Okay, I'm pretty much ready now. Are you? Is there anything you want to say? This is your chance. Good morning? Okay, good morning. Anything else? Please, everybody please express yourself verbally. Did you? Did you? Did you express yourself verbally? Thank you. I was thinking of talking about something that we have been talking about here for a couple of weeks, and I think I talked about it two weeks ago, and that is the

[01:03]

the practice of renunciation. Did I talk about that two weeks ago? So that's what I was wanting to talk about. Renunciation or surrender as a practice, or another way to put it would be Zen meditation as surrender or as renunciation. But I thought it would be good to set it in context a little bit, and the context that I would set it in is, I guess, what attracted me to the Buddhist practice and the Buddhist teaching was the way certain... I heard

[02:08]

stories about the way some people responded to other beings, and I really thought if I could respond that way that would be what I would hope for in this life. I wasn't attracted to like Buddha exactly, or enlightenment. I was attracted to a certain way of responding, which I would... at the time I thought was like the real way or the really cool way. And I gradually found out that these people in these stories who behaved and who responded, who interacted together

[03:11]

with other beings in this way that seemed to me the way to live, that they actually had a training program, and so I thought maybe I should enter the training program. The Zen teacher, Chinese Zen teacher named Yunmen, which means cloud gate, he once spoke to his students and he said, what was the Buddha's teaching during her entire lifetime? And then he answered the question for them, and he said, an appropriate response. That was the Buddhist teaching. And the Chinese characters are three characters. The

[04:12]

first character means... this character which means to meet, or to face, or to confront, or even oppose, or to reply, or to suit. And the second character is character one, which is a horizontal line. It means one, or each. The third character is teach. So what I translate as appropriate response, or what the Buddha was doing her whole lifetime as appropriate response, was also that meeting each teaching. Meeting some particular person, some particular animals, some particular thing, meeting each thing and then teaching. Not having a teaching that you bring to situations, but you meet each thing and the teaching comes in that meeting.

[05:12]

And then in a book where that story appears, floating around that story is a commentary, and in the commentary some Zen teacher says, or somebody says, that this guy, this Zen teacher, the other Zen teachers, all they cared about was melting the glue, knocking out the pigs, pulling out the nails, taking off the saddlebags. In other words, releasing beings, that's all they cared about. They just join hands with beings and walk through birth and death until beings are released. That's all they cared about. And this joining hands with beings in the way that releases them is the appropriate

[06:22]

response, or the appropriate response is how we meet each other in such a way as to melt the glue. And then one more thing I thought I might mention is that I've heard that the Buddha Shakyamuni said something like, all I have to teach, or all I teach is about suffering and the end of suffering, or all I teach is about suffering, the arising of suffering, the end of suffering, and the way suffering ends. Somebody else heard that he said that? Something like that? That's all I teach, that's all I taught. But this teaching the truth of

[07:23]

suffering, teaching what suffering actually is, teaching how it actually comes to be, and teaching that there's an end, and how it comes to end, that's what he taught. And so sometimes people think, well, the Buddhist teaching is about liberation from suffering, and it's about the end of suffering and the way to end suffering, which it's true, it is, that's what he taught, that's the Buddhist teaching. But what I would like to mention today is that the appropriate response and the teachings of the Buddha are not really all of Buddhism, because somebody gave that teaching. Buddhism is not just the

[08:32]

teaching, it's also that there was a somebody there teaching. So the teachings like the milk, and the Buddha is like the mother, but Buddhism is not just the milk, it's not just the teaching of liberation from suffering, it's also the Buddha who's teaching it. So, okay, do you see the difference? The Buddha said, I'm teaching the end of suffering, but he didn't mention, and by the way, look, there's somebody here teaching. But people thought in early Buddhism, they thought, well, we'll learn the teaching about how to be free from suffering. They didn't necessarily think, we will become a Buddha who teaches the end of suffering. And at some point, people thought, it came to them, well, maybe we shouldn't just learn the teaching and realize the end of suffering, maybe we should also become

[09:32]

