I was told that there is a children's program and that the first part of the talk would be addressed to children. And are you the designated children, you two? Are you a child or what? Are you a child? You are? Okay. Do your parents come to Zen Center? What does she do here when she comes? She meditates. Your parents come to Zen Center? You know what they do when they come? You don't? And you come just on Saturday or do you come other times too?

[01:01]

Just Saturday? Have you been here before? What do you do when you come? You don't know? Have you been here before on Saturday? First time? Oh, so you don't know what's going to happen. Well, let's see, we have one kind of big boy and one little boy, right? Are you a little boy? Is he a big boy? He's a big boy too, but he's a pretty big boy, right? So I brought some stories to read, which might be too young for you. I don't know. One story is about a about an elephant and a butterfly.

[02:03]

And the other story is about a bull. You know what a bull is? El Toro. It's like a cow that's a male and has big horns usually. Horn? You know about bulls? So you want to hear a story about an elephant and butterfly or about a bull? Bull? Bull? OK. Bull story, then, by elephants. And do you know about bullfighting? Well, over in Europe, there's a country called Spain. You heard of it? No? Spain. And in Spain they have this, they have what they call bull fights.

[03:09]

And in bull fights they bring a bull into a big field surrounded by many people and then Some people go into the ring with the bull. So the bull's out in the middle of a ring, and the people go in there with the bull, and they tease. You know what tease means? They make fun of the bull. They poke at the bull. They get the bull really excited, and then they start actually sticking the bull with the pins, big pins. And they make the bull really upset and frightened. and the bull's very big and strong. So then the bull starts charging around the ring and starts to try to kill, to protect himself, tries to kill the people who are hurting him. And then they bring out some people with swords, and that's called the matador, which means the person who's going to kill, the killer, actually.

[04:15]

Matador means the killer. and he comes out there and he tries to kill the bull. And the bull tries to protect himself from the matador that's trying to kill him. That's bullfighting that they do in Spain. And I think they also do it maybe in Mexico. And so this is a story about a bull who lived in Spain. And his name was Ferdinando, Ferdinando el Toro. And what he liked to do was he liked to sit under a cork tree, kind of a tree. He liked to sit under the tree all day long and smell the flowers. And the other bulls, he would watch the other bulls, the other young bulls, they would like to run into each other and hit their heads to each other.

[05:25]

I have a picture here. Here's a picture of Ferdinand. Can you see he's smelling the grass and smelling actually butterflies and the flowers? And here's the other little bulls who are running and jumping and bumping into each other and fighting with each other, playing fighting. Not really hurting, but playing fighting. But Ferdinand didn't like to fight with the other baby bulls. So he walked off. And then he goes and sits and smells the flowers. See him smelling the flowers? Can you see the flowers? Yeah, with your good eyes. And see, now he's walking up to the tree. Can you see him walking up to the tree? And now see him sitting under the tree. Isn't that in the shade of the tree? Smelling the flowers. That's what he liked to do all day long.

[06:26]

Just sit peacefully in the sunny, warm, Spanish landscape and smell the flowers. And his mother sometimes worried about him. That's his mother, see? She sometimes worried about him because he didn't fight with the other boys and play with the other boys. And she said, why don't you go play with the other boys? And he said, why, we don't like to do what they're doing. I like just to sit here and meditate. I mean, and all the while. So anyway, she said, okay, if you're happy. So she went away and left him there under the tree. See, that's his mom going away. Anyway, years went by and Ferdinand grew up and became, see what he became? Can you see what he became? Does he look different? How does he look different? He got big.

[07:28]

He got real big. He got to be like a big, strong male bull because he had testosterone just like the other bulls. So he got to be this big, you know, all the steroids, got big muscles. So then all the other little baby bulls, you want to see the picture of the bull? There he is. That's what he became. Oops, sorry. There he is. Regular, regular full-scale bull. Can you see? And, yeah, anyway, so then the other bulls who grew up fighting each other, and they saw, these bulls could read, and they saw advertisements for the bullfights, and they wanted to go to the bullfights. But not Ferdinand. He just liked to sit there under the tree.

