We just recited, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. A Tathagata is an epithet of the Buddha's. It means Tathagata is an epithet of the Buddhas. Buddhas also have other epithets of Buddha are world-honored one, teachers of gods and humans. There's ten traditional epithets. Tathagata. Tathagata can mean one who has gone to ta-ta-ta. Ta-ta-ta is reality. And it can also be one, so ta-ta-agata, or ta-ta-gata means one who has gone to reality, entered into the truth, entered into the reality of the universe.

[01:18]

This is to the Buddhas. It can also mean one who comes back, who comes from the truth, one who has gone to the truth and now is coming back from the living truth, closely with the truth. And then it happens that tathagatas sometimes speak. They use words. And these words are intended, the words of the Tathagatas, the words of the Buddha are intended to open and awaken and enter great love of the Buddhas and great love of the Buddhas.

[02:24]

to open the wisdom eye of the Buddhas and open the great heart of compassion of the Buddhas. That's what the Buddha's words are for. And human beings and other living beings are very busy, have lots of things they like to do, so sometimes they don't listen to the Buddhas. Or even if they listen to the Buddhas, sometimes they don't really open their heart to the Buddha's teaching. So the Buddha keeps offering more teachings. until all beings open their hearts to these teachings, which means all beings open to loving all beings. The Buddha's teaching is based on great loving-kindness and great compassion.

[03:36]

Great loving-kindness and great compassion means having feelings for all beings without exception. That's great loving-kindness. Many of us have some loving-kindness for some beings. Many of us feel compassion for some beings. which is wonderful, really wonderful, I think. The Buddhas and great Bodhisattvas feel compassion, wholehearted compassion and love for all beings. And the Buddhas speak to open such a heart in all of us. to open the wisdom eye in all of us.

[04:44]

Loving, great loving kindness and great compassion are the foundation and the fruit of Buddha's teaching. They're the foundation and the fruit of Buddha Dharma. I want to remember that moment by moment, always remember. Great loving-kindness and great compassion for all beings, every moment. In other words, love all beings. I don't say like, I don't say like all beings, because if you don't like a being, I think it's good to be honest. I don't like And I don't mean to dislike either. I mean love. Even if you don't like some being in the world or in your own heart, even if you don't like something about yourself.

[05:59]

Petty, I don't say like your pettiness. If I'm selfish, I don't say like my selfishness. I say love the selfishness. I say that because I have the belief and maybe some knowledge that if we love selfishness wholeheartedly, we will not dwell in it. Even if selfishness comes into our life, if we love it wholeheartedly, we won't be stuck in it. If we open to ...selfishness wholeheartedly, we will also open to the Buddha's wisdom. If we practice Buddha's compassion towards selfishness and pettiness, we will open to Buddha's wisdom. I propose to you that the words of the Buddhas are the flowering, the wondrous, marvelous flowering of the universe.

[07:28]

You could also say that the words of the Buddha are wondrous flowers of the universe. And I would say that Buddhas see that the universe is a wondrously flowering universe. That the universe is a wondrous flower. People see that the whole universe is wondrously flowering. Again, sometimes we see, like yesterday, I saw some wondrous flowers.

[08:31]

They were wondrous. I could see them. They were roses, they were white roses. They were wonderful. They were marvelous. And almost all the sentient beings could see that. I think maybe. Maybe some were just too closed and down open to these beautiful roses, but there they were. And then someone said, but it's hard to see when someone's old and sick like Reb, It's hard to see that as a blossoming, as a flowering. Yeah. Sometimes when people are really sick and falling apart, it's maybe hard to see that that place where this sick person is, where this disoriented, confused, frightened, maybe even

[09:39]

angry and ungrateful living being, that that is a flowering of the universe. It made hard. It's hard to love it wholeheartedly. I'm proposing that if we can love this old, sick, dying, falling, who might be you, might be me, if we can wholeheartedly do it, we will see that old age is the Dharma flowering. But it's hard to love some things wholeheartedly. And if we say it's hard to see some things as flowering, yes, but in a way it won't be hard if you love them wholeheartedly. But then it's hard to love them wholeheartedly. So the requirement to see what the Buddhas see is to love all phenomena.

[10:47]

Not like them, love them. Be gracious to them. Be patient with them. Don't put yourself above them. Don't possess them. Don't kill them. Don't steal them Don't intoxicate them. Don't act inappropriately with them. Don't disparage them. Be calm with them. Be gentle with them. Be this way with all things. This is Buddha's wisdom. And then you will see the flowers. and you will see the Buddha's holding the universe up and showing its flower-like wondrousness.

[11:52]

I give my time sometimes to observe the artworks of artists. Here at Green Gulch there are some artists. I observe. Sometimes people send me DVDs or art books about artists and I observe the artworks. Sometimes I go to museums and observe artworks. I feel that it's appropriate to my loving all beings is to sometimes walk someplace to love them, to love artists and to love their works. If people see me at museums, usually they're not shocked. They usually don't say, what are you doing in a museum?

[13:12]

Wow, are you okay? Sometimes when people see me in grocery stores, they do sometimes think, what are you doing in a grocery store? But anyway, I do go to museums and I see, I sometimes see, sometimes my heart opens. Sometimes I have a headache and I don't open my heart to my headache. I don't have a headache. And now I am in the museum not loving my headache. And then I don't see the flowering of the artworks either. But then maybe something changes. It can open to the art. Sometimes artists love their works wholeheartedly and their hearts and minds open to their work and they see the truth.

