that's the question. Leaving it alone can kill it. grabbing it, holding it too tight can kill it. How do you handle life? How do you stay close to life in a way that is this precept? What's the skillful way of handling life? What's the next one? Next feeling. So what do you handle there? You're handling materials. Basically, you're handling community materials, right? Not necessarily others, but it's basically community material. It's things that don't just belong to you. By common understanding, it's things that either belong to somebody else, according to the argument, or at least belong to the community. So how do you handle community things? Again, what's that way of handling community things? How do you move them around? Who do you have to talk to to move money from this box to that box? I mean, some, of course, to move money from their box to your box, but also sometimes just from one department to the other, you know.

[35:40]

He moved, and this story is in his end text, you know, the abbot moved the money from the, what do you call it, the, he moved it to the, the donation was for the monks to have better meals, and he moved it over to the construction projects. Or you could do the vice versa. They get money for construction and use it to give the monks a better meal. Who do you talk to about moving the funds from one area to the other? That has to do with stealing. Not mismoving the materials of the community. How do you handle them? How do you find out what's the way? Intoxicants or toxins. How do you handle intoxicants? Again, I'm proposing, you see, that you do handle them. You don't like to throw up your hands and stay away from the toxicants. Not me, no, no. What do you do if you find them lying around? What do you do with them? How do you handle them? Do you take them and freak them? Do you get them to kids? Do you destroy them? Do you put them in your refrigerator? Do you bury them? Do you put them on the altar?

[36:41]

Where do you put these toxins? Where do you put radioactive materials? Where do you put drugs and alcohol? Where do you put sugar? Where do you put M&Ms? Where do you put Advil? Where do you put 7-Up? All these things are toxins, potentially, to some people. Where do you put heroin? Where do you put, what do you call it, Valium? Where do you put it? How do you handle it? There's a danger here, but an opportunity, too. Yeah. Sometimes aspirin is good. Sometimes sake is good. Who knows? How do you handle it? How do you judge? Who do you talk to about whether we have a sake toast on New Year's Eve here? Sexuality. Speech. How do you handle speech in such a way that it's not a lie? How do you handle speech to speak the truth? How do you do that?

[37:41]

How do you move your mouth? How do you touch the air with your body to make a true speech? Sexuality. How do you handle sexuality so that it's not greedy, so that it's not hurtful? There's an opportunity there. You got it? What are you going to do with it? Avoiding it? Indulging in it? What's the skillful way of handling it? talking about a fault in others. Is there some way to talk about it that's beneficial? There are stories when somebody talked about somebody's faults in a beneficial way. How could they do that to benefit? There are, of course, many, many stories where we talk about others' faults as very harmful. What's the way of handling talking of someone's fault such that it would be beneficial? How could that be? Talking about your own virtues, how could you possibly do that in such a way as to not put others down? How do you do that?

[38:42]

There's a danger there, big danger, but there's an opportunity too. Possessions, your own possessions, the ones that most people think or you think are yours, how do you handle those in such a way that you're not possessive and causing jealousy and hate and disturbance in the Sangha? Aggressive energy. How do you handle aggressive energy in a beneficial way? Not to hurt others with it, but also not to run away from it. It's in your life. You've got aggressive energy in your body. What are you going to do with it? How do you handle it? If you can handle aggressive energy well, you can make a good meditation suit out of it. And finally, the triple treasure. How do you handle Buddha? How do you handle Dharma? How do you handle Sangha? in a way that doesn't abuse them, doesn't harm them. Same thing as life. How do we handle these things? So, I was talking to somebody about, generally speaking,

[39:56]

We have, all of us have some story about the precepts. The story may be evolving, but we have stories about the precepts. We have a story about what not killing is, what not stealing is, and so on. I think anybody doesn't, maybe, does anybody not have a story about any of those precepts? So we have stories. And sometimes we're unclear how that story would apply to a given situation. Like, you know, should I be non-dairy? Should I be a vegetarian, but still to have some dairy? Can I kill a mosquito? You know, how does that apply? Can we kill rats here at Greenville? Can we kill gophers? Well, you know, how do you apply that word, that rule, that precept? And what I sometimes recommend to people, if you want to understand the precept, look at the other ones.

