This afternoon we're planning to have a ceremony. It's an initiation ceremony for entering into the path of a bodhisattva. A bodhisattva, I would say this morning, a bodhisattva is somebody who, it's a kind of, it's a being, it's a way of being. It's a way of being generous. It's a generous way of being. And it's a wholehearted, generous way of being.

[01:04]

and so generous that it's also fearless. It's so completely generous that it's fearless. And it wants to give completely in all directions to everyone. and is so happy to be that way is not afraid of what would happen if we're that generous. And of course it is totally about peace because it's spreading generosity and fearlessness and non-violence bodhisattva literally means awakening being or enlightening being.

[02:11]

And this way of generosity and fearlessness and non-violence is the way of awakening. And today nine people for the first time will enter into a ceremony a formal ceremony to receive bodhisattva vows, bodhisattva precepts, to receive them and to commit their life to the practice of bodhisattva vows, bodhisattva precepts. They will be asked if they would like to receive these vows And they probably will say, yes I do. And after they receive them, we will ask them from now on, and even after realizing the body of the Buddha, of a Buddha, will you continue to practice these precepts of compassion?

[03:23]

And they probably will say, yes I will. And we do that three times. So they really promise. It doesn't mean they will. because they're human beings like all of us, it means they commit. I commit to be a good friend. I don't know if I will be, but I want to be and I promise to be. And if I don't, I definitely will be sorry. I commit to being 100% wholeheartedly generous And if I don't, I'll be sorry." This kind of commitment will probably happen this afternoon. Before I go further, I just want to say that it is my view, my happy view, that all of you are generous beings.

[04:34]

But I know that we don't fully realize that sometimes. That's why we have to practice these vows so we realize that we're generous and we realize other people are generous too. It is my happy view that we are already intimate with each other. This is a happy view of mine, which I'm not attached to, but which I express again and again. But if we don't practice intimacy, we sometimes don't realize it. Bodhisattvas are those who promise and who realize the intimacy with all beings.

[05:41]

even beings who they completely disagree with. Bodhisattvas are nourished by their vows. They're lifted up and carried by their vows. They progress by means of their vows. They make vows. They live vows. Great vows, auspicious vows, sublime vows, extensive, vast, unlimited vows. This is how they live by these vows. So in the ceremony today, such vows will be offered. received and committed to.

[06:43]

Out of love for all beings, out of love for peace for all beings, to become committed wholeheartedly to work for peace for all beings. These forms, these ceremonies, these precepts help us, we hope. We try to do the ceremony well, we try to give ourselves to doing it wholeheartedly, completely present and concentrated and tender. We begin the ceremony by making offerings to the enlightened beings, to the enlightening beings. We make offerings to the way of being generous and intimate with all beings.

[07:55]

We make offerings. We pay homage to this way of being. We invoke the presence. We request this kind of being to enter the room and be with us. We say, please come, great compassion, great generosity, great fearlessness, great nonviolence. Please come and be with us and help us make this commitment. We call their famous names. We call the various names of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas of wisdom and compassion and the Bodhisattvas of vows. We invite them to come. And then we practice repentance. And we cut a little hair as a symbol of cutting

[08:59]

worldly affairs. But worldly affairs, sometimes people hear that and they go, wait a minute, I have to go shopping for my children this afternoon. Worldly affairs means trying to get something out of this life. At the beginning of ceremony, we renounce the way of trying to get. We renounce. We give away. We make our deep, ingrained habit of trying to get something, moment after moment, what can I get for me and my friends? What can I get? What can I gain? How can I avoid losing? Or what can I lose that I would like to get rid of?

[10:05]

This attitude is the worldly affair that we renounce. But not in a mean way. We make it a gift. We say, oh, worldly affairs? Here, I give it to the Buddhas. Would you please take care of my worldly affairs? Here, they're yours. You know what to do with them. They do know what to do with them. They receive them as gifts and they graciously thank us for handing over our distractions, from giving, from intimacy. I renounce my veering away from being close friends with all beings. I have a tendency to not be friends, close friends, with all beings. A tendency to not be close friends with all beings. It's just a tendency, but it's strong.

[11:05]

I give it away. I make it a gift to the Buddhas. Here, Buddhas, they say thank you. I renounce distractions. I renounce deviating from the path of compassion. I give it away. I make everything a gift and I give away the tendency to be distracted from giving. And to slip into getting for me and mine. Then we confess that we have a long history of doing things to get things. We confess it. And we confess it.

[12:11]

And we confess it. Three times. Three times. That stands for quite a few. And we recognize that this tendency, this tendency to be oriented towards acquiring stuff, getting stuff, comes from greed, hate, and delusion. Comes from ignorance. We wish to give up this tendency which comes from ignorance and admit that we have been involved in it for a long time and get ready for the path of wisdom. Once we have wisdom, it will be easy to see that there is giving all the time. So now we give it away, we renounce it, We renounce taking.

[13:13]

We confess that we have been thinking about taking for a long time. And then we receive a water initiation. We are sprinkled by the water of wisdom of the Buddhas. And then we're ready to receive the precepts and commit to the precepts. And then the nine people will come forward and they will offer incense and bow as a formal way of saying, please give me the Bodhisattva precepts. Please make a gift of the Bodhisattva precepts from the Buddhas down through the centuries and I will commit to them.

[14:16]

And now they're ready. And the first bodhisattva, in this tradition, the first three bodhisattvas, the 16 bodhisattva precepts that we will receive today, the first three are actually going, going for refuge, or you could say going back. Because refuge means to fly back, etymologically. And in Sanskrit and Pali, it says, go back and rely on. Return and rely on. Go back to Buddha. Go back to enlightenment. Go back to the teaching of enlightenment. And go back to this community. of beings committed to the path of the bodhisattva. Go back.

