Recently I was asked some questions, two questions. I thought they were good questions and I could use them as a start talking with you. One question was, What's the relationship between the bodhisattva precepts, I think this person said zazen, what's the relation, and zazen is a word that we sometimes use for zen meditation. Za means sitting, zen meditation. Zen or meditation? What's the relationship between Zen meditation and the Bodhisattva precepts?

[01:02]

The person asked me. And then I remembered when she asked me that there's this book which has my name on it. A book which has my name on it and it's called and the subtitle is the relationship between bodhisattva precepts and Zen meditation and I didn't tell her to read the book instead I gave her a little summary of the book which I'll give you and The summary of the book is that the Zen practice or Zen meditation, sitting meditation, which is the central, the sitting meditation is the central ceremony of the Zen school.

[02:10]

It's the basic ceremony, the basic ritual. And we do it in this room. Matter of fact, some people are doing The relationship between this upright sitting in this lineage and the precepts of this lineage is very intimate. In a sense, the sitting is a ritual enactment of the precepts. And the precepts are the expression of the sitting. And what are the precepts? There are 16 of them in this lineage. And actually I have a nice little card that has the 16 precepts on it, if you'd like one.

[03:16]

They can be made available to talk today. There's 16 precepts, 16 teachings in this school. The first three are kind of universal Buddhist teachings or Buddhist practices. They are the precepts or the vows to go for refuge in the Buddha. Go for refuge in Buddha. Go for refuge in Dharma. Go for refuge in Sangha. Those are the first three precepts of this lineage, of this temple. And in a sense, they're the first three precepts of all schools throughout the world of the tradition of Shakyamuni Buddha. The next three precepts in this lineage are the precept of embracing and sustaining the forms and ceremonies of the tradition and to embrace and sustain all beings.

[04:44]

Those are the next three. They're called the three pure precepts. And then the last ten are the, what are called the prohibitory precepts. They're teachings put negatively. So the precept of not killing, for example. The precept of not taking what's not given. These kinds of precepts. The precept of not lying. The precept of not misusing sexuality. The precept of not poisoning our system with toxins. The precept of not slandering, not speaking of anything. The precept of not praising ourself at the expense of others.

[05:46]

The teaching of not being possessive. The precept of not being angry. in an unskillful way. And the precept of not speaking of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha in a disparaging way, in a limiting way, in a demeaning way. So today I actually will be talking about the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. I pray that in a disparaging way of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. So, just starting with the first of these sixteen precepts, what I said to this person who asked the question was, the relationship between the first precept, the first Bodhisattva precept, is to return, is to go for refuge, to return and rely on Buddha. That's the first Bodhisattva precept.

[06:50]

To go home to enlightenment. to go home to your relationship, to return to your intimate relationship with all enlightened beings. That's the first precept. To go back home to Buddha. To go back home to mutually supportive relationship with all beings. That's Buddha. To return to that. And that precept is, I would say, the relationship between that and Zen meditation or the ceremony of Zen meditation is to do Zen meditation as that precept. So to sit upright and still and silent as or for going home to Buddha.

[08:10]

So right now, sitting here upright as that first precept. sitting here with the vow and the wish to return to enlightenment. I want right now, for me anyway, I want to return to Buddha. And I want to return and rely on Buddha. and return and rely on Buddha in my sitting right now. So that is what I proposed, the relationship between the ceremony of sitting and the first Bodhisattva precept.

[09:14]

precept which is to return to and rely on the inconceivable truth, the inconceivable wonderful truth, the inconceivable reality of our life. I want to return to that. I vow to return to that. I vow to return to the truth. I want to return to the truth. And when I'm sitting, my sitting is for the returning to the truth. Not the truth of just Shakyamuni Buddha in India, not just the truth of all his students, but the truth of the entire universe. That's the truth of Buddha, the truth of all beings, the way all beings are related to each other. I vow to return to that truth.

[10:23]

That's the second Bodhisattva precept in this lineage. And again, in other traditions of the Buddha Dharma, it's also their second main precept. Now, when I'm sitting, I want the relationship to my sitting and that precept to be this sitting is for the sake of that precept. I wish that precept to come alive in this sitting. That this sitting is returning to the truth. And just to finish the three, but not the whole sixteen, I wish to return to the Sangha. I wish to return to the communal harmony and peace among beings. I wish to be an act, a ritual act, for the sake of returning to this peaceful relationship with all beings.

[11:32]

with all other Zen students, with all other Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Christians, and atheists, and mountains, and rivers, and the great earth. That's what this sitting is dedicated to. I'm sitting as the precept, as these three precepts. This first precept of returning to Buddha, the Buddha, the presence, the Buddha present in our life is also not just a presence but it's an activity.

[12:54]

The Buddha is the activity of our life together and the presence of our life together, including the presence of our life of dreaming that we're separate. That's also included. We do sometimes dream that we're separate from other living beings. All these dreams are included in the organization of the presence of our actual relationship. And this Buddha, this awakening, this enlightenment is silent and unmoving. the relationship between us right now is silent, moving.

[14:01]

And now we have a new life, a new relationship, and this one is silent and unmoving. So I've heard. It's silent because nothing I can, I just said it was silent. Okay? But my words, silent, and your words, silent, and all of our other words do not reach the realm of the Buddha. No words reach it, no consciousness reaches it. No consciousness can reach the way we're all related. No words can reach the way we're all related. No words can reach the way we're supporting each other. The way we're supporting each other is said to be unconstructed, unfabricated.

[15:11]

In other words, no construction, no mental construction, no mental fabrication can describe and comprehend Buddha. But we can return to it because we're already there. We return because we get distracted. Or we practice returning because we feel distracted from this silence and stillness of our relationship. reach it, but it can talk.

