Any fathers here? Happy Father's Day. I also want to say that I feel hardened at the possibility that women may be able to teach their sons

[01:13]

something very important, and that is how to be nurturing. I don't know how to put this. I ask women who are mothers, but all women, to try to teach little boys how to be nurturing. I think this will help them be good fathers and will help the society as a whole. friend of mine who has two little boys says that her great hope, her great mission in life would be to teach her sons to recognize and stay in touch with their feelings.

[02:34]

In terms of our rational conduct, we have two dimensions which help us find our way. One is our thinking and the other is our feeling. And if one gets ahead of the other, if men are taught to think well, but do not understand their feelings, their feelings can undermine their thinking. The opposite is also true, that if you are in touch with your feelings but don't understand your thinking, your thinking will undermine your well-understood feelings. So I particularly ask women to help with this.

[03:54]

But more than that, I also ask women to work on developing their own power and authority. And I was gratified recently when I met three middle-aged women who are going back to school because they've been working in an area where they don't feel that their work is right livelihood and where they don't feel that their work is really in accord or in alignment with their own authority. And one of the One of the advantages the United States has is that it allows middle-aged people, women who have reached beyond childbearing years, to go back to school and to be trained in a livelihood that they can feel some strength.

[05:10]

Education is one of the places you can develop your authority and power, you women. And I feel that with the natural tendency of women to have some contact or some feeling for nurturing, if they can develop the power and authority side, of their body and mind too, that this will be one of the great saving potentials of this country. And if they and men can also train our upcoming generation of young men who often have enough sense of authority and power, but also to develop their nurturing side, that this will bring our country, our land into balance, or at least work in that direction.

[06:21]

And one thing that men can do, which will help younger men both develop their sense of their authority and also teach them nurturing, is that we can nurture them And one way to nurture them, which is quite natural, is to admire them. And I ask all men, but anyway, the ones in this room, when was the last time you admired a younger man and let him know? Young men need admiration from women and from men, and the way that they feel admiration from a man gives them, when they receive admiration from an older man, this entrusts them, this empowers them in a way, in a special way that women cannot do.

[07:42]

And also it shows them that an older man can be nurturing to them. They can feel something kindled, something growing from this admiration from the older man. Often we may actually admire younger men and not say so because we're embarrassed or we don't know how to say it. but better to fumble perhaps a little bit and be awkward than not to say so at all. And women please teach men how to express their admiration for the younger generation, if they feel it, which I think they do sometimes. Just a couple of days ago a woman said that she had just met another woman who was having a very hard time and for some reason was coming to her and asking for help, asking for comradeship.

[09:19]

And the woman said to me she didn't know how to respond to this request. She didn't know how to help this other woman. I think this other woman was grieving over the loss of her husband who adored her. I don't remember exactly what the situation was. But anyway, I said to the woman who was asking me for some advice about how to help, I said, I would just hold hands with her. And don't do anything.

[10:24]

When someone asks us for help, we often think we have to do something. People whose profession it is to help people, for example, psychotherapists or something, when someone comes into their room, they think they have to do something to help the person. It's hard to believe how little we have to do to help. However, that doesn't mean it's easy to help, because it's very difficult. to stay in the room with a suffering person. It's very difficult to hold hands with someone who's deeply anguished. I don't know if that's proper English. In addition to staying close, we don't have to do a thing.

[11:31]

As a matter of fact, in addition to staying close, the main thing we have to do is to resist the temptation to try to do something. The main thing, we show the other person, the main thing that helps is that we are willing to stay with our suffering at being with them and show them that perhaps they could stay with their suffering. And doing nothing does not mean Whatever you thought I meant by doing nothing, it doesn't mean that.

[12:35]

I think when I said that, probably people thought, oh, that meant this, or that meant that, and you probably thought, well, that might not be right. That's right, that's not right. That's not what I meant. If you're with someone, and you stay with them close, doing nothing can be extremely vivid, energetic. It can be anything. It can be dancing with them. It can be singing with them. It can be crying with them. It can be walking with them. It can be talking with them. It can be admiring them. But all these activities, all this walking and talking and loving comes from not doing anything. comes from just being willing to be there with this suffering, with this anxiety, with this confusion, with this fear, with this pain, with this aggression, with this attachment.

[13:52]

If you just walk into a relationship with someone. And if you try to sit there with them, as a matter of fact, if you even say, I'm going to go and just be with that person and I'm not going to move from being with that person until we're both at peace and awake, right along, right coming up with that intention to benefit immediately almost, great torrents of demonic challenge will arise. And the stronger your dedication to just be close and do nothing for the sake of benefiting this person, yourself and all beings, the stronger will be the challenge

[15:02]

to you to do that. The stronger your dedication to just be close to all beings in the light of Buddha's compassion, the greater you will be challenged to move off that spot. Shakyamuni Buddha's example is that way. When he made that dedication and when he was ready to really completely follow through on that, all the way to the bottom of that dedication, then great demonic forces came to him and said, you cannot do that. This is not good enough. Anything else is better. And none of that, but your dedication is selfish. This is called the assault of the forces of Mara.

