Welcome everyone. As I mentioned in some past weeks, this fall we have a period of training here at this practice place. And one theme for this training is learning about good friendship. understanding good friendship as the way of enlightenment. Can you hear me okay in the back? I've heard that our way, our practice in this tradition is helping others.

[01:18]

Our way is the way of helping others. which includes all other humans, in addition to ourselves, and all non-human living beings. Our way is the way of helping them, the way of liberating them from suffering. Lately, in the exploration of good friendship, I've come upon a teaching which I've heard over and over. And I really enjoy contemplating this teaching and sharing it with people.

[02:32]

I'd like to give you a really good gift this morning of sharing this teaching with you. At the same time, I feel like I should make a warning that this teaching is for adult audiences, or I should say for mature audiences. So if there's any immature people here, would the mature people please take care of them? So the basic teaching that I've heard, which I would like to give to you, is that the teachers of the way that helps people, the teachers of the practice that helps people are sometimes called Buddhas, awakened ones.

[03:55]

And I I understand that these Buddhas are not controllers. Buddhas are not controllers. A Buddha is not a controller. That's my understanding. A Buddha, however, is a liberator. A Buddha is a liberator. An awakened person is a liberator in this tradition. We wish to help. An awakened person is a helper, a helper to the final and greatest help of freedom and peace. So I just said Buddhas are liberators.

[05:01]

Another way to say it, which is also kind of for mature audiences, is that the manifestation of Buddha's body is the liberation of all beings. In other words, it's not like there's a Buddha body over here and over next to it is liberation of all beings. The liberation of all beings is the body of Buddha. The reality body of Buddha is not some being who's separate from you or me. The reality body of Buddha is the liberation of all of us. And that's a challenging thing to listen to and understand.

[06:05]

But another teaching from the awakened ones, another teaching from those who have learned how to help people, is that if you don't understand these teachings, then we are encouraged to listen to them. If you don't understand them, listen to them. and listen to them until you understand. So on the path of helping people we listen to all people. On that path we listen to all beings and we listen to the teachings of the awakened ones who encourage us to listen to all beings. And they also encourage us to listen to the teachings. They don't necessarily say believe the teachings, but listen to them. I guess believe in listening. Believe in listening to the teachings and believe in listening to the cries of beings.

[07:14]

So I'm crying to you now. and maybe some teachings are coming too. So please listen to my cries and if any teachings come, listen to them until you understand or until there's understanding. So the particular special aspect that I would like to look at with you today. I already mentioned Buddhas are not controllers, Buddhas are not in control. Buddhas cannot make us free of suffering. But they can liberate us from suffering. Not by controlling us,

[08:15]

but by showing their practice. By teaching us their practice, if we look at it, if we listen to it, the practice is liberation. But Buddhists cannot control us to listen to the teaching. And my understanding is they don't try to control us to listen to the teaching. They might try to control us to listen to the teaching if they didn't already know that that was not possible. Knowing that they can't control beings, what do they do? They practice with each being. are the practice of all beings.

[09:19]

Buddhas are practicing with each one of us. That's what they do. They aren't controlling us, they're just right with us, practicing with us. And they're showing us how to give up trying to control our precious life. Buddhas are practicing with each of us, and Buddhas are caring for each of us. Enlightenment is caring for each of us. Caring for each of us, the caring for each of us, which we can join, all of us could care for each of us. Each of us could care for each of us.

[10:20]

Each of us could care for each of us. I could care for each of you. You could care for each of us. The caring for each of us is what Buddha's practice is. And Buddhas are nothing in addition to their practice. Buddhas are their activity. It's not like there's Buddhas and their activities If you had a Buddha and you didn't have caring for people, all people, there wouldn't be a Buddha. The Buddha is just caring for each person. When we join caring for each person, we have joined Buddha, we have joined Buddha's activity. But in caring for each person, in each moment, The Buddhas are also, in their wholehearted giving, they are also not trying to control us.

[11:31]

If we're sick, the Buddhas care for our sickness. They show us their care, and they say, they show us and they say, I'm caring for your sickness, but I'm not in control of your sickness. I want you to be well and peace-ridden. but I can't control you into being free of suffering, even though that's really what I want for you. But I'm here rooting for your freedom, cheering for your liberation. I'm so happy to cheer for your liberation, but I'm not in control of you and I've given up long time ago. Long time ago I gave up trying to control beings into happiness. as a result of giving up trying to control the salvation of all beings, the salvation of beings has been accomplished and is accomplished.