[14:17]

Sometimes I think artists' hearts close to their life, to themselves. And then they close to the world and their art is hindered. So one artist that I appreciate, he's what you call a film artist. His name is Werner Herzog. I've watched his work for a long time. And a lot of his films, which was called Grizzly Man, it's about a man who got very close to grizzly bears and actually was finally eaten by them. And one of the strange things, this man had a... recording equipment going while the bear was eating him. So his cries, his agony of being eaten by the bear were recorded on audio equipment.

[15:37]

But didn't get the picture. And Werner Herzog got these audio things and listened to some of them. And he said it was so terrible to listen to. He felt that all dignity of the person was lost in this horrible recording. And then he said something which really struck me. He said, the universe is chaotic and violent. And I didn't reject his saying that because I feel like he's looked very carefully at this universe. So I considered, yeah, he sees chaos and violence. I see chaos and violence too. But I'm proposing that the Buddhas who also see chaos, open to it.

[16:44]

That they love chaos and violence and they open to it and when they open to it they see the wondrous dharma flower in the midst of violence and teach beings who live in the midst of chaos and violence the wondrous dharma flower. Now, part of the reason I brought Bernhard Herzog up was because Herzog made another movie, maybe his next one, and that was about a German boy who somehow got into the American Air Force in Vietnam. Oh, my God, this story, now that I'm telling this story, I'm sorry, it may get out of hand. It was actually about a German boy who lived in Germany during the Second World War, I think.

[17:53]

Please be kind to me if I don't tell this story very well. He was in Germany during the Second World War and his city was being bombed by American bombers. And I think he had that he looked out of his window and he saw American bomber or fire plane coming towards his house and that he sort of saw the American pilot and they met face to face, he felt. And I think he felt love for that pilot, wanted to be a pilot, wanted to be an American. We can study this story more, but anyway, he then, after the war, went to America, joined the American, he was a little boy, he joined the Air Force, went to Vietnam and crashed in Vietnam territory, was put into a prisoner of war camp and escaped.

[19:09]

Bernard Herzog made a movie about him. In the process of making the movie, Bernard Herzog noticed that the people who were working on the movie, you know, like his crew and the other people that his crew was working with to make this movie about the Vietnam War in a prisoner camp, prison camp, he noticed how cognitive these people were. In making a movie about chaos and violence, Somehow he loved what was going on there in the making of the movie and he hoped to the beauty of the people making the film. His eyes, his heart, his heart and his eyes opened. In making a movie about violence and chaos,

[20:15]

And there's plenty of chaos, too, in the jungle. They were in the jungle. His heart opened and he realized how wonderful the people who live in violence and chaos, how wonderful, how marvelous the universe is. Human beings are wondrous, universal flowers, he saw. not to negate or deny anything, not to say there isn't pain, confusion, fear, and violence. Such things is to say, if you can appreciate them and respect them and be gentle with them, you can realize the wondrous Dharma flower. Werner Herzog is now probably 70, was working hard on this movie.

[21:22]

He put his whole heart into it, but he saw everybody else did, not everybody, but he saw many other people did too. In this full love of his work and of the people and seeing that they were doing the same, his eye, his heart opened. We say, now, and I'll probably say it again if I live longer. The wisdom eye opens based on compassion and studying ourselves. Compassion is to love and be kind to all beings, outwardly and inwardly, and then with that kindness towards ourselves, with the wisdom eye to open, we need to study ourself.

[22:44]

And studying ourself is often very, very hard. This is called Green Dragon Temple. And at Green Dragon Temple we have a deep dragon cave. And the deep dragon cave is ourself. And we are encouraged to go down into that dragon cave and love what we find there. It's dark. It's kind of slimy and mildewy. And then suddenly it's real hot and humid.

[23:51]

It's pretty obnoxious sometimes down there. Please be kind to everybody. Please be kind to me. Please be kind to yourself. Please. Please study yourself. Please turn the light of your attention around and shine it back on yourself. Please do that. Along with being kind to yourself, along with being kind to others, study yourself. Turn your attention to your own karmic consciousness.

[24:56]

Please study yourself. Please study yourself. Yes, I will. Are you studying yourself now? Yes, I am. All day long. If anything distracts you, I promise I won't. Maybe I will, but I promise I won't. If you see me and it doesn't look like I'm studying myself, You can come up to me and say, sweetheart, are you studying yourself? Or stupid, are you studying yourself? No, don't be mean to me. Be kind to me. Excuse me, friend, are you studying yourself? Maybe I'll say, thank you, I forgot.

[26:05]

Thank you. Now I am again. And I might ask you, how about you? I like to study self. How about you? Actually, I don't exactly like to study the self. I love to study the self. I don't really like it. Once in a while, usually, It's not a thing I like. The world is saying, look over there, look over there, look over there. The world is saying, look over there. The Buddhas are saying, love everything, but also look inward.

[27:09]

Look inward. look inward at yourself. Pursuing the self, looking for the self, loving the self, finding out how it arises and ceases, studying karmic cause and effect, studying your mind as it makes up stories about reality. This is the work of the Buddha's wisdom. This is Buddha's wisdom work. Please, please do Buddha's wisdom work, which in each of our cases is to study ourself. Once you study yourself, then I can study you, and you can study me. Once I'm studying myself, I can listen to you tell me about how you are or are not studying yourself.

[28:13]

But I have to keep coming back to my own karmic consciousness. It is requiring loving attention in order for the realization of the wondrous flowering universe. The Buddhas are requesting that we accept the opportunity to practice Buddha's work of studying ourself. And turning the light around and shining it back is painful. We're not used to it. Once it's shining back, It's not painful because the movement's not painful, but to stay with it moment by moment, it's difficult. People complain how difficult it is. They find it repulsive. What they find there, they find repulsive.

