Anything you'd like to discuss? Yes, Elijah? Do you want to come up here? I think I was going to stab myself with a sharp object. Yeah, I said if... and I think I had a sharp object with me. It wasn't like a deadly stab, but a painful one. And I didn't stab myself. Maybe I did, but it worked. It worked as a coercion to It worked as a coercion to get me into that place.

[01:05]

So it was like I was under control. And when I got there I just realized this is not why I came to Zen Center to get to be like this. I came to be actually to learn how to be flexible and open and be able to respond appropriately to whatever people offer me. But somehow I had to like play it out to realize this is not what I want. Like sometimes, if I would think of stealing something, I would sometimes think, well, instead of stealing this, why don't you actually do a big bank robbery? Really get into it and see if that's really what you want to do. Because if you just take a little bit, you might think, well, that was all right. But I don't really want to actually devote myself to a wholehearted act of stealing.

[02:10]

Like, okay, I really want to do this, and I'm going to make a big effort. Like I also said to people recently that If I would see, like, on the street some big boys picking on someone smaller than them, a smaller girl or a smaller boy, I would sometimes go up to them and say, why don't you guys do something more challenging, like pick on me? That would be more, you know, engaging, wouldn't it? This is like nothing for you. Why waste your time? It's like that story of the, you know the story of the three billy goats, Gruff? Do you know that story? Elijah? It's a story maybe from previous generations. Do you want to hear it? Once upon a time there were three billy goats and their last name was Gruff. One was little, you know, one was medium-sized and one was a full-grown goat.

[03:17]

What do you call a full-grown goat? A billy goat? Anyway, they're all Billy Goats, I guess. But anyway, one was a full-grown goat. And they were living on a pasture. And at a certain point, they kind of ate all the grass in their pasture. And there was a ravine next to their pasture. And there was a bridge going over the ravine to another pasture. And there was lots of delicious, sweet, green grass over there. And they wanted to go over there. But underneath the grass was a troll. You know what a troll is? Yeah, a troll under the bridge. Trolls are into controlling people and controlling goats. The troll owned the bridge. The troll thought that she owned the bridge and she controlled the use of the bridge. And the use she wanted was nobody to use the bridge, basically.

[04:22]

So the little billy goat, I don't know if they had, I don't remember the story saying that the billy goats got together and made a plan. I don't remember. But anyway, they sent the little billy goat first. And the little billy goat started trotting over the bridge, you know, tick, [...] tick. And the troll says, who's on my bridge? And he said, I'm the littlest billy goat. Gruff. And the troll said, well, you're on my bridge and I'm going to eat you up. And the little billy goat said, well, you know, really, you'd be wasting your time because I have a brother that's coming who has much more flesh. You'd be wasting your time on me. Check him out. And the patrol said, okay.

[05:24]

And then, sure enough, the middle-sized billy goat gruff came. You know, boom, [...] boom. And the patrol says, who's on my bridge? And he said, medium-sized billy goat gruff's on your bridge, man. He said, well, I'm going to eat you up. I heard you're really delicious. Go ahead, but you'd be wasting your time. The real meal's coming later. He's three times as big as me, man. Forget it. Troll says, okay. And then the full-grown, big billy goat comes. Boom, boom, [...] boom. Who's on my bridge? Well, the big billy goat's on your bridge. And the troll says, I'm going to eat you up. And the big billy goat says, go ahead, try. And the troll tried.

[06:30]

But the big billy goat was really big. And it gave the troll a bit of a butt. And the troll went tumbling back down into the ravine. And the big one went through. Do you understand? Yeah. That was an example of something. What was it an example of? Huh? Doing something fully. Yeah, doing something fully, right. Also, I want to apologize for talking, I think, too long this morning at the time of talk. I'll try to be more careful in the future. I think it's good for me to ask people, is that enough? When I'm giving the talks?