[15:27]

Now we have a tendency as an English expression to take refuge, like take refuge in shelter or take refuge in a church or take refuge in a group. I have a problem with the word take refuge. When the refuge we're taking in, the thing we're taking refuge in is to give. We're taking refuge in the generous ones, in the teaching of generosity, so it's a little funny to take it. I don't know if I will be forced to say it differently today, but this morning I would say, that the first three precepts are going for refuge in Buddha, going for refuge in Dharma, going for refuge in Sangha, returning to Buddha, returning to the truth, returning to the great community.

[16:28]

Those are the first three. refuge vows, we say, bodhisattva refuge vows, but they're actually refuge vows of all disciples of Buddhas. All Buddhas' disciples are people who go to Buddhas to receive the teaching, to practice the Buddha way. So the bodhisattvas and other disciples who may not wish to be bodhisattvas and wish to study with Buddha in a different way, they also do the same first three precepts, refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. And the next three are the vow to practice the forms and ceremonies which are conducive to enlightenment.

[17:29]

For example, the ceremony that you're in the middle of right now, or the ceremony of this discussion here. You come in here, you sit in your place, you feel some commitment to it, You're sitting upright. You're paying attention. We have a beginning and an end. It's a form. And it's a ceremony. This is a Sunday morning ceremony in the Valley of the Jolly Green Dragon. So there's a commitment to practice those forms which help people be enlightened. Because we need some forms, we human beings do. Just like we need forms to go shopping, we need a door to find how to get into the grocery store. There's forms in the world and there's forms in the bodhisattva way.

[18:34]

And we vow to practice these forms for the welfare of all beings. And the next precept is the precept of vowing to embrace and sustain all wholesome activities. And the next one is to vow to embrace and sustain all beings. to be intimate and generous with all beings. So those are called the three pure precepts. That's six. And then the next ten are the ten major precepts, and they're phrased negatively. They can be phrased positively, but the negative brings out something that the positive doesn't. The precept of not killing. The teaching of not killing. The teaching of not taking what is not given.

[19:36]

The teaching of not misusing sexuality. The teaching of not lying. The teaching of not intoxicating others or self. The teaching of and the practice of not slandering anything. The teaching of not putting yourself up at the expense of others. The teaching and the practice of not being possessive. And the teaching of not holding on to ill will. Actually, having no ill will. and the teaching of not speaking in a disparaging way about Buddha, Dharma or Sangha. These are the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts of this tradition.

[20:42]

Before this tradition started in Japan, the Bodhisattva precepts that were more commonly given and received were these last ten of this group plus 48 minor precepts, so a total of 58. These 10 major ones which I just said, plus 48 more. But the ancestor of this temple named Ehe Dogen made this new form of taking the ten major, the three pure precepts, and the three refuge vows and making sixteen. So that's what we practice here. Of course we know about the other forty-eight and we make some effort to study them and understand them but they're not formally part of the ceremony. So we can and some of us have received and committed to these precepts and made vows and promises about these precepts.

[22:25]

These are precepts, you could say, precepts of, people don't usually say this, but you could say these are precepts of fearlessness. These are precepts of nonviolence. They are precepts of compassion. That's commonly said. They are precepts of intimacy. They are instructions for all those things. They are instructions for compassion, for non-violence, for fearlessness, and for intimacy. The first precept Going back to Buddha is going back to the one who is, who has realized, who realizes and demonstrates intimacy with all of us.

[23:43]

The Buddha is intimacy, is the intimacy of all of us, that is the Buddha. We go back to Buddha means you go back to the intimacy of all of us. Buddha is the non-violence of all of us. To go for refuge in Buddha means you go back to the non-violence among us. You return to the non-violence here, right now. Buddha is the fearlessness among us. There's fear among us too. There's fear among us. There's violence among us. And there's a lack of intimacy among us. But also among us is intimacy, nonviolence, and fearlessness. The bodhisattvas have vowed to return to this compassion that lives among us all the time.

[24:54]

Fearlessness does not mean there's no fear. Like in this room, there may be some fear. There probably is some fear here. Various types of fear could be in this room. Fearlessness is here too. Fearlessness lives with fear. Fearlessness is willing to be generous and open and not try to get rid of any fear in this room. Fearlessness is to be intimate with fear. Being intimate with fear is fearlessness. And Buddha is intimate with all frightened beings.

[26:05]

Buddha is also intimate with all non-frightened beings. Buddha is intimate with all fearless beings and frightened beings. I wish to and I promise to be mindful of returning to such fearlessness, such intimacy, such graciousness, In intimacy and fearlessness and generosity there is no ill will in that. However, the graciousness can relate to ill will graciously. The graciousness doesn't like ill will and doesn't dislike ill will. It graciously welcomes it. is gracious with all the varieties of ill will that might come.

[27:11]

And being gracious and welcoming all kinds of ill will, it is giving. And it also is welcoming enlightenment. If we don't welcome ill will, the non-welcoming of ill will, closes the door on the Buddha's wisdom. The graciousness with ill will, the graciousness with fear, opens the door to Buddha's wisdom. Bodhisattva's vow to open and be welcome to all beings. And if ill will arises in the bodhisattva towards anyone, that's a being in the bodhisattva.

[28:28]

The bodhisattva is gracious with ill will in their own heart. If fear arises in the bodhisattva's heart, they are gracious with the fear in their own heart, in their own mind, just as they're gracious with the ill will in other people's minds, in other people's hearts. the nine people.

[29:35]

Nine is an auspicious number in some people's view. It's like almost ten. So it's like really full but not quite perfect, almost better than ten. I was kind of hoping for eleven because today is 11-11. But nine is a nice number of people. And today is Veterans Day, traditionally, November 11th, a day to honor people who thought who loved this beautiful country and loved the people who live here and wanted to, they thought it would be helpful if they went to war. Maybe some of these people went to war

[30:51]

as an act of non-violence and generosity? I don't know. It's possible that there were bodhisattvas among the veterans who died. There may be bodhisattvas in the armed forces of the US, and there may be bodhisattvas among the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. There may be bodhisattvas among the Taliban. There may be, and this is, I'm really sincere when I say that there may be bodhisattvas in the armed forces who are totally committed to nonviolence and who will not cause harm. They're totally committed to that. And they're in that situation to help others learn this path. There may be such bodhisattvas. And of course, no problem honoring them if they are veterans.