[29:15]

Yes, but you can love repulsive things. So we need to, again, lovingly encourage ourselves to study ourselves. lovingly invite others to remind us, and then lovingly study. How? How do you lovingly study? To be close to yourself, to be close to what you're thinking, to be close to what your mind is creating about what's going on moment by moment. To be close, to be intimate, to be gentle, to be gracious, to be welcoming. Welcome this slimy self. Welcome this petty self. Welcome this arrogant, proud self. Welcome this confused. Welcome this frightened.

[30:15]

Welcome this violent, chaotic self. Be calm with it. In silence and stillness, look inward at yourself. In silence and stillness, continue to study the self. This is Buddha's work. And it is difficult, but there's nothing... It's not abnormal in the Buddha's work that we are doing the Buddha's work. It's hard, but it's usually hard. So although it's hard, still we can have perhaps confidence that we are doing the work of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.

[31:19]

The Buddha's work, you could say, and the bodhisattva's play. The study of the self should also be, I said gentle, but flexible, relaxed. We need to study our pettiness with relaxation. We need to be playful with our pettiness. That's part of loving it, is to be playful with it. To be sincere about studying the self, but as I often repeat, Suzuki Roshi said, what we're doing here, can I put in parentheses, studying ourself? What we're doing here, studying ourself, is far too important to take seriously. This kind of study is sincere, but not tensed. Also, if you're studying tension, study the tension in a playful, relaxed way.

[32:24]

This is part of loving. This is part of wholeheartedly loving, is to be playful with what you're loving. Not be fixed, have a fixed rule about how to love and not have a fixed rule about how to seek. Thank you all for coming to hear the Dharma, to hear the teaching based on wisdom and compassion. Thank you for supporting this practice place by your presence and your kindness.

[33:28]

Thank you Clint and Jerry and Anita for making muffins for all of you. Week after week they come early in the morning to make muffins. Just out of kindness, I guess. Just as an act of love. Thank you to the muffin bakers. Are any of them in the room? Ugo, are you one of them? Are you the one? Once. Once you did. Ugo, thank you. I'm not the one. Thank you, muffin bakers. Thank you, bread bakers.

[34:36]

Thank you, Richard Baker Roche. Thank you farmers. Thank you gardeners. Thank you directors. Thank you office workers. Thank you abbots and abbesses. Thank you meditators. Thank you the meditators who meditate on loving everything. ... who are devoted to remembering, to practice being silent and still. Thank you attendants, thank you cooks,

[35:39]

Thank you cleaners. Thank you plumbers and tractor drivers and town trippers and day trippers and plumbers. Did I say plumbers? Thank you lay people. Thank you priests. Gratefully, enter into studying yourself. Please. I have a thought that arises which I appreciate. The thought is that no matter what's going on, and usually I can see quite a bit of movement there's quite a bit of sound, although sometimes it's very quiet in this valley.

[36:46]

Still, in the midst of movement and silence, I feel a knowledge of stillness, which is not disturbed when we move. In this room we sit still, we do a ritual of sitting still and a ritual of being quiet. And by this ritual we realize the silence and stillness. And in practicing silence and stillness as a ritual and realizing actual silence and stillness, we enter into the study of ourself. We enter into, we remember to enter into studying ourself, studying our own intention.

[37:54]

Every moment there's an intention to be cared for, to be loved. And this, I propose, is the path to realizing truth. If there's some other way to realize truth, than studying the self, fine. But I kind of feel like if we don't study ourself, we'll be hindered in the vision of the wondrous flowering universe. The self is... the karmic consciousness is... If it's unattended, it will close the doors on the vision of the way the universe is for the Buddhas. If we take care of this karmic consciousness, which is where our self plays, the door will open.

[39:01]

The door is actually round and open. Please study yourself. I vow to study myself. I hope you vow to study yourself. In silence and stillness, in the midst of love for all beings, Thank you for letting me encourage you. In silence and stillness, it seems to be 11 o'clock.

[40:44]

On this watch, it's 11 o'clock. there's a song in my heart. But there's some ambivalence too. I kind of don't want to bother you with another song. But, you know, it's in there and it wants to come out. I've sang it quite a few times, so some of you already know it. You're welcome to join or lead or follow.

[41:53]

But please, love me. I want you to love me, but I'm not trying to do something to get you to love me. If I ask you to love me, it's not to get you to love me. It's just to give you the gift, please love me. If I ask you to love each other and all beings, I'm not trying to get you to love all beings. I'm just asking you as a gift. How does it go? See trees of green, red roses too. They bloom for me and bloom for you. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

[42:59]

Clouds of white and skies of blue. Usually turned around. Red rose, no. Skies of blue and clouds of white. Bright sacred day. Bright blessed. Bright blessed day. Dark sacred night. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky. So on the faces of the people going by, I see friends shaking hands, saying, how do you do? They're really saying, I love you. I see babies crying. I grow.

[44:01]

They'll learn much more than I'll ever know. And I think to myself. What a wonderful world. Yeah, I think to myself. What a wonderful world. Yeah. May our intention equally extend... Would you like to discuss? Yes, would you come up here, please? Could you come up here, please? You don't have to, but you're welcome to do so.