Buddhas who teach this teaching. So it's from the perspective of becoming Buddha that I'm bringing up the practice of renunciation, which in becoming Buddha there is the teaching which liberates beings from suffering, but there's also the agenda of becoming a Buddha. So I would say that in early Buddhism, if I look at it, or if you look at it, you might see there's just the milk, and they don't really emphasize the mother, and then later they bring out the mother. About, you know, quite a while

[10:35]

later, hundreds of years later, the mother, the Buddha side comes out, and people actually aspire to be the mother of the teaching, which is a much grander project than just learning the teaching and becoming liberated. So the goal is an appropriate response, which means not just, the goal is not just being liberated, the goal is to respond in a liberating way. So there is a goal, and then renunciation comes in, and one of the things that will be renounced, in a sense, is the goal. But renounce doesn't mean thrown away, although that is one of the meanings of renounce, is to reject or abandon. There's a Chinese character for renunciation, which means, which is used for like throwing out the garbage. Actually,

[11:45]

I looked when I was studying Japanese, what they say, I think they'd say, Furui shinbon wa shite mashou ka? In other words, do you want me to throw out the old newspapers? And that character, shite masu, the Chinese character is sha, and it means to throw out, like throw out garbage, or to reject old newspapers, or abandon stuff to the recycling. But the character also means to surrender, or to let go. But it also means to give, to bestow, to give alms. So another context, another part of the context for the practice of renunciation is a kind of vision of the path of becoming Buddha. This is a little bit different vision than

[12:56]

the vision of the path to become personally liberated from suffering. The path of becoming one who can liberate others can be envisioned in various ways, in endless ways, but the vision that I would offer you today is to think of it in terms of three dynamically related, I don't know what, principles. First, surrender or renunciation. Second, the actual mind which wants to become Buddha in order to liberate beings. And the third factor is authentic wisdom. So renunciation, the thought of enlightenment, or the mind which aspires

[14:05]

to complete enlightenment in order to liberate beings, and perfect wisdom, those three factors or principles of the path of realizing Buddhahood. And I may also mention that in many Buddhist practice places around the world, and this is one of them, we have a formal or ceremonial way of sort of enacting or performing or almost

[15:10]

theatricalizing this vision. And it is our ceremony, our Bodhisattva precept ceremony. And today I would say our Bodhisattva justice ceremony. The ceremony where we receive teachings which will help us practice and develop this mind which aspires to perfect enlightenment. So the way these three work, these three principles, is that renunciation and wisdom

[16:15]

foster the growth of this mind of enlightenment. They purify the mind of enlightenment. And the mind of enlightenment, the mind which aspires to Buddha, is developed by practicing these precepts. And these precepts are basically teachings about how to serve living beings. So the mind of enlightenment, the mind which wishes to become Buddha, grows by serving beings in the appropriate way. And wisdom helps us serve in the appropriate way and

[17:17]

renunciation helps us serve in the appropriate way. Renunciation allows us to enter into the practice of serving beings. Renunciation prepares us, enables us to do something which is supposed to be possible and would be amazing if anybody could do it, which is to be totally devoted to everybody. The Buddha, all Buddhas are totally devoted to every single living being. They have like, it's not like they're somewhat devoted to some rats and

[18:23]

somewhat devoted to some homo sapiens and somewhat devoted to some cockroaches. They are totally devoted to every single living being because they are just one mind with all these beings. They have absolutely no other life than total devotion to every single living being. So aspiring to be Buddha means that you actually want to be totally devoted to everybody. And I mentioned, today I called the Bodhisattva precepts, the Bodhisattva justice, because it actually is another possible way to use the word that these Bodhisattva

[19:24]

precepts actually are about justice, about how to realize justice. And they are justice. For example, not killing is considered to be justice, not stealing is considered to be justice, not lying is considered to be justice, and not killing, not stealing and not lying are put forth as ways to realize justice among beings. Could that be possible, that the way to realize justice would be by not killing rather than killing? Anyway, we're being offered that teaching of not killing to help us meditate on how to realize justice. And part of the reason why I bring up justice is because I think some people in this country are now currently intensely interested in justice. And the Bodhisattva, the one who

