I just heard a bunch of words said by you and me, did you hear them? I didn't hear that, what was that? Somebody didn't hear it? Well, it said something like, some people said, an unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow. To taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Did you hear that?

[01:01]

I don't know if you all said that. Are there some new people here today? Did you say it? Do you want to? Very good. I believe that this is an English translation, this verse is an English translation of a Chinese poem or verse, I believe written by the Empress of China in the Tang Dynasty. Empress, I believe her name is Empress Wu, I'm not sure, and she wrote that poem and it became the main verse that Buddhists use when they opened the scriptures or listen to the talks about the Buddha Dharma.

[02:10]

And it got transmitted to Japan and now in America we translate it into English. So it says that, well it kind of suggests that there is an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect dharma, which could be understood as a penetrating truth or also a penetrating teaching about the way things are. And the opportunity to meet this is very rare, but if we have the chance to meet this dharma and hear it and see it, then we also have the chance to vow to taste the truth of these teachings.

[03:16]

Today I'd like to talk to you about this unsurpassed dharma and I'd like to talk to you about how to taste it. And it also says, taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Tathagata is an epithet for the Buddha. It's one of Buddha's epithets. Buddha has ten standard epithets. Tathagata is one of them. And Tathagata is a Sanskrit word which is composed by putting together tatha and gatha, or tatha and agatha. Tatha means, is short for tatha.

[04:33]

Tathata means the way things are. And gatha means gone or come back. Excuse me, gatha means gone and agatha means come back. So we can't tell by Tathagata whether it means the one who has gone to tatha or the one who has come back from tatha. Really it means both. The Buddha has gone to tathata. The Buddha has gone to the way things are. And the Buddha has come back from the way things are to visit this world of the way things aren't. Or anyway, to visit this world where the way things appear is not really tathata.

[05:40]

Have you noticed that things aren't really tatha? They're not totally off, but they're not totally on. Tathagata's words are to help us tune in to the way things really are. Once we tune in to tathata, we are Buddha. We are free. We are at peace. We are beneficent beings when we tune in. When the penetrating Dharma, we let it penetrate us. When we let tathata into our whole body, then we realize the Buddha way. So the Buddha gives words, sending words to us to help us hear the Dharma and taste it. The Buddha gives us Dharma words and also Dharma words, how to understand Dharma words.

[06:48]

From the early times to the later times, the Buddha who appeared in this world, first of all, at the beginning taught the middle way. The Buddha said, the Buddha's words were, I discovered and teach the middle way. And then the Buddha said, what is the middle way? And the first time he taught it, he taught, the middle way is the noble eightfold path, which is right view, right intention, right conduct, right speech, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration, right samadhi.

[08:05]

This is the practical middle way the Buddha taught. Later, the Buddha taught the middle way and the way he taught it, oh excuse me, so the first middle way was practical in the sense of teaching a practice which is the middle way. The middle way is the eightfold path and also the middle way avoids practical extremes. And the practical extremes on one side are devotion to indulgence in sensual pleasure and on the other extreme is devotion to self-mortification.

[09:11]

The Buddha didn't say, actually, that the one extreme is indulgence in sense pleasure. On one extreme he said devotion to indulgence in sense pleasure. I would say the Buddha is saying it is not an extreme to indulge in sense pleasures. It is not an extreme to indulge in sense pleasures. He didn't say that, this is an interpretation which I'm making because some people might think the Buddha would not have taught. The Buddha did teach that indulgence in sense pleasures is an extreme, is not the middle way. I say that you can practice the middle way and indulge in sense pleasures, but what does indulge mean?

[10:19]

Indulge basically means to yield to sense pleasures. For example, to look at the face of someone you love might be a sensual pleasure. The middle way allows you to yield to that pleasure, but the middle way does not allow you to be devoted to indulging in that pleasure. Devoted means you're walking around, when can I see him again? When he appears, thank you very much. When he goes away, bye-bye. Indulgence is you've got to follow him wherever he goes because you're devoted to indulging in the sense pleasure of seeing him. See the difference? One's an extreme, the other is the middle.