[45:04]

If you come up, everybody can hear you. Okay. Just thank you for singing that song, which is one of my most favorite songs, and to hear it sung here was so special. My question is really simple. In all the Dharma talks I've ever heard, it's about the Buddha says, and you said over and over, the Buddha's. And I wonder if you could explain that. Yeah, the historical Buddha in this historical epic, you know, the last 3,000 years, we had a historical Buddha who was like the first person in history, the kind of teaching he gave. But that historical person said that he actually studied with Buddhas in the past. So those teachings were transmitted to him from other Buddhas and he was articulating teachings from many previous Buddhas.

[46:19]

Yes. Not all Buddhists agree with this. Most Buddhists, I think, would agree, they study for a while, that the founder in India recognized a lineage of Buddhas from the past that he was a successor to. So in that sense, there's Buddhas. But also, Even in the early times, people felt that there were currently Buddhas in the universe right now. There are Buddhas. Even though the historical Buddha passed away, there are currently Buddhas. And we have a very important text called the Lotus Sutra, which the Lotus Sutra could be translated as the wondrous flowering universe. or the wondrous flowering truth, or the wondrous truth flower. It's an important scripture in the Buddhist tradition.

[47:25]

And in that scripture, on chapter 16, the non-historical Buddha of that text, who is called the same thing as the historical Buddha, he says that He appeared in the world and then appeared to go away so that people could see him. But actually he's always present. So there is a teaching which is not so clearly said by the Buddha, the historical Buddha, but later in the tradition the teaching is revealed which says, Buddha's are currently with us right now and if we would love all beings open our heart to all beings, and study ourself in the study of ourself, in a loving study of ourself, Buddha is actually right now present. And we would see that the world is a flower.

[48:29]

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for the question. Thank you for coming up to see me. Yes, Matt. You can sit here if you like. Okay. Good morning. Good morning. So we were talking about violence and chaos and how to see the Dharma flower by opening to these. And it's kind of difficult for me to accept this as a whole teaching, because in the midst of violence, like when you're in the thick of it, it seems like a teaching of expedience is also needed, along with like the metta teaching, the loving teaching.

[49:41]

Yeah, it's kind of hard to hear that we just need to be open-hearted when in the midst of violence. It's not just open-hearted. It's also being calm. Open-heartedness, graciousness. But it's also being calm. and gentle, and being non-violent with violence. So I often say, you know, the Buddha is a martial artist. So the Buddha, and we have an actual historical suggestion to us, that the founder in India actually encountered a mass murderer once named Angulimala. And he actually, in one story, he was about to kill his own mother. And the Buddha could see that this person actually could be turned around.

[50:52]

So the Buddha went and walked between him and his mother and then went to the Buddha. And the Buddha talked to him and explained to him that the Buddha was his friend. And he didn't kill him right away. He talked to him for a while right away. And he somehow let Buddha make the case that I'm your friend. After a while he said, I don't get it. I'm going to kill you. So the guy tried to kill the Buddha and the Buddha just started walking. And the guy ran after the Buddha who was walking and he couldn't catch him. And the guy says, what's going on? I'm running from you normally and I can't catch you. What's happening? Buddha says, you can't catch me because I've stopped. And the guy snapped out of it. This is... transforming the violence with incredible skill.

[51:55]

But basically, and I could tell you many, many more stories of our tradition where somebody had the skill to meet someone who was possessed by violence and they were able to meet the person and turn the person around. I've heard many stories like that. They're wonderful stories. That's one. So, And when I'm walking, my priest clothes, particularly boys in the streets say, are you martial artists? And I say, yes. And they say, what kind? I say, Zen Buddhism. I say, we actually try to encounter violence with kindness. There's also the thing of knowing the Buddha did not tell his new students to try this. He would not send his new students into a violent situation because they don't have the skill to stay calm and present and mindful so that if someone was going to hurt them they could meet that violence with a loving response.

[53:07]

If they could, fine. But a lot of people, they approach violence maybe with love, but then when the violence turns towards them, they forget and they get disoriented and then they flip into violence. The bodhisattva vow is to actually, when there's a skill level, when it's appropriate, but not only do you have the skill level, but when the person's ready to be turned, you go to them. But if they're not ready to be turned, there's no point. So there's other cases where somebody's and people ask the Buddha to go to kind of turn them away from their violence and he went and they did and then they came again and the people asked him to go again and the Buddha said, no, I'm not going to go because now they're not going to turn this time. So then you don't go because but sometimes it's possible. Like one time a guy came into Zen Center and And I'm pretty sure he went around Zen Center and went to various people's rooms and stole their stuff.

[54:14]

And then he was apprehended in the building and I was the director. And he had a lot of money on him. And he said, I didn't take it from those rooms. I had it with me when I came. And I said to him, If you give me that money back, and then when people come who had their money stolen, if we repay them, and there's some money left after we repay the people who had their money stolen, I'll give you the money back. If nobody comes for their money, I'll give it all back to you. And if you give it to me and I return it to the people and there's none left, then that would be that. But if you do that, you can practice here.

[55:17]

You'll be welcome here. If you don't do that, you wouldn't be welcome to practice here if you can't do that. And he gave me his money, gave me all the money. and we gave it back to the people. He was touched by the fact that he could be in this community but he could also cause himself to not be welcome if he did that. But there's other cases where people came to Zen Center. There's another case where somebody came to Zen Center to hurt, to harm people. And I felt like this is too much for me. I was here in the center and I could see this guy's not going to be turned around by me. This energy is not in my skill area. So I just stepped into the office and called 911. And the police were there in 45 seconds. Zen Center was tougher then.