[16:22]

It can speak. It can dance and sing and move. The silence and stillness can be enacted and can be vocalized. The Buddha can talk even though no talk reaches the Buddha. The Buddha can illuminate consciousnesses, even though no consciousnesses reach it. The way we're all related can illuminate each of us, but none of our, each of us, can reach the way we're related. But we can live there, and we do live there. But we must practice in order to realize it. So the next question that I wanted to relay, the question was, when we do this ceremony of going for refuge, like if you think, I want to return to Buddha, and you say Buddha, I think the person said, do you have to relinquish something in order to return to this silence and stillness?

[17:54]

And I said, yes, everything. But for short, short for everything is relinquish or give up all sound and all movement. Give up all sound and movement and you return to silence and stillness. But also there's one other thing. Return to silence and stillness and unconstructed silence and stillness. So also give up all your ideas of self. So just give up everything and then you return to the source of the Bodhisattva precepts. So the sitting practice, sitting still and upright, which we do in this room and many other rooms, we sit upright and we sit quietly.

[19:03]

This is a ritual or a ceremony of giving up everything, of giving up all our ideas of ourself, of giving up movement and giving up talking. And giving up other people's talking too. And giving up the Buddha's teaching. Giving up everything. And when we give up everything, when we actually succeed at that, we return to Buddha. to go into some detail on this ceremony of sitting upright and being quiet and still most people experience

[20:15]

What did I say? Yeah. If you give up gross movement and gross talk, like now. See, watch. Watch me. Could you see that I gave up gross movements and gross talk? But when I do this, when I give up the gross talk and the gross movement by sitting still and quiet in the ceremony, subtle talk, subtle sounds and subtle movements arise. Yesterday someone said, when she came and sat down here, she realized how tired she was.

[21:27]

When you're running around, you don't necessarily realize that there's this thing called tiredness going on. When you sit still, you feel like, oh my God, I'm really tired. If you're moving around sometimes, if you're moving fast enough, you don't realize that you're sad. If you move fast enough, you don't realize that you're afraid. If you move fast enough, you don't realize that you're agitated. And then when you sit, kind of sit a little bit, you start to realize some relatively more subtle movements and more subtle chatter and more subtle storytelling. So you sit still and quiet, and then you start to realize that you have to be quiet. Then, next step, in a way, open to the subtle stillness.

[22:30]

I mean, open to the subtle not stillness and not silence. Open to the more subtle movements of body and mind, and the subtle talk. Open to that. Be generous with that. Relax with that. And when I say that, I mean, oh, excuse me, when I say open to it, I mean gradually open all the way open to the subtle. When you first sit down, you open to the gross and let go of it, the gross movement. You open to the gross talking and let go of it. Then the subtle comes and you open to it. And when you're open to it, you relinquish it. You relinquish the movement and the chatter. Not getting rid of it, just opening to it so you're not holding on to it anymore.

[23:36]

If we can open to all the chatter, All of it. Which means all the pain, all the pettiness, the subtle ones that appear when you sit still, when you do the ceremony of sitting still. Not the real sitting still, the ceremony of sitting still. And then you open to the not sitting still and not being quiet. And you really open all the way to that. Then in that openness, you also open to something else. Okay? We're opening to this. We've opened to the gross. First of all, we open to the gross movements and the gross movements. and we give it up and sit still in the ceremony.

[24:43]

Then in the ceremony, in the midst of the ceremony, the subtle movements and the subtle talk comes, and we open to that. And when we open all the way to that, we open to something else. We open to actual, complete silence and stillness, the actual reality of Buddha. But everybody I've ever heard of or met or been needs to do this ceremony in order to open to this inconceivable, ungraspable reality of the first jewel of the tradition called the Buddha. which is this silent, unmoving bond among all beings, which of course is always there, waiting for us to open and dive in.

[25:52]

But it's hard to open and dive into that because in order to open to that, you have to do something else, some of which you do not want to open to, some of which are fear of many things. And one of the things that we might be afraid of is fear of what would happen to us if we opened to silence and stillness. What would happen to us if we kept, if we stopped saying to ourselves, I'm going to be all right, I'm going to be all right, just one step at a time, I'll be okay, I've got control. If we let go of that, what would happen to us, etc.? Or, those people are not as good as me, I'm better than them. If we let go of that. Or they're better than... I'm worse than them. If you let go of that, that chatter, that chatter which is keeping us, giving us something to hold on to. We've got a hold of it, but we're not open to it.

[26:59]

If we open to it, We do the ceremony of sitting still and quiet, grossly still and quiet, or giving up gross movement and noise. And then we open to the possibility of relinquishing everything. And in opening to that and being willing to relinquish everything, we open to the first precept. So the sitting in the sitting practice, as it evolves, it becomes the first precept. It becomes returning to Buddha. And so on. It becomes returning to Dharma. Returning and relying on Sangha.

[28:03]

And it's relying without attachment. It's a relying on Buddha, on our intimacy with Buddha, without holding on to Buddha, without idealizing Buddha, without identifying with Buddha. It's like being intimate with no grasping, being intimate with no attachment. And again, that's relinquishing everything, and the reward of relinquishing everything is being intimate with everything, which is Buddha. The first precept of the Bodhisattva. Buddha and returning to Buddha. On the cover of the book, being upright, is a Chinese character for ceremony. I don't know how that character got on the cover, but again, it's wonderful that that character is on the cover, I think, because

[29:10]

The book is about a ceremony of receiving the Bodhisattva precepts, but it also points to you have to do a ceremony of sitting in order to reach the actual practice which the ceremony doesn't reach. Or not to reach the actual practice, but to realize the actual practice of Buddha which doesn't reach it. the ceremony. We have to do something without thinking the thing we're going to do is going to reach where we want to go, which is relinquishing actually trying to get somewhere. It's relinquishing where we want to be. And in this case that makes sense. The place you want to be is a place where we're not attached, where we're supporting and being supported but not... Another phrase comes to my mind

[30:42]

Trust everything to inhaling and exhaling and leap into the womb of light. Trust everything to inhaling and exhaling and leap into the Buddha. And don't look back. Trust everything to your breathing, to being still and quiet. It means relinquish everything. The place we're really living is a place where we are relinquishing everything right now.