[11:21]

And the same, indulgence in self-mortification means sometimes you don't eat lunch. It's a kind of self-mortification. But you don't, now don't be devoted to it and miss lunch after lunch. It's being balanced in the midst of sense pleasure. We are beings which have sense pleasure equipment and we have sense pain equipment. In the midst of sense pleasure and sense pain, when they arise, we face them. In the middle way, which the middle way of facing them is with right view, right intention, right livelihood and so on.

[12:25]

We meet the sense pleasure with right mindfulness, with right effort, with right concentration. The other Eightfold Path is more philosophical. It is avoiding the extremes of everything exists and everything does not exist. We avoid both those extremes and we see the way things are. The way everything is, the way everything is, is the middle way. Everything is the middle way. Everything is a middle way, not an existence or a non-existence. And what's the middle way that things are between not existing and really existing? The middle way is that everything is dependently co-arisen.

[13:30]

Everything is dependently co-arisen or everything is a dependent co-arising or everything is dependently co-arising. That's the middle way everything is. Things depend on other things to arise and depend on other things to cease. Things don't arise by themselves and don't cease by themselves. They depend on other things. So they do appear, so they don't not exist, but they don't really exist because they depend on everything but themselves. And actually they are nothing but everything else. Nothing is really anything by itself. Everything is dependent on others. Everything is dependent on others. Nothing is dependent on itself.

[14:33]

This is a rendition this morning of the Tathagata's words. You, me and this so-called Dharma talk that's happening are dependent co-arisings. This Dharma talk is dependently co-arising. I could say thus I have heard, I've almost heard this. Maybe I heard it in my head before the words came. This talk this morning is a dependent co-arising.

[15:38]

This talk has an other-dependent quality. So, accepting this teaching doesn't mean that since this talk is other-dependent that I'm not responsible for this talk. I am completely responsible for this talk. But not because I make it happen. You are completely responsible for this talk, but not because you make it happen. It doesn't come by your power or my power. It comes, the Dharma talk comes from all of us. And all of us are responsible.

[16:43]

Do you feel completely responsible for this Dharma talk? Some of you probably don't, right? Do you imagine that I feel completely responsible for this Dharma talk? I do. However, even though I feel completely responsible, I do not feel in control of this Dharma talk. I actually believe and understand that you, that this Dharma talk depends on you as much as on me. Now, do you understand that yet? Do you think I'd be sitting here talking like this if you weren't here? Do you think I would? I probably wouldn't, right?

[17:49]

Not only that, but I wouldn't be sitting by myself someplace else, quietly thinking what I'm saying. There is an activity here of this person speaking, but the activity of this person is dependent on others, not on me. And I am dependent on you too. If you could sit here, it would be easier for you to understand, maybe. If I think I'm responsible and you're not, then I would probably think, well, I'm more responsible for making this happen than you, right? Does that make sense? Now, how far do I go with that? Do I go to the point of, well, I'm supposed to make this talk happen? And I'm supposed to make it go, like, on the good track? The helpful track? The enlightened track?

[18:52]

The appropriate track? I might get into that, right? Because I'm responsible and you're not. Buddha doesn't think like that. Buddha wants the Dharma talk to be helpful, to be appropriate, to be in the middle. Buddha wants that to be realized, because that would be realizing the middle way, but the middle way is realized by understanding that everything is other-dependent. So, tuning in,

[19:57]

a tasting and tuning in to the Tathagata's words is possible by paying attention in a certain way. So, just before the Buddha said, generally speaking, there's two views in this world. One is everything exists and the other is everything does not exist. Shortly before that he said, the world, for the most part, is bounded by grasping. One who does not grasp. One who does not cling or adhere to the view,

[20:58]

this is my self. So, it's not that we don't have a self, like, for example, there is a self here, in the neighborhood of the speaking that's happening, but if I don't grasp the view that this self is my self, there's a self that corresponds to Reb, but is it mine or is it yours too? It really, the Buddha is teaching that this self of this person depends on everybody else, not on the self. It depends on this person. The self of this person depends on this person, but it depends equally or most or it depends entirely on other things than itself. The self depends on what is not the self

[22:04]

and this person is not the self, but there's a self in the neighborhood of this person. Now, if one does not adhere to this is my self, then one is on the middle way. If one doesn't, then one sees the pinnacle arising. One sees that depending on this, that arises. Depending on the ceasing of this, that ceases. Depending on the arising of this, that arises. Depending on the ceasing of that, that ceases. One sees that. This is the middle way. One can see that when one doesn't grasp this is my self. Grasping at anything is based on ignoring