[20:32]

aspires to be a Buddha, aspires to be devoted to a being who seems to be behaving in a way that seems unjust. So if someone seems to take something that wasn't really given, someone seems to have something, but although it might seem to be legal, it doesn't seem just, the Bodhisattva wants to learn how to be devoted to that person, to be a very good friend to that person. Now, one thought that crosses my mind is if you're a very good friend of that person, you might say to them, do you think you got this position justly? And they might

[21:38]

say, I sure did. And you might say, oh, but you say that you're really devoted to this person, and you're so devoted to them that maybe someday they'll understand the truth, and that would be good. Maybe they'll understand the truth and give back what they see wasn't really given to them, even before their turn's up. It's possible. But the Bodhisattva wants to learn. Some people who are trying to learn Bodhisattvas might say, that person doesn't really deserve that position, so I'm not going to support them. The Bodhisattva may feel that way, but

[22:41]

it's not really a Bodhisattva. It's somebody maybe who'd like to be a Bodhisattva, but isn't there yet. The Bodhisattva, one who has actually become a Bodhisattva, sees a that wasn't really given to them by everybody. And, or you know, whatever. Whatever. And the Bodhisattva really wants to serve that person and help that person, totally. And it is through this service that the Bodhisattva will become completely awakened, and through this complete awakening, his service will become more effective, and through his more effective service, this person who has gone through some difficulties in terms of being just, will become just. This is the hope. This is the possibility. Rather than withholding

[23:45]

support to those who seem to be unjust, we give them complete support and complete devotion as the way to help them become free of delusion. So now, you know, many of us feel challenged about how to respond to the world we live in. How do we support? How do we be devoted to everybody? Can there be a democratic Bodhisattva, and can there be a republican Bodhisattva? I know somebody who is quite close to me, and she just cannot imagine that there could be a republican Bodhisattva. But this person has not yet actually decided to practice renunciation,

[24:54]

and has not yet found this aspiration to become a Buddha. But what I'm presenting is a vision of the path of Buddha, which includes this kind of devotion, which means you actually would like to become a Buddha who is totally devoted to everybody, who is a really, really good friend to absolutely everybody, and helps everybody wake up and become just. That's the full development of this aspiration to be Buddha. So now, the renunciation practice. So basically, it's, I don't know, the simplest way to put it for starters is just not grasping

[26:04]

or seeking anything. Now that I did talk about two weeks ago, right? One, two... That's the basic thing. Not grasping or seeking anything. This, I call this renunciation or surrender, but I would also call it Zen meditation. So, whatever comes, no matter what comes, no matter what experience is here, for example, if what appears to be a nasty person, someone who is really resisting you, someone who really

[27:10]

thinks you're a low-quality event, someone who doesn't trust you. In other words, you see the person that way. You see the person that way. To you, it looks like, this person doesn't like me, this person doesn't support me, this person is out to get me, whatever. Or this person is okay with me, but mean to other people. They're being polite to me, but as soon as they... or they're being polite to me right now, but they look like when they walk a few feet away, they're going to turn on me. This is the way they look to me. Okay? So renunciation is give that vision up. Let go of that view. Or another way to put it is, make a lot of space around it. Like, you know, make several

[28:21]

light years between you and that thought, so you can't reach it. That's a good one. It looks so true. I think I'll grab it. I can't quite get it. It's still out there as a possibility, but... And as I've mentioned many times, part of our mind and body is well suited to and built to grasp the images which our mind creates. So our mind creates an image of someone, and the image is, this person doesn't like me, this person is my enemy, this person is whatever. Whatever. My mind creates that image. This is what I see. Somebody else sees this as a really nice person, maybe. Their mind creates that. And when this thing appears, some part

[29:28]

of our mind just knows that this is appearing, but doesn't grasp it, just knows it. But another part grasps it. So you can't practice renunciation, you can't practice surrender if nothing's happening. So if something's happening, there's no surrender of nothing. There's surrender of experience, of views. And most of the time, when we're walking around outside of a meditation hall, and most of the time inside a meditation hall, our body-mind is exuding, producing views of what's happening. So things are happening, and then we don't just let things happen. Every time anything happens, we've got a view, we slap on it. Something happens, view of it. Something happens, view of it. In other words, no matter what happens, we think about