[31:47]

That's where we actually are. We're actually not holding on to anything. We're actually silent and still. And in our silence and stillness, we're not holding on to anything. But we have to do a ceremony of silence and stillness to realize this. And again, in the ceremony of silence and stillness, you start to notice more and more subtle and challenging noises and movements, which again, if you can open to relinquish them, and being willing to relinquish them, being open to relinquish them, you open to the actual, our actual life together, which in each moment is silent and still. and no words reach this place and yet it can express itself in singing and dancing.

[32:51]

It expresses itself by leaping and leaping and leaping and dancing. from this place of silence and stillness, all joyful, compassionate healing occurs. In this place, this is the place where compassion flourishes. This is the place where healing occurs. It occurs in silence. Without moving a particle of dust, we are healed. And the root of the word healed is whole. We are whole. We become whole in the actual silence and stillness. Which is right now, only thing that separates us from it is some holding on. These days, conditions lead me to think quite frequently the thought that I love America.

[34:18]

I love America. I love this world. I think that. That comes to my mind. And part of the reason it comes to my mind is I hear other people saying that they love America. And I love America. America is a wonderful, beautiful place. Excuse me, take it back. The United States of America is a beautiful land with wonderful people. It's a place where people say, those who can play golf and those who can't play anyway. People here have a good sense of humor quite often. It's also a place where one goes to visit one's daughter and she gives you a t-shirt that says Obama on it. In 2008.

[35:22]

And she says, here, this doesn't fit me, you can wear it. It's a country where I can put on an Obama t-shirt. Wonderful. And I can go and get a... And the male flight attendant can look at me and say, welcome aboard. Did someone vomit on your chest? Did someone vomit on your t-shirt? Where's the Bodhisattva precepts? Where is the silence and stillness? Where is the peace and harmony? Between him and me.

[36:23]

And he said, God bless America. And he had a beautiful tie, an American flag tie. I didn't think of it until too late to say, could I have your tie? Brother? Could I have that tie, brother? Would you like to trade the t-shirt for the tie? Maybe I wasn't in silence and stillness enough to be able to dance with him. or, I should say, to be able to dance with him in a really joyful way. But I would like to, you know, to be able to meet him more quickly and get with him.

[37:26]

I also thought maybe I should get three kinds of t-shirts and wear them all at once and then just put them up and down according to the response I get. Oh, you didn't like that one? How about this one? God bless America. God bless America. Bless America. Yes. And I listen to the radio sometimes, in the car particularly. Here, an Israeli, a former Israeli commando, And a former Palestinian, I don't know what, militiaman or terrorist, they're on this show. And they're working for an organization that's working for peace now. And I was just really moved that these two former combatants could meet together.

[38:35]

And the Palestinian said that he heard soldiers refused to go into occupied areas of the West Bank. And he was really interested that what would the reason be for not being willing to serve in occupied areas. So he started to find out more about it. And he finally got able to have a meeting with some of these former soldiers who were now saying they refused to serve as occupiers. And he asked them why, and they said, well, there's no way without humiliating people. And I couldn't humiliate them anymore. I couldn't stand to humiliate civilians. I just refused to do it. And this Palestinian said in the first meeting, he was afraid to shake hands with these people because these people he hated.

[39:46]

And he said to one of them, he said, do you realize that you're a terrorist? And the guy said, yes. Do you realize that you're committing war crimes? The guy said, yes. And he said when he first met these Israeli soldiers, former soldiers, he didn't have any idea of being their friends. He just wanted to see if they could work for peace on the same kind of project. But he said they became much more than friends. He said they became like family. It can happen. And right out here, down this walk to the ocean, there's an ocean.

[40:51]

And out in that ocean, they put out nets to catch, I think, crabs. Fishermen put out nets. I hear that they put them out there. I see the lights sometimes with them out there. and a whale got caught in the nets. And we have a marine mammal rescue area right in the next valley over, valley after the next valley. And the marine mammal divers went out there and went up to the whale with the intention of liberating the whale from the net. and they had to come right. And one of them said he was like, he was working for hours with this, whales have big eyes, with that whale eye just sitting there looking at him.

[41:53]

And the whale, the whale was, for all those hours, the whale, this huge beast was sitting in the water. still, which is good because if the whale moves, he could easily kill the divers. A slight flip of the tail could break them. The whale was still and silent with the divers while they were working. And finally, the whale was released from the net and the whale went around to each of the divers and touched them with its head, one by one. I don't know if that's true, but that's a story I heard.

[42:54]

In my heart, I feel that this comes from silence and stillness of our deep relationship with our enemies, with whales, with all beings. When we're in that place, we can come close to the big, dangerous beings that we live with. and we can find peace. But it's not close without touching into this place of silence and stillness, which is in our heart, or in which our heart lives. We have to practice. We have to do the ceremony. We have to work through the tough stuff and open, work through the tough stuff and open, relinquish, give up. in order to open to this ability we have to go up to the whale and help the whale and let the whale help us.

[44:12]

Some people have done it. We can follow them. And from this silent place many songs come and there's probably songs about whales. Whales sing. But I don't know whale songs. Our intentions equally extend to every being.

[45:19]

Yes? What I'd like to say about the whale story, I felt the effect lying behind the sinker. Was the whale sitting upright? Did he? One of the basic teachings of the Buddha is that action has consequence. Karma has consequence. And karma means mental, basically mental representation of our relationship with the world. So in each moment it constructs something which it uses to interpret our relationship with the world.