[40:58]

Sometimes you can't tell whether you're violating that precept. Look at the other ones. Sometimes you can see your violin in the other ones, even though you can't see your violin in this one. For example, if you're not sure about killing something, would you actually, could you kill a mosquito or kill a, could you kill Charlotte? Charlotte the spider. Could you kill a spider and with no sense of deceit? No sense of, you know, like, anybody could see you do that. And, you know, you wouldn't hide it from anybody. I can't, I mean, I can't imagine that I could, like, honestly, uprightly stand in front of you people and just go like this to a spider during class. I mean, I really couldn't do it. I mean, I wouldn't do it. I don't think, except I don't know what. Maybe some situation if I want to die soon. It'd be kind of like suicide, wouldn't it? For me to kill a spider in front of a bunch of Buddhists.

[42:03]

Would I do it? Maybe. Now, I'm pretty good on flies because there are certain fly killers around, and I sometimes protect flies from the fly killers. Flies don't bother me, though, so no big deal. You know, they don't bother me. I don't mind them. I can sleep with them like this. So, you know, for me to not kill flies is no big deal, and for me to protect them from other people, you know, it's nice bodhisattva work, but they aren't bothering me, but spiders do bother me. And I don't mind spiders, actually, but the webs... The webs all over my Buddhist statues, you know. My altar with spiders. It bothers me. I'm sorry. It bothers my... They make a mess. They leave all their carcasses all over my Buddhist. All these sow bugs all over. These sow bugs are my books. And also, you know... Anyway, I have a problem with spiders. And I have a problem with sow bugs. They also shit on everything. They leave these little white... I don't know if it's shit, but anyway, they leave these little white things all over my books, and sometimes on my precious robes.

[43:14]

Sometimes if I'm sitting in saws in a really long time, they do it on my fingernails. It's rough, me and the sawbugs and the spiders. But I wouldn't ever kill either one of them in front of you guys. So, you know, so do I transport them, right? Carry them out the door? But do I hurt him in the process? I confess, I think it's not that good for their health. It's kind of mean, but I still do it. Now that I've told you that, now Sina, you know, so you're going to start putting pressure on me to stop doing it. But anyway, I admit, I do that. This is one of the sloppy areas of my life, me and the spiders and the sawbugs. You have to think of sawbugs very gently not to hurt him. He's always paid right now. Yeah, paper, right. Anyway, just by looking at whether I'm just being deceitful, I catch whether that kind of thing is okay or not.

[44:23]

Taking what's not given. How about praising myself at the expense of others? Keeping my house clean and keeping sawbugs off my Buddha statue, I'm considering that more important than the sawbugs and spiders, right? I'm praising my own practice at the expense of others. How am I going to pull that off? So this person was having trouble with one of the precepts. And she said, well, look at the other ones. And they looked at me and went, wow, I can't. I wouldn't be able to do anything then in that realm. And that's right, you can't. Once you look at the other precepts, you will not be able to, you'll be like paralyzed. How are you going to have sexuality which is honest? What? How are you going to have sexuality which is honest? Not praising yourself at the expense of others. Not taking what's not given. Blah, blah, blah. How would... That's going to be tough then, you know. You really check, you know, is this okay with you and blah, blah, blah. There's completely no deceit and, you know, no intoxication, no misuse of it, no abusing the triple treasures, no possessiveness, no anger, no messing with life and disrespect.

[45:27]

None of the precepts, none of the other ones are implicated at all. You're a genius, I don't know. I just dash off this... rather startling expression, is that if you look at the dependent co-arising of the precept, how it depends on all the other ones, you would realize you could never practice any of them unless you didn't think of it in terms, unless you'd gone beyond personal karma. Because as long as there's a person there, you're going to violate these precepts. Because also you realize that if you watch the dependent core rising percept, you do not know what they are. And if you practice them in any limited way, you violate it. You confine them. I didn't actually say it quite clearly, but the outrageous statement I did is that you have to see the dependent core risingness, that's all.

[46:32]

And just as when you're unsure of what the precepts are and then you look at the other ones and you feel like what you were about to do wasn't appropriate, you also stop making the precept this confined thing. But not making a confined thing doesn't mean that you flip over into nihilism and say, well, then I can do whatever I want. It means you're so respectful of everything that you can't move. And from that ultimate respect where you can't move comes the precepts. But you have to renounce your human ability to do things in this process. Someone was talking to me about the precept of praising self at the expense of others.

