I have vowed to taste the truth, to target his words. I am joyfully overwhelmed by the vow to hear the truth of the Buddha's teaching.

[01:09]

I believe that if we can hear this true Dharma, and meet it, and maintain it, the great Earth and all living beings attain the Buddha way. I acknowledge that this world is in a great crisis. I believe that awakened ones and those in the process of awakening

[02:33]

are sitting in the center of this crisis, are sitting in the center of fierce flames of fear, dread, disappointment, depression, hopelessness, feeling, sadness, grief. Buddhists sit in the middle of all of this and they say, I wish to make an unceasing effort to free all beings so they may realize and dwell in peace.

[04:04]

Today I expand it and say, I aspire, I aspire to protect all beings, to protect the whole earth, to nourish all beings, to liberate all beings so that they may dwell in peace. This is the Buddha's vow sitting in the middle of these fierce flames. I didn't hear Buddha say, sitting in the middle of the fierce flames, I aspire to make everybody the same, to make everybody have the same view of what is good.

[05:41]

He aspires to free them of their ideas, of what is good. Not destroy their ideas, but free them and being stuck in their ideas so that they can be at peace with themselves and with those who they deeply disagree with. Get rid of the people we disagree with. That's called war. The Buddha wants peace among all the different people. This is my belief in his teachings. responsibility to acknowledge and remember over and over how distressed, how frightened, how demoralized, how sad, how discouraged, virtually infinite beings.

[07:19]

And then I wish to make the effort to take the seat in the middle of this and sit upright in the middle of it and stand upright in the middle of it. And make that sitting upright in the middle of it attractive so that other people will also sit upright because everyone is sitting in the middle. We all have a seat sit on and settle down in. But it's very difficult to sit on this seat. The Buddha says, this is not impossible. This is not impossible to you. I sit here, you can sit here too.

[08:27]

If you want to. Buddha doesn't say you should sit. The Buddha says, I aspire to it. Do you want to sit on your seat and enter the work, the difficult work of protecting all life? All life. liberating all life. Now I will stop talking for a while to give us an opportunity to try to Take our seat now.

[09:36]

Settle down here in this crisis. Settle down here in this crisis together.

[10:53]

We're going to do this together. I also want to acknowledge, this is me personally speaking, that I welcome people who have different views from each other.

[12:35]

I welcome people into this community. They voted. I'm not qualified to speak for all the different views, to characterize all the different views. But I feel that the people who have the various views, that their view is what they think for the welfare of their family and their friends. and maybe the whole world, but certainly people want the best for themselves and for their family and their loved ones and their friends.

[13:37]

Of course they do. Some people think this will be beneficial. You can say whatever it is. And then there's other people who think that would not be beneficial. That would be harmful. And they think this would be beneficial. And other people think, no, that wouldn't be beneficial. But everybody wants what's best for their family, for now, now, but also in the future. And we have different ideas. And those different ideas stop. Even in our family, who we love, we have different ideas of what's beneficial. How can we be free of our ideas and still have different ideas and be at peace with each other?

[14:43]

Because if we hold to our ideas and we're with a bunch of people who agree with us, that seems fine. But that level of understanding Everybody who agrees with us is not as great as the level of understanding when we're with people who don't agree with us and we let go of our ideas so we can be at peace with them. In this temple, in this community, we have different ideas, but we practice being honest about our ideas, being kind to our ideas, being patient about our ideas so we can let go of our ideas while we still have them.

[15:46]

Sometimes we maybe change our ideas to the opposite side and then change back. The important thing is not being stuck And this is the way. This is the basis of war. And when there's war, we can't even settle down in our situation and be kind to it. We're not yet at war. And we don't want war. I think we need to work at conversing with each other, with everybody, if they are ready for conversing in a peaceful way.

[16:52]

Let's find a way to do that. I aspire to find a way to do that. I don't want to tell you you should do that. I don't want to abide in that view that we should have conversations. But I do have that view. And I give it to you. And I hope I don't hold on to it. And when we're in crisis like this, even if we hold up the aspiration to nurture all life, to protect all life, to liberate all beings, if we hold that up, it's possible someone will disagree with us about that vow.

[17:59]

And maybe they'll disagree with us in a very harsh, harsh way. that will make it difficult to do this work. They may belittle us. They may disparage us. They may insult us for being too ideal about the possibilities of human relationship. And that will make it difficult for us to take care of this vow, this aspiration, and practice it. And so

[19:01]

In the past, you know, like 2,000 years ago, scriptures arose which talked about, well, what if we get into a situation where in our wish to hold up the Buddha's teaching, people attack us and disagree with us? What should we do? How should we practice to take care of the teaching? And first response was, but not rigid. Devotedly hold up the teaching without being self-righteous about it. And then interactions with our self and with all other beings,

[20:04]

Practice patience with those who agree with us and don't agree with us. Practice patience with those who insult us. Practice gentleness. Don't be nasty. Practice nonviolence. In a time when we're really being challenged, practice nonviolence. Don't be attached to anything and don't act in a way to encourage other people to attach. I'm talking to you now, but I don't want you to attach to anything I'm saying, and I don't want to attach to what I'm saying either.

[21:10]

So I hope I'm talking in a way that doesn't make you attach to the unceasing effort to nourish and protect beings. And again, I will say, and I don't want you to attach to this, that I think will be more successful in nourishing and protecting beings if we're devoted totally, and being devoted to it totally includes not attaching to it. Attaching to our devotion constricts it. ...possibilities of life. Generate the aspiration to protect all beings and then give it away and it will come back stronger.

[22:14]

Open your hand and it will fill again with more and more devotion to the welfare of beings. If I have a view of what is helpful, I want to be patient, gentle, non-violent, not look down on those who disagree with me, not attached to my view. This will promote not only the protection of beings and the protection of me, but will release me and release others from holding to their views.