[46:29]

Like right now I have a story that I'm in a room with you and other people and I'm talking to you now. I have a story like that. My mind constructs that. That is the basic activity that we call karma. And then based on those kinds of mental constructions, I speak like I just told you about a construction I have. I could have been quiet too and just had this story in my mind and kept it to myself. But then that would be the way I chose to speak of the story, is to not say anything. And my posture also reflects the story. If I had a story that we're having an earthquake, then my body might get up and move out of the room or over to the . So based on my story, I speak and physically posture. Those are the three kinds of action, three kinds of karma.

[47:30]

and the Buddha says they all have consequences, so he encourages us to pay close attention to our karma. Now another way to talk about this construction of our relationship is that it's a story. So I have a story that I'm talking to you and other people in the room and that we're kind of being kind to each other right now. Nobody seems to be terribly. My story is we're probably, some of us are somewhat more or less uncomfortable or, you know, it's nice weather. This is a story I have. And the next moment I have another story. Next moment I have another story. So like I have a story that probably in a minute from now or so, somebody else will ask a question and I'll have a story of that. So what's actually going on, however, is not my story. So what's going on between us is far more complex and vast than my story.

[48:37]

But my story is a way for me to grasp the vastness of causation. And by watching my stories, my stories will evolve in a positive way. I make that claim. I've heard that claim. If you watch your stories, your stories will become more and more skillful. And as they become more skillful, also your observation skills will become more skillful. And in this situation you can finally see that your stories actually are not what's happening. You realize the emptiness of your stories. And then you undo our tendency to believe our stories and have all kinds of suffering because we believe our stories. Even having a positive story, if you think it's real, you suffer. Even a skillful story is still just a story.

[49:41]

It's a much better story, in a way, than unskillful stories. But in both cases, if we believe them, we have stress and distress. Does that give you some feeling for it? Yeah. You're welcome. Any? Yes. I was really moved by most of it. I've been listening to... The three-week intensive, 15th of January, and this is the first time I've heard the teachings of the Buddha.

[50:45]

in all, in relationship, and that this relationship is the Buddha, and to cultivate the Buddha within, to see that, the Buddha in all relationships. And I'm not exactly expressing it, but I've never heard even Zen teachings, and I really like the intentionality of it, that the when I'm still, the natural consideration and compassion and non-separation that arises naturally. And to hear it so intentionally, I really love that. And today, it's just so much sunk in deeper. that everything I do, every word, every thought, everything, every word, every action, every thought is so important.

[52:13]

And that it's either that it's going or it's going away from. I know it's true in my heart. It either goes towards liberation or it goes away from liberation. Can I say something? It may be true that all the thoughts you're aware of seem to go towards or away from liberation. That may be what you feel now. But if you can find your thoughts in that stillness, you're not going towards or away from liberation. That is liberation. It's not going towards it or away. It's opening to it right now

[53:18]

but it may look like your thoughts are going towards or away. And of course towards seems nicer than away, but towards is going a little bit, kind of distracting you from that. If you would find the stillness in your thoughts, you would immediately, that would be liberation. And that would be immediately opening to your relationship with everyone. I do see that. When we went outside and I went in and I bought some bread as an intention to take it to friends and family later. And then I could see the thought arise of, oh, I could visualize the loaf of bread staying in my car rather than coming with me. And I could I know what that is.

[54:21]

I mean, I know that's, you know, that's just the arising of, you know, want, you know, desire. And I see, I do, like, I... That's why this is so important, you know, that the cultivating that stillness, to be able to see that. So here's an example of where she was still enough to see that movement there. Yes. Okay. If she's not still, she wouldn't even notice that there was this little wiggling around, around this pretty wholesome thought of giving some bread to someone. There was some subtle movement around there and some subtle chatter around that. You were quiet enough to notice that. Now if you would open and relax with that and not try to get rid of that stuff, but be willing to be a little bit, I don't know what the word for that is, busy around this bread-giving.

[55:24]

If you let yourself open to that busyness, then you're also open to something that's not busy around the bread-giving. Yes. And the bread-giving and seeing the... sort of wanting, and then seeing the judging coming in about the wanting, and then seeing the delusion about the judging. And it just goes round and round. And those, now that you're talking about, they seem kind of like big movements. But they're not very big. You have to see them. But then when you see them, they might look like, well, what's going on here? But you wouldn't even have noticed it unless you slowed down. And then when you settle with those and relax with those, then some more subtle ones come up. But when they come up and you're in that world, it can seem quite Do I have to open to this too? I suppose, okay. And then open to that.

[56:27]

So more and more subtle and more and more open. New dimensions of subtlety of movement and talk and deeper dimensions of opening to in some way more and more minute pettiness. So great bodhisattvas still have things to confess because they notice these slight deviations from silence and stillness that are still being activated and they're calm enough to see them and relax with them and your reward is, here's another one. Did somebody vomit on your t-shirt? God bless you, America. Or not. What did you say? And so the space that, I mean, the more I practice...

[57:35]

When contact occurs, you know, there's the real space. There's more of that space right there before it, you know, continues down. So the more you practice, there's a possibility of fairly steady, although maybe rhythmic, and your ability of when there's contact, you know, contact, pain, you know, did someone vomit on your T-shirt? And there's a little bit of something like, what? Oh, you know, I didn't know I was talking about it at first. Somebody vomited on my T-shirt? Oh, that's what he's saying. And then a little bit of like... Now, if there was only one passenger, I probably would have been able to stay there for a while. But there's a little space there where you start to realize somebody's saying something to me that's a little uncomfortable. And then to be open to that discomfort... You can realize, oh, we're having a conversation.