[31:53]

if they died in the past. But even those who had other motivations in entering the armed services, the military, we honor them. The bodhisattva path is to honor all beings, as our children, as our brothers and sisters, because they are. Honor beings so much, so wholeheartedly, that they dare to open their hearts to nonviolence. that they dared to live so generously that there's no fear.

[33:05]

So again, it's very auspicious in a way that it's a beautiful day, that you all came here, that we have nine people, that it's a veteran's day. It's a great day for making these great vows. to deeply consider in our hearts how we are. Is there fearlessness here? Is there generosity here? Is there intimacy with all beings here? And if I don't feel that it's there, do I wish to learn? is their desire to learn to be intimate with all beings, to find compassion with all beings, to find fearlessness and generosity with all beings. Good day to look. A good moment to look. What time is it?

[34:26]

Three minutes to eleven. Eleven, should I stop at eleven? And the next possibility would be eleven, eleven. Of course you know that in Zen we would always say that now is an auspicious moment. Now is a really good time to open your hearts to all beings. Now is a good time to look and see. Do you want to be good friends to all beings, now is a good time to look and see if there is this bright, open, warm, tender, courageous heart living in you.

[35:29]

And if not, do you wish to cultivate it? nine people today will say, I wish to cultivate it and I promise to cultivate it from now on. And it will be beautiful. And at that moment they will mean it. And then they have to watch and see how things go as they move out from this sheltered environment into the stresses of daily life. Yesterday I was involved in some talking here in the Zendo and afterwards someone said, thank you very much for your stern and kind talk.

[37:03]

Was it stern? Do you think it was stern? How many people here yesterday thought it was stern? Stern and what else? Stern? Stern. Stern. Was today stern? Was today stern? Kind of? Kind of? Kind of stern. Got a kind of stern here. Serious, yeah. Sincere? Sincere, serious, and kindest and stern. It's a lovely day today, and whatever you've got to do, well, it's a lovely day for doing it by two.

[38:08]

But if whatever you've got to do is something that cannot be done by two, Well, it's a lovely day anyway, so... It's a lovely day today anyway. That's one. And then there's another one, which is... I see trees of green, red roses too I see them bloom for me and you And I think to myself, what a wonderful world I see skies of blue and clouds of white bright blessed day, dark sacred night, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

[39:11]

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky are also on the faces of the people going by. I see friends shaking hands saying, how do you do? They're really saying, I love you. I hear babies crying. I watch them grow. They'll learn much more than I'll ever know. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. What time is it now? Of this journey? May our intention equally send to the living.

[40:21]

Any questions? Yes. What is your name? My name is Reva. Reva. First time meeting you, I want to thank you for your beautiful song. You're welcome. And I also have a question. When you talked about the participants, the non-participants, asking to please invite the Buddhas here for the ceremony, I'm wondering why it's at the present as opposed to maybe, thank you for being present, and then take the responsibility to be open to the presence. Thank you for your presences is is Really nice to you. Thank you for your presence So, yeah we And I thank you for adding that the dimension of thanking for presence And all inviting and thanking for being here so we we

[41:29]

we acknowledge their presence and invite them. Both acknowledge and express thanks for their presence already and invite them to stay in case they might be thinking of leaving. That's one bodhisattva vow, actually, is if you feel like the Buddhas are going to go away, ask them to stay longer. Because sometimes they do seem to be on the verge of going somewhere. That's right, that's right. But it's us that have to keep recognizing that we're always there. Right, yes. That's one of the practices. One practice is to keep recognizing and remember that they're with us, that we're not practicing alone, and also that they're not going to do it for us, but they'll do it with us. So being mindful of that is definitely part of the practice and also promising to be mindful of it.

[42:38]

It's a vow, the vow to be mindful of the presence of great support. Yeah, thank you. Yes, Yuki? Fear or anger, I like that. Make it as a present, gift, and give it away. Can you do that? Could you talk about how to make it as a present? Especially the Buddha, the internal Buddha, I don't want those kind of things. So I don't want to keep it, but anyway, give it away, give it to the Buddha inside, or give it away outside, or how do you deal with the present? So if anger arises, I can say, make it a gift. Make it a gift by feeling gracious towards it.

[43:43]

So say welcome to the anger. Not, you know, I want the anger. And not, I want to get rid of the anger, but welcome. So the graciousness towards the anger, the generous feeling towards the anger, the letting the anger be anger is giving. To let a person be themselves is an act of giving. To let your lunch be your lunch is an act of giving. To let anger be anger is generous. to let anger be anger just the way it is without making it smaller or bigger, just let it be as it is, is giving. And then if you practice giving towards the anger, you will see that the anger will become a gift. And also you practice generosity towards it, but once you realize it's a gift, you don't hold on to it. The anger is given away when you really let it be anger.

[44:48]

It's been given away and you also are practicing giving towards it. Yeah, I was saying, yeah, like, I was, you know, anger is okay, but I was also talking about, like, any kind of distraction from the path of compassion. Make that a gift and give it to the Buddhas because then they can take care of this. They will help you by taking care of all your distractions which you are now giving away. And they will appreciate you making these distractions into sacred things by making them offerings to Buddhas.

[45:49]

Buddha is not external to us. Buddha is our actual relationship with each other. But our relationship with each other is not external to us. My relationship with you is not external to me or to you. It's how we actually give each other life. That's Buddha. But not just you and me. But you and everybody and everybody and you and everybody and me, that's Buddha. You're giving to your relationship with all beings, which is not here or there or in between. You're giving to everywhere, including here, when you give to Buddha. Yes?