[12:40]

It is accomplished by total devotion to each person with no exceptions. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that in order to be wholeheartedly devoted to one person, I need to be wholeheartedly devoted to all persons. I said that. I don't know where it came from, but there I said it. You might think, well, I really care for this person and I'm wholeheartedly devoted to him, but not to her. I would say, well, then you haven't really opened your heart to this person that you think you're helping wholeheartedly. And I could make various reasons for why that's so. One is that this person, caring for this person, he wants me to care for that person. So if I care for him, I have to deal with caring for her.

[13:43]

We have to care completely with no exceptions in order to help each. And we have to care for all eachs in order to help one each in the most liberating way. Because holding back from practicing with one person closes the door a little bit on the Buddha activity. Buddha activity makes no exceptions to those cared for. and to those not controlled and not the object of attempted control. Someone said to me recently, I enjoyed watching how you take one idea and turn it from various angles and work on it. So here we go. giving up trying to control.

[14:47]

So if we can give up trying to control what is given to us, each moment we are given a life, each moment we are given a world, each moment we are given innumerable beings. And then as all this is being given to us, giving up trying to control it accomplishes the liberation of all beings. I've heard that some people are trying to control me. And I aspire to listen and observe their attempt to control me.

[15:56]

And I'm not trying to control them into giving up trying to control me. Some people have a limited range of what they think would be good for me to do. And I'll talk to you about those people a little later. about actually around approximately 45 years ago, I think, I read a book and it was a book that seemed to be, which was presented to be, a book published by a school of Zen called Soto School, which we kind of say here that we're part of the Soto School. But also I would like to say we're also part of the Rinzai school even though they may not agree.

[17:00]

We're part of all Buddha schools. We're part of all schools of liberation. Now I said that and I wasn't in control of that but you got to see it and hear it. The proclamation that we are practicing together with all schools, not just the Buddha schools, but all schools throughout the universe. But I have not recently been able to study all schools, but I've been studying the Soto school quite a bit. And so 45 years ago I read this book, I read this piece of paper which said something like, it proposed a way of practice, and the way of practice was Control your posture, control your breathing, and control your mind. And I don't remember what phase I was in when I read that, but I think I pretty quickly felt like, I don't want to practice that way.

[18:19]

That's not the way for me. And I've told stories about my practice in my twenties, and at certain phases in my practice in my twenties, I actually did try controlling. I didn't try controlling other people too much, but I really, I thought, I can certainly try to control myself. And I think some people would like that. But almost no one knew at that time how What's the word? Well, I'll just say it. How fascist I was about controlling myself. So I made up one, at least one, quite fascist program for myself, following along the instruction of control your breath.

[19:26]

and particularly control your mind, which is observing your breath. I was practicing sitting and following my breathing, and I was having the experience that I was not able to follow my breathing, and I kept getting distracted. Actually, I was counting my breathing. I was counting my exhales, one to ten. So I would count, I would exhale and I'd go one, inhale, and I would go two, like that, up to ten. And then I would start over, one. And I was, I was noticing that I was not, I was trying to do that, but I was noticing that I was unsuccessful. My mind went off to other topics besides paying attention to the breath and counting it. One of the ways I knew that was when I said, seventy-five. Or I was exhaling, what number is this?

[20:35]

So anyway, I made up a very kind of brutal training program for myself. And I was going to punish myself if I didn't pay attention. And so actually I got myself under control, in a way, so that I was following my breath and counting my breath, one to ten. And I had ways of checking to see if I perhaps lost track but didn't know. I had a checking system running alongside, monitoring and verifying that I actually did count from one to ten, and that the last time I did two, and so on. And I managed to do that for like a whole, like for 40 minutes. And when I finally succeeded, before I succeeded I thought maybe if I would succeed that would be like liberation of all beings, but when I finally succeeded this being did not want to practice that way anymore.

[21:44]

So about 45 years ago I retired pretty much from, you know, an aspiration to get myself under control. And I've been trying also to give up an aspiration to get other people under control too. Someone asked recently, well, if we're not trying to control or something like that, What about these forms we practice here in this room? One of the forms we practice is we have a ritual way of eating in this room where we each have our own set of bowls and we wrap them And we have a way of opening them and using them.