[47:50]

And if you notice some virtue, some one of your virtues, I mean, you might notice something you did that was good. You might think, oh, that was good. You know, I just thought I really... Or you might even think, I just thought of how great somebody else was. I just thought of how wonderful this person's practice is. And I rejoiced over how excellent their practice is. And I was happy for them being such a wonderful practitioner. That was good. But is there anything in that that's praising myself at the expense of others? Well, simply put, when I think I do something good without realizing how other people help me, I am praising myself at the expense of others.

[48:55]

They sponsored me in doing this good, and I didn't thank them. I praised myself. Rather than saying, By the virtue of others, I was able to do this, which maybe was pretty good. I thought I did something good. Even though the good I did was to appreciate others, and I couldn't have done that without the other being there, plus also that they did something good. My good action was totally dependent and impossible without this other person. Not to mention the other person, but also all people who gave me language by which I could talk about this person. But I didn't think of it that way. I thought of it, wow, I did a good thing. Or not even wow, just I did a good thing. Now, that might sound like a real mean thing to do, but in fact, I just simply overlooked. I didn't notice this one person's virtue, but I overlooked the fact that everybody else helped me notice that person's virtue. But somehow, I was able to notice what I did well, so how come I couldn't notice them?

[50:05]

Well, the reason why I didn't notice them is because, you know, I'm here and I forgot about them. In other words, I'm an independent person. Because I forget about how my life is born of everybody, I forget about how my good action is born of everybody, and that's the way I think. So that's what this precept's about. On the other hand, if I can observe the dependent co-arising of my virtue, I won't violate this precept because I will see that all beings make it possible for me to do all my virtue. Not just virtue, which is about thinking about their virtue, but anything good I do is by the kindness of other beings. And to think of that first. To think of them first and be grateful to them first and then notice, oh, they helped me do something good. That's what this precept is pointing to. In other words, this precept is not pointing to what I did. This precept is exactly pointing to what they did. what they made possible.

[51:09]

But we see it the other way, as precepts saying, you've got it backwards. You've got your life backwards. You're not seeing the dependent co-arising of your behavior. You're seeing your independent power to speak well of someone. Like you've got the ability to see somebody's virtue and to speak of it and to enjoy it. That's your thing. Even in the case where you're praising another person and you forget your indebtedness to all beings, you're praising yourself and not saying thank you at others' expense. Same process can be applied to each of the precepts. If you can turn from, I have aggressive energy, which I'm now going to try to use in a skillful way, to aggressive energy comes to me through all beings. And how are all beings wanting to use this aggressive energy?

[52:13]

And watch how all beings want to use this aggressive energy. And that will be called, we call that not being angry. All beings do not want to use this energy in harmful ways. But this energy can be helpful. It can clean a house. It can help a person avoid going off the road. It can remind someone of what's most important in their life and wake them up. even without even thinking at the same time, I have aggressive energy and I want to use this for others' welfare, which is a good way to use it. That's good. That's wholesome. But still, if you forget, if I forget that when I think, oh, I have aggressive energy and I want to use it for others' welfare, if I forget that, oh, you made it possible for me to think that thought, then... It might not be anger, but it probably will be.

[53:23]

So I'm proposing to you that if I do not feel grateful for my ability to think wholesomely about my aggressive energy, if I do not understand how you help me think about it in that way, that I also will be angry with that aggressive energy. There will be some anger because it will be my use of it, my independent use of that kind of energy. Same with positive emotions like attraction or warmth towards someone. If I forget that this warmth comes through the welfare and kindness of all beings, then I will misuse sexuality. It will be off. Because, again, not noticing how all beings help me think of using sexuality in a healthy way. Not remembering how they're helping me do that, but I also don't remember and take into account the person right in front of me. Remembering how all beings support me, I can also relate to individual people with this kind of energy.

[54:39]

So using the precepts to consult on the precepts, and using all sentient beings to consult on how I behave, because my action is always coming out of the arrival of all sentient beings, not just all sentient beings, but all things. This is how to meditate on the dependent core arising. This is one way to meditate on the dependent core arising of these bodhisattva precepts. Okay. So, Maya? Does enlightenment mean that this process just happens automatically without thinking? Does enlightenment mean that the process happens automatically without thinking? Yes. But they're still doing it. Yeah, but it's just spontaneous. Like somebody was talking to me about effort, you know. On the karmic side, you make effort.