[23:17]

the dependent co-arising of what is being grasped. And, ignoring dependent co-arising, we inexorably grasp. So this is a cycle. Ignoring dependent co-arising, we grasp. Grasping, we ignore dependent co-arising. Grasping blinds us to dependent co-arising. Ignoring dependent co-arising, we grasp. The Buddha is saying, even though this seems to be a cycle and you can't see a way out of it, there is a possibility of freedom from this cycle. I wonder what it could be.

[24:28]

Are you responsible for this silence? Do you feel responsible for this talk? You don't. It's, I'm glad that you confess that you don't. I'm glad that you express that there's limits on what you're going to be responsible for. But I'll tell you, again, that if I think there's some limit to what I'm responsible for, that is equal to holding a view that is the opposite of the teaching of dependent co-arising. In other words, if I don't think I'm responsible for something,

[26:08]

or say it another way, if I don't think I'm responsible for everything, I lack faith in the teaching that everything is other-dependent. And some people have graciously offered a movement of the head indicating that they have not given up all limits of responsibility, that they do not feel they're responsible for some things. I was at a... I went to Nevada, the state of Nevada. I don't know, it should be Nevada,

[27:12]

the state of Nevada where they used to test atomic bombs and we were doing a vigil on Buddha's birthday at the atomic testing area. And then, in conjunction with this vigil at the nuclear test site, we also had several meals, like breakfast, lunch and dinner. And at one of these meals, I was talking to this woman and she does some kind of work, actually a kind of peace activist work and I think maybe she lives in Marin and has to go to San Francisco to work. So, you know, she was thinking, well, but if I drive to San Francisco to work, I'm like feeding into the system, you know,

[28:14]

car production, gasoline extraction, etc. I'm feeding into the system which drives this nuclear testing which I'm doing this vigil about. So I was thinking maybe I should ride a bicycle to work. But then she noticed that basically what she was trying to do was, what was she trying to do by switching from a car to a bicycle? What do you think she noticed she was trying to do? What? Yeah, she was trying to like be not responsible for the petrochemical, industrial, political complex. Complex means not, right? They're all tied together, together, but I'm not part of it. I'm going to ride a bicycle and then I'm over here separate from those entanglements. Ah, that was good, just ride a bicycle and you're not involved anymore.

[29:20]

Now it is possible that someone who felt completely responsible for the pollution, the degradation, the cruelty, etc., that's going on in this world, that someone who felt responsible might ride a bike to work instead of drive a car. It is possible. But that person would not feel less responsible for the world situation by riding a bicycle than riding a car than riding in a huge SUV. They wouldn't feel less responsible no matter what kind of vehicle they're in, even if they don't even move. I'm not going to eat anymore. I'm not going to turn the lights on. I'm going to be pure. Fine. Do you feel responsible for all these impure people? Yes. I'm responsible for these gas-guzzling, pollution-generating,

[30:22]

selfish, etc., etc. people. I'm responsible for them. I am equally responsible as them rather than I'm a little bit less responsible or actually I'm totally checked out of that. I'm not responsible. And I think some people who practice Zen think they're less responsible for the problems in the world than somebody else is. Right? And you can go to court over this and win the case and they pay and you don't and all that. But again, I'm not saying that if you switch from a car to a bicycle or switch from a car to walking, I'm not saying that it might not be a good thing. It might be a good thing, but I'm suggesting that the Buddha's teaching is that whether you ride a bicycle or not, you are totally involved in everything

[31:26]

and everything is totally supporting you and you are nothing but everything other than you. I'm not one iota more than everything that's not me, not at all. And people who practice Buddhism are having some difficulty tasting this truth and then there's a teaching about how to taste the truth and the teaching would be when you practice riding a bicycle or driving a car, please notice if you think that you're not responsible for everything in the world. Please notice if you think you're more responsible for riding this bicycle than everybody else is. Please notice that and if you do, good, because you are noticing

[32:26]

that you're ignoring the teaching. You're noticing that you actually think that everything isn't interdependent and therefore you can control some things by yourself and some other things you can't control. For the things you can't control, you don't try to control. For the things you do try to control, they are based on the view that you're not other dependent. So it's where you actually are trying to control that you'll be able to find that you're deluded and this country is really big time on control. Get control of your life. Take control of your finances. Take control of your whatever, your kids. Take control of your teenage kids. This is a teaching coming from

[33:33]

the view, the misconception that we're independently existing. Get control of your life comes from the view that ignores interdependence, that ignores the middle way. It is an extreme. Wendy told me about a book which is about stress. So I read a little bit of it and it distinguishes between three types of stress.