[30:29]

it. We don't just experience however we do experience. We think about our experience. And not only that, but what we think about our experience we find somewhat more interesting than our experience. And some people who temporarily take a break, by actually some successful meditators, who take a break from thinking about what's happening, find what's happening fairly boring. But most of us don't subject ourselves to that. We keep things interesting by thinking about things. And another thing is, once you think about something, it isn't just that there's something over there and you're thinking about it. You can't separate your thinking about it from the thing, and you actually think that the thing is what you're thinking about it. This is normal. Normal human functioning. That we think about

[31:30]

almost everything, I shouldn't say everything, but everything we experience, we think about. Take it back. Everything that comes to the level of conception we think about. There are some things which we don't get a chance to think about and we barely know about them, but most of what we're experiencing and conscious of is what we're thinking about. So the practice of renunciation is basically to let go of your thinking. In other words, let go of your thinking. In other words, when you meet someone and you have a view of who that is, you don't grasp it. You meet everything but no fixed view. You let go. All right, take it back. There is a release. You don't necessarily do that, but this is renunciation, to meet

[32:34]

whatever happens in surrender. And not only do you let go, but you let go without expecting anything for letting go. You hand over your belief, you give away your belief of who this person is and don't expect any reward. And again, we do have a belief of almost everybody we meet. We have a belief mechanism that makes, like we say, that person really is there, really is there. We think they're really there. And out there, we think that and we grasp it. Talking about letting that go. So, this is a meditation practice called surrender or renunciation. And it is an act

[33:39]

of giving. So you give it away. And also, you take what's given rather than ... excuse me ... yeah, you take what's given rather than put your thing onto or ask for something that's not being given. Now, there's problems in this practice, which I think we all understand, is that we're worried about what would happen to us if we would surrender. Because this is also to surrender control, or to surrender trying to control. And some of us think we wouldn't be able to function without holding on to some trying to control what happens. Or even some people think, but then, you know, I often ask people, what do you want? And I propose to you that it's possible to want without grasping or seeking.

[34:42]

So you could see somebody, have a view of them, and not grasp it or seek it. But how could there be wanting without grasping or seeking? Like, for example, how could you want to be a Buddha, or aspire to be a Buddha, or aspire to be a good person, wanting to be a good person, how could you do that without seeking to be a good person? I propose to you that it's possible. Of course, it is also possible to want something and grasp it and seek it, or seek it and grasp it. That's also possible. How many people have, I guess the word nirvana is pretty well known, right? How many people have not heard the word nirvana before? That's well known. How about samsara, have you heard

[35:54]

that word? How many people have not heard the word samsara? Isn't it interesting that nirvana is more well known than samsara? Anyway, samsara means nirvana is the world, nirvana is the way of living, it's not the world, nirvana is in this world there's a way of living called nirvana. In other words, there's a peaceful freedom possible in the world. So, in other words, I'm saying that it's proposed that nirvana is possible, nirvana is freedom and peace, a stable peaceful freedom, that's nirvana and it's proposed by the Buddha as possible for human beings in this world. The other way of living is called samsara which means going around in a circle, which means going around through birth and death and trying, you know, going from birth to death but always trying to get something,

[37:01]

always seeking something and grasping things, grasping things, grasping things, seeking things, grasping things, seeking things, grasping things, seeking things. Does that sound familiar to you? Have you seen some people like that? When this keeps going for a long time, if you watch it, or if you don't watch it, this is samsara, this is another way of living called grasping and seeking. So, if you want something and then you seek it and try to get it, taking what's not given, it's stealing. It's seeking to take and keeping, seeking and grasping. So, you can want and seek and grasp and then you're in birth and death, then you're in seeking and grasping land. You're really in the same world, but I should say you're actually living in the world in the seeking, grasping, miserable way. You're