[55:47]

I make effort. On the non-karmic side, I'm effortful. You know, Buddhists are effortful. Buddhists are, you know, like somebody says, working hard is not hard for the hard working. Buddhists are hardworking, but they don't like work hard. They're just hardworking. They're making effort all the time. You know, always making effort, making effort, making effort, but they don't. It's spontaneous. It's like that's the way they are. It's not tiring. It's their nature. So it's their nature to, since they, if they use the human mind and think in terms of self and other, they do that effortfully. They do it all the way. They watch how it works. They study karma. And every karmic act they do is, for Buddhists too, it's a crisis. But when you're awake, the crisis always goes towards opportunity rather than towards danger. Enlightenment means you just use the opportunity well.

[56:51]

You skillfully use the opportunity of handling life. You handle life in a not angry, not abusive, enlightening way. But they're still right in there working with this stuff. Enlightenment is. It works this way. Now, strictly speaking, sometimes in certain Buddhological discussions, they say Buddhists actually don't get involved in that anymore. They don't even run through karmic tracts anymore. of great bodhisattvas run through karmic tracks and constantly use every opportunity, every karmic setting is an opportunity for realizing non-discriminating wisdom, non-discriminating wisdom, non-discriminating wisdom. They use discriminating wisdom in a non-discriminating way every moment because every moment is a crisis, an opportunity to be careful and respectful and wake up. But there's no deliberation at this level.

[57:51]

spontaneous. It's because you're totally engaged. There's no residue of your activity. You're totally engaged. You're totally a karmic being. You're totally confessed. So the Buddha activity spontaneously emerges. But we have to be honest. Are we totally confessed? Do we have any reservation still about being a human being? Am I totally confessed about this thing with spiders? And I would say, go a little further on this spider confession before I'm going to be, like, spontaneously not messing with these spiders anymore. I haven't reached that relationship with them yet. It's still violating probably all the precepts. You know, misusing sexuality doesn't just mean to, like, I don't know what... rape somebody or have an affair or adultery.

[58:53]

Misusing sexuality could be to drive your car too fast or you drink too much sake or to talk too loud or to lie. That's also misusing sexuality. There's sexual energy when you tell a lie. So again, misusing sexuality breaks all the precepts. There's no limit on these precepts. You break them all when you break one. I was sort of thinking about the pantheon of beings that you might encounter as you're studying Buddhism. If we imagine there are these Buddhas who don't always choose opportunity over danger, it seems like when you have a teacher who seems to choose danger over opportunity, or if it appears that way they choose danger over opportunity. Then, if you thought that was a Buddha, it seems like there's this very confusing thing that happens to all beings, you know, kind of capture, a big thing, or understanding.

[59:58]

I'm just wondering, like, who do you reserve the title Buddha for? And is everyone else? Should we just kind of imagine everybody else? There's a Bodhisattva in training. And really, these Buddhists are unlikely to meet one? Well, let's preserve the title for Buddha until we have a convention. And then we can decide if we want to confer the title of Buddha on somebody. And I would think that a Buddha would have lots of bodhisattvas around to sort of like clarify that's what that meant. There should certainly be lots of bodhisattvas around in the Buddha to show that, you know, that if you look at, if I look at the behaviors of certain bodhisattva Buddhists, and bodhisattva non-Buddhists too, but bodhisattva Buddhists, they generally speaking are very careful about things. Okay? Very careful about how they observe the precepts in the karmic realm. And they also demonstrate liberation from karma. They do both. They show people, they're happy to demonstrate to people how to work with karma in a liberating way.

[61:05]

They show the danger. They know about the danger. They know about being stuck. They show about being stuck. They admit when they're stuck. They admit when they're stuck. And they are stuck sometimes and they admit it thoroughly. And they also demonstrate liberation from karma. They do things which aren't karma. In other words, they do things which aren't them doing. They do things which are on behalf of all of us. So the precept of not being angry is when you're angry on behalf of the entire community, that's called not being angry. But when you're angry on behalf of yourself and nobody else is in on it, that's called being angry. You know, like I get insulted and one person gets angry, you know, then that's called being angry. But if I get insulted and everybody gets angry, then that's not being angry. I mean like everybody, including the person that insulted me. Everybody! Then that's the appropriate response, you know?