[58:43]

Something's happening here between us. You can be there with it rather than skipping over it and getting into who knows what when you miss the opportunity. Did you miss that? You got it? Yeah, I was thinking about the situation and wondering how that... how you make the choices when it's the, can I have your tie? So, but you don't, you know, you don't make that choice to make that dance with the person. So, but as soon as that to you, you're connected. Yeah. And so how, you know, it's like, do you think about it? Do you just let it dance or, uh, Maybe that's where practice really helps out. That is where practice helps. Yeah. Practice does help you with those moments. And, you know, it actually worked out fairly well.

[59:49]

But I wasn't really... I could have been more there with him than I was. But, you know, I'm working on this relationship with this guy, actually. But there hasn't been much ill will. I just want his tie. Right at this moment, what do you wish you had done? Or maybe you didn't wish that you'd done anything. Well, I was boarding the plane, so I went to my seat. And my wife was behind me, she heard what he said. And also the other attendants, the female attendants around him also heard it. And one of the female attendants said something like, I like your t-shirt. But I was kind of like, yeah, I was actually, now, you know, I could say I was dancing, but the way I was dancing was somebody kind of punched me and I was kind of like,

[60:55]

I was dealing with the punch. And so I think that what I did was probably what I would do. Although it wasn't particularly, it wasn't anything like me doing a good job or anything like that. It was just like, he punched me, I got punched. It was kind of like that. it's a nice tie you've got, but then I also sort of, other people want to get on the airplane, right? And then he, and then later he said, you know, he was like the emcee of the flight. So he was making various other comments like, you know, God bless America and stuff like that. Which, again, I feel that way too. God bless America. So... I'm just amazed by the multi-karmic opportunities that arise at any moment. Yeah.

[61:57]

And how reaching scope of... Yeah. So today I'm emphasizing we need to be, or I shouldn't say we need to be, it really helps if we're in touch with the silence and stillness. there's tremendous resources of compassion and healing in there, you know, if we can really open to it. It doesn't mean even that a Buddha could have done anything better, but maybe. But the point is vowing to return to that place of silence and stillness which is the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. And just keep working at that and I think you generally get encouraged by what comes forth when you're working to be there. The more I live there, what comes of the way I respond to the contacts with other beings.

[63:06]

I have not been discouraged I haven't been discouraged by what happens when I'm there. I've been encouraged to go there more. And not just to be there, which is great, but for what happens when you are there. For me, in a way, I didn't come to Zen to be in that place. of silence and stillness. I came to be the way you received coming from that place. I didn't even know about that place. I just knew that some people, when they're attacked, they can come back with something quite lovely, with a really nice dance response. I wanted to have that kind of response. And then I found out, oh, you've got to go to this place to fully tap into these great responses to being loved and hated, or being liked and disliked, or even just being loved.

[64:12]

Even love, sometimes if it comes to you and you're not in that place, it's like, oh, this is too much, get away from me. You refuse love sometimes. Someone wants to love you. They want to touch you because they love your body. You know? Even your spouse wants to touch you, and it's kind of like, if you're not in that place, it's like, I don't need your help. But if you're in that place, it's thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Welcome. Welcome flight attendant, male flight attendant, talking to me this way. Welcome female flight attendant giving me her empathy when she sees him talking to me that way. And also she isn't attacking him. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

[65:15]

Comes from that place. And also, by the way, not only welcome to him, and his comments, but also welcome to Bodhi, welcome to Buddha. Now, of course, I'd like to welcome Buddha and not welcome him, but if I don't welcome him, I don't welcome Buddha. And that's the price of admission. Welcome everybody and then you get to welcome what you really want to welcome. I see three hands. One, two, three, four. Do that again. One, two, three, no, three, four. One. I was just wondering about the idea of playfulness. Because I was trying to imagine myself in that situation, and if I had imagined it as being a playful thing, I could have said that one. And it just makes me think about how I could choose to experience things as an attack, or I could choose to be playful and cooperative.

[66:31]

So I just wondered if you had anything to say about that. Yeah. I think that this place of silence and stillness allows you to see that what is happening in this world is playing with everybody. The bodhisattvas are playing here. They're playing with suffering people, but they're joyfully playing with them. And some people are trying to attack you, and they do mean to attack you, but sometimes even though they're trying to attack you, you just think it's really funny. Like there's some people who physically inflict pain on me, and when they do, I laugh. It's just really funny to me that they're hurting me. you know, pinching me and poking me. And they find it very entertaining that I'm laughing while they're doing it. It's not real big pain, but it's, you know, it's enough to make me laugh. Huh? Yeah, right. Yes, Ann. A long time ago, when I came here,

[67:31]

one of the girls, someone sitting next to me, told us that he had gone to the movie theater and he'd like to see what movies were playing and at the right bar. And we asked him, didn't you see a movie? And he said, I left them there. And so what I'm asking is, how do I understand leaving the movie there Well, leaving the movies there sounded kind of like close to the spirit of giving the movies away, relinquishing them. I mean, you can also right now, we can sit here and we can relinquish all movies that are going on right now. We can relinquish them all, give them all away. Make all the movies gifts to all of the beings right now. And we can also make a trip to the movies. You don't need to, but sometimes it's more fun to find out what the movie is before you give it away.

[68:59]

We can sit here right now and give all the wildflowers in the mountains to the Buddhas, give all the wildflowers in the mountains to all living beings. We can do it right now, or we can walk up there and look at each individual wildflower and make gifts of each one of them. So it's a different event. They're both, I mean, one we can do right now, which is great. The other one we have to climb up the hill and get close to them and say, from a distance I give you and I come up close and I give you and I smell you and I give the smell of you. The point is, always be giving away. And the more you do that, the more you open to silence and stillness. The more you open to Buddha. Because Buddha is how you're giving yourself away and everyone's giving themselves to you. The more you give the flowers away, the more you realize the flowers are The less you give the flowers away, the less you notice the flowers are being given to you.