[16:04]

And in the face of this swirling, chaotic realm of temptation, which says, you must do something to fix this, this could not be good enough. You cannot just sit still and wake up with this person. In the midst of that, Shakyamuni Buddha reached down and touched the earth for confirmation that he could just be there with all this confusion. And the earth said, yes, you can just be here. Yes. You can just sit still until all is peaceful. touching the earth, a great light comes up through the earth into your body, and all you need to do is just sit and breathe through everything without getting the slightest bit involved in all that's going on around you.

[17:40]

But this is not getting involved after you have just gotten completely close to what's happening. You have come down on your knees into this world. And as soon as your knees touch the ground, the earth comes up through you and says, you can be here. And all you need to do is just breathe and sit through this stuff. while holding hands with this person or that person that you're with. This is both nurturing and authority, simultaneously mother and father in balance. The whole work of Buddha's life is just appropriate response to what's happening in this moment.

[19:02]

And appropriate response comes from coming down to earth and just sitting there. From that, response after response comes. If you can just sit and breathe through everything, you will respond to the call appropriately. This is called trusting yourself, trusting that your gift to the world is to be in complete congruity with who you are. I'm speaking slowly and carefully. But I want to make it clear that this type of work, when you do it, is lots of fun.

[20:04]

It must be a joy, or you won't be able to do it. Now I want to tell you some Zen stories about this. And the story I have in mind is a story I've been talking to you about for about a month, and today I'm going to come at it from a little different angle.

[21:14]

Last night I watched a movie, and it was a movie about an investigative law enforcement officer. And the beginning of the movie was to tell you that this law enforcement officer, who's coming to do this job, is really the person for the job. So there was a kind of introduction to this person so that when he arrived, you would know who he was. So I would like to tell a story about a law enforcement person too. In this case, the law is the law of Buddha. And the law enforcement officer is a Zen monk named Deshan.

[22:28]

Deshan means virtue mountain or mountain of virtue or virtuous mountain. He lived in the Tang Dynasty in China. If I tell you this story about how he did what I've just been talking about, you might not understand unless you have some background on him. So I'll give you some background. I'm getting a funny feeling in my stomach like I shouldn't do this.

[23:38]

If I don't, what will I do? I'm not going to do what I plan to do, and the main reason is that I think the background will take so long that when I get to the foreground you'll all be kind of ready to leave. So I'm going to summarize the background by telling you that this Darshan was a very awesome dude. to tell you that this Dachshund was the Tang Dynasty equivalent of Superman.

[24:55]

And the story I'm going to tell you is a story of where Superman is appearing in the form of Clark Kent. Do you all understand who Clark Kent is? Does anybody not know who Clark Kent is? Do you know who Clark Kent is? Do you know who Superman is? Do you know that Superman, when he wasn't wearing a Superman outfit, he appeared in the form of a mild-mannered reporter? Did you know that? So when he wasn't flying and doing all kinds of wonderful things, he worked for a newspaper. He was a reporter for the newspaper. Did you know that? And his name was Clark Kent. And he wore usually blue suits. And he wore glasses. And he had blue-black hair.

[26:00]

Okay? And you know, the newspaper he worked for was called The Daily Planet. So he worked for the Daily Planet and he appeared as a mild-mannered gentleman. In the story I'm telling you, Dushan is appearing as a mild-mannered gentleman, but actually he is Superman. And if I told you there were stories, you would believe it. And I'll also mention that when Superman was in the appearance of a mild-mannered gentleman, he had a girlfriend. And his girlfriend's name was Lois Lane. And Lois worked for the newspaper with Clarke, was in touch with the world's problems.

[27:13]

And when something particularly horrible was occurring, she would often not only wonder where her hero and her lover, or lover, perhaps lover, Superman was, but she would often say to Clark, Clark, why don't you do something? Why don't you be a real man? Why do you just stand around being so wimpy? And Clark would say, I don't know, he would say something like, well, gee, Lois. Or, yeah, gee, I wish Superman was around here somewhere nearby. And then I guess she would say something like, oh, Clark, and walk off.

[28:16]

And then after she got out of a little ways away, he would say, this looks like a job for Superman. Okay? And then he would go usually into a phone booth. And he would pull his shirt off like this, and inside there would appear a big red S, right? But I don't have that shirt on underneath me right now. My daughter gave me a Batman t-shirt, but no one's given me a Superman t-shirt yet, so I can't do that. So there was, here's Dushan, okay, and one day his attendant said to him, where have all the sages since antiquity gone."