[62:12]

But bodhisattvas are very careful about these precepts. And the Buddha isn't reckless, but the Buddha did say in certain places, these precepts are not for me to use as regulations. Even though I just set up, even though I set up the regulations, they're not for me to apply that. But for you, until you understand them, you need to apply those regulations. And Bodhisattvas are very happy to do so. And the Buddha, although they're not for the Buddha's use in that way, the Buddha practices some regulations too. And has seminars about what they mean in terms of regulations. He's happy to practice those regulations and in fact follows them. But doesn't need to. But does. Just like people who don't need to practice Zen anymore, the ones who don't need to practice it anymore, a lot of them do. Not all of them. A lot of them who don't need to, don't. But a lot of them who don't need to practice it anymore, they go to the Zen door every day to show people this practice that they don't need to do anymore.

[63:15]

Which they love. And have loved for decades and decades, but they keep practicing it just to share their love of something, to show people something that was very useful to them. But they don't need to. What's happening? Are you okay? You have a question? Is there a question there? There's a question here. Yes? Hey, do you want to say it? Or do you want to... I think I have the same question about... I mean, you sort of said, eventually, if everyone agrees that this is a Buddha, then that's our best shot at it. What I mean is, do we have this problem, actually? Who gets the title of Buddha? Do we have that problem here? I mean, it's projections. Oh, well, you can't stop projections. What's the problem? Projections? No, I'm thinking more of protecting faith.

[64:16]

Protection of faith. Yes. It is a kind of vulnerable or fragile... extension that someone makes. I've just seen it broken by, you know, people projecting on a teacher that they're Buddha and having them find out actually if this is someone working on it or, you know, they are a sincere practitioner. But the fact that we either allowed people to believe that or didn't tell them all of a sudden enough that, you know, what Buddha really is, Well, we can do that more. I don't know how to protect them. We can talk a little bit more about what a Buddha is like. We can talk about that more. That might be helpful. Is there somebody that you would say, a human being, that we all, you know, would they be able to name, that we could comfortably say, and there's Buddha, there's Buddha?

[65:17]

I don't feel the need to do that myself. I don't think it's, I don't think it, some people are doing that, I guess, but I don't feel the need to prefer a title upon it anymore. They say they call Dalai Lama a living Buddha, right? Some other lineage holders in Tibet, they call them living Buddhas, right? Or virtual Buddhas. Right? But they're not asking us about that, so... But still, those teachers oftentimes help people consider what a Buddha is. And they often say, you know, some of those teachers who are called living Buddhists sometimes say, we, we, ordinary people, are not like that. I think the Dalai Lama sometimes kind of talks like that, doesn't he? Kind of like, we, ordinary people, you know, have these problems. Doesn't he talk like that sort of thing? I have a simple book. Yeah, right. And Dogen said, you know, I've got problems, I'm not yet enlightened, but, you know, I'm totally dedicated to the welfare of others.

[66:22]

And the Buddha, he said, I'm Buddha, but he also said, I got problems. And Suzuki Roshi, Suzuki Roshi, like I told you before, one of my first talks I heard, he said, I'm no Buddha. I'm not Buddha. I'm not enlightened. And I said, I'm not enlightened, he said. And I thought, oh, that's too bad. I came all this way to study with him, and he's not enlightened. But I thought, well, he's still the best I've ever seen. So I'm staying. Next week, he said, I'm Buddha. And I said, yeah, it's more like it. But Suzuki Rashi, like I told you, he was, you know, can you imagine Buddha like walking down the road, you know, and going to the movies and saying to some young monk, you know, excuse me, I'm going to the movies. Is this like, is this like hard for us to imagine a Buddha doing? Well, maybe so, but he's just confessing I'm an ordinary person, you know. He never, Suzuki Rashi never gave me the impression that he wasn't an ordinary person or that he thought he was. Both things. I didn't think he wasn't an ordinary person.