[47:05]

To me, the term giving, like giving something away, anger, has a kind of sound of casting away, and I'm doubting that that's really what's meant. I'm wondering if it's more like releasing or allowing that to leave as opposed to casting out? Well, first of all, it's not a matter of it leaving. Giving away, in the way I'm saying it, doesn't mean it's going away. If I had this muffin here and I give it away, it's not going anyplace. And also, if I don't give it away, it still will change. It's changing. Yes, a giveaway doesn't mean putting it someplace else.

[48:13]

It means making it valuable by having it be part of the process of reality. Giving away means being intimate with it. As a matter of fact, when I say give away, when I'm recommending giving away, which is the same as being intimate with the thing. Give away the anger. Be intimate with the anger. Be generous with the anger. Be intimate with the anger. Give away your fear. in the sense of being intimate with your fear. So maybe give away is not a good word for you. Maybe just be generous and gracious with your anger. But when you're gracious with things, you also like holding on to them.

[49:16]

So your guest comes in, you're graciously welcoming your guest, but then you don't hold your guest. You let them leave if you want to, so you let them go. You're not pushing them away, you're not holding on to them. You're saying, welcome. So maybe welcoming, gracious, be gracious with, making a gift of all that. Does that work better? Those vows that you chanted at the end, you know, where you say, first of all, beings are numberless, I vow to save them. And the next one, delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. I accept that translation, but the actual character in Chinese is to cut through. So another translation would be delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to cut through.

[50:21]

But cut through doesn't mean to slash and hurt them. It means to find a way through the delusions. And actually the word is actually affliction. There's another translation. To find a way through the affliction. To find a way of dancing with and being intimate with affliction so that you can pass through it. So affliction doesn't become an obstacle to the path. Yes. It seems easier to understand the concept of giving something away like that rather than anger. Would you say that again? It seems easier, at least for me, to understand the concept of giving away, giving up your anger or offering your anger. If you substitute the word love for anger, because at least in our culture, or at least for me personally, it's a lot easier to think of giving away love if you're not really losing anything.

[51:28]

and it's not really the way. Right. And it feels like there's a spin on anger when you think about giving, sharing that anger with Buddha or sharing that anger with another person. And you think about sharing your love with someone. Yeah. It seems like it's the same process. It's the same process, but you're more familiar, you feel more familiar and comfortable with sharing your love with Buddha or sharing your love with me. That's kind of, you're familiar with that. But really, we should share our anger with Buddha. We should share our hate with Buddha. We should share our confusion with Buddha. We should share our greed with Buddha. That's what confession is. All my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, anger, and delusion. At that moment, you are sharing that with the Buddhas. you're generously offering, you know, I wish to return to my relationship with you and I admit my history of greed and hate.

[52:41]

I share this with you as a tribute to our intimacy. I'm working towards not hiding anything from somebody I want to be intimate with. And it's easier for me to share my love for you with you than to share my hatred of you with you. But still, sharing my hatred or sharing my love or sharing my greed or sharing my aversion, it's the same process of intimacy. That I'm sharing myself with you, I'm giving myself to you. And of course, it's nice to start with Buddhas because they can handle whatever you give because they're already totally up for you no matter how you are. They don't like your greed. They don't like my hate. They don't dislike my greed and they don't dislike my hate. They love me and they love my hate and they love my delusion and they love everything about me.

[53:49]

which means not like or dislike. It means they're gracious with whatever I am. And the more I extend my offerings, the more intimate I feel with them. And so if I feel like, well, this I can offer to Buddhas, this I can share with Buddhas, I would say, well, good. Now, open it up a little bit over here. Let's let this stuff out. Give this to Buddhas, share this too. And that's a growth experience in your intimacy with Buddha. In your intimacy, then, with all your friends, too. It isn't that you try to hurt people, but that you share yourself completely. A phone? Oh, yes. I'm looking at the Lord. What I'm saying, I know... Were someone to hurt you or to bitterly disappoint you, you would say it was quite a virtuous to forgive.

[54:56]

To forgive them? Yeah, right. Yes. And Bodhisattva's vow IF THEY MEET SOMEONE WHO IS CONFUSED OR WHATEVER, THEY VOW TO REGARD THE PERSON WITH LOVE AND KINDNESS. AND IF THE PERSON HURTS THEM, THEN THEY VOW TO EVEN MORE INTENSELY SAY, THIS IS COMING TO ME TO HELP ME, LIKE, REALLY OPEN UP BEYOND MY USUAL. I MEAN, I COULD BE KIND, I COULD FEEL KIND TOWARDS THIS PERSON WHEN I SAW HOW CONFUSED THEY WERE. BUT NOW THEY'RE ATTACKING ME, AND NOW I REALLY AM GETTING PUSHED TO OPEN UP. This is the next step to push me beyond my usual idea of who I can be generous with. So that's a tougher challenge is to be generous towards those who are hurting us and people who will say, yes, I am trying to hurt you.

[56:08]

You're right, I am. No debate here. Yes. Raphael? Is it Raphael? It's been, yeah, it's been quite a while. So if you come back here again in 15 years, we'll see. Yeah, so come back in 15 years. I'll be about 80 then, so you can see if I can still remember. And then one more time, okay? I enjoy it very much. But right now I'm having a little trouble dealing with this that seems to me a little very abstract. And I want to connect it to an experience that I just had recently. I was parked in a position that it was difficult for me to get out, and there was a space in front that was no parking.

[57:11]

He was talking about a difficulty and he started to move his hands and I thought, sounds like he's talking about some traffic situation. And he is. So we have you, you're in your car. Yes. And somebody else is in a car, a different car. In another car. Yeah. Right in front of me and I tell him, you are not allowed to park there besides you are going to make it very difficult for me to get out without parking your car. And he said to me, I don't care. And don't you even touch my car. You are making it very difficult. So I start to maneuver, and I say to him, look, why don't you move? I'm going to hurry your car. He says, I don't care. So anger comes inside me, and I thought, what do I do with this anger? If I keep it, it's going to hurt me, and I don't want to feel good about it. And I thought, I'm going to share it with him. I know him, you are expletive, arrogant, and he considered.