[56:22]

So there were police nearby, and when you say, knife, they come fast. They were there in 45 seconds, they walked in, two of them armed, and he just was totally pacified. Totally insane, but he could see, oh, this is the police, and, you know, okay. So I think we do want to engage violence, but we have to also know when it's too advanced. And then is there some way we can actually pacify it? But we have to be, you know, we have to have skills of engagement. And if you don't practice engaging violence ever, when it comes, you may become frightened and slip into violence yourself. So you actually have to, like, train it before you're going to be able to be helpful. And you can train. People give you a lot of feedback and then you can see if you can stay calm with it.

[57:25]

Physical and verbal. So this method of engaging with violence can also be an expedient to helping cease the violence? Yeah. In the first case, the person was actually awakened the Buddha could see that this person actually had some good roots in his background. He was just temporarily totally insane for various reasons. He could see this person could be turned, and he was turned, and he became a wonderful monk, excellent monk, very good monk. Angulimala? Yeah, he became a great monk. And he experienced some... He felt like he had to go back to the people that he had harmed, and they attacked him and hurt him. But they didn't kill him. He was killed, but he was okay with that. That's actually a minor retribution for what he did. But it was minor because he changed.

[58:32]

And he became non-violent, so when people attacked him, he didn't come back with violence. Some people who have been violent, once they're converted, are very good at being non-violent because they know the realm of violence, so they're not so frightened by it. So then they can go back in, so sometimes, yeah, so sometimes people who have led gangs are sometimes very helpful to help kids who are in gangs, gang kids, so they can go in there and show that there's something more interesting than, you know, something more useful to do with life than being in a gang. And then they're not afraid of them. But some people who want to help violent children or violent adults, they want to help but they get too frightened by them and it's hard for them to help when they're afraid. So in the big scale of our vow to love all beings, that means love violence, to learn how to get close to violence. But also don't get into violence that's over your head.

[59:39]

Little violences. You know? Little ones that are in your heart right now. You've got some violence in there. Attend to those violences. And when someone's harsh with you, you know, either that's when the harshness is violent or in the verge of violence, learn how to relax and embrace and open to that. and get instruction on how to do that. Say, you know, some so-and-so is harsh with me. How can you help me figure out how to deal with that harshness? So even at Zen Center, sometimes people at Zen Center are afraid of each other. People at Zen Center are afraid of each other. Sometimes people at Zen Center are angry towards each other. So we do have little minor examples of violence in this community. And we're trying to learn how to deal with them compassionately.

[60:43]

But we wish to extend it to other situations, and we do get offered those situations. People tell me, you know, well, I was in such and such a place, and somebody, you know, like when you're driving, sometimes people yell at you, right? call you names, make gestures, aggressive gestures towards you. So there's the violence. Can you meet that in a loving way? Can you say maybe, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. Really lovingly respond to their aggression. it's possible that you could turn that person around right there. It does happen. Or you can kind of do the same thing back. And sometimes people come and tell me the same thing back. They made a harsh expression back to a harsh expression.

[61:49]

But that's not what they want to do. They want to learn how to love harshness. And if you can love harshness, always turn that person around. But I wouldn't even say it often turns the person around. I would just say that there are innumerable cases where it has turned the person around. Where aggression, harshness, anger, and violence has been met with kindness. There are many stories, and I've seen many examples myself, where the aggressor's just turned around. In that book, Being Upright, there's a story of this Ku Klux Klan guy attacking this Jewish family in Nebraska. Did you read that story? So this Jewish family moved from Chicago to Lincoln, Nebraska because they thought that would be a less anti-Semitic area to raise their children, but they didn't know the headquarters of the Klan was in Lincoln, Nebraska.

[62:57]

And when they moved into town, the Klan found out about it clan, whose name was Larry Trapp, started hassling them, you know, making hateful gestures towards them. And their first reaction was to hate back. But then they snapped out of it and said, oh, let's practice our religion towards this person, namely, love your enemy. So then they started to love Larry Trapp. And their family name was Wise. So the Wise started practicing love towards the trap. And when he called, at some point, they offered to... He was disabled also. He was physically disabled. And they offered to help him go shopping for groceries. And the story I heard was he said, No! But thank you.

[63:58]

and then they decided to invite him to bring him dinner and have dinner at his house and he accepted their invitation and they went to their house and brought food to him they went into his apartment it had pictures of Hitler on the wall this is after the second world war and they had dinner with him and they just continued to help him and he finally broke down and formally resigned from the Klan and formally apologized to the Jewish community, the Native American community, the Catholic community, the African American community, and did I say Asian? Anyway, he was taught to hate all people that were different from him by his father. His father used to take him around the different neighborhoods different ethnic groups and teach them to hate all those people.

[65:03]

And he said, I never experienced love like that before in my life than what I got from the Wise family. And I just couldn't resist it after a while. He really was converted by their love. And he's a dangerous guy with dangerous friends. They just kept loving him and he finally changed. And he also converted to Judaism. And he also moved in with them because he was disabled. So he moved in with them and Mrs. Wise quit her job to take care of him and he died in their home. I heard the story before he died. I heard the story when he had converted to Judaism. And when he died, he converted to Buddhism. So please be a great martial artist and convert

[66:16]

All violence to nonviolence. Please come. Hi. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. It's on? Yeah. My name is Nancy. Nancy. And I just want to expand on the question. Matt. Matt. What about, how does the Buddha deal in a situation where there's like a natural disaster, like a fire? Say, like if you're on the top of a building and there's a fire that's sort of raging out. Yes. I'm just wondering about the kind of action that would come out of a situation like that from a Buddha perspective. Well, if a Buddha or a Bodhisattva thought that they could help people in the building by going in, they very well might go in. And if helping them means you could get them out, but you might die in the process, they probably would go in.