[08:30]

Here's the other bulls looking at advertisements for the bullfights. So here, and then they sent these five men came in funny hats to check out the bulls. They want to pick the most fierce bull to go to the bull fight. So all the other bulls got up and charged at each other and ran around to try to show how fierce they are because they actually wanted to go to the bull fight and be the great bull who beat the matador. which sometimes happens. But not Ferdinand. He just went back to his thing. He still sat under the tree. But here's a picture of Ferdinand's about to sit down. That's a picture of Ferdinand's butt. Do you see what Ferdinand's about to sit on?

[09:34]

Huh? Can you see? Can you see what he's going to sit on? he's going to sit on a bee. This is an enlarged picture of a bee. So he sits on the bee and Ferdinand's quite sensitive even though he's big and the bee stings him and he has a lot of pain from the bee sting. So then Ferdinand jumps up and starts running around the field Like a crazy bull, jumping real high and really hard and running really fast. Just jumping really wild. You see here, he's jumping up in the air. See him? And see those guys? It's hard to see, but those five men who came to pick the most fierce bull, he said, wow, look at that. That is the most fearsome bull. We're going to get that one and bring him to the thing. So they took Ferdinand, who doesn't like to fight.

[10:35]

They took him in a cart to Madrid. Madrid. to the bullfights. And he goes through the towns, through Madrid, through all the streets, and the people are throwing flowers to El Toro coming to the bullfights, cheering El Toro. And then he comes into the bullfight arena, all the beautiful Spanish ladies with flowers in their hair. He likes the smell of their flowers. And he goes out in the ring, finally, after all these other guys who are going out there to fight him, and the matador who's going out to kill him. So here comes Ferdinand. He's kind of scared to go out there, but he goes out. And he just goes out, and they're very afraid of him because he's so big and strong. But then he just sits down in the middle of the arena and smells the flowers which the ladies are throwing at him.

[11:37]

And then the matadors, and everybody comes out to hear him just sitting there, smelling the flowers. So then the matadors come out and try to upset him and tease him. See, they're trying to upset him and tease him and scare him. But he doesn't get scared. He just sits there and smells the flowers, and he won't fight. No matter what they do, he doesn't get frightened. And when he's not frightened, he just likes to smell the flowers calmly. So they take Ferdinand back to the countryside. And they escort him over to his tree. See, there he is. And he's still sitting under that tree. I guess he spent the rest of his life under this tree. This book was written in the 1940s. So I guess Ferdinand may have passed away by now. And this was written in 1938. So that's the story I wanted you to hear about Ferdinand the Bull.

[12:44]

Okay? Thank you. You could move into that space because that's not convenient to get out. now we have another talk I guess this talk is for the big boys this talk is for the adults but I wouldn't want to insult you by saying that you don't have some child likeness

[14:13]

As a matter of fact, I remember, or just now when I was upstairs, I saw this little, some drawings by a Zen teacher, a Japanese Zen teacher named Narazaki Tsugen Roshi. And one time he was here at Green Gulch, and he said that he went to a talk one time by one of... one of the Zen teachers of the previous generation who was also a teacher of Suzuki Roshi. And he went to a series of talks and he said he didn't remember anything about the talks. The talks were 50 years ago. from that time, that was ten years ago, and the talks were fifty years ago. So when he was seventy he said that. So when he was twenty he heard these talks.

[15:17]

He said the only thing he can remember from the talks was that the teacher said, if you lose the mind, we must have the mind of an infant. If we lose the mind of an infant, we can't realize the Buddha way. So it's okay to have a mind of an adult too, but along with the mind of an adult, we need the mind of an infant he said. I wanted to, I guess, talk to you about, it's already pretty late, so I don't have much time left here. It's amazing. I thought I was only supposed to talk to him for about ten minutes. Was it like an hour? Anyway, it's almost time to stop.

[16:22]

I don't have much time left. I could say that two more times and I'd be done. Really, it's late. Well, anyway, there's this thing about the Buddha way. And so I thought I might mention a few things about, just talk, respond to the word, the Buddha way. And I understand there's a class here, a class on world religions, has came today. And so I saw there's a lot of people here for instruction in meditation, in zazen. Is that right? And so I don't know what the instruction was, but part of what we actually teach at Zen Center

[17:29]

is how to train the attention in such a way as to become calm. Becoming, being calm, which means tranquil, serene, but also means alert and flexible and buoyant and bright. All those are included within what we mean by tranquility. That way of being, that way of living in a concentrated, finding a concentrated way of being is part of the practice. It's kind of a warm-up for the actual Buddha way. The founder in India was very good at tranquility practice. And then after many years of that practice, he had the experience of realizing the Buddha way.