[38:06]

taking what's not given, it hasn't been given to you yet, because you don't have to seek what's already being given to you, right? No, it's taking what's not given and keeping it, and keeping what you get and keeping what you've got. This is samsara. It's not stable, it's painful, it's not peaceful, and it's bondage. That's one way to live. The other way to live is whatever happens is what happens, and you don't seek something else, and also whatever happens is just whatever happens and you don't hold on to it. You surrender it. You give it away expecting nothing. You give it away seeking nothing. Same experience, a want, like I want to go to the bathroom, I want to be a Buddha, same wants. In one

[39:12]

case you're seeking and grasping, in the other case you're not. One is peace and freedom and the other is bondage and war. You can want wholeheartedly, fully, without grasping or seeking. And actually, I propose to you to consider that you cannot want wholeheartedly and fully if there's grasping and seeking. Grasping and seeking distract you from what you want, confuse you, destabilize you, agitate you, incapacitate you. The funny thing is that if you say, I want, in the midst of grasping and seeking, you don't say, I want fully.

[40:13]

You say it partially because you're not just saying, I want, you're saying, I want to get something. So part of your energy is into I want and the other part of your energy or your being is into getting what you want. And actually, if saying what you want fully would not get you what you want, you just say it partially. So when you say, I want you to be nice to me in order to get something or hold something, you don't really say it wholeheartedly. Because you think, if I really said, I really want you to be nice to me, you might say, this guy is really scary and weird, I'm getting out of here. Because you might. But if I actually completely fully express myself and say, I want you to be nice

[41:17]

to me, I really do. Or you know, maybe I said a little, maybe I should say that in a creepy way, I want you to be really nice to me, I really do. And I like fully express myself, there's nothing more. I didn't do that to get anything, I just did it to express myself. Because, and guess what? I really want you to be nice to me, I mean really. I would like you to be really nice to me. I would like you to be totally devoted to me. I would like you to be ready to die for me. Honest, I actually would. As a matter of fact, I think it would be really good for you to feel that way about me. You know, and I think it would really be good if you felt that way about everybody. And I would really like you to feel that way about everybody. And in fact, by the way, parenthetically, I really would. But I'm not saying that to you to try to get you to do that. I'm saying that to you because I'm saying

[42:21]

that to you. And that's it. Because that's where I'm at. And it's not that I don't care that you think I'm weird, if you do. Because I do. It's just that I'm not grasping my care that you think I'm weird. And I'm not seeking that you stop thinking that I'm weird. I'm not seeking that. And therefore, I am expressing myself pretty fully. And when I express myself pretty fully, I'm not afraid of you anymore. But when I'm afraid of you, I hold back because if you knew what I had to say, you might not like me, to say the least. You might think I should be modified. So if I want to be able to be myself, I should probably hide myself from you. No. If I want to be myself, I should express myself without trying to get you to

[43:27]

not modify me, without seeking that you people don't chain me up and gag me and give me Ritalin or Thorazine. So again, I think it's a little, perhaps, I wouldn't, you know, we sometimes say counterintuitive, but actually it's counterhabitual delusion. Usually that's what it means. Counterintuitive means counterhabitual delusion. Like, you know, my intuition is that wouldn't work. Well, actually, that's wrong. But anyway, it's counterhabitual delusion to think that things are the way I just said they were. In other words, it's a little bit unusual to think that if you fully express yourself, that you could do that without seeking

[44:36]

or grasping anything. And that seeking and grasping, they inhibit, actually not inhibit, inhibit, inhibit or make, at the moment anyway, they disqualify full expression. Any form of seeking is a waste of time and just perpetuates your habits of personal selfish delusion. Non-seeking is entering nirvana. So, grasping and seeking is stealing and squelches your expression. Non-grasping and non-seeking is giving and receiving what's given and is full self-expression, allows

[45:42]

full self-expression. And full self-expression realizes not grasping and not seeking. Because when you fully express yourself, there's no, nothing left to do any grasping. You've just blown out the moment. And there's no, like, little bit of something left over to hold on to what's happening. So if you want to be a Buddha, that's one of the things you've got to do. No seeking, no grasping, and the way you do that is by fully expressing yourself. And if you want to check to see whether you're fully expressing yourself, see if there's any seeking or grasping. If there is, I think we can show that this isn't the full story. You're still holding back a little bit. You're still tilting the presentation a little bit to get something or to keep something. But when you're really not worried about keeping