[34:37]

Acute stress, acute physical stress, acute psychological stress and acute psychological stress. And chronic psychological or social stress. Three types of stress. Did you get it? Acute stress, like if somebody is trying to push you off a cliff. Your homeostasis, your balance is in threat. Or somebody punches you or pokes a hole in you. You become out of balance. You're stressed. And that's an acute physical stress. Or you feel really hot or really cold or really hungry. Your blood sugar has gotten really low. That's an acute, at the moment it's happening,

[35:38]

it's an acute physical stress. It turns out we are, actually I got it wrong, acute physical stress, chronic physical stress and psychological stress. And chronic psychological stress. That's four. Acute physical distress is the kind I just mentioned. And we are very well suited for dealing with acute physical distress. We've got all kinds of nice ways of dealing with it. Short-term stress, we have our body reacts very nicely to take care of ourselves under that short-term physical stress. And then there's chronic physical distress

[36:40]

like chronically being hungry, chronically being sick. But then there's chronic psychological stress. And the basic stress I'd like to bring up is the stress which comes from, well, the chronic concern for controlling No matter what's going on, no matter whether you're comfortable or not, it's possible to be concerned with having control. And that can be chronic. Most of us can be, moment after moment, chronically concerned with control. And this kind of chronic concern for control makes us sick because in the short-term, the things we sacrifice to cope with stress,

[37:43]

the things that we don't take care of to cope with stress, for example, like talking to somebody who we love or resting or building tissue or these kinds of things, for a few moments we can put it aside. But to put it aside chronically, we get sick. And I'm proposing that one of the chronic stresses is our chronic concern for control. And we are not naturally equipped to deal with that kind of stress. So I guess I'm recommending the way of dealing with it,

[38:45]

which has come up in the last few thousand years, is to hear the teaching which disabuses us of the concern or the attempt to control. And in order to get over this chronic habit of trying to control, I'm not talking about giving up control, if you ever could, fine, but I'm talking about the chronic concern or attempt to control, how to give that up. Not how to stop it, because that would be the same thing. You could be chronically concerned with stopping the chronic concern. I'm talking about giving it up. So I'm probably leading to something familiar,

[39:53]

like the Eightfold Path. The Middle Way is the way to give up the chronic concern for control. How? First of all, the Middle Way starts with Right View. And what's Right View? Well, to some extent, it's like it's the view of the Middle Way. It's avoiding a devotion to indulgence in sense pleasure, and it's avoiding the extreme of devotion to self-mortification. But it's also paying attention and noticing this attitude of control. It's noticing this karmic attitude. Karma means to see our activity as coming more from ourselves

[40:58]

than from others. Karma is to see what your activity is, to see it as you being responsible for it more than others, or less than others. Generally speaking, the Middle Way is not taking too much or too little responsibility for the activity of your personhood, but also not giving others too much or too little responsibility. That's another way to look at the Middle Way. Can you start to see that? And the Middle Way I'm suggesting is not well, I'll say what it is. It is that you are entirely responsible for your activity, and so is everybody else. And they are entirely responsible for their activity, and so are you.

[41:59]

Taking too much responsibility is that I'm responsible for what I do and you're not, or you're less responsible. Taking too little responsibility is, for me, for the activity of me, too little responsibility is you're the cause of what I'm doing. I'm a victim of you. That's too little. Also too little is I'm responsible for your situation, you're not, as much as me. How can we give everybody complete responsibility, so how can I be responsible and yet not forget that you are without detracting from my responsibility? Like I'm completely responsible, but so are you, and I feel less responsible? Right? No. How do I stay completely responsible and remember that you are too? In other words,

[43:01]

really see or study or look for dependent co-arising. And that includes most of the time at this stage of development you kindly saying, I don't see it that way. I don't believe that teaching or I believe it sort of, but I don't see it. Actually many people come to Zen centers believing in dependent co-arising until they hear about the implications of it. They think it's a good idea until it's applied to them. The Buddha taught that everything is other-powered. Everything depends on others. The Buddha did not teach that everything is self-powered.