[07:34]

Give them a chance to say, uh-huh. I thought I did. I asked for that feedback. I said when I left to ask some people, Do you think it would have been good if I stopped earlier? And they said, mm-hmm. I thought it was perfect. Yeah. I think that... But do you think it would have been okay if I stopped earlier? No? Okay. Well, I didn't ask you. I asked these other people and they thought, yeah, I think it would have been good if you stopped earlier. And so I'm coming to apologize to anybody who thought... it would have been good to stop earlier. And I'm glad to hear that you thought it was perfect. I can accept that. I mean, I vow to accept anybody who thinks my talk was perfect, I vow to accept that.

[08:38]

But if anybody thinks it was not perfect, I vow to accept that too. Do you vow to accept Or another way to put it is I said I would give some examples now and I have an example. You want to hear it? So tell me if it's too much when I'm giving it. Once upon a time somebody came and told me that he was having trouble with his in-law because insufficient safety around her pool. So when his six-year-old son goes to visit his grandmother and grandfather, he's concerned that the pool is not safe for his little boy. And he's made various suggestions about how to make it safer, and she's not interested, and she feels offended, too.

[09:48]

And so he was talking to me about that. so basically what I suggested to him was of course I want you to take good care of your little boy and I want to take good care of your little boy too but I also encourage you to give up trying to control the safety of your boy work on the safety but give up trying to control and if you can give up trying to control then you might be able to talk to your in-law more skillfully. The most helpful response will come from wishing to care for your boy and wishing to care for your in-law and your relationship with your in-laws and wishing to care for yourself and giving up trying to control the situation. That's where the song of the wooden man emerges.

[10:52]

And he said, well, what about if they don't put seatbelts in the car? I said, well, it's the same. You can say, well, it's against the law. You can say, I'm not going to give you my keys. You can try various stuff. But all those things you try could come from trying to control, or they could come from giving up trying to control. And you can say, Please do not drive that car without putting seat belts on my son. You can say that as a song of liberation or as a song of control. And the practice of the Buddhas is to offer a request coming from devotion to beings and giving up controlling them. That's the Buddha's words. And they might be the same words as somebody else is trying to control beings.

[11:59]

But one is proposed as a path of liberation. The other is a path of disrespect and oppression. And he said, I will contemplate this. And I didn't control him into agreeing with me. I didn't control him into understanding me. I don't know if he understood me. But I was happy to hear that he would contemplate this response to his dilemma. I often tell the example of I was taken care of a little boy once in Chinatown and he wanted to go into Stockton Street. He wanted to go not just cross the street at the crosswalk, but he wanted to go into the street in the middle of the block, you know, during regular busy hours on Stockton Street with lots of activity and lots of trucks.

[13:04]

And I I kind of was trying to take care of him without trying to control him, you know, with my superior strength. I could stop him from going into the... But I didn't want to use, I didn't want to control him. I wanted to find a way that he and I could interact so that he wouldn't get hurt by going into the street. But I, you know, he didn't go into the street, but I don't feel like I was successful in relating to him in a way that I really was trying to control him to not go in the street. And I felt unsatisfied with... I was being gentle, but I was kind of still trying to control him. And again, he didn't go in the street, which I was happy about, but I was not happy with myself. the way I was really interested.

[14:08]

It was still a little controlling. I wasn't really in that place of practicing with him. I was more like practicing at him. I was practicing protect grandson at grandson. And he didn't particularly enjoy it either. He didn't get really upset about it, but it was not much fun for him either. So then he turned and went in the other direction, which I wasn't so much concerned about his safety. So he went in the direction, instead of the street, he went in the direction of the shops. So he went into the shops. So then I wasn't concerned for his safety. I was concerned for the safety of the shops. And there, too, it's hard to practice with him rather than try to protect the shop people from him. I missed, I couldn't figure out the way. And then later I thought, I should have practiced with him.

[15:15]

I should have gone with him into the street. Me being with him in the street is about as safe as me being with him on the sidewalk, or me being with him in the shops. But if I practice with him, if we go together into the street, I don't have to tell him that it's dangerous. He would see it's not a safe place. If my grandfather's with me, maybe it's not so bad, but I can't be out here by myself. That would have been practicing with him, but I missed it. And in the shop, too, I could have practiced with him. It might have been difficult for the shop people to have not only a little boy in the shop playing, but the grandfather playing with him. But me practicing with him, I think we could have handled what happened there. I mean, we could have found the Buddha way.