[67:27]

He didn't like to say, I'm an ordinary person. You know what that's called for, right? You know who talks like that, right? He didn't even say I'm an ordinary person. He just said things that could lead you to see that he was an ordinary person. He had problems. So when he died of cancer, people say, well, how come a Buddha dies of cancer? How come the Karmapa died of cancer? How come? We don't think this is going to happen to them. How come Buddha had these problems? How come he had diarrhea and dysentery and he got dehydrated? How come he got a little irritated with Ananda not getting the water for him? Well, he was a human being. Can human beings be Buddha? Well, yes, that's apparently the case. He said he was. And he wasn't a liar. But he didn't say, I'm not an ordinary human being. Suzuki Roshi didn't say he wasn't an ordinary human being. He acted like he was. And he pretty much said he was.

[68:27]

But I'm not saying he was a Buddha. I'm just saying he was the best I've ever seen. And I wanted to study with him. And I felt really glad to study with him. But did I project Buddha on him? Ladies and gentlemen, I did not project Buddha on Suzuki Roshi. What did I project on him? I want to study what I projected on him. I will spend as long as I can with him. I will be there all the time for him. I was devoted to him. But I didn't think he was. I didn't. If somebody said he wasn't, I felt insulted, but... I didn't think he was. I didn't project Buddha on him. Zen master? Well, maybe. Enlightened? I didn't get into that with him. To tell you the truth, compared to my relationship with him, kind of like, I don't care about enlightenment. What do I care about? I care about zazen. I care about practice.

[69:30]

You know, it's through him and through Zazen that I care about Buddha. It's the Buddha. I think Buddha is really a good thing, but it's through this stuff that I... This is the stuff I actually work with. Now, I didn't project. Now, I've heard other people do project as Buddha stuff, and that is a problem, and we should be careful, and we should talk about that. But we can't stop them from projecting. You could say, I'm not Buddha, I'm not Buddha, I'm not Buddha, I'm not Buddha. I'm just a jerk. I'm just a jerk to say, oh God, I'm so great. People who want to project, they can do. You cannot stop them. You can't stop them. Their minds are not controllable. But when they do project, you can say, geez, you seem to be projecting Buddha on me. Wow. Be careful, you know? Or some other people may spot somebody's projecting Buddha on somebody and they see the danger. Well, let's talk about it. Let's be honest about if we see something like that happening. Or somebody goes around, so we're calling somebody Buddha and saying somebody's a Buddha, saying, oh, that's interesting. Isn't that what you say? No, they're not.

[70:32]

But just, this is happening. Let's recognize that this is happening. If it does start happening. But a lot of times it's in a person's head and we don't know about it. They don't say it out loud. I didn't, I've, and I'm surprised sometimes that people are doing that with other people. Can you believe that? And I find out sometimes, I say, wow, that's really amazing. There's a general thing, you know, general Zen etiquette, which, you know, just to let you know, generally speaking, we do not put the pictures of living people on altars in Zen. But I know in some other schools of Buddhism, they do put pictures of living people on the altars. But there are pictures of some people who are alive on some people's altars in this community, I know. And I hesitate to mention it because my picture is going to be moot. But I really think it should be someplace else. Not exactly in the garbage can, but someplace else.

[71:36]

Besides, don't confuse these people around here with this thing you want to work with, which is archetypal. But also, I'm not saying let's bust archetypes around here too. They'll just all go underground and get sick. If there's archetyping happening, let's get it out there and admit it and deal with it. This is another, what do you call it? Another crisis. Another dangerous piece of material called the Buddha archetype. It's one of these things on this precept. Which precept is it? It is number 10, triple treasure. How do you handle triple treasure? It is number, what do you call it? Number seven, virtues. Okay? It's very clearly those. How do you handle this business of the archetype of Buddha, the great sage? Buddha, Jesus, whatever. We got that archetype in our mind. How are we going to take care of it? Hide it? Toss it? Kick it? Put it up an altar? Project it on somebody? What's the skillful way to handle this thing in our mind? Let's find the skillful way.

[72:38]

Let's study the dependent core arising of the archetype of Buddha. Let's see how it happens and then we'll be free of it. but hiding it and pretending like it's not there. So I appreciate you bringing this dangerous piece of material out. Now how do we handle it? This is a community problem now to handle this archetype, an individual problem to deal with it, not to sort of like ban it and then become possessed by it in negative projection. Martha, you're hot today. What, what? You're hot today. No. No. You know, I can't even articulate what's going on. Better I don't, probably. There's some that I kept here to say that, I mean, Buddha is only Buddha because we're Buddha. Right. That's right. The only reason that we could even say it's a Buddha could be also a Buddha. And I think that's the dependent people I need to talk about all morning. Right. That's it. That's where the patriotism is.