[22:46]

And we have a way of serving the food to the community. And we have a way of receiving the food. And we have a ceremony which goes the whole period of the meal. And it takes a while to learn. And there's... a way of folding, of wrapping all the bowls up in a package at the end and unwrapping them at the beginning. And there's a way of making the tie. And I notice sometimes that people are tying the bowls in a way that's not the agreed upon knot. And then when I see some of these unusual forms of knots, I sometimes, I check with the seniors of the community and I just say, are we doing the knot this way?

[23:52]

And they say, yes. And then I sometimes go and talk to the person. I say, would you bring your bowls to me? And I talk to them about the way they tied the knot. And I show them the usual way. And then often after I show them, they're clear about the way we tie the knot. But I look at myself through this process and I look to see, am I trying to get this knot or get these knots under control? I'm diligently watching everything everybody does. and I watch to see how does it go with the form. And I try to clarify what the form is so that we can clarify whether we're trying to control.

[24:53]

If the form is not clear, you might be trying to control but you don't really notice it. But when the form is very clear, you can go and practice with each person on that form and you can see if you're caring for that form and at the same time giving up trying to control it. Like, I could say to the seniors, Are we tying this knot this way? And they might say, no. They don't agree with me. So then we can work with that, that disagreement. Am I trying to control this so there's no disagreement? I get to look to see if I am.

[25:56]

I've got a nice disagreement to work with. If they agree, and then I go to the person who tied it in an unusual way, I can say to them, would you bring your bowls to me so I can... And they may say, no, I'm not going to bring my bowls to you. But when I invite them to bring my bowls, was I inviting them to try to control them to bring the bowls? Or was I giving them a gift, which is, I'm willing to try to clarify something with you in this world. But not to clarify things to get things clear. but to clarify things to liberate beings. Because when things are clear, then it's possible to see, is there any clinging? If things are vague, it's hard to see how we're clinging to a cloud. But it's not so hard to see how we're clinging to a jewel, especially a small one, like a small jewel of a teaching of how to tie a knot.

[27:04]

I'm offering this to you," the person might say, I don't want it. I don't want you to—they might think I'm going to try to control them into my school of not tying. I don't want any part of your attempts to control my not tying practice. They might feel that way. But if I'm practicing with them and caring for them without trying to control them, that's fine with me. And I think, how wonderful. No one has ever before refused to show me their knot. This is like, for me, this is like really amazing. But only after... You know, many, many times of working with people is it's so amazing. The first time you ask somebody and they say, no, it's not so amazing. But if you've done it many, many times and everybody said, oh, yes, please show me.

[28:09]

And then somebody says, no. Wow. And because if it's a gift, I'm not discouraged and say, well, I'm not going to offer you knot tying instruction anymore. You know, you're kind of like, whoa, this is, this is, finally it's getting really interesting. Yeah. So I'm devoted to caring for each person and each aspect of each person. Their clothing, the way they wear their glasses, the way they put their glasses on and off, the way they talk, the way they tie knots. All these are opportunities to care for beings and see if you could care. thoroughly without trying to control.

[29:11]

And when you care thoroughly, you notice that they're not in control. And when you care thoroughly, you can accept that beings are not in control. And if you can care thoroughly and accept that beings are not in control and you're not going to try to control, then liberation happens. is realized in that moment. In that moment it is realized that our practice is the same practice as the person we're with, and not just them, but everybody. And we realize that our enlightenment is the same as their enlightenment at that moment of wholehearted care for a particular form, being clear about what this is, be clear about what she thinks it is,

[30:30]

be clear about that we're not clear, and get clearer and clearer, and then see, is there any attempt to control this? Am I holding this up, trying to control it? Or am I holding this up as a gift? And whatever angle this cup is at, this top of this cup is at, and actually right now it seems to be tilted slightly back towards me, I didn't intend that it would be tilted, but I did go over to look at it just to see where it was, just to see if I was letting it be. And I am. It's a gift to me. It's a gift to you. In caring for this cup lid wholeheartedly, which I wish to do right now, In caring for you, each of you wholeheartedly, which I care to do right now, I am not trying to control this lid.