[58:17]

And he opens the door to the house and He was bigger than me. I thought, well, this, I may have to share more than him. Fortunately, he brought him back in. But I was left very confused with the whole thing. Because I think that if he can come out and attack me, I, that moment, I would have stopped thinking, you know. So the whole thing would escalate. And if I had not done anything, would that have been the thing to do? Could you hear his example? So he's in the car, and somebody else is in another car, and the other person is...

[59:22]

behaving in such a way he starts to feel anger towards him. He's talking to the other person, and the other person speaks in a way, and Rafael's starting to feel anger towards him, so he thinks, maybe I should express my anger, share my anger with him. And actually, I would agree. Generally speaking, it's good to share your anger. But I would share it as a gift. And I feel from your story that you didn't share it as a gift, Yeah. So that's what I mean. And then to call him arrogant is not sharing your anger. I shouldn't say it's not sharing the anger, but it doesn't sound like you felt like you were giving him a gift. No. But I think it wouldn't be good for me if I felt anger to say, well, now I feel anger. Can I... share this anger with the person I feel the anger in relationship with as a gift, can I do that?

[60:32]

If I can't, then I think I should go someplace where I can feel like I'm practicing giving. Do something else where I can feel like I'm practicing giving. But it is possible to tell someone, people do tell me quite frequently, that they're angry and I feel like they're giving me a gift when they tell me that they're angry. They may or may not themselves feel at that time that they're giving me a gift, but sometimes they do. Sometimes they feel that they're giving me a gift and I do too. And the gift they're giving me is to say, I am or was angry at you. I feel it's a gift and they think it's a gift. And this is a close relationship where they tell me that kind of thing. And then sometimes they come and tell me again.

[61:33]

They say, I'm still feeling this anger. I want to tell you again. And then we try to be gracious with each other. They try to graciously, generously tell me that they're angry with me or someone. And then I... I practice being gracious with them, telling me they're angry at me or someone. Many people, of course, also tell me they're angry at themselves. And I try to be gracious with them so that they can be gracious with themselves, feeling angry with themselves. Even when you feel angry with yourself or someone else, reality is that there's giving going on. Giving is reality. But if we don't practice giving in situations where we don't see it, then we probably, it'll postpone the time for us, our eyes to open to the reality of generosity.

[62:33]

It's unhindered actually. But we have to practice it to see it. You know, not always, sometimes it's just so strong that it just overwhelms us and we just Okay, okay, I see it's giving. I see you're being generous with me. I see that this anger is generosity. Finally, I see it. Or I see you being different from me. Or I see your attempt to be generous with me, which before I could see you were trying to be generous, but I didn't really think it was generous. But now I see it is. Enlightenment is to see generosity and not be fooled by... the opposite, or the deviations from it. I should say, there's not really an opposite. There's just all kinds of veerings away from the intensity of it, like anger, resentment. And those are gifts, too.

[63:37]

But when you veer away from giving, you don't think those are gifts. But everything that comes to you is poking at you to wake you up. The universe has made you into a conscious being and now it's poking you to wake up from a consciousness which has problems, from a consciousness which imagines itself as being a separate consciousness from other consciousnesses, with a consciousness that imagines your body separate from other bodies, with a consciousness which imagines you to be separate from Buddhas. We have consciousnesses like that. If we're generous with them, we'll realize that all consciousnesses are in a generous relationship with each other. And all beings who are conscious are in a generous relationship with each other. In other words, we'll wake up to the Buddha. But it's hard when someone is being unkind to us in that form of, I don't care about you.

[64:50]

I don't care about you. You're not my friend. I don't care about you. You're nothing to me. it's hard to be gracious to that but not impossible not impossible just really difficult sometimes and I so now I have this young man who's growing up with me called my grandson and he sometimes is difficult Because he sometimes says to me, I don't care about you. I don't care. He's doing something to me and I say, that hurts. And he says, I don't care. Or like the other day, I was with him at the breakfast table. He was at the breakfast table and I walked over and I said, hi. And he said, hi. And I sat down across from him and looked at him and he frowned. He went, hmm.

[65:51]

Because I was looking at him. And then he says, he said, would you please stop staring at me? And it kind of hurt. But I said, okay. Tried to be gracious with him. And I could see, you know, he's trying not to have breakfast. He doesn't want this person coming to adore him while he's having... Get out of here. So he, but that hurt me, you know. And then if I would, I didn't tell him, but if I had told him that that hurt me, which I didn't, I just felt like, you know, to tell him that was maybe like more than enough. You know, he already had bothered him by staring at him. And then to tell him that it hurt me when he told me to, you know, stop looking at him. I thought that was just more of a gift than he was up for at that moment.

[66:56]

But I do sometimes tell him, you know, that hurts or I feel uncomfortable when you do that. And then he sometimes says, I don't care. And I try to be gracious with it. And it happens. I mean, I actually sometimes can be gracious. So when I'm in a car, I try to think of everyone in the other cars as my grandchildren. Or, you know, playing in cars, doing various things like parking where they want to park, parking their car where they want to park it, and saying, I don't care about anybody else. Like a child. I don't care about anybody. Nobody else matters but me. My grandson could talk like that. But try to remember that. Be gracious to him. Oh, you don't care? These are real wonderful challenges to extend the path to these kinds of situations.

[68:06]

To accommodate to deluded people. And then when they push you even harder, try to accommodate to that. But comedy doesn't mean you don't say, would you please stop? It doesn't mean you don't look at him adoringly. There's lots of possibilities here. Let's see. May I have someone? Yes. What's your name again? Andrea. I want to thank you for your talk this morning. It was nice to be back. I'm needing some guidance At what? Equanimity. Yes. Guidance with equanimity. I'm sorry? Guidance with equanimity. The way I interpret it at my stage, Rev., is that in order to maintain equanimity, or at least try, I need to consciously be aware of non-attachment.