[67:25]

Especially if you could help lots of people get out and you'd be the... but still you'd die. So I think to help one person, to give your life to help one person, you basically vow to do that. And so would a Buddha. To help many people at the cost of your life would also be But it's not so much to save their life, but to show the example of your life to help them. That's the most important thing. Because, you know, lives are changing all the time, but do people see the willingness to give our life? That's what the bodhisattvas want to show. How would that look exactly? I'm just kind of picturing... you know, eleventh floor of a building. You were actually up there with the people. I was up there with the people, yeah. Would you then go into action to get everybody down?

[68:29]

Or would you just practice a more calm or both? I would calmly... My vow would be to calmly, gently get everybody down. If they weren't going to move and gentleness didn't seem to work, I might go against the usual rule of gentleness and say, you must go down. I order you to go down. I won't let you practice anymore. So anyway, to be playful, to be playful, to get people to relax would be good. And then if they relax, sometimes people are paralyzed by fear, right, and they can't move. Sometimes slapping somebody in the face snaps them out of their tension and then they can relax. If I thought slapping somebody in the face would snap them out of their paralysis of fear and get them to be able to walk over a bridge or go down the stairs, I might do that. I'd be happy to do that.

[69:32]

I might get in trouble for slapping them afterwards, but if it would help them that I gave myself for that purpose, I think I might do that. But I also might get scared myself and be paralyzed and somebody might come to me and slap me. And I say, oh, thank you. I needed that. Thank you. You're welcome. Please come. Thank you for your talk. Yeah, it's on. It's red, but it's on. I think the battery's running low. Talk away. You know, I had a question about Trungpa Rinpoche.

[70:37]

Trungpa? Trungpa Rinpoche. And about feeding behaviors that go against Sila but I'm going to try and actually practice something at the moment. I'm very nervous, racing. I'm trying to check in. You were talking about typicalities in Sangha and starting with the aggression that's closest to us. I don't know if you're here, but I don't know how it got started on the wrong foot. So, Vicki, Diane, if you're here, I just want to ask you to love me. Thank you for asking for that. Good morning.

[71:55]

Good morning. While you were talking... Can I ask just one question? Is lunch usually at 12.30 as usual, or is it earlier today? It starts at 12.15, as usual, and continues until... Okay, so we can get... Okay. I'll make it quick. I had to do... You have half an hour. Okay. You spoke in your talk defining a lot of terms that we might just sort of take for granted. But one term that I was going to talk about and expand on is love. You talked about practicing love and different ways to do that. But then I got to thinking, well, you're defining all of these other terms in ways that I hadn't really thought about or I'm thinking about again. And I was wondering if you could expand on what it is to truly love.

[73:01]

There have been books and many dissertations and all kinds of things on love, but I was wondering if you could... could talk about, you know, the right way to love. And, you know, it's such a weighted word in our culture. People, you know, the L word, you know, all that kind of stuff. What does it mean? And the fear against saying it. And loving without grasping. Sometimes people think of loving meaning, oh, I want to have that rather than something else. So anyway, if you have anything to say about that. Well, I use the L word and the L word I think relates to both what we call loving kindness, which is to wish people well and want to give them the gift of good wishes, loving kindness. And the other part of love is called compassion. I would use the word compassion. In Chinese... It's Karuna for compassion and Maitri for loving-kindness, or Metta in Pali.

[74:10]

Metta and Maitri and Karuna. And these two together, the Chinese character for Maitri means love, but the Chinese character for compassion means love and compassion. sorrow or pity or compassion. In other words, it has some issue of pain in it. Like the English word compassion, with pain. So part of love is to share pain with beings who are in suffering. But compassion, my understanding of karuna is karuna is basically happiness. You're happy for this person. And when this person is in pain, especially an unwholesome pain, you feel pain. You don't feel their pain.

[75:14]

You just feel pain for their pain. And you feel happy to feel the pain because you know the pain because you love them. And it's a pain which is a greater happiness than any worldly happiness. That's compassion. And also to practice compassion, we have basically the practicing compassion by practicing giving, being gracious and welcoming. That's compassion. The basic compassion is to welcome beings open to them, give yourself to them and receive them. That's the basic practice of compassion. Next, because it's possible to be open to people but still have some kind of minor or a major kind of greediness around it.

[76:14]

It's possible to be open but still be a little greedy. To tone your and kind of be critical in examining your compassion. Then you practice patience. or also practice patience. Patience with your own compassion practice, being slow maybe. Patience with other people's harshness or whatever. And then be calm and relaxed. And be diligent about all these practices. Really enthusiastically work on all this, even though it's hard. So you see somebody who you had trouble welcoming, but you're enthusiastic to welcome them. It would really be good if I welcomed them. I can't right now, but I still feel joy at the prospect of someday being able to open to this very challenging being. So that's what I would call love in Buddha's love.

[77:19]

Yeah, exactly. And when this love is wholehearted, you don't attach to the thing you're devoted to. This is total devotion. In the total devotion, there's no grasping. You give yourself to your spouse, you give yourself to your parents, you give yourself to your children, you give yourself to your friends, and you don't attach to anything. You just give and receive, give and receive. In the fullness of that, there's no points of attachment. And in that, we realize the flowering truth of the universe. But again, it's very difficult to practice this and it also includes towards yourself.