[18:35]

So what I'd like to basically suggest to you today is that the Buddha way, the way of enlightenment, the way of freedom, is basically Leaping. It's basically leaping. Like this bull. See? See the bull? He's leaping. There's another picture. He's leaping. That's basically what the Buddha way, how the Buddha way is. Leaping. Leaping. Leaping forth. Leaping beyond, we say, gain and loss. And then leaping beyond abundance and lack.

[19:44]

Leaping beyond delusions. but also leaping beyond enlightenment, leaping beyond both delusion and enlightenment, leaping forth from bondage and leaping forth from freedom. leaping forth from careful attention to ethical training, and then leaping forth from leaping forth from careful attention to ethical training, leaping forth from self, leaping forth from other, and then leaping forth from leaping forth. In the story of the bull, he leapt.

[20:56]

He didn't mean to exactly. It's just that he did. Being a sentient being and getting stung by a bee, leaping occurred. being well situated on the earth and having gravity and everything, interacting with bees and flowers, leaping a rose. And he went on a great adventure. And then he returned from the adventure to where he was before. So what I'm suggesting to look at is this leaping. And I propose to you for your consideration that spiritual life lives in this leaping, lives in leaping.

[22:01]

The Buddha way lives in the leaping, lives in turning, and I bring up the word crisis because crisis means turning point. So then I propose that the Buddha way is basically functioning in crisis. It's functioning in in a turning. It's functioning at a turning point. That's where it lives. And then I further suggest that actually we are constantly living where we actually live is at a turning point.

[23:11]

I propose that we live in crisis. I mean, I'm not suggesting that you live in crisis. I'm suggesting that you are living in crisis. And to wake up to the crisis you're in right now is to wake up to the turning and leaping that you are right now. And this is waking up. This is the Buddha way. You don't have to do skydiving or bungee jumping to be in crisis. You don't have to get on a motorcycle and drive really fast. Just driving in a regular car with seat belts and airbags is enough of a crisis. Whenever you get in a car, whenever you're walking down the street, whenever you're going up and down stairs, there's a turning point at every step.

[24:13]

It's there. realizing this turning point and realizing the turning is to realize the Buddha way. It is leaping beyond delusion and then leaping beyond enlightenment and then leaping beyond delusion. It's not abiding in freedom or bondage. It's living with both possibilities, and both of the possibilities manifesting sometimes, but even when enlightenment manifests, we don't stop in the Buddha way. The Buddha way is to leap and turn even in enlightenment. Of course in delusion, but after you turn and leap forth from delusion, you don't stay there, you leap again. Not you leap even, not even you leap, but there is leaping. I don't do it, you don't do it.

[25:15]

It is the way we are. We are the Buddha way. We are leaping, we are turning, we are alive. Realizing that is waking up. Waking up is realizing, is waking up to that. And then, in addition, I'd like to bring in for your consideration The English word, I already did, for crisis, which means turning point. Another meaning of it is an abrupt change, for better or worse, in a disease, but in any situation, an abrupt change. The Chinese character for the Chinese compound for the crisis is made of two words, two characters. One is danger and the other is opportunity. Living in crisis is to live surrounded by danger.

[26:28]

Again, you don't have to move from where you are right now in order to be surrounded by danger. We are currently surrounded by danger. And being surrounded by danger is what it's like to be in crisis. Being surrounded in danger is what it's like to be at a turning point. But it's not just danger that we're surrounded by. we're also surrounded by opportunity. Surrounded by opportunity, by opportunities, by innumerable opportunities. We're in danger right now of death. We think, oh, it's Like Blanche said, we can stay a little longer here if you want to talk longer, but we don't know how much longer we can stay here actually.

[27:35]

She's willing to, but we don't know. We don't know when death will come to us. We're in danger of getting sick. We're in danger of losing something we really adore and appreciate. We're in danger of losing our mind. We're in danger of losing our job. We're in danger of losing our reputation. We may not lose any of those things right now, but we're in danger of it. We're in danger of not doing enough in response to this war that's going on. We're in danger in not taking seriously enough the crimes that are being committed by our government forces. we're in danger of taking too seriously what's going on.