[73:39]

Somehow there's so many Buddha and everything I'm not. Right. Or that I'm Buddha and you're not. Yeah. There's danger all over the place with this Buddha thing. Somebody who speaks the word of the Buddha and I can't speak the word of the Buddha. And Buddha would go crazy if he heard us talk about that. Poor guy. Or girl. That's what he said. You know, all I am is sent to Venus. Right. Right. Exactly. That's exactly right. There's no... Buddhas only appear because of suffering beings. There really isn't a Buddha. That's right. But we don't tell us people sometimes because they get obsessed. So we say, yes, there is a Buddha. So like the boys in Matsu said, people say, what's Buddha? Buddha. Mind is Buddha. Your ordinary mind is Buddha. Everyday mind is Buddha. And somebody said, hey, you said Buddha is everyday mind. I say that to crying people. What do you say when they stop crying? No Buddha, no mind. But we got to, you know, first of all, stop crying. In other words, face our mind. Face our karmic nature.

[74:40]

And we can hear this no Buddha business. But that's hard work to be, you know, a human being. Yes? I think the same thing, but in the initiation ceremony, you know, we're told that we're children of death and we are good. Yes, right. And it's very young. Right. It's helpful for both. Yes. Can I go back to something you said? I didn't understand. You said if somebody insulted you and you were angry, that would be essentially... But if we were all angry and the person who assaulted you was angry also about it happening, that would not be a great thing to do so. Right. Could you say that in a minute? Okay. Well, if somebody insults me and I'm the only one who gets angry, what am I angry about? Probably because I personally, my personal self was assaulted. So what am I angry about?

[75:41]

Myself, basically. And everybody else thought it was okay. let's say, right? They didn't even think it was an insult. They just thought the person was just saying something. They didn't see it as an insult. They didn't get angry. They didn't see any harm. But I did because of my sense of myself is that that comment was like really hurt and I really think it wasn't good and I want to use my aggressive energy at this time. I was assaulted. So that seems like I probably even would like the person not to have said it and maybe want to hurt the person. That's kind of like a conventional idea of what anger is. But if everybody felt aggressive energy at that time, not towards that person either, but felt anger about this, it wouldn't be my personal trip. And if I would join that, I would be speaking of anger for the whole community.

[76:41]

We call this the wrath of God. It's not personal. It's anger that's appropriate. There isn't such a thing as appropriate anger. Aggressive energy is sometimes very good. It wouldn't need an object, in this case, because everybody would feel it. And somebody could speak it for the community. One person could speak it, and the whole community would be realized through that. What is it, you know, what kind of situation is it that would congeal the aggressive energy of the whole community of beings? That's not what this precept is talking about. And you can't stop such a thing that's got nothing to do with, it's not personal. But this personal stuff, this personal attachment, this personal concern about what's being said about me, and then to express myself out of my personal concern and my personal protection, And to use aggressive energy in that occasion, that's usually not helpful.

[77:54]

But there is a case, there are cases where aggressive energy is not only neutral, but beneficial. For example? Helping someone with it. And when it helps people, then everybody appreciates it and everybody's in on it and everybody agrees. Yeah, that was good. Why is it called aggressive energy or anger? Well, it's not anger. That's what I'm saying. Aggressive energy when handled well is not anger. So maybe I did say angry, everybody angry. But what I mean is when everybody uses aggressive energy together, it's not violating this precept. Okay? So basically, as you know, there's four forces in the world, right? Gravitation, the weak and the strong force, right? And what's the other one? Huh? Is that the four? Okay, so gravitation is that bodies go towards each other.

[78:58]

Massive entities have some attraction to each other. It's part of the setup, right? And when gravitation gets strong, it compresses and creates heat. When molecules get compressed by gravitation, it creates heat. And heat then wants to go out, which is aggressive energy. It's built into us. We have aggressive energy. It's our nature. How do you use it skillfully? That's the question. Do you try to pretend like you don't have any? That's not healthy. Do you use it against people? That's not healthy. What's the healthy way to use our aggressive energy? Well, with everybody else is kind of a hint. When I use my aggressive energy in a way that I don't think everybody else was cooperating with, I feel bad afterwards. When I'm using it in concert with everybody, even though it might look very similar to somebody who is expressing anger, it's not anger. That's what I'm suggesting. It's the dependent core arising of the function that is the precept.