[31:41]

I am not trying to control the way I am holding it. I am not trying to prevent this lid from being broken. I am not trying to break this lid. I am trying to care for this lid without control, giving up trying to control it. In taking care of this lid wholeheartedly and giving up trying to control it, I meet the lid before I was born. In caring for this lid wholeheartedly if I could care for this lid wholeheartedly, if I could care for you wholeheartedly, and not try to control you into understanding what I'm saying, into appreciating what I'm understanding, caring for you without trying to control you into understanding what I'm saying, in that way liberation is realized.

[32:56]

We have an expression which says, when the stone woman, excuse me, when the wooden man begins to sing, I want the wooden man to sing right now. I want these words to be coming from giving up control for what I care for. I don't want my words or these words to be coming from giving up control of what I don't care about. I think many of us already know how to give up trying to control what we don't care about. When we give up control about what we care about, you could say, most, or giving up trying to control what we care about completely, the stone, no, the wooden man begins to sink.

[34:04]

And when the wooden man begins to sing, the stone woman gets up dancing." Sometimes they translate it The stone woman gets up to dance. But I think she gets up dancing. Even before she's standing, she's already doing kind of a little squatting wiggle. She's dancing. She's coming alive. She's expressing the freedom which she felt when she heard the wooden man sing. The wooden man is not in charge of his song. The wooden man has given up. trying to control his voice. But he really wants to sing the song which will get the stone woman dancing. He wants to sing it, but he's given up control of everything, including his song. And the song comes from that place.

[35:13]

giving up, trying to control what we care for most, the great song comes, and the stone woman who has been sitting there like our stone woman, she gets up dancing. We thought she'd never move. We thought she was petrified into her suffering, trapped in her stoneness. But actually she was never trapped. And when we heard this wooden man sing, we realized that she was dancing all along. I didn't control my thirst. It just came. I was actually kind of surprised. People offer me water when I give these talks. I rarely use it. Here today, thirst came and there was water and now I'm drinking it.

[36:22]

Am I trying to control the drinking? Watch. I didn't control this. This thought came in my mind. Here it comes. I really do aspire to care for every single each person and each living being, animal or vegetable. I really do. I aspire to that. I do not tell you that I always do wholeheartedly care without any limitation on my heart. I'm not saying I never miss a chance to completely care for each person. I'm not saying I never miss a chance. I'm just saying I aspire to never miss a chance.

[37:26]

But not just that. I aspire to care and simultaneously give up turn to control what's happening between me and each person and what the person's doing and what I'm doing. As I carefully extend my hand, I do so, and I'm pretty convinced that the hand extension that just occurred was not performed under my control. I do not know how to move my hand over here either. This hand was over here doing this with this robe while this hand was extending itself to be an opportunity for an example. I'm not in control. I feel like I'm not in control of any of this activity you see here. And I'm trying to do it wholeheartedly. And I'm actually not trying to control it. All this activity is powered by things other than me.

[38:45]

I am an other-powered being. All of you, and far beyond all of you, are making me this performer. I am not in charge here. Well, it's around 11 o'clock now, which means the talk's already been quite long, and I have several examples. And I don't think I'll get to all of them, but maybe I'll get to some of them in the question-and-answer period. One of the examples of trying to care for something without trying to control it, one of the examples I offer you is this Dharma talk.

[39:50]

my talk, I have not been trying to control. Maybe you can tell. I wish to give it to you, offer it to you, and I wish it to be a gift so that, as I said earlier, I'm not trying to control your response to my gift, but I wish these words to be a gift. And I'm working not so much Well, I'm working to be careful to care for the words, but I'm also working to simultaneously not try to control how they come up. Like that p at the end there. I was not trying to control that happening and yet I'm fine with that. And I was surprised by it. And I was surprised that it turned into an example of what I was talking about.