[16:21]

But I missed in that case. Yes, you want to come up? Could you pull that cushion forward? So I have a question. Is it working? OK. I have a question to clarify this idea of control. So we're constantly acting frequently on our desires and aversions. I'm trying to see when action becomes control. And it seems to me that that distinction is when there's attachment to some result. And I'm wondering if that rings true for you, if that sounds right.

[17:22]

It does sound right, but I think you said, where does it come from? Did you say at the beginning? I don't know if I said that. Maybe. I think that attachment arises in the process, but the control comes from misunderstanding yourself. If you don't understand yourself, you see that there is no possibility for you to control or cling to the process. But once you don't understand yourself, then you think, I can do this, and I can attach to this action or this result. That follows from not understanding that you can't grasp anything in the process. But if you do your best to take care of it, including noticing that some controlling or attachment in the process, and then you practice with that attachment, you come to the place where you realize there's no actor and action separate, and then there's no clinging possible, and there's giving up control.

[18:38]

Thanks. You're welcome. You can leave it on for the next visitor, if there is one. Would you like to come up? It was absolutely wonderful this morning, your talk. I'm just wondering whether the idea that it's a man, the wooden man that sings, liberating the stone woman is just sexist, or whether... You can switch it. You can switch it? A wooden woman sings and a stone man gets up dancing. Okay. Or not even have a gender. Yeah. Just the wooden being. Yeah. We're kind of wooden. We're kind of stone-like, usually. But with this practice, the wooden people, you know, we transcend our woodenness and the singing comes.

[19:45]

Yeah, whoever sings first, in a way, can liberate the other person. Yeah. One other thing I wanted to mention... If you care for beings and give up trying to control the caregiving process, that leads to realizing, you know, who you are. It leads to realizing what a human being is. And the human being is somebody who has a self that's actually a process. and you can't find a process. So you can't find the self. It's not that we don't have any self. We do have a sense of being here. But if you look carefully, you cannot really find anything that corresponds to this.

[20:50]

It's just a sense of being here in a process. But when you realize this selflessness, which is liberating, you also have to... there's work beyond that, which is after you feel free of trying to control what you're devoted to, after you have given up trying to control, and realize that there's no controller in controlled, then watch to see if you are any less conscientious than you were before. So you're conscientiously caring for things. And again, many people are quite conscientious, but they're also trying to control. So being conscientious, giving up trying to control, you wake up to selflessness and liberation.

[21:59]

But sometimes, if you lean too much over on the selflessness side, or even over too much onto the liberation side, you stop being conscientious. You stop being as conscientious. If you notice that your conscientiousness is getting weaker, then you should probably forget about giving up control for a while. It's not that you should go back to try to control, but give up trying to control. Give up freedom. Give up selflessness. Forget about it for a while and go back to conscientiousness. The conscientiousness should not deteriorate when you give up trying to control it. If it deteriorates, it's not time to give up controlling. You should first of all take care of beings and then give up control. First go and practice with people, and then practice wholeheartedly.

[23:02]

And when you feel like you're practicing wholeheartedly, then see, am I trying to control? I'm not saying you should go and try to control, I'm just saying go and be conscientious, go and care. So care first, and then check to see to make sure. Is there any attachment in this care? There is. Hi. Then care for the attachment. And then let the attachment drop away. And then, great. I'm free. We're free. Okay? But the caring is kind of deteriorating. Well, let's forget about being free for a while and go back to caring. So sometimes people care for beings and in the process they realize the ultimate truth of selflessness but their realization is not mature and then they seem to think... This is a story of many of our scandals in the spiritual world.

[24:16]

Many of the scandals are these people who care for beings learn how to care for them without attachment, have an awakening, and then after the awakening they think, I can do whatever I want. I can fly. I don't have to deal with the details anymore. And then we have these behaviors done by people who had some understanding and really did practice and really did understand and really did receive some liberation. But then they didn't go back to the basic ethical exercises. They thought they didn't have to do them anymore. And you know what? They don't have to. They're free of the ethical discipline. But if the understanding is really correct, even though you're free of it, you want to do it. I don't have to take care of beings anymore.