[70:05]

The less you give the flowers away, the less you notice the flowers are giving you life. It's already going on that they're giving you life and you're giving them life, but if you don't practice this ritual of giving, you don't realize the actual... Giving is truth. But if we don't practice giving, we don't realize it. Stillness and silence, the truth is still and silent. If we don't practice stillness and silence, if we don't open to it, we don't realize it. It's not that easy to open to it, because in the process of opening to it, we run into all this other stuff, like who vomited? Somebody vomited on your T-shirt? If you open to that, make that a gift, then you're in the realm of playfulness and giving and silence, et cetera. One, two, I think it was, three, four.

[71:08]

Were you three? Yeah? you know, on the moment. But I just thought, as you were telling the story, what if you had responded like the female attendant responded, not attacking this gentleman, but just saying, oh, I like him. You know, just a matter of fact. I could have done that in response. I do actually like him. But I also like Hillary, and I also like John McCain. I like those people. and I also love them. So that's why I said I should have three t-shirts. However, I don't think I'm going to vote for all three. But now that I go back to the story, you see, Annie kind of asked me, what I'm really pointing at is, when he said that, I didn't get it at first anyway.

[72:17]

Vomit on my shirt? I was actually past him by the time I got it. My first response, actually, was not that clever. It was like I didn't get it. My first response, ladies and gentlemen, was my first response. And my first response is, I'm not very smart. People that aren't very smart like me don't get jokes very fast. But that was my first response. My first response, actually, was that I immediately gave him not knowing what he was talking about. In the realm of silence and stillness, I see, oh, he said this, and then I'm... He doesn't understand what he said. Next response. Oh, I get it. That was my second response. Oh, I get it. Third response. is I hear this woman saying this thing. She said this thing after I understood what he was, what he seemed to be saying. So I had another response to her, which was feeling like, oh, thank you, sweetheart, from kind of like, and then, et cetera.

[73:25]

Then my wife said something, and I have another response. Actually, what I'm pointing to is that by being present, you get to see that you are responding, responding, responding. And then it's not a matter of what would you do, it's a matter of whatever. and you are there, and you are alive. And that's where the pay dirt is, is to be there with what you are doing, which could be clever or not. The point is, what is it? And if it's never clever, but you're always there, you're with Buddha. If it's never clever, and you're not there, you're not with Buddha. But some people are quite clever. Are they there and appreciating that responsiveness, that play. If they are, then I think this is the realm of compassion and healing. I'm there seeing how he's going beep, and I'm going beep, [...] beep. In that realm, I think we realize that we're good friends.

[74:27]

He and I, actually, are good friends. In a kind of, you know, this kind of way called, whatever you want to call it, kind of good friends. not somebody's idea of good friends, the actuality of my relationship with him. Actuality. Which we can see if we're silent and still. And I should say, if we can see if we're present with our silence and stillness. We are silent. but we're not always present with it. And then we don't notice that they throw us a ball and we catch it. And when we catch it, we throw them a ball. As soon as we catch the ball, we give them something. When you throw a ball to somebody and they catch it, it touches you. And when they drop it, it touches you. Whatever you did touches them. And to be there is to return to Buddha.

[75:28]

And it's hard to be there moment by moment. Would you please say the last part of what you said a little louder? How do you take that next step up on the ladder when you take that next step to gain the existence of God? If you want to say that it negates it, then I would say, well, let go of or relinquish that idea that there's a negation of the ladder.

[76:52]

If you haven't negated the ladder, you've got a ladder, and you're about to give the ladder away, then that's the next step. When you've got a ladder, you've got a ladder to give away. It doesn't negate the ladder necessarily, but if you think so, then that's another thing to give away. So give away is negating the ladder by giving it away. I don't necessarily negate you by making you a gift right now. But if I thought making you a gift negated you, then I would make that thought a gift. So my thoughts are gifts, and you're a gift. And then you say, well, give away the ladder? Mm-hmm. Give away the ladder. Well, what's going to happen to me if I give away the ladder? Will I be hanging in empty space? Well, yeah, kind of.

[77:59]

You'll be hanging. ...in empty space, which is where you are actually right now. We are all sitting here hanging in empty space, but gravity keeps us on the planet at the same time. We don't have to actually hold on to be here. Our attractions, you know, in the net of relationship. All beings are supporting us. We don't have to hold on to them. we are supporting them, we don't have to hold on to them. How's that? Yeah, yes. You just said quite a good point. For me, letting go or giving is the light. I'm not afraid of it.

[78:59]

of the gravity, that pulling down. So... You're afraid of falling? Not even falling. It's not even falling. It's, you know, it's like... It's this, and then that, what... This is what I'm saying. It's that pull, that strong pull that brings me right here. That is more fearful to me than the giving. The giving is more of a light, and You're afraid of being pulled here? Yes, yes. That's my fear. That's your fear or that's what you're afraid of? It's so intense. It gets in my chest and it's... It's too strong. It's too strong for me. You say it's too strong. It's one way to put it, but I'm also feeling like maybe what you mean is that the strength is so strong that it's going to make you be very limited.

[80:14]

It's going to pull you right to a very limited place. Yeah, it puts me to a dot. Yeah. It's that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It puts you at a dot. Yeah. And if you... So this is what I'm feeling. If you open up and you're very... And you don't resist what's being given to you, what's being given to you partly is that you're being made into a very specific thing. you're being made into like a dot. You're being made to be very small. And if you open to what's going on, you'll feel how everything's making you very, very small. And to the point that the smallness might turn into like nothing.

[81:17]

Nothing. part of what we have to learn to do is accept our smallness. And she's actually able to feel the forces of her being made small, and she's somewhat afraid of what will happen if she really lets that happen. And what I would suggest will happen to us if we made very small up to the point of almost being nothing, is that by willing to let that happen, we open to what is very big. and say it again, opening to what's very big. What's very big is what makes us, and what makes us makes us very limited. If we open to that, if we open to the original situation which makes us feel limited, and then open to the limited, then we open to the great. We open to the greatness by being open to the small.