[40:55]

I'm surprised that I'm an example of what I'm talking about. I didn't try to control myself into being an example. I just turned out to be. And now we're over that. That's one example. Another example is another example was this thing about tying the knot. We have a lot of forms here and the students of our practice and I'm one of the students of our practice are contemplating how can we take care of these forms because some of the younger students feel like we're totally trying to control these forms." And I said, as you get more and more into it, you'll be more and more ready to do the forms you're doing without trying to control. And the path between now, when you're trying to control those forms, to the point of giving up trying to control them, is to notice as you're performing the form, to notice that when you're trying to control

[42:09]

you're stressed and it's harder to learn and it's harder to listen to the instructions while you're learning. Here's another example which I didn't intend but I'm going to honor it. I think I can say it fairly quickly. I said it before. I once saw a video of the violinist Isaac Stern teaching in China. He went to China to teach violin playing to the Chinese violinists. And one particular scene, and also to teach cello to the cellists and so on, in one particular scene he's standing next to a, looks like a 20-year-old Chinese man, who's playing the violin. I think, I don't know what he's playing, maybe Mozart.

[43:11]

He's standing next to him and this young man is playing the violin in front of, looks like maybe thousands of people. And he's playing this, and he's playing very well. You know, really amazingly skillful. And the great teacher is standing next to him and says, start singing. He's pushing him, gently pushing him into being the stone, into being the wooden man. Come on, sing. Make it sing. And then the teacher starts singing along with the player. But you can see he thinks he's in control. The boy thinks he's in control. And he's very skillful. And you might think, boy, he's really in control of that instrument. And he kind of thinks, he looks like he's in control.

[44:14]

He looks like he thinks he's in control. It looks like the audience thinks he's in control. I don't know if Isaac Stern thinks he's in control. I think Isaac Stern thinks... You're really good. It's time for you to let go of trying to control. You've cared for this instrument and this music very well. Now it's time to give up trying to control and let it sing. And this boy was skillful enough that in front of all those people, playing this complex musical composition and having this great teacher kind of yelling at him, lovingly, he could still hold on to the violin and keep moving it. His performance didn't shake, but it turned. And it turned from controlling this performance to singing it. And you could hear the music of this wooden man come up, and the stone woman got up dancing.

[45:20]

someone came to me and said, are you suggesting that I be friends with everybody? Really? I said, yeah. She said, well how can I be friends with narrow-minded people? I didn't laugh. How can I open my heart to people who are closing their heart to me or to others? Buddha does not reach in and pry the heart open on the narrow-minded. Doesn't pry open the mind of the narrow-minded. Doesn't pull away the right of the self-righteousness or pull away the self of the self-righteousness.

[46:34]

Buddha doesn't do that. Because Buddha is not in control of our heart. What does Buddha do when she meets a narrow-minded, self-righteous person? What does she do? She takes care of them without trying to control them out of their narrow-mindedness. How does she do that? By looking at her own heart. and seeing if she's narrow-minded. Am I narrow-minded about your narrow-mindedness? Am I like, your narrow-mindedness really, it's time to give it, you know, it's time to let go of it. Yeah. Matter of fact, now. By looking at my narrow-mindedness, Could I possibly have any? This person's narrow-minded. Do I have any narrow-mindedness?

[47:36]

Just a second. Before I fix their narrow-mindedness, and before I try to be their friend, actually, because I heard I'm trying to be their friend, but before I try to be the friend with somebody who I see narrow-mindedness, before I try to be friends with the narrow-mindedness, just a second, I'll be right back. I'm going to go check any narrow-mindedness on my side. And if I find none, then I would say, ooh, this is amazing. There's none here. If that ever happened, then I would say, I think now if I look in the other direction, it will be the same. And it might be. If you would really look and wouldn't find any narrow-mindedness in yourself, after, no, looking quite a bit, then you look back and you realize this person who you thought was narrow-minded is smiling at you and they're saying, you got it finally, didn't you?

[48:40]

You finally understood I wasn't narrow-minded. I was just giving that to you for you to look at yourself and wake up and then look to see that I'm your friend. But usually, if I look, I find some narrow-mindedness. And then if I and take care of my narrow-mindedness and don't try to control my narrow-mindedness, then I say, well, now I'm ready to be friends with these narrow-minded people. Before I was willing to look at mine and in a kind way, not just look at mine and slap it in the face, but look at my narrow-mindedness, before that I'm not ready to be friends with narrow-minded people. I'm ready to try to control them, but I'm not ready to really be their friend. So I look, I find mine, I give up trying to control it, now I'm ready to be friends.