[25:17]

I'm free. Yeah. And even though I don't have to, I really want to. And I want to because I love it, and I also want to set a good example for people who are not yet free. Okay? That was kind of a big point, but I thought I should, it was a supplement to the rest of the talk. I'm trying to balance it. Please come. Hi. So I have a question about when you care for all people equally, how does your caring for your family play into that? How does it? Yeah, like, do you care for... If you love all people equally, do you love your family more, or should you not?

[26:24]

Yeah, so I... I have a regular appointment to take care of a small female human who I call my leader. And... I have regular times when I go and basically serve her and care for her. And part of the reason I do that is because her mother is called my daughter. And I want my daughter to know, I want my daughter to understand that her father doesn't just love her, her father is listening to her and attending to her needs. Even though she's now old enough to have big kids and little kids, I want her to know that because when she was young sometimes, I don't think she doubted that I loved her, but I think sometimes she didn't know if I was hearing her, if I was listening to her.

[27:35]

I thought I was, but that's not enough. She didn't know. So now, although I think maybe I wasn't attentive enough to listening to her so that she could see that when she was young, now I can work at it more. Fortunately, we're both still alive. And one of the ways I work to help my relationship with her is by taking care of her daughter. And I love taking care of her daughter. But not everybody needs me to take care of their daughter to feel like I love them. If I work with them on their meditation practice, they kind of think, thank you. They don't say, would you come and pick up my grandchildren too? They might say it. And I might say, okay, well, I'll try to work it out. But I might not feel as much of urgency to take care of their grandchildren because they don't have the same history.

[28:41]

So I think the joy of taking care of my little leader is just wonderful. And I could also enjoy taking care of another child. But the causes and conditions are not there that people are saying, would you make this a priority? But my situation is that taking care of this particular little girl has become a salient priority. So I do take care of her. And she's sort of in my family. But my care for the people of this community implies that I would take care of her. They want me to take care of her. And they want me to take care of them. She, however, does not necessarily want me to take care of anybody but her. But that's because she's just a little child. She doesn't understand that my willingness to take care of her comes from the practice I'm doing here.

[29:44]

But it does. And same, I got married about 40 years ago, 39 years and 11 months ago. 39 years and almost... 39 years and 11 months ago yesterday, I got married. And after I was married, I realized that whether I wanted to have a family and be in the family with her or not, hundreds and hundreds of other people did want me to have that relationship and did not want me to give up on it. So my appreciation for hundreds of people in this community and their appreciation of me was part of my working on this relationship for 40 years. Because it was just for me and my family, I might think, well, my family doesn't really need me. I'm not really that important.

[30:52]

And it's a lot of work. So I think maybe I can get out of this family. And I know they might have some problems with it, but also they might feel relieved to get rid of me. So actually my devotion to my family comes, is greatly supported by my conversations with other people about taking care of their family, like talking to this young man about his son's safety. My relationship with many people supports my family, and my family supports my care of my family, and my care of my family supports my care of other people. The difficulties I have, I share with them, and that encourages them that I stayed in there for 40 years, even though it's hard sometimes. And also it encourages them that people stayed there with me. Like some people say, well, if she could be married to you for 40 years, maybe I could keep practicing with you.

[31:52]

She probably knows how difficult you are. And she hasn't given up. Maybe I'll keep trying with you. So I see it as there should be basically one practice, but different dimensions. OK? The Buddha left his wife and child and so one one view of this is the Buddha left his wife and child in order to be a better husband and father that he realized the limitations of his of his benefit to his wife and child that he could not he did not know how to liberate them from suffering

[33:32]

and that's what he wanted to do. No, I won't say that. I'm just saying that he left his family and I think the reason he left was that he felt he had to do something in order to liberate all beings, including his family. That's the story I have about him. And then he did liberate his family. They did become enlightened disciples of him later. So I think that's the story, is that he wasn't he was trying to find the path which is freedom from suffering, which also doesn't abandon the people who are not yet free.