[82:19]

And it's hard for us to accept being small. But we can help each other. And in Zen we have forms which help us be small, which help us feel small. Like meditation, where you sit in a certain space with a certain body for a certain time. You can actually start to be able to accept your limitedness. And, of course, you get to right away is you notice your resistance to being limited. The resistance to being in a certain seat with a certain body, with a certain feeling. So working with those forms gives us a chance to and then open to not our unlimitedness, because we're not unlimited, We are not unlimited, but what is unlimited is based on us.

[83:30]

We small things are the basis for the unlimited. The entire universe depends on each of us. Friendship is peace and freedom and fearlessness and that kind of stuff. Yes? It's not so much limiting ourselves, but accepting that we're limited. Yeah. No, no, not suppressing it. If you feel competitiveness, that's a limited thing. So right before you suppress it, accept any feeling of competition.

[84:36]

some impulse of competition, you are quite limited at that time. Already. Nobody's telling you not to do that. I'm telling you, accept when you feel a competitive emotion. Accept that right then. Don't limit it. Accept. Not suppress it. That's not accepting. Open to it. Open to this feeling of, I'm trying to win this game. Like my grandson. When we play sports, not so much as we used to be, but we used to... He has what you might call some competitive... What? Some competitive impulses. He wants to completely win every game and totally demolish me. That's the way he is and he doesn't have any problem to speak of accepting that except he feels miserable when he does that with me.

[86:03]

In his triumph, in his total triumph over me, he feels miserable and has to go on to more triumphs. So I don't try to suppress his competitiveness and he doesn't either. He's pretty good that way. But he also doesn't really accept his competitiveness. He doesn't really fully feel it. He doesn't really notice it. But you're now old enough so you can feel when competitive feelings come up. You can notice when, you know, someone gives some instead of you. You can notice that. And at that time, you are limited to being the person you are who feels that competitiveness. That's who you are. And you're small in that way, or I'm small that way. You know, like if a woman gives another woman a compliment, the way I'm built usually is I don't feel, well, what about my dress?

[87:06]

I got a dress on too, don't you like it? So, you know, that's the way it's set up is that, or when women are complimenting each other on their jeans, I don't feel like, you know, well, what about me? I don't have any jeans, but, you know, whatever. It doesn't arise. But if somebody says, oh, that Zen priest, he's really a good teacher. You should go study with him because he's much better than you. Then if some kind of competitive thing pops up there, I'm nailed right there. I'm a limited person who is a Zen priest who is now kind of concerned about what kind of Zen priest am I. I'm nailed right there, very limited. I don't try to squash that. Of course, I shouldn't be that way, right? Zen priests shouldn't be like, oh, am I like any other Zen priests? They shouldn't be that way, right? They shouldn't be that way. But they are. Sometimes.

[88:08]

Sometimes they are that way. At that time, they're very limited. Zen priests are not supposed to be limited. They're supposed to be huge, immense, vast. But how are they sometimes? Sometimes they're like real petty. Even they're kind of like, somebody took my cushion. How dare they? You know? I have seniority and they... whatever. This happens. This is like being very small, right? We don't try to suppress that. I mean, people do. You know, the Zen people might try to hide it, hope nobody noticed that I felt competitive. See that? They do. They may try it, but that's not the practice. The practice is... Hey, guess what happened over here? I was like competitive. I was like this thought of, oh, what a, you know, that came up. That's more the spirit of what I'm talking about. Open to the competitiveness is the practice. Then it's like, hey, I'm a petty priest. That's what I am. Like last week, Hoitsu was here, Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi.

[89:12]

And he's very good at saying, I'm a petty priest. I'm a little priest. You know, I'm all concerned about myself. Very good at confessing his humanness. So Zen priests are often humans. And being human, competitive feelings arise on certain occasions. If a Zen priest hears of people arguing about who's the best imam, competitive. But when they hear about who's the best Zen teacher of them all, when they ask the mirror and the mirror says, well, it's somebody else. Okay? Then they feel petty, maybe. Not for sure, but maybe. If they're asking the question, maybe. If they think that... And I'm saying open to that. Don't suppress it. Open to it. So Zen is to make us not so much not be petty, But what?

[90:14]

But to realize our pettiness is a gift. It's something to give away. Here, you got a petty priest. I give him to you. Rather than let's get that guy, hide that guy in the closet. Get all the petty priests out of here. People will get discouraged as they see a bunch of petty priests. No, here, look, we got petty priests. We confess we got petty priests. And people say, oh, you're just doing that. This is like some kind of trick. Yep, you're right. We're really sneaky. Okay? Not suppress it. All right? Thank you. Hi. Hi. I don't agree. I don't agree. I agree usually. Yeah, maybe you. But some people are... are more trained than you and they notice something you don't notice.

[91:38]

It happens between what you say was your immediate response and what you say was your immediate response. So somebody says to you, you know, give me your money. Okay? And before the thing you notice, some other response happens that you missed. We have to train ourselves to notice that there's some response there that's very close to the quietness, namely compassion. There's compassion there. If you're not quiet, you miss it. And if you miss it, then because you miss it, you get frightened. And then because you're frightened, you get aggressive or whatever. But there is some other response that's more immediate, that we need to be trained to see. There is a loving response that's more immediate.

[92:41]

But we have to be very quiet to catch it. And also, in the process of being quiet, we start to notice the things you notice. So you're quiet enough to notice these responses in yourself. And if you notice these responses and practice with these responses you're telling me about, and relax with them, you will become more and more quiet, more and more still. And you will notice that when attacked, there is immediate response of compassion. And that's what attracted me to Zen, is stories of people being attacked and their immediate response Because they were here. They were present. So when the attack came, it came to them in their presence. They could see, oh, here comes my friend. They can see in that silence that somebody who has an enemy badge on their forehead, who said from you, is actually your grandson, your granddaughter.