[69:12]

And so I'm working on kind of like meditating, just letting things come into my life, not getting attached to them, not labeling them, not judging them, and let them go out. And I wonder if you could comment on that, please. Well, it sounds pretty good, but there's certain misunderstandings of what that language is expressing. Or rather, there's various understandings of what you just said. And some of those understandings I don't think would be conducive to equanimity. So one thing you said was letting things come and letting them go. That sounds pretty good to me. Just let them come and let them go. Let them come and let them go. And then you said without labeling. But even if labeling comes, even if labeling happens, then I would also... If labeling doesn't happen... That's fine.

[70:16]

If an unlabeled thing comes and an unlabeled thing goes, fine. But if something comes and labeling happens, then I would let the labeling come and the labeling go. I wouldn't prohibit the labeling. That trying to stop the labeling might actually not be in accord with developing tranquility. I mean equanimity. And also you said, in order to have equanimity, I need non-attachment. I think that's true, but be careful not to, if something comes and some attachment arises, non-attachment would be not trying to eliminate the attachment. If something comes and you feel attachment to it, that could be kind of a way, something that would make you not feel equanimous. So you're saying you feel like you need to be non-attached or have non-attachment in order to be equanimous.

[71:20]

Well, in a sense I would agree, but at the same time be careful that if something comes and you feel attachment, that you are gracious with the attachment. And if you're gracious with the attachment, which could be a problem, it has a potential to disturb equanimity, that graciousness with the attachment will take care of the attachment and promote equanimity. Yes? My question is, From what I see is if somehow it looks like from undefined to defined, that as I see things. So when I am defined with something, there comes my feelings and resistances and all that stuff. When you say defined with, do you mean identified? Identified, exactly. When I'm identified with it, then I'm stuck in it.

[72:22]

I feel stuck. At least I feel. I have a belief. I feel stuck in it. That's often the case, that when you feel identified with something, you feel stuck in it. Right. And also, when you're disidentified with things, you're stuck in it too. There is not disidentify. I'm just saying, I just want you to add to that, to your picture. If you identify with Republicans, you're stuck in Republicans. If I disidentify, I'm stuck with disidentify. Yeah, so either way, you get stuck when you identify or disidentify. then I like to stay in this space of freedom that it's okay to be... Staying in a place of... Trying to stay in a place of freedom, you'll get stuck. Not in... It's okay. Huh? What did you say? It's okay. Yeah, right. There you go. It's okay. Keep that up. There you go.

[73:26]

That's a good hummingbird. Yes. I would like to ask about when circumstances in your life start to radically improve through hard work and you don't quite recognize where you find yourself. You have this story arising that things are improving? Yes. And then what? You have a story that things improving is difficult? Well, it feels difficult. Yeah, you have a story that things are improving and you have a story that feels difficult that they're improving. Yeah, okay. Now what? Is there something that you might recommend I could meditate on?

[74:32]

I would recommend being gracious with the story you just told us. Could you say a little more? Well, like, welcome it, let the story be, let the story have a place in your life, have a gracious act, like, please come and sit down or go do your thing, story of radical improvement along with difficulty in adjusting. Okay? And also be careful not to believe this story. In other words, don't identify with this story. And be careful not to lean away and try to disbelieve this story. Don't believe it or disbelieve it. Don't identify or disidentify. Try to be upright with it and gracious with it. But honest, like you're honestly telling us, here's the story, this is the story. But I'm not saying it's a true situation, it's just this is the story I happen to have. I honestly, it's not another one, it's this one. And if you're gracious with it and upright with it and also be peaceful with it and tender with it, okay, you'll survive the story and you will see the truth of the story.

[75:50]

You will understand the story. And understanding the story, understanding the story is not believing the story. It's not disbelieving the story. It's understanding the story. It's understanding the truth through the story. So you have the story, and other ones may come, but the same practice with all stories. Okay? Yes. You're welcome. Yes, Jerry. Charlie, I mean. Charlie? I find your teachings to be stirring. Stirring? Yes. And I laughed when you said that. Because even... Even your singing felt stern. And maybe I'm meaning something different by stern than what you had in mind when you asked us this morning, if you're teaching us. Well, what do you mean by stern, Charlie? It seems like it's a really generous way of being.

[76:54]

I tried to bring up images of, well, okay, when have people been stern with me? Or when have I felt that others were being stern? And it's always been a teacher or a father or someone very firmly guiding my learning or my experience. Whether they were right or not, it's very strongly encouraging me or someone else to be a certain way. And so my question is, what do you mean by stern? Because it seems like it's a good thing at times. Did you hear what he said? Huh? Could you hear in the back? Wow. Good acoustics. Actually, you know, I don't know what I mean by stern, and I think I will go and Google it. Or whatever you do to it. I'll go Google it. Anyway, I... I will study the word stern and afterwards I will be a different person.

[77:59]

But I just was surprised to hear the word stern applied to the way I was talking yesterday. Because I felt like I was this sweet little granddaddy feeding people these delicious little Dharma treats. And I just didn't associate that with sternness. But at the same time I was delighted that I'm kind of delighted that people have these wide variety of opinions of me. It's kind of wonderful for me that not everybody thinks I'm blah blah. I think you... A lot of people think I'm blah blah, but some people think I'm da da. I think your grandson might think that you're stern. He might think I'm stern, yeah. And it's a way of teaching... But he also might think I'm his slave. Yes. Which he does think that. And I don't disabuse him of that.

[79:01]

I'm honored to be his slave. But there are slave rights. And I can say, you know, this is just really hard today. Would you lighten up on me a little? Or, you know, can I take a nap, please? Or... It's a wonderful job, being a slave. Yes, Jill? Well, I really liked what Charlie said. It prompted me to speak up, because I wanted to say that I thought your talk this morning, I didn't think your foundation was firm, but I was going to put that word to it. But today I was struck by one of these other words that would be applied to your talk today. I thought it was wholehearted. Wholehearted? Wholehearted. And I really like that. And I don't know... I do too. I'm totally aspiring to that.