[23:17]

And to do this work of settling in our place and finding our aspiration, we need solitude and we need community. And we are here today supporting each other's solitude. The community, we are supporting each other to be quiet so we can settle into this place. And we really can't have solitude without the support of others, and they can't do it without our support. So I wish to support you to have solitude so that you can do the grieving that you need to do and the sadness. And open to the disappointments and discouragements and depression and fear.

[24:26]

To open to it. And if we're running around too much, we postpone our settling. Once you're settled, then you can get up and still be settled. But then you may occasionally have to stop running and check to see if you're still settled. And you may find out that you lose it, so then you settle down again. So here we don't just settle on Sunday morning before we settle again. We settle on Sunday morning, Monday morning, Tuesday morning, and on Wednesday morning It's like, what do you call it, freelance settling. We don't settle as a group. We have group settling. And then Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, we come together early in the morning, in the dark, and settle into our suffering.

[25:32]

And if we didn't have the group, a lot of us might settle in time. I would. But when the alarm clock goes off at four, I know I'm not getting up just for me. I'm going to this hall because it will encourage the other people to come to the hall. They come to the hall because they know it will encourage me to come to the hall because they know that I know that they'll feel bad if I don't come. So I come and I settle and I settle day after day. You support me to sit on this seat and settle into the grief and fear and depression and anxiety all the difficult emotions, I sit there and settle in them with the help of everyone and to support everyone through this.

[26:40]

And it's hard. It's hard to just get up. It's a little bit hard to walk down here. And then to sit here is the hardest part, to be still and settle. But the settling does happen. And after it happens, I never regret it. But I'm one of these weak people who needs hundreds of people to help me, or millions of people to help me. But there are millions of people helping me so I can do it for 50 years. Well, actually 49. And I hope I can keep doing it till the end. And I hope you can do it. I hope you can settle, that you can take your seat in the middle of this crisis. It's going to stop. It's going to keep coming up every moment for the rest of our life.

[27:47]

But every day we can settle into it and feel, yes, this is really good. This is a good life. great responsibility and I'm so happy to be exercising my responsibility to take my seat and to show others how to take their seat so that we together protect and nourish and liberate all beings and be at peace. And we do it in solitude, in a meditation hall, and we aspire to do it in our conversations too. Talking, we have the opportunity to try to settle into the conversation, to sit in the middle of our anxiety while we're talking to someone, to sit in the middle of our fear of hurting their feelings, or them not liking us,

[28:59]

or them not agreeing with us, or them hurting us if we don't agree with them, to settle into those fears and courageously, kindly speak. Fully speak. Speak with kind, sweet words. and practice giving ourselves in the conversation and saying something beneficial and practicing together with who we're talking to. And it doesn't mean there's no struggle. There can be great struggle, but the struggle is for the sake of protecting everybody. struggle is not to hurt the other side of the struggle. It's to make it into something beautiful and peaceful.

[30:05]

Like I just thought of Michelangelo struggling with a huge piece of marble. But he didn't hate the marble. But he kept hitting it with his chisel, with his hammer. in hopes to bring out the truth of that marble, which we can now see the results of his struggle with the stone. He was patient. He was firm. And I think in the intensity of settling into his world, I think he wasn't attached to making art, but he wanted to. And I want to work together with all beings to make a great work of art called peace.

[31:12]

But there will be struggle to shout, but the shout can be a non-violent shout. Are you ready to hear a non-violent shout? You ready to hear another one? I've tried so hard, my dear, to show that you're my every dream. What do you think is just an evil scheme? Nonviolent shout.

[32:22]

We do a nonviolent shout here on a regular basis. We sing this shout. You can sing a shout, right? Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia. Hallelujah. That's a shout. That's a silent shout. And as many of you know, the person who wrote the song Hallelujah passed away a couple of days ago, Leonard Cohen. And he was also, for a while, among many things he did, he was in a Zen monastery. He became a Zen priest. And he commented, he made some comments about his Zen practice, about his, you know, sitting down in

[33:38]

The people who know the M-Major Kukanenkyo can pass the cards out. So anyway, he tried to settle into his suffering in the Zen monastery, sitting and sweeping and shoveling snow. He retired from being a Zen monk. He said that Zen helps us. Zen training is really hard. it's really hard to do Zen training, which means the training of taking your seat in the middle of this . That's Zen training. That's the first part. He said, but after you practice for a while it helps you endure. So after you learn to do this you can do it some more. And he says it also shows you that is not an appropriate response to suffering.

[34:45]

Singing singing songs of non-violence is an appropriate response to suffering. Kind speech is an appropriate response to suffering. So here's a chant which we call in Japanese is called Emei-juku-kanon-gyo, which means the protecting light, ten-verse scripture of Kanzeon. So Kanzeon means observing the cries of suffering of the world. It means to look with compassion upon the world, to listen to the cries of this world with ears of compassion.

[35:50]

The Buddhas sit in the middle of this world and they look with eyes of compassion, they listen with ears of compassion. So we do this chant to remember this way of being. in order to promote and protect life. You want to do this song? Can you find it? It's called Emei Jyoku Kannon. Page 10. Okay, so I have a little drum here. This will set the pace, okay? emmei juku kanan-gyo kanze-yo namu busu-yo busu Satsang with Mooji

[36:53]

joraku gajo nenkanzeon bonenkanzeon nennen shenki nennen furishin kanzeon mubutsu yobutsuen yobutsuen posoen joraku gajo chonen kanzeon bonen Thank you.

[38:21]

Satsang with Mooji May our intention equally stand to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I love to say that

[39:35]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_93.78