[80:02]

I'm just going to say, if you use aggressive energy for the benefit of all beings, then that's a good way to eat. Yes, but it's not just that I... Some people say, you know, I'm now using aggressive energy for the benefit of all beings, right? They do that. But some of the other beings don't agree. So if I could use aggressive energy for the benefit of all beings, and you felt like I was using for your benefit and on your behalf, And Tia did too, and Jean did too. Everybody felt like, boy, we appreciate you using aggressive energy that way. That was really for our benefit and your benefit. That was beneficial. It may look very much like anger, and yet it doesn't violate this precept. And it also isn't deceitful. It takes care of life. It doesn't abuse the three treasures, and so on. Someone might, you know, one time at Tassajara, it was very noisy. The creek was very noisy and I had to yell really loudly to be heard.

[81:15]

And someone came to visit and after the lecture she said, were you angry with us? And Irina wasn't, but I was really shouting, you know. And it may have sounded very much like somebody being angry, but I was not angry. But maybe I was a little bit, but who knows, you know. Maybe she picked up a little bit of it. But I would have to ask, you know, was that lecture beneficial to you? Do you appreciate me yelling? Maybe I should have said, oh, you're new to this situation, so I want to tell you beforehand that I'm going to have to talk really loudly today, but, you know, this is not, maybe I overlooked that the newcomer had come to the group. Sometimes the teacher has to be stern. That's the only way the student can hear it. That's right. So in that case, it's still a question. If the student benefits and if everyone else can, you know, feel like, you know, this is, you're working with all of us on this, it's great. It's not just for this one person even.

[82:15]

It's for everybody. It's wonderful, you know. Like this example of the kid going into the street the other day. For the parent to yell and the kids to stop, people appreciate that. If the kid, you know, stays on her feet and learns from it. He could do it too loudly and hurt her eardrums and that was too much. But there's a place where that aggressive energy can be used for the welfare of a person. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Aggressive energy is our life. The sun is this huge mass that has been contracted and created great heat by that contraction. It gives off this heat and gives us our life. Our life comes from aggressive energy, partly. It also comes from gravity. The gravity that made the sun is also our life. So our life comes from these forces. So that's why sexual energy and attraction is also part of our life. We are attracted to each other. That's part of the deal. How do we handle this attraction that our bodies want to be together?

[83:19]

How do we handle that? And how do we have all this aggressive energy that comes up with that attraction and that gravitation? This element has to have non-attachment. That's the main element, non-attachment. That we are acting on behalf of all beings, not on behalf of ourself. But again, in order to realize action on behalf of all beings, we have to confess that we also operate at the level of I do. If I don't confess this, and then I walk around and say, this is for your own good, and I'm acting for the welfare of all beings, it doesn't work. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to go over to decide if I'm acting for the welfare of all beings. You don't have to talk like that. You can want to, but you never have to say, I'm acting for the welfare of all beings. It's not necessary. I haven't heard very many examples like the zero so far. I haven't heard examples of great Bodhisattvas saying, I act for the welfare of all beings.

[84:20]

I've heard them say over and over and over, I vow to and I want to act for, and I'm thinking about acting for the welfare of all beings all the time. But they don't go around bragging that they do. What they do is they confess that they're also karmic beings and that they act selfishly. And by admitting that I act selfishly in conjunction with the vow to benefit all beings, gradually it happens in the world that there is this non-attached activity that it gets manifested. Buddha becomes realized in the world, but you don't have to call that Mr. Buddha or Mrs. Buddha when that happens. You can just want to learn about that from the person. And it sometimes manifests as sternness or, like even Buddha, like I say, if you look at the scriptures, once in a while he was a little stern, like that with Ananda, he said, you know, Ananda, go get the water. And he was a little terse with a few people, you know, but he was, generally speaking, considering what he was put to, he was really a gentle person.

[85:26]

He had a lot of power and was gentle. He had tremendous aggressive energy, tremendous love energy, and he used it pretty well, apparently. Because of dependent co-arising. He understood all this in terms of dependent co-arising, so he didn't take his abilities personally. Okay, David, you can go ahead. I'm wondering about the acquiescence or even active Google as possibly a necessary...

[86:09]

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