[28:38]

We're in danger of blaming others for the problems in the world. We're in danger of taking too much responsibility ourself for what's going on. We're in danger of being off balance about the world's suffering. But if we can face these dangers, and face them means face them, not become afraid of them, but learn to face them, we find the place where we also have the opportunity to realize awakening in this dangerous situation we live in. We realize the opportunity of making a beneficial, creative, childlike, liberating response. That possibility is surrounding us right now.

[29:42]

Those types of possibilities are surrounding us right now. But if I close my eyes to the dangers around me, I close my eyes to the opportunities. If I lean away from some dangers towards some other ones that I feel more comfortable with, it's harder for me to turn when I'm leaning. To be balanced in the middle of all the dangers that surround us, to meet all the dangerous situations that surround us without leaning towards or away any from them, is to find the turning point where we also open to the realization of freedom and freedom from freedom, where we have the freedom to live and the freedom to die, the freedom to be what we are and the freedom to leap from there.

[30:52]

the freedom to be enlightened by everyone we meet, the freedom to be enlightened by every suffering we feel. When someone disrespects us, there's a danger there. There's a danger that they'll disrespect us again. There's a danger that we will disrespect them back. There's a danger that we will be hurt by their disrespect and have thoughts of vengeance and violence. There's a danger that people will disrespect us. There's always that danger.

[32:01]

It doesn't happen every moment to most people. Ferdinand won't disrespect you. But there is a danger we will be disrespected. There is a danger that we will be attacked. that we'll be treated unkindly. There's that danger. And then there's even more of a danger of our response to it. But if we can face the disrespect and the dangers of disrespect, and face — well, I'll just say that for now — just face them, we also open the possibilities and the opportunities of something different from taking revenge. Something really wonderful could happen instead of the usual habitual response.

[33:16]

Similarly, we're in danger of people praising us and appreciating us. Now that in itself is just a danger. But then we're also in danger of trying to possess or control the people who appreciate us. We're in danger of appreciating them more than the people who disrespect us. We're in danger of leaning towards them and away from those who disrespect us. We're in danger of that. But again, if I face that danger, if I open to that danger, I open to the opportunities with people who respect me and appreciate me. And there's opening to the opportunities with people who don't respect me and don't appreciate me. And of course there's also the danger of people not respecting each other.

[34:35]

That's also dangerous for you. And there's the danger of people respecting each other. That can be dangerous for you and me. But once again, if I'm balanced and upright and ready with those dangers, there's a chance to open to the opportunities of leaping and [...] turning and leaping and never getting stuck in this world of danger, in this world of opportunity. There is the danger of getting stuck. We don't really get stuck, but there's the danger of feeling stuck and etc., Feeling somebody's making me stuck. Something's making me stuck. Yeah, that's the way it seems sometimes. Well, where's the Buddha way? Where's the leaping? There can be leaping in the middle of being stuck.

[35:41]

There is leaping in the middle of being stuck. in some ways it's easy to find this turning point. It's right where you are. But also, it's right where you are when you feel surrounded by danger. When you feel surrounded by danger, you are pretty much aware of what it's like to be where you are. Because it's where you are that you're in danger. You're not in danger where you're not. you're not vulnerable someplace else, you're vulnerable right here. But if you think you're right here and you don't feel the danger, if you don't open to it, in a way you move away from where you are, which you might say, yeah, I'd like to go someplace else where I'm not in danger.

[36:48]

I'd like to not be here if there's someplace else I could be where I'm not vulnerable and in danger. We all can understand that. It just turns out that there's no such place. That's just like dreaming. And you can't, and leaping in a place you're not doesn't count. Only leaping where you are is the Buddha way. The difficult point is that where you are, where the Buddha way lives, it just is a hard, it's a place that's surrounded by danger. Once again, the opportunity is to leap. The opportunity is to realize leaping forth from whatever situation you're in. That's the opportunity. And it's really what's already happening. But in order to realize it, we have to also open to something that's not very pleasant.

[37:52]

The former vice president of the United States has written a book and a movie, I guess, too, called An Inconvenient Truth. I don't know exactly what the inconvenient truth he's referring to, but I think it has something to do with all the dangers that surround us in this country right now. Global warming. Global warming. we're in danger of the consequences. We have global warming already, right? Now we're in danger of all kinds of really unfortunate consequences of that. If we face this, there's a possibility, there's opportunities now. So... Okay?

[38:55]

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