[78:22]

And not just in theory, but what you actually look and see what's there and love it. That's very hard for us sometimes. Just to look is hard. And then when we see it, it's really, sometimes people really get disgusted and they want to eliminate themselves. Or some people see it and they like it and they want to hold on to it, but then that's kind of disgusting that they're clinging to themselves so strongly and they get disgusted by that. And to love all that is necessary for realizing the wondrous truth. But we don't say it's easy. Don't say it's easy. But we do say love your inability to practice this way. and love other people's inability to practice this way. Yes. My question, and forgive me because I'm very new at this,

[79:31]

This will be something many people can answer, but I'm asking you. I don't know what the word dharma means. Dharma has many meanings. It's a Sanskrit word originally. In Pali it's dhamma. So it means reality, truth, teaching. but usually teaching of the law, of a law, or teaching of a truth. And it means phenomena. No wonder I don't understand what this word means. It's a big word. And when they translated it in China, the word they used for it also means law. Before they translated it, the word did not mean phenomena. But now in Buddhism, Chinese character they use to translate Dharma means phenomena, means way, procedure, law, truth, teaching, way, phenomena, procedure, means all those things.

[80:50]

And Sanskrit also means all those things. And Pali also. So it means all those things, yeah. But there's a lot of, there's a teaching in the fact that all those words mean Dharma, there's a teaching in that, in that the law is the truth, is reality, and it's the law or the reality of phenomena. It's about phenomena. For example, an example of that is that phenomena are, a teaching about phenomena is that, a teaching is that compounded phenomena are impermanent, that they're subject to change, and that they depend on conditions to exist. Nothing exists by itself. Everything exists by depending on other things. So everything is a dependent co-horizon. That's a teaching about phenomena. So a flower will bloom if the sun is shining.

[81:53]

And if somebody's looking at it. And if the plant received water. And if the plant was in some kind of soil at some point. And if there's gravity. And if there's air. All those conditions coming together, you have a flower. But there's nothing to the flower in addition to the conditions So the flower is actually insubstantial. This is a flower, but the contents of that reality is indeterminate and ungraspable. That's a teaching about a flower, but that's also the way the flower really is, is that way. So it's both a teaching about the way the flower is, but also the Dharma is a method. Because when the teaching comes, it's something that you can listen to and practice. So it's a way, it's a teaching about truth, but also a way to realize the truth.

[82:57]

So the Dharma is the way things are, a teaching about the truth, and a way to practice to realize the way things are. And it's also things. The way things are is the universe is actually doing all this all the time. The universe is actually practicing truth and realizing truth. So all these meanings kind of actually... I'm completely confused. Actually, I'm not. I'm glad I asked the question. I now understand why I didn't understand. It's a lot to learn. It's a lot to learn, yeah. It's a lot to learn. I appreciate you opening up. The Buddha's teaching, some of the Buddha's teachings are not so difficult. Like, Be kind to each other. It's not so difficult to understand about being kind. It's just hard to practice it. But some of the Buddha's teachings are really called profound.

[83:58]

Profound means hard to understand. And the Buddha's teaching about our karmic consciousness, the Buddha's teaching about karma, is very deep and ultimately inconceivable. But still, the Buddha gives these teachings for us to meditate on. So part of compassion is to be enthusiastic about studying really difficult teachings. Part of compassion, if somebody says, I've got a really difficult teaching for you, you say, great, let's have it. That's kind. You don't say, well, give me easy ones. Okay, fine. But that's one of the things I love about the Buddha's teachings. It's so endless and difficult. and also so easy. It's everything, right? So can we go back to your talk about love and like and relate that to the Dharma? Can you use the example of love and like in the Dharma so I can...

[85:02]

take that away with me? Yeah, I think some scriptures, especially in some ways the profound ones, you might not like. A lot of people might not like them. And not just to Buddhism, but other traditions too. Like Iliad and the Odyssey when I was a kid, didn't like them. And I didn't love them either. I was exposed to them and I didn't like them and I also didn't love them, so I didn't really read them. I did a little bit read them, but not really. I knew that they were profoundly influential in our culture, Western culture, so I knew that they were out there to be met with someday. So I'd check them out every decade. And one time... I was in the mountains and I was 40 years old. I opened the Iliad and I was ready to love it.

[86:09]

I was ready to open to it. And then the wonder of it came to me. And I don't force myself to work on things that I don't like. But sometimes something I don't like, I just keep coming back to when I feel like it, and keep coming back to it when I feel like it. And then someday, finally, I open to it. The same with people. Some people are difficult. You don't like them. Push yourself into intimacy with them ahead of your schedule. If you're cringing, don't push yourself. Be kind to your cringing. Okay. Am I allowed to cringe? Yes. Am I allowed to shrink back? Mm-hmm. Well, then I'll open. But you have to be gentle with yourself as you're trying to open to gentleness with all beings.

[87:11]

If you're not ready, don't force yourself. It won't work well. It'll work, but it'll work against what you want to do. The vow is to love all beings, but also love that you're not open to somebody. Love it. Not like it, love it. Love being closed. And if you love being closed, you'll open. Just like Mr. Wise and Mrs. Wise. He just kept loving him and he finally opened. And the Dharma about that is the fact that the love and the like is in fact a law or a way it is or a phenomenon. Exactly, yes. And whether we accept it or not is whether we're going to accept it or not. And when we do, then we do. Yeah, and part of the Dharma is teachings about how to open when you're closed.

[88:11]

And then when you receive those teachings and practice them, although you still don't open to the Dharma fully, it teaches which help you learn. So sometimes people say, well, I can't say I want to live for the welfare of all beings, but I can say I'd like to learn. I'd like to take a class on learning to love all beings. So, yeah, okay. So here, here's how to do these practices. and maybe you'll be able to open to that. Or like the story of the, that story about, what's it called? I've forgotten. But it's a story about a duck. So once there was a duck who got separated from its mother and was paddling around on the land. And he walked by a pond where there was a bunch of ducks swimming in the water. And the other duck said, hey man, come on in.