[29:23]

And Dushan said, What? Gee, I don't know. What do you mean? And the attendant said, Oh, Dushan, the order was for a flying dragon horse. but a lame tortoise showed up. Dushan let it rest. The next morning, the next day, as Dushan was coming out of the bath, his attendant passed him some tea. Dushan patted the attendant on the back And the attendant said, ah, this old fellow has finally gotten a glimpse.

[30:28]

Deshan let it rest again. When I first started studying this story, I thought, first I thought, this monk doesn't know who Deshan is. He's a new monk in the monastery and assigned to be his attendant, but nobody told him who Dushan was. So he's testing the old teacher, not knowing what he's got on his hands, not realizing what this person could do, how this person has in the past cut giants into mincemeat. And later I thought, well, maybe he actually has gotten old. And he's just listening to the children sing. Lately I've been thinking that he's got something else in mind here.

[31:45]

that he's got a big plan in mind, like Clark does when Lois says, why don't you do something, Clark? Why don't you be a flying dragon Superman instead of a lame tortoise? Superman's enterprise, Superman's agenda is truth, justice and the American way. He's in a struggle against the forces of evil. And I think you know, evil is live spelled backwards. In a struggle against the forces of living backwards. This is our struggle, this is our enterprise.

[32:49]

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. So fast, so quick, faster than a lightning flash, faster than a spark. So fast, he doesn't do anything. Rather than show off, he's got something he's really concerned with. Therefore, he can take the insult. Oh, Clark. Oh, Deshawn. So disappointing. Yes. And I even feel that even though you, even, I always felt that Clark was a little, that his feelings were hurt a little bit.

[33:57]

Even though he knew all he had to do is go into the phone booth. Still, to have Lois saying that to him, you know, I thought maybe it hurt his feelings. Maybe he was tempted. Lois, do you know who I really am? And actually, there was, I guess, I'm not an expert on Superman, but I heard that there was some comic book series that went into the fantasies of Superman's mind, where he dreamed of a place where he could tell Lois who he really was. But he didn't tell Lois, because if Lois knew, Lois would be in danger. She could be used as a pawn if people knew that she knew who Superman really was. So the one who most does have the power and doesn't use it

[35:17]

If you have any good ideas about how to fix somebody up and don't use it, if you have the deepest heart to help and do nothing and yet stay close Stay very close. So close that there's nobody else. Totally dedicated to helping. There's no one else. So I'd like to sing a song about something about fathers, but I don't know any songs about fathers.

[37:37]

This is kind of sad. I even consulted some professional lyricists. And he didn't know any, except for, oh my papa, to me he was so wonderful. Oh my papa, to me he was so grand. Do you know? Is that it? So there's that. Does anybody know any songs about father or something like that? This is kind of sad, huh? You know one? What is it? Oh, well, there's a song from Free Living You and Me that just popped in my head. It's about daddies and mommies. That's okay. What is it? I don't know the title of it, but parts of it say,

[38:43]

Dads are men, men with children, busy with children and things that they do. Now, when daddies were little, they used to be boys, and I said to people, they were little. Is anyone else here in this room? Thank you. How does it work? The rapture in Mark says a wonderful Father's Day song. It's Father's Day, we're giving you a tie. It's Father's Day, we're giving you a tie. Not just because you're our father, because you're a regular guy.

[40:02]

My father is not alive anymore, so I can't wish him a happy Father's Day, but I want to thank my father. for helping me live in this world. Please thank fathers, please help fathers. Please hold their hands and don't do anything. And you know, one of the things that you might, you know, again, holding your father's hand or holding some father's hand doesn't mean you don't say something to him while you're not doing anything. For example, when I first got married, my wife said to me, one rule is don't hit.

[41:06]

No hitting. So I never hit. So far. That's not fixing. That's just saying what it is supposed to be. No hitting. That's also kind to fathers. Tell them where it's at. That's not fixing, that's just saying where you're at. Whatever it is, they need this. In the story about Darshan, we don't know if the attendant really ever found out who Darshan was. People don't necessarily catch it right away when you just stand there and don't do anything.

[42:10]

But on some level they're getting it. And eventually they'll get it. I think so. Just do like the Buddha, the one who has the most power does it that way. You may not think you're superman or superwoman. I'm not saying you are. I'm just saying, please act like it. Darshan, there's many stories of Darshan where you can clearly see he was Superman.

[43:19]

There's many stories of Buddha where you can clearly see he was Superman. But when it came to really helping people, the great, all-powerful, all-knowing Buddha didn't do anything. He didn't reach down and fix people. He didn't do any fancy things. All he did was get close and be there. Moment after flashing moment. So fast that there's nothing that can be done but to stay there with the person. Everything else is demons. easy to be demons, hard to stay at the light of Buddha, who's with all suffering beings, not fixing them.

[44:32]

Because Buddha sees that they're already perfect.

[44:38]

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