[44:02]

We, generally speaking, actually innately human beings think that things are self-powered. We are innately ignoring, innately ignorant of the Buddha's teaching that things are other-powered. We think, we see that things are self-powered. This is our basic ignorance. In order to learn dependent co-arising we have to, I think, confess that we're ignoring the Buddha's teaching. Maybe somewhat ambivalently, but anyway, pretty wholeheartedly in a lot of cases. We really think things are self-powered. If we do a good thing and somebody else gets credit for it, we often think, wait a minute, I did that more than he did. This is one of the reasons

[45:04]

why it's good to do good things, to be involved in wholesome, beneficial action, because when we are we start to notice more that we think that the good things we're doing are by our own power and we should get more credit for the good things we do than other people. The problem with doing evil things is that we often think that other people should get more credit for the evil things we do. Have you noticed that at all? Like, you make me angry. It's okay to say that as a joke, sort of as a like theater of the ignorant. You are making me feel this way. You are making me do this. You are making me do that. But people might be hesitant

[46:05]

to give up that approach because then they might think that they're responsible for being angry. You make me hate you. You make me feel so young. You make me feel as though spring has sprung. Get control of your life. Like there's this, you know, what is it? It's a... I think it's called the Red Roof and I heard this advertisement for it. It's like this woman says, in the office, you know, they turn the heat up, they turn the heat down, you know, blah, blah, they turn the music on to such and such a station which I hate, they turn it off, the station I like. And after a week like that on Friday night, I go to the Red Roof.

[47:05]

And at the Red Roof I can control the temperature. I can turn the music on to what I want. I get control of my life. Get control of your life. Go to the Red Roof. So people go to the Red Roof to get control of their life and I just saw on the paper the other day that somebody murdered several people in the Red Roof. You come to the Red Roof to get control, you lose control. And who's going to... they're responsible. I don't think he killed the manager and so on or the board of directors. You said I could get control of my life at the Red Roof and I didn't. Ladies and gentlemen, the Buddha's teaching is that you do not have control of your life. You do not have control of other people's lives.

[48:10]

And you live in a country which is blowing the horn for get control of them and this and it. Get control and then you'll be relaxed. That's where you live. And people are getting by with talking that way and making a lot of money on talking that way. And that's where we live. And some of you think that way yourselves although you may not be making much money on it. I say some of you but again we are innately gifted with the delusion that we can control things because we are self-powered and what's happening is self-powered. We have that view. We must become aware of it. So we have right view and the first step of right view is called mundane right view which means awareness

[49:12]

of the ownership of action. So if someone says, OK, I'm aware of that but it means awareness of ignorance. It means be aware that you think you own your action. That's the mundane right view. It's the right way of looking at things in the world. In the world which we have with all this misery and cruelty in this world it's driven by something, I don't know what. Ownership of action. I own this, I don't own that. I own this, you don't own this. What I do, you don't own. This is the view that drives the world and right view is to notice that ignorant view which is innate. I own my action, etc.

[50:16]

You own yours, I'm not responsible unless it's really good. Then I'll take credit for it. Like my daughter when she was in high school or junior high school sometimes since she went to school over the hill, sometimes friends from her school would come here on field trips. Sometimes they would come on Sunday when her father was giving himself as a Dharma talker playing the role of the Dharma talker on a Sunday. Her friends would come and then she would hide so that they wouldn't see her relationship to me because she wasn't sure she wanted to own me. She wasn't sure she wanted to be responsible for me and therefore be responsible if her friends thought that I was weird.

[51:19]

Shaved head, talking strangely about stuff like dependent co-arising, weird. Talking like you're all responsible. Then after the talk she would come down and see her friends and knowing that they had no understanding, they had no awareness that the guy who gave the talk was her father. So then she would listen to what they said about the talk. How was the talk? They said, oh it was great. And then she'd kind of like say, oh yeah? Well, guess who that guy is? And then suddenly my daughter would appear and she'd be like glued to me. My dad. Perfectly natural. She comes by it honestly.