[49:44]

Now I'm ready to look at their appearance of narrow-mindedness and not try to control theirs. The first thing is to find mine, to be kind to mine, let go of controlling mine, then show that to somebody. Perhaps this person, this narrow-minded potential friend, or rather this person... Oh, another way to say this. What I said to the person was, I look at myself and look at my idea that they're narrow-minded. Then I practice kindness towards my idea of their narrow-mindedness and my idea of narrow-mindedness. And I don't try to control my idea of narrow-mindedness. And then I become free of my idea of narrow-mindedness. And then I can be friends with this person who I have an idea of them being narrow-minded. But I can be friends with the idea now. That's the sort of first step of the friendship.

[50:48]

But not really. The first step of friendship is study myself. Second step of friendship is to show somebody my study of myself. Third step of friendship is to notice that I'm not trying to control when they'll notice that I'm practicing studying myself. I'm studying myself. Has anybody noticed yet? Looks like nobody's noticed. But I want to be everybody's friend, so I'll keep studying myself. And I'll keep studying myself and show myself until somebody notices. They won't necessarily notice, oh, he's studying himself. They might notice, what is it with that guy? There's something funny here. And they might think, he seems to care for me, but... but he seems to care for other people just the same." Or, he seems to care for me but he's not trying to control me into what he cares about.

[51:50]

Hmm, that's interesting. But they might not articulate it, they might just feel it. But then they might articulate and they might say, I'd like to try that. So then they might go and say, how do I be friends with somebody who's narrow-minded? And get some instruction. and then say, but what if I do this and they don't notice it? So the person says, after I gave the instruction of study your own idea of the person being narrow-minded and demonstrate that to them, she said, what if they don't notice? It's a gift. You give the gift. You try to show the practice, but it's a gift. And the gift means you give it without being concerned with whether anybody notices it. Just deliver the gift and continue to care. Deliver the gift and continue to care.

[52:52]

And if you're not trying to control, then you can give it, and if nobody notices it, you've still enjoyed giving it, so you give it again. If you give it trying to control, you might retire from giving. Since nobody noticed that I'm caring for them, I'm not going to care for them anymore. It's wonderful whether the gift is noticed or not. But at some point they do start noticing, and then after they start noticing, they might think, I want to learn this too. And then after that, then they start trying to learn. And that takes a long time to learn how to do this thing they've seen which they wish to learn to do. And in that phase they will be up for asking for help and learning how to do this thing they've seen. If I care for people, I might enjoy that.

[54:05]

I very well might enjoy caring for people. But if I care for them and give up trying to control them, I will definitely enjoy it. If I care for them and try to control them, I will probably get discouraged. because they will not go along with my control program. And that's very tiring. On top of carrying people, on top of it, try to control it. Like, lifting up lids of cups takes some effort. Some effort was expended in lifting this lid up and showing it to you. but it's much more tiring for me to lift it up and try to control it. That extra work might be as much as the basic work. Plus it's not as much fun for me to pick this up and show it to you if I'm trying to control it for you, for it, for us.

[55:07]

So caring for beings is a joy. Caring for them without trying to control them is a joy. And it's very efficient to care for people, period, and give up trying to control. I wrote some notes on this piece of paper. It's a piece of scrap paper. Is it scrap paper or scratch paper? It's both scratch and scrap.

[56:09]

So this is a piece of scratch paper, so I made some scratches on here. Good friendship. Don't try to control your friends. It's so tempting, but don't try. And then I just happened to turn over this scrap paper, and on the back it's a statement by Suzuki Roshi. And it says, There's no special way to help other people. I would edit and say, there's no fixed, controlled way of helping people. Let them know our human nature.

[57:11]

And let them know how we have a problem. Encouraging people by your own practice, that's the best way to help people. When you understand what human being is, and when you understand the way for human beings to follow the Buddha way. That's how to help people. To understand what a human being is, is how to help people.

[58:18]

And to show people how to practice. There's nothing about control in this way. But just give gifts of yourself. Show people how to do that. When they learn that, when they understand that, they will be helped. So we help people to help themselves. We help people to learn the practice of the Buddhas, which is to practice together with each and every person. give up controlling whatever is given. One more time, when we care wholeheartedly for everything and everybody, and we give up trying to control everything in that total caregiving, then we hear the true Dharma.

[60:21]

And when we hear the true Dharma, we sing. May our intention...

[60:33]

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