[46:45]

anything or giving anything, you let the bird out of the cage. You let the skeleton out of the closet. You let the people see the ugly one. Or perhaps the pretty one. Who knows? Whatever, anyway, you're trying to hold on to, whatever you think might be inhibiting what you're seeking, that will come out when you fully express yourself or when you give up keeping and seeking. Does that make sense? It's not easy, though. I didn't say it was easy. If you think about it, it would be very hard. So this practice has to be done, you know, not by you. That's part of the control thing. So part of the practice of renunciation is to give up trying to control. And part of, again, part of our usual equipment is we try

[47:55]

to control. And not only that, but one of the factors in us trying to control is that we think we can. We are built to think we can control. So of course, since we're built to think we can, we do think we can. So something happens and we think we can control it. And not only that, but we think, we feel, we believe that what we think is true. Sometimes we think I can't control it. We think that sometimes. And I wouldn't recommend grasping that either, because thinking that you can't control is based on the idea that you can control. But there is such a thing of a person who can control something. So thinking you can't control or that you can control are both things not to grasp. But we do experience that. The thought I can control or I can't control does come up. That view comes up. There's that person. I can control that one. I can control that one. I can't control that one. I can control that one. I can control that one. But I don't know if I can control

[48:59]

that one. I'll find out later. I can't control that one. I can control that one. I can't control that one. In other words, every person I meet, I've got a view. I can control them I can't control them. So, a big part of this is let go of that view. Now, also, there's another view is, or another thing that comes up is, you see somebody, I would like to control them, I wish I could control them. I don't know if I can, but I'm going to try. I'm going to try to control them. I'm going to try to get them to be what would be good for me, and of course them. But what I'm proposing, what would be good for me and them is for me to give up control. And for me to give up control in such a full way that they would think it was really neat and try themselves. But of course I can't do this thing called give up control, I'm not in control of giving up control. What we think we're not in control

[50:03]

of, we can't stop ourselves from having a view of people. Try it. Like just close your eyes and open your eyes and look at somebody and just try not to have a view of them. You can't stop it without chemicals. Or surgery. Your mind's just not going to sit there, it's going to like flash a view up there very fast. You can't stop it. But there is a part of our mind which doesn't have a view, which just knows things without superimposing thinking about it. That part of our mind is available too. So this practice of renunciation is to let go of the part of our mind, it keeps going, this view maker, view producer keeps happening, but we just let go of it. We don't get involved with it. We don't get involved with it. We don't get involved with it. View, don't get involved. View, don't get involved. This is my enemy, don't get involved in that. Don't reject it. Don't grasp it. Don't seek some

[51:03]

other, I'll try to see them as my friend. No, you don't. And if you switch to friend, don't grasp that either. Best friend, don't grasp that either. But just not grasping, you're not in control of. Just like the grasping, you're not in control of. So that's the practice of another level of letting go, is let go of trying to control letting go. And letting go of trying to let go is also, again, not something you can do. But it can happen. How does it happen? It happens because, you know, we're sitting someplace on the planet and somebody says to us, there's a teaching about letting go, and we hear it. It gets to us.

[52:04]

And we hear it again. And it gets to us. And we hear it again. And it gets to us. And it hears it again. And our body starts to change because we let ourselves, we subject ourselves to this kind of treatment. But it isn't their words that do it, it's also our hearing that does it, because they wouldn't be saying that if we weren't here. And they also can't control themselves into saying, you know, surrender, let go, don't grasp anything, don't seek it. They can't stop themselves or make themselves say that. They can't make themselves want to say it. But when they hear things, they sometimes repeat them. And again, if you hear about this way that this thing might go, you might say, well, who's in control of this? Who's in control of when this teaching takes root in us and manifests itself and blossoms? Who's in control? Well, nobody's in control. If you could accept that somehow, that you've heard that now, and not try to bring now into some control about how you're going to let