[89:13]

And the duck said to the other ducks, I don't know how to swim. I'm not going to just jump in the water. Are you crazy? I'll drown. And the other duck said, man, you're a duck. You can swim. Just give it a try, you'll be fine. You know how. I don't. They said, oh. So I said, here, here's a skyhook. Just hold this skyhook, hook it on the sky, and that'll hold you above the water. So the duck takes the skyhook, hooks it on the water, and goes into the water, and then can swim with the other ducks because he's got a skyhook. And then one day the ducks were on the land and they'd all jumped in the water and our little heroine here went in with them and forgot the skyhook and was paddling around and the other duck says, where's your skyhook? I said, whoops, forgot it.

[90:16]

I'm a duck. I'm a duck. Yeah, so it's the same in Buddhism. If you don't think you're a Buddha, well, just do these practices and you'll get it. So I've been in an ongoing conversation with someone over a number of years. in relation to anger.

[91:19]

I'm someone that is suspicious of anger. If I feel it, I say, okay, where's that coming from? And this person is a great lover of expressing anger, where I tend to go, ah, that's really loud. And we were in a conversation the other day, and he said, if I don't really let it out and express and be in the anger, then I'm just detaching from it. And I'm just curious about your thoughts on anger and how to form a healthy personal relationship with anger. I think it's good to have a healthy personal relationship with the anger. I do. And so if I had some anger I guess what I would like to do is I would like to be calm with the anger and to be gentle with the anger. And I think that being calm and gentle and also be relaxed with the anger and So welcome the anger.

[92:21]

If the anger comes in me or in you, I would like to welcome it and be silent and still with it and then go, this is all very fast. Well, anger comes fast. So it's good if you're already practicing being silent and still so when it comes you can go, okay, I've been waiting for you. And then say, okay, I'm actually letting this be here. And now would it would it be helpful to express it? And it might be helpful to express it further than that. It might be. However, if someone was nearby, you know, I'd like to do something I think would be good if I got a little farther away from you when I do this. And then just like do whatever you want to do. If we squelch our anger, then it sometimes comes out as something much more harmful. or derision, rather than, I'm angry with you or I'm angry when you do that, which might be difficult, but it's a lot easier than just you keep the anger and then you say something that just cripples the person.

[93:35]

Not I'm angry at you, but you are such and such. And it can really hurt them. Whereas if you said, I'm angry, it would have been a lot easier. Or another possibility is passive aggression. Just close your heart to them. I'll get you. Nobody can blame me for this. Just close your heart to them. Rather than say, I'm angry, which actually, if you are, you're opening your heart to them, to tell them. It's not, you're a jerk. It's, I'm angry. I'm full of anger right now. And if I'm calm with it and gentle with it, I could say it loudly, I could say it softly, I'm deeply angry with you right now. I'm deeply angry with the pain I feel. I'm deeply angry with the unskillfulness I see. That's pretty skillful.

[94:37]

It's a pretty healthy relationship. You're welcome. I'm having a hard time reconciling the, in your talk, the universe as a flower with what the flower is. The flower is something in bloom. It is. Can I think about the flower? It's youth or it's freshness. Yeah, so the universe is blossoming. It is a flower, but it's also like a flower. The universe is like a flower.

[95:39]

How? The universe is fragile. It's always changing. It's fleeting. Flowers are very fleeting. That's why we put live flowers on the altar here usually. Some temples, they put paper or plastic flowers on this. They don't have to do too much work. But we're very we put flowers on there and they die on us, they wilt, they shrivel. So then we can leave them wilted and shriveling, that's good teaching, or we can freshen them. But the universe has a freshness. In reality, For the happy beings, who are called Buddhas sometimes, for the happy beings, it's a fragile, fresh place. It's not an old universe. It's a fresh universe. Or it's an old universe, has some age, but this is a fresh version. So like old people are fresh old people. This is like a new old woman. Old man.

[96:41]

This is a fresh, decaying body. That's the way the universe is everywhere. It's fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh. Fresh sickness, fresh youth, fresh middle age, fresh old age. This is a new, fresh, old person. And now he's gone. Here's another new, fresh, old person. and you're a new fresh young person but we're both fresh we're both new and now we're both gone and there's somebody else here hi Amen.

[97:44]

May we be silent and still moment by moment and be totally alive and active at the same time. May we study ourselves and love all beings and be gentle with ourselves if we forget and go back to work. Okay? Thank you. We just recited, I vow to taste the truth of thy words. Tathagata is an epithet of the Buddhas.

[99:11]

It means Tathagata is an epithet of the Buddhas. Buddhas also have other epithets of Buddha are world-honored one, teachers of gods and humans. There's ten traditional epithets. One of them is Tathagata. One can mean one who has gone to ta-ta-ta. Ta-ta-ta is reality. And it can also be one who has gone to reality, entered into the truth. entered into the reality of the universe. This is a compliment to the Buddhas.

[100:16]

It can also mean one who comes back, who comes from the truth, one who has gone to the truth and now is coming back from living with the truth. And then it happens that Tathagatas sometimes speak They use words. And these words are intended, the words of the Tathagatas, the words of the Buddha, are intended to open and awaken and enter. great wisdom of the Buddhas and great love of the Buddhas. To open the wisdom eye of the Buddhas and open the great heart of compassion of the Buddhas.

[101:21]

That's what the Buddha's words are for.

[101:24]

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