[80:02]

I wanted to ask, but I don't know if there's an answer to this question. What is that, I mean, how do you feel, or how, what is it like for you when you're, and assuming that you reveal cold heartedness yourself, when you're talking whole time, what is that like? If there's a way... Well, I'm not saying that I, what do you call it, have arrived at wholeheartedness. But it is my understanding that wholeheartedness is the way, in the Buddha way. That that's what the way is, it's this wholeheartedness. And that when we're wholehearted, we're equanimous, attachments drop away, and we're fearless. And we're generous. And, yeah, and we're, you know. So as I approach being more and more wholehearted, I feel more and more fearless, more and more ready for people to make a slave of me, you know, make a granddaddy out of me, make a girl out of me, make an idiot out of me.

[81:18]

I don't care what you do with me when I'm not afraid of what you'll do with me. And people will do pretty much whatever they do with me. People do have their way with me. And they don't like the results. Sometimes. Sometimes they don't like the results. And sometimes they do. That's part of the deal. And when I'm wholehearted, I'm not afraid of what people make me into and out of me. So, yeah, so I never regret wholeheartedness. Except sometimes. When I get attacked in my wholeheartedness, then sometimes I go, oh, well, I'm not going to be wholehearted anymore for a little while anyway. Limp over to the sidelines and collapse until the next attack. But that's part of it. But it doesn't mean necessarily I get afraid. I just sort of wounded for a while and have to rest.

[82:21]

And then, okay, let's go again. Here we go. Some people look like, what are you talking about? Yes, and what is your name? Michael. Michael. Could you say something more about honoring those among us who have gone to war? Honoring those who what? Among us who have gone to war. Yeah. Well, just when you said that, I thought of my father. He went to war. He got drafted. He got drafted. And then he went down to Alabama to get trained. And took my mother with him. And then while she was there, I was born. And then he went off to England and Germany. So he was over there. And he was a medic. So he took care of all these dying boys who were crying out for their mother.

[83:21]

So I honor my father. for going over there and helping those boys and sharing their suffering with them. I honor that. That's what I thought of just then, you know. And I just... I want to honor people who are acting out of delusion, too. I want to honor them. I want to love them. Again, like grandchildren are sometimes a fully, full-scale delusion. that you know my grandson really wants to go to Burger King and the reason why he wants to go there is because he has been enchanted by the advertising you know they give kids toys at Burger King toys which are totally pollution to the environment, you know, they just take them, they get the toy, and then they play with it for 10 seconds and throw it away, and it's in the garbage, and, you know, but that attracts them. And they had the advertising, you know, like, if you go to Burger King, basically you're going to be happy.

[84:26]

It's going to be heaven if you get to Burger King. Just get in the door there, and life will be very, very good for you little people. So they all want to go in there, you know, the Pied Piper. And he's susceptible to this skillful enchantment. So the little guy wants to go there, and I say, well, I'm not going to take you because there's various reasons that this food is not good for people's health and so on. And he says to me, actually, Burger King is only 20% junk food. It's 80% good food and 20%. He just made that up, you know? He's just a little deluded guy, you know? But I still honor him. I honor him as this living creature, this beautiful little boy. I honor him. I respect. I vow to honor him. I vow to respect him. I vow to do that. But he is deluded.

[85:28]

And if other boys and girls go, think, this is a great country and it would be my duty and it would be good if I went over there and participated and And then they get over there and then they say, oh, this is not good. This is terrible. This isn't helping America. This isn't helping anybody. But of course, it's easy to honor them then because they're waking up. But honor them even before they wake up. Buddha honors us before we're awake. during awakening and afterwards. Buddha honors all things all the time and still guides people of how not to fall into delusion, how to see it for what it is. And some of the people who are in the military are not really acting out of delusion. They're acting out of trying to help the situation as best they can, like medics.

[86:32]

But I don't honor them more than the deluded children. Yes. I have not done what you have done with your grandson. You have not what? You have not done what you have just said about your grandson. Honor him. I have been pretty harsh with one of my family members My daughter. And at this point, I feel very angry at myself and very hurt and guilty. I don't know how to make up for it. I'm stuck in a position where... Okay. Yeah. So now you confess this. Okay. Yeah, you confess this. And I hear you confess this. And I want to be gracious towards you. who's telling me that she has been harsh to her child, I want to be gracious to you.

[87:39]

I don't want to be harsh with you about that. And if you're not only being harsh with your child, but also being harsh with yourself about being harsh, then that's just more harshness. Okay, so you do two confessions. One is, I was not kind to this person, and I was not kind to myself about my unkindness. So, I'm recommending now, start being kind to yourself about this unkindness. Be gracious to yourself about your ungraciousness. And if you don't, if you're not gracious with yourself, after I just suggested you be gracious, I would be gracious with you not accepting my suggestion. That would be my vow. And if you again do not start practicing graciousness towards yourself, I vow to be gracious with you. As you continuously stop, refuse to be gracious, I will continue to practice graciousness towards you, unless me being harsh with you would get you to be gracious to yourself.

[88:46]

But usually it doesn't. But once in a while, you know, Or I might be gracious by falling on the ground and pounding my head and saying, I don't know why I can't get you to be gracious. But many people think it's not appropriate to be gracious with cruelty. It looks like you might be kind of like, think that that's very strange that you'd be gracious with yourself when you're not being kind. Do you? Do you? Yeah, so I'm saying, try this new thing called being gracious with yourself when you're not being kind. But gracious together with honesty. My story is I was not kind, and I'm gracious with that. And being gracious with my unskillfulness helped me learn to be more skillful.