[53:09]

go of your control, you'd be entering into the process by which you are actually being supported to let go. I'm not trying to attract more people to meditation here. We already have, you know, some problems with the seating. But I actually, what I'm saying is that we are very fortunate, the people in this room, we have this thing called leisure. Somehow, even though you maybe had to struggle with traffic to get here, you somehow had the leisure to spend this time in this room. And I think, excuse me for saying so, that you've spent it well to put up with this so nicely. And so we do have this gift of leisure, and in our leisure it is possible for us to dare in some special

[54:21]

situation, like a room of people who are all saying it's okay if nobody answers the telephone for 40 minutes. We've got somebody in the office who will take messages. We've got an answering machine. So if anybody calls you, if it's an emergency, they can come and get you and you can leave the room and go make a telephone call. But it could be possible that for the next 40 minutes you don't have to do anything but to sit at your seat. And you don't have to think anything, but you will. But whatever you think, you don't actually have to grasp any of the thoughts that you think. Like you might say, well, wait a minute, what if I think there's an earthquake? Don't I have to grasp that thought? Otherwise the building will fall on me. This building is earthquake-proof. If you think there's an earthquake happening and you don't grasp that and you just sit at your seat, you'll become Buddha and not have that but live to say so. This building will not fall on you. Don't

[55:27]

grasp that. But anyway, dare to sit here and consider not grasping anything, even the thought it's an earthquake, it's a blankety-blank earthquake. I'm suggesting try to sit here and not grasp it. Give yourself the opportunity, I would say, to sit here for a certain period of time and not grasp some of your thoughts. And do you feel safe enough for 40 minutes or 20 minutes or 2 minutes to take a break from grasping what you think is happening? Say, okay, okay, 2 minutes, okay, fine, 2 minutes. And I'm saying to you, I'm actually saying this, listen to this. If you sit in this room or any room for 2 minutes and do not grasp what you're thinking for 2 minutes and do not seek any other thoughts for 2 minutes,

[56:28]

you will be in nirvana for 2 minutes. For 2 minutes, your mind will become completely peaceful and free. Do you think it would be possible that for 2 minutes you could let go, that the world would not crush you and crush everybody you care about if you just didn't let go of your thoughts for 2 minutes? And you might say, no, can't do 2 minutes, because what if the thought came up, my baby is in danger, I have to grasp that. Once again, I say, I don't agree. I think it's possible for the thought, my baby is in danger, it's an earthquake, it can arise, you cannot grasp it, you cannot seek anything, and guess what? From that situation of nirvana with this thought, this amazing thing will rise up called the

[57:37]

appropriate response. It will arise out of not clinging to what you think is happening and not seeking what you think is happening. But an action will arise and that action will liberate beings and that action might be, ladies and gentlemen, we're having an earthquake, please walk slowly out the door. That might be the appropriate response. And everyone in the room might be enlightened when they hear your voice, because that voice is speaking from not grasping and clinging. Or you could make exactly the same response, ladies and gentlemen, please walk slowly to the doors, this is an earthquake. And when the people hear your voice, since it's coming from clinging and grasping, they just say, that's one more deluded person talking, and I'm not going to grasp that thought, so you wake up. So

[58:37]

it isn't necessary to grasp and cling in order to act. And we have examples of that in the form of little babies, little infants. They act without grasping and clinging. They act without picking and choosing. They act without deciding and checking. They respond according to the situation appropriately. They say, ah, it's appropriate, and it wakes people up. And they get what they need. They're not in control of getting what they need. They don't even have the idea of controlling their mother. But as long as they live, they get what they need, but they're not in control of it. And their mother's not in control of being able to give them what they need. Sometimes their mother is walking to them to help them and she trips and falls and doesn't get to them. And they don't get the help they need.