[93:45]

This is a loving, close friend who's coming to insult you, to attack you, to rob you. They are coming to rob you, it's true. But this is your close friend coming. So the stories that turned me to Zen were when robbers were coming, as soon as the person saw them, they saw, oh, this is my close friend. And before the robber even got to the house, they threw their possessions out the window. Said, here, take them. Joyfully, not as a trick. Like, oh, I'm a Zen priest, I'm going to pull a fast one on them. Really joyful, like, here, take my stuff. When you see somebody and you're in this quiet place, when you see them, you think, I want to give them a gift. When you see them, I want to give them love. When you see them, you think, they're giving me love. Here comes love, I'm going to go meet that love. What do you feel like when you're in this place of Buddha? When Buddha is present and Buddha gets attacked, Buddha feels love for the attacker.

[94:50]

And it can be that way. It can be that way. It is that way. When my grandson attacks me, I see love coming and I see love going. And someone says, wait until he gets bigger. Okay? Okay? It's true. Wait until he gets bigger. But if I'm with him, one can untie the bell strings around the tiger's neck. Who can go up to the tiger and untie the strings that are on the bell on the tiger's neck? The one who tied it. When I was a kid, I was afraid of dogs. And I was afraid of dogs for various reasons.

[95:55]

One is I think some dogs bit me. But after I got afraid of dogs, dogs could smell me a mile away. And they came running at me from all directions because they could feel my fear and say, ah, they come running at me from a long ways. Little tiny dogs come running at me. I was afraid of them. When they came running at me, I kept being afraid of them. I was afraid of dogs, even little ones. Now, I knew, of course, the little ones, I could pump them, right? But still, I was afraid of them. And then, when I was a teenager, my sister got two germs. baby German Shepherds, little puppy German Shepherds. And I grew up with these baby German Shepherds, and they got bigger and bigger. And one of them particularly, the male, got really big, 95 pounds of aggressive energy.

[96:56]

But because I grew up with dogs anymore, my friends would come to visit, and the male dog, my friends would shiver in fear and say, don't worry, he won't hurt you. Unless you move. We have to get close. And maybe we start with little examples, like little grandchildren robbers, grandson robbers, grandson murderers, and learn that we can love the one who wants to murder us, who wants to steal from us, who wants to lie from us. We can love people who are trying to abuse us. Right? Right? In some cases, you can love them and they're totally trying to destroy you just for fun or for power. But you can love them. And if you can love them, not like them, you know, I didn't like him, but love him, not hate him. This is my darling dresser to get to that place and then extend it.

[98:05]

And having a grandson has made me more this way with larger males. Now, like when I see men driving around in these huge trucks, you know, these huge trucks which are completely spotless and have these shining chrome hubcaps, you know, and they're driving them and I see frightened little grandsons in the car. And I know that if I would scratch or put a thumbprint on their car, they freak out and become terrified and aggressive towards me. That I would smudge their perfect vehicle. That I would smudge their perfect body and their mind. They would freak, just like my grandson would freak. You know, got a banana. Or he wants a banana, I bring him the banana. And then I cut the banana for him.

[99:06]

And he freaks because I cut his banana. He totally freaks out and hates me because I cut his banana. His banana destroyed his world. My little darling boy, I didn't mean to. I was trying to help you. But I still accept I did a terrible, terrible thing. I cut your banana. I'm so sorry. I touched your car. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, darling grandson who weighs 500 pounds. You have to learn this so that everybody that comes to you, you learn to treat them like Buddha treats them. And people attack Buddha. Buddha goes, what can I do to help you? Not afraid, because Buddha loves them. Buddha is in this place where we love everyone and everybody loves us. They find that place, they live in that place, and they come from that place and they go back to that place and they come from that place and they go back to that place.

[100:14]

And then they go forth from that place and they return to that place and they go forth from that place and return to this place. So that when we are attacked, when people try to rob us and hurt us, we will see, this is my lover, this is my child, this is my mother, who's crazy, who's frightened, who's aggressive, who's competitive, who's ignorant. is ignorant and frightened. He's a frightened, ignorant, precious, wonderful creature. And now I can extend that. By seeing it in him, I can extend it more and more to other men who are just like him, except bigger. He's competitive. He's selfish. They are too. But now I can feel for them more like I feel for him. I can find that place. And then, still the fear may come, but it comes because I lose trust.

[101:20]

If I'm in that place, the fear does not arise. What arises is extending the hand of help to a frightened child. This is something we have to train ourselves to get to, though. We have to train and train and train. A hundred million dollars, just like me, on the airplane with the guy saying, vomit, on my shirt. You know, I'm working with those kinds of things. And that wasn't a very bad one, but there it is. That's the kind of thing to work on. I'm proclaiming this is possible to learn. And if we make a little progress, I say that's great. That's what I came to Zen Center to learn. And I've made a little tiny progress in it. And I'm very happy to have made some progress towards becoming like these people who, when they're being robbed, they say, here. They never get robbed. No one can steal anything because they make everything a gift.

[102:23]

They never lose anything because they make it a gift. And when it looks like you're going to lose something, quick, switch to gifts. Switch all losses to gifts. Can I lose your life? No, I'm going to give it away. Can I lose your memory? No, no, I'll give it away. I'll give them away. Can I lose your health? No, no, I gave it away. It was a gift. I used to have health, now I don't, I gave it away. I used to be young, gave it away. And I'm still a man, but I give that away too. I used to be a Buddhist, I gave it away. I used to be a priest. I gave it away. My God is perfectly the right time to stop.

[103:18]

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