[89:49]

But being harsh with my unskillfulness, it makes it harder to learn to be more skillful. And a great part of gracious is be tender with yourself about your lack of tenderness. And then all kinds of wonderful things can happen. And you might go to your daughter and say, graciously say, I confess to you that I feel I have not been kind to you. And you maybe can do that in a way which is a gift, where you give that without expecting anything for telling her that. And she might not see it as a gift. But you aren't expecting her to see it as a gift. You're just enjoying giving her the gift of telling you that you have become able to tell her that you're sorry and that you want to practice being generous and gracious with her for the rest of your life.

[90:52]

And you really mean that. And if she doesn't accept it, you feel it again and you mean it again and you just keep practicing that way until you and she are totally converted to generosity and graciousness. eventually no one can resist it over and over but not to get her to believe just as gift after gift after gift because gifts expecting something are not gifts in a spiritual sense and just And even if you are not yet gracious, you can give the gift of saying, you know, I'm feeling not very gracious to you right now. And you can graciously give the gift of not feeling gracious. Because no matter what happens, graciousness is here with us.

[91:58]

The Buddhas are with us. The graciousness doesn't belong to me. It's a reality. So no matter how bad you are, there's still graciousness completely surrounding and penetrating everything. Everything else as, what is her name? Carol King. Everything else is illusion. Love is all that's real. Everything else is illusion. Why do you have to tell her And she's going to be gracious. Can't you just be gracious? Oh, you don't have to tell her that you're going to be gracious. No, you don't have to tell that. No, I thought she was going to say, I haven't been gracious. I've been harsh. And I've been harsh. And I want to now commit myself to graciousness in our relationship.

[93:00]

I commit myself to giving up trying to control our relationship. I'm going to receive and give to our relationship, not control it. Giving to a relationship doesn't control it. Receiving a relationship doesn't control it. I renounce trying to control and enter the... I enter the channel of giving. And I tell you that I'm making this commitment so in the future If you feel like I'm not being generous and gracious with you, I invite you to tell me, Hey, Mom, I thought you committed to being gracious and non-manipulative. I'm not feeling that right now. And then... But when I said that to you, you received that graciously. Now I'm feeling it. You didn't argue with me and say, No, yes, I am being gracious. You said, I hear you, you know. I hear that... You're checking on my commitment and you didn't see how I was behaving in accord with it.

[94:04]

And I really appreciate the feedback. So making the vow is part of it. Yeah. So these people today are making the vow so all their friends can see that. And then in the future, if they have any questions about how they're behaving in accord with those vows, they've invited their friends, because they did it in public, they've invited their friends to say... Oh, how is what you're doing now taking refuge in Buddha? How is this right now, you know, not praising yourself at the expense of others? It sounds like you're saying your way is better than their way. It sounds like that. Do you really mean that? And the person might say, well, I think you got me. Thank you. Or, I didn't mean it that way. I meant it this way. Okay. So we help each other. That's why we have a ceremony in public today to put it out there so people can help us. If you don't commit to kindness and then you act kind and people see you acting, excuse me, if you don't commit to kindness and you act unkindly, People may see you act unkindly, but they say, well, she didn't say she was going to be kind, so probably doesn't want to hear anything about it.

[95:13]

But if you say, I wish to be kind to all beings, and then someone looks at you and says, I don't see how that's kind, they may say, well, maybe he would like me to come and ask him about that. I heard you say you wanted to be kind. Is that right? Yes. Could I ask you a question about something you did recently? Sure. Well, when you said that, I thought that wasn't very kind. Oh, okay. Well, thank you for that. Do you think it was kind? You can look and say, well, I'm not sure, but I appreciate your feedback. But sometimes you might say, I think there was some unkindness there. Thank you. I think you're right. Or I still don't see it, but I still really appreciate you telling me that because I need this kind of feedback. even when I don't quite see it, I still need it. And sometimes I do see it, which is great. So I want to practice these Bodhisattva precepts and if I'm not behaving in a way that you see me practicing them, I welcome your feedback.

[96:20]

Any feedback? Yes? It's just that I have gone to many meetings for people who have lost children to drug addiction. Yes. And a particular unique format that I go to recommends that such parents carefully establish boundaries and stop feeding the behavior that allows the child to continue with addiction. which means cutting them off from political support, say if they're 22 or 25 years old or something like that. Basically, squandering family inheritance in the streets.

[97:28]

And as I remember those meetings, they made as much sense to me as you're making now. But I feel there's... My story is that I have a little conflict in here. What I'm saying is that if you set boundaries in your relationship with people, I'm saying try to learn to see that as giving. In other words, set boundaries not to get something, but to give. Like to say, please stop doing that. Or, I don't want to go any farther than this. But say that as a gift, not as a manipulation. That's what I'm saying.

[98:33]

If you don't get a job by Friday, I want you to move out. But not as a manipulation, but as a gift of letting the person know what you want and for them to deal with that. Have that information about you. You give yourself and reveal yourself to the person as a gift. Because even if you don't draw the boundary of not giving the person money so that they can buy poison, they still may get the poison. I mean, they still get their money some way and you can't control them. But you want to show them generosity, because generosity has the power to help people become free of addiction. But trying to control people who have addiction, it may not be helpful to them. It might be. It's possible. but to give them clear boundaries and clear requests as gifts, they may be able to feel the difference between the same language and the same suggestion, the same request as a manipulation, and your way of doing it, which is, this is what I'm giving you now.

[99:49]

And then, this is what I'm giving you now. And then... So setting up boundaries are Boundaries, limits, and forms are very important gifts in our relationship with each other. They're very important gifts. But if you don't offer them as gifts, if you offer them as manipulations, you miss the giving. You miss how precious they are. Or you might miss it. You won't absolutely for sure miss it, but you might miss it. Because they are actually gifts. Boundaries are gifts. Limits are gifts. Forms are gifts. But we have to practice them as gifts, otherwise we may miss that. Does that help you some more with that? Great. Thank you. Is it time for lunch?

[100:46]

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