[34:41]

And to say that you cannot practice when you have family, I don't know if he said exactly that. Some people have. But it's not so much the family, but it's can you give up control in your family? Or do you need to leave your family for a while in order to give up your control of your family? And some people do that. They notice that they're trying to control their family and their family's trying to control them. And they notice they can't stop getting caught in this mutual control society and all that stress. And some people just run away. But some people go away to learn how to give up trying to control and then they go back home and try it out. So there are stories of people who can't figure out how to give up trying to control their parents or some parents who can't find a way to give up control of their spouses and children.

[35:58]

And they go away and they get training and then they go back home And when they get back home, their family says, you know, you should do more retreats. You're much less controlling after you go to these two retreats. You're not so oppressive and self-righteous. Please, go on another retreat soon. Go with them on a regular basis. But it isn't just go on them and never come back. go on them and come back because we love you we want you in our family but we don't want the way you used to be on your family now I have one more big step to take which is in some families they tell the person to leave because the person is so controlling in other words so addictive to control And one of the ways some people try to control is by drinking.

[37:03]

That's a common situation where the person's trying to control the family by drinking. And of course, the family doesn't like it, usually. And sometimes the family says, you should go on a retreat and don't come back here until you start working on yourself. We don't want you here until you do that work. But when we do that work, our family will benefit from the work. Yes. Yeah, please. Goodbye, Karen. You're welcome. Do you know the story of a boy named Sue? I do. I mean, I know the song. So my uncle's been telling me about this song. I've never heard the song. Oh, really? But you're making me think of it. So the version that I have in my head is that... there's a young boy whose father leaves when he's about one year old.

[38:05]

Something like that. I'll tell my version of it because I haven't heard the song. And he named his son Sue. And the kid has a really hard time because everybody makes fun of him because he has a girl's name. And his dad's not there and it's just a single mother in the family. And one day eventually the father comes back and he says... you know, I'm your father, how's it going? And he's like, pretty rough, you know, why on earth did you name me Sue? And why'd you leave? And he says, well, I named you Sue so you'd grow up tough and so you'd be strong and able to handle it because I knew I had to leave for a lot of years and that you would benefit from that. Is that how it goes? Well, basically, yeah. I think one other detail, which I won't mention right away, I just want to insert a major comment, and that is that the Buddha was very emphatic and kind of strong about nonviolence.

[39:25]

The Buddha made some very strong statements like, If you're my disciple, you're practicing nonviolence. Nonviolence. My disciples practice that. If you're practicing violence at that time, you're not my disciple. If you're being... If you hate people, you're not my disciple. My disciples don't hate people. My disciples practice nonviolence in the face of violence. He said that emphatically, but I'm saying he did that without trying to control his disciples. He did that in a non-violent way. I'm saying that because the part of the story he left out is a violent part. You left out that part, which is that when he met his father, he hated his father all those years.

[40:29]

for naming him Sioux. And when he met his father, and his father was an old man at the time, he expressed his hatred and had a fight with his father, a violent fight with his father. And then when his father was, I think, almost beaten to death, his father says, basically, I've been a success with you. Thank you so much. Right. you really are a tough customer. And that's what I wanted. Different kind of tough. There's another story, which is called, I don't know what it's called, The Chosen One, I think, about a rabbi. Actually, it's about a rabbi and his son. There's two sons. And one of his sons was very gifted in sports and school and everything. Very handsome person. you know, the best at everything in his school.

[41:31]

But he's also kind of uncaring about it, pretty much everybody. And at a certain point his father started to basically stop expressing love to him. And he did it for a long time. And the boy saw this, but he saw his father was still very loving to his little brother. And then after a long time, the father told him the reason he did that, the reason he withheld his love, was so that his son could feel some pain. Because his son felt no pain. Everything was going according to his plan. He had the world under control. And his father did not give him one example of something that wasn't under his control. And he started to feel the pain. But he had to feel it a long time until he started to feel some compassion for other people.