[59:38]

The mother's not in control of giving it to them. They're not in control of getting it. But they express themselves, and in that expression, they sometimes get what they need. But that expression, even though they don't necessarily get what they need, they wake up. And that's their teaching to us. If we can become like them, we are practicing renunciation of our adulthood. We're practicing renunciation of our picking and choosing and judging and checking and controlling. It's getting kind of late, so that's about a little bit I could talk about today, about renunciation. And in our ceremony that we do in this tradition of receiving the Bodhisattva's teachings, the first part of the ceremony

[60:40]

– actually, the first part of the ceremony is we ask all the Buddhas and all the enlightened beings to come and be with us, to help us, to support us, which they're already doing but we recognize that. And with their help, we practice renunciation. We do it partly by cutting our hair off, cutting the hair as a gesture of letting go of grasping and clinging, letting go of grasping and clinging. And it's a surrender, but it's also a renunciation because renunciation in English carries the etymology of to announce again. And it has the meaning of to publicly announce that you are going to practice giving up grasping and seeking. So that's the first part of our ceremony. That's after asking for support. And then we enter into receiving these teachings about

[61:48]

compassion. So the Zen meditation gets us ready to receive and practice the compassion which will develop our aspiration to become Buddha. Renunciation is a very simple practice, but it's radical because it's radical. It gets right down to this basic gesture of our mind to grasp, cling, control and seek. But if we give ourselves to the practice, we will be immediately encouraged because the mind becomes calmer, more flexible and brighter to help us continue this difficult work of entering into deeper and deeper renunciation. Holding on and clinging is easy and not so scary in some ways because we're used to it.

[62:48]

We know it's miserable, but we know it works pretty well. We're not going to fall off the edge of the world if we keep clinging, right? We'll cling to the world and keep suffering. So we can guarantee ourselves a position of pain in the world just by clinging and seeking. Always want something else and you can be guaranteed of misery. Always be dissatisfied with what you're giving and try to get something you're not given and you'll be unhappy. That's a very stable situation in a way, except it changes. So then we try to hold on to it. That's the picture, right? It's not so scary. It's just really painful and horrible. It's only scary if you think about the next minute. So the scary thing, the thing that seems really dangerous actually is to practice the Buddha way. That seems to be much more dangerous to us. Actually, it's like I tell people, I'm telling you right now, I would like to learn how to be the servant to each one of you. I would like to learn how to be

[63:54]

willing, if I was assigned to be your spouse, male or female, if I was assigned to be your spouse, I would like to be able to say, okay, now I've got to go live with you and have you torture me. I'd like to be able to say, did you check with my wife? And she said, she wants you to do this, me to do this? Yes, she does. She wants me to give you my blood? Yes, she does. How much? All of it. I'd like to be able to say, okay, but be careful because you've got to make sure that you really mean okay because you should not, in the middle of the transfusion, change your mind and then say, this is a trick. I don't really want to do this. It's better not to do it at all than to change your mind in the middle and get angry. But I would like to learn how to really give myself to everybody completely.

[64:55]

That's my public announcement of my renunciation. I would like to be able to give everything I value away. I haven't got there yet, though. So you can test me and I'll probably tell you, well, sorry, I haven't got there yet. Now, if I took this money that's in my pocket and just threw it away like that, that really wouldn't be exactly renunciation because it's not my money. It's Green Gulch's money. His boy's a treasurer. Somebody gave me that money to buy some books yesterday in the office. I don't know how to run the cash register, so there it is. So that wasn't really renunciation because it wasn't mine, right? But it was

[65:57]

actually renunciation in the sense that I didn't take what was not given, because it was given to me but they didn't intend it for me, they intended it for the bookstore. So but if I kept it, taking that money and keeping it for myself would not be renunciation, right? It would be stealing. So in a sense it was renunciation because I received it but then I gave it away. It wasn't for me to keep, but it was given to me for a while, so I received it. That's all. And then I let it go. That's all. Everything worked out great. It's okay. No big deal. So if I wish I could do that with everything, everything that comes to me, I wish I could say, let it go to where it's going next. But you know I haven't got there yet. But please test me and help me give up everything and not cling to anything and not seek anything. Please help me. That's what I'd like to realize. And by the way,

[67:09]

if you'd like to receive help, let us know.

[67:12]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