[52:23]

As being a human being, this is natural. However, it is a chronic situation which makes us sick and leads to the real problems, the real terrible problems of the world are based on this idea. So the Buddha said, can I, can you wish to taste the truth of these words? And part of it would be that I notice when I approach a talk from the point of view of I'm going to give the talk. If I notice that in myself, I will also notice that I feel stressed because I have to be chronically concerned with my control of the talk for, you know, like an hour but also before I should be responsible for the talk beforehand. I should try to keep the talk in control so that when a time for the talk to happen, it'll happen.

[53:24]

If I notice that, I have to, then if I notice that I'm approaching this talk as my activity, then I have right view if I'm noticing that I think it's my activity. In other words, I notice, right view is to notice that I'm deluded. Mundane right view is to correctly look at the world and the way of correctly looking at the world is to see that in the world, the thing that drives the world is my view that I'm in control of some things and not others. That's what keeps the world rolling. It's not to try to stop being that way because that's the way it is in the world. In the world, we think that way. But even in the world, we can start to wake up to our delusion which is driving this world and also we can find some other people that are also deluded who are driving the world. But that doesn't reduce our ignorance.

[54:27]

It starts to illuminate it. The more I notice my own ignorant approach and others' ignorant approaches, the more we become aware of this, the more we start to wake up to the actual right view. The super mundane right view. The view which sees how we're working together. The view which is not trying to control what's happening but taste what's happening which is not trying to take too much responsibility or too little but to take full responsibility together with everyone. And when the Dharma talks like that, I'm completely relaxed. I'm not stressed. I'm not getting sick. I'm not trying to control what happens.

[55:29]

I understand that you make this Dharma talk as much as me. I'm responsible. I have to come here and let the mouth move and feel my life animating these words. But my life is not me. And you are not me. But I am nothing but my life and you. And the same for you. And you don't believe that. So? Admit it. Over and over. And the more you confess that you do not believe this teaching and the more you express that you would like to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words, the more you confess that you do not agree with, that you actually, on some level, are blinding yourself and disagree with the Tathagata's teachings. Some part of you disagrees with the teaching of dependent co-arising. The more you admit that and the more you vow to understand it together,

[56:32]

confessing and repenting that you do not believe this teaching, that confession and repentance, that confession and vowing to taste the truth over and over, melts away the root of this world of misery. It melts away the root of the constant chronic concern for control, which is stressing you and stressing everybody around you. And not just nearby, but stressing the entire planet. You are stressing the entire planet. I am stressing the entire planet. But I'm making myself sick too. Stress itself might be okay, but constantly. Plus... Anyway, I won't get into it. It's really bad. But the Buddha doesn't usually beat the drum and say, Stop being so ignorant! Stop being so ignorant! The Buddha doesn't usually do it that way. The Buddha says, Please, look at your ignorance.

[57:34]

Look at it. Quietly, calmly, patiently, gently, in a relaxed and playful way, look at the stress that's created by thinking that you're in control. Look at the stress that's created by you trying to get out of this mess and separate yourself from these control freaks. Look at that. And the more you look at it, the more you're willing to not try to separate yourself from the control freaks. Well, I've been going on for quite a while, so I probably should stop, huh? What song is there?

[58:38]

Well, one of them is Dancing in the Dark. Dancing in the Dark. Dancing in the dark. That's the way. We're in the dark. We're in the darkness of not believing in dependent co-arising. So let's dance there. Let's notice the darkness of our delusion and dance there. Groping in the dark. And notice how in groping in the dark, how actually there's grasping. Grasping this, grasping that, grasping this, trying to grasp that, concerned with grasping, [...] grasping. Notice that. That grasping attitude is creating the darkness. So we're in the darkness now. But can you now quietly explore the darkness and notice the darkness as you're ignoring the radiant light of interdependence, that you don't believe it? The more you admit that you don't believe the light of Buddha's teaching,

[59:41]

you don't believe the light of interdependence, and you do believe independence and control, the more you admit that, the closer the time comes for the opening of the window to the actual taste of the teaching of interdependence. That was wonderful. Thank you. ... [...]

[60:34]

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