[42:36]

And then his father told him why he had been so cold to him all those years. So it can take these difficult forms. Isn't that coldness kind of a form of violence? Well, I think we should be open to that that's a form of violence. But open to it doesn't mean I grasp it as a form of violence. The Buddha teaches nonviolence because that's reality. When we get involved in violence, we're getting distracted from reality. That's why we don't want to get involved in violence, because it's a distraction from what's liberating people. But there really isn't violence, so forget it. Don't get involved with it.

[43:37]

But also, when it appears, don't run away from it, unless running away is beneficial. Try to meet it and care for it. Like a great martial artist meets the violence, cares for it, doesn't try to control it, and demonstrates that it's not really there. that it's an illusion, but not by running away from it, unless running away from it would show that it's an illusion. Actually, Buddha did that, didn't he? A violent person was running after the Buddha, and the Buddha walked away, just walked away, to demonstrate the illusion of this hatred. And the guy called out the Buddha and said, why can't I catch you? I'm running and you're walking. And the Buddha says, because I've stopped. and he woke up to nonviolence. So we practice nonviolence in order to realize it.

[44:38]

And we also practice violence to realize it. So when we practice violence, we kind of realize it, but it's not a happy realization. So we practice nonviolence to realize nonviolence, because if we don't practice nonviolence, We don't realize it. We heard about it, but we don't realize it unless we practice it. We heard about the Buddha, which is to practice together with everybody, but we don't realize it unless we join that. So, I'm not clear. Do you see that Su's father's violence is the same as the rabbi's violence? No, I wouldn't say the same. I just say two examples of supposedly fathers thinking that this would help their child. They saw that their child needed something, and then they gave their gifts based on that.

[45:46]

I also heard of another thing that a father gave to his son, which was, and the father was Gurdjieff's father. So Gurdjieff's father, every morning, he would take Gurdjieff and put him in cold water. And his mother and grandmother screamed and tried to stop him, but he put him in the cold water. And Gurdjieff said, if it wasn't for my father doing that with me, I wouldn't have been able to do the things I've done. So then I thought, well, I'll do that for my daughter. So I took my little daughter in the morning out of her bed and brought her into the bathroom and put her in cold water. And her mother didn't appreciate it. And she didn't like it. And then the next day, I picked her up and took her into the bathroom. But this time, she was like, are they called the Incredibles, those superheroes? Are they called the Incredibles? One of them can stretch, right?

[46:49]

The mother can stretch. So my daughter was like the stretching mother. Her feet went out, and her feet caught the edges of the door. And her hands, so she's like, boop. So I had this superhero daughter. So I realized, I've already succeeded. And I only did it once. She showed me that once was enough for her. She's faster than Gurdjieff. But I did that because I thought it would help her face the great difficulties of life. But some people learn really fast. Gurdjieff had to do it hundreds of times. My daughter once was enough. And she looks back on that thinking her dad was pretty stupid. I think maybe Angel was next, and then I see Neil and... Oh, it's quarter to one.

[47:59]

Can you just say your question and I'll answer it later for you? Would you tell the story of the garbage man's son and what message that story gives? I was never really clear about regarding Sean leading the family and coming back and how that's received. Well, just let me say, she's referring to a story in the Lotus Sutra of the True Dharma. And I think it's in Chapter 4, and the chapter's called Faith and Understanding. And she remembers the story as the garbage man's son. But actually, it's the inconceivably rich man's son. The message of the story... Would you tell it? I think... Will I tell it what? OK, I'll tell the short version. We are all the children of incredibly, inconceivably wealthy parents.

[49:10]

In other words, we all are children of Buddha. And we have wandered away. And now we've wandered back, and we've met our ancestors, we've met our Buddha, our parents. But we can't believe that we are really the children of Buddha, that we are like... What? Stop? It's not the same story? Okay, well, I thought it was. Oh, that's a different story, yeah. Okay. So that story, I don't know. I mean, I know the story, but I'm not, I'm not what to call it. I'm not able to tell it, but I'll find it and we can talk about it.

[50:13]

That's a different story. The Garbage Man's Son. Somebody who really was the Garbage Man's Son. Maybe I did tell that story. But anyway, you're right. That's not the story I told. But we can talk about that one later. Thank you very much.

[50:27]

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