So we were talking about right speech last two times, right? Is that correct? And last time we were talking about the aspect of right speech which we call not lying or abandoning telling lies. So right speech involves abandoning harsh, hurtful speech, abandoning gossip, abandoning idle chatter, abandoning disparaging or speaking of others' faults, abandoning speaking of yourself, praising yourself at the expense of others, and lying. abandoning lying.

[01:05]

And so we just, if we were in the midst of discussing lying, I don't know exactly what more to say about lying or not lying. I've been thinking about, in writing about whether or not, or in what cases it is lying to not confess a misdeed or wrong action? In what cases is it lying to not confess it? And I think the spirit of this would be that if you commit an unwholesome karmic act and you wish to hide it for your own welfare, That's certainly a suspicious silence.

[02:09]

If you would speak in any way to cover up or obscure Even if it wasn't like a lie, like, you know, let's say you did something and metaphorically you did something and people were looking and you say, look over the other way. Don't look over here, look over there. Or if someone brings up a certain topic and you know that they might, if they got into certain topics, they might ask you, did you do such and such? You might try to change the topic. Does that make sense? So your intention would not exactly be to deceive, strictly speaking, but you try to get them off the topic so that you won't have to maybe be forced into a situation where they'll ask you, did you do such and such?

[03:14]

So you're trying to, with your speech, divert the conversation away from a discussion which might bring up the question and put you in a position where you'd have to directly lie if you wanted to continue covering up. Now, that might not be called lying, so maybe it would go under some other category like, I don't know, just vain talk. Because in the end, you know, it's kind of vain to try to protect ourselves from exposure of honest, straightforward, truthful exposure. It's kind of a vain thing to do. So I don't mean to force that into that that is lying. But if we don't want to call it lying, then just to say it's not what we call comprehensive speech. It's not complete speech. It's not the speech which is really trying to lighten the situation.

[04:22]

Does that make sense? Okay, now, I don't know if you're ready to open up for discussion if you have some things left over, but some people said they wanted to talk more about this aspect of the right speech. Any questions or comments so far you want to bring up? Yes. I have a question about the relationship between this full and honest expression and skillful means. Because sometimes if I find that I'm not expressing something fully and honestly, I can look at my motivation and see both selfishness, that I don't want to be seen as selfish, Maybe I don't want to be seen as a selfish person. I don't want to own up to whatever my feeling is because I don't like what people would think of it. But also, at the same time, there's the motivation not to hurt somebody by bringing that forward.

[05:29]

Bringing what forward? Your selfishness? Yeah. So how do you know when to... If you see both motivations, which I often do, what do you, how do you figure out how to act? If you see the motivation to not harm. Right. And the other motivation is to... Say to cover up, like you were saying. A selfish motivation. Like you want to cover up and you want to not harm. Right. So would it be harmful for you to cover up? Right. That's basically the question. Yeah. So if it would, then it's pretty clear that it would be better then to not cover up if it would be harmful to cover up. You might be frightened to do it, but I would say go for it.

[06:33]

And I would say... I don't very often hear people going in that direction and regretting it for very long. They regret it for a little while, but not for long. In the end, I haven't heard of anybody regretting that kind of thing. Like, you know, a recent... So that's one case, where the case is, something happened, I did something, And that part of me would like to cover it up because it's a little dangerous to show it, right? Yeah, let's say anger, for example, because anger can be dangerous to express. You're feeling anger. Right, and maybe I'm not capable of just saying, I'm feeling anger. Maybe if it's going to be expressed, I know it's potentially quite harmful. Okay, well, that's a good example, but we're slightly diverted from the one I was speaking to.

[07:35]

Want to hold that one for a little while? Sure. Can you hold it? Sure. That you're actually angry now. Sure. Okay. I'm talking about something you've actually done. That's what I thought we were talking about. You've done something, you're trying to cover it up because you might be looked down upon, you might be disliked or whatever, but not showing it. might be harmful. That's something you've already done. And it could be also a state shooting. But let's say the first case is something you did in the past. The action's over, in a sense. The results of it are happening. You haven't told somebody you're holding this information. You're afraid to bring it out for what might happen to you, but you sense it's harmful in some way not to bring it out. Or maybe it wasn't harmful before, now it's starting to be harmful. Now you sense it's not harmful. So in that case, it should be brought out, right?

[08:37]

Right? Okay, so the other case would be you did something, you didn't let it be known, But you're not sure if it's harmful for you not to let it be known. You're not sure if it's harmful for you not to tell. That's a little bit more complicated. That's case two. And there's another case of feeling you're in a state. That's a third example. I have a current example in my life of case number one is that I received a confession from someone, actually Mel Weisman, and I both received a confession from someone who asked us before we received the confession if it could be in confidence, confidential. We said okay, we received the confession and we didn't tell anyone else about the confession. Sometimes when I receive confessions, I say right away to the person, okay, now would you please tell someone else?

[09:44]

I ask them to tell someone else, some particular person that might be involved, or some other person who might be responsible in some way, I sometimes tell him right away. Sometimes I wait for a week, sometimes I wait for a month to tell him that. In this case, we did not tell this person that we wanted this person to tell somebody right away. I don't remember exactly if we said, at some point, he may want to tell others. I don't remember if we said that. I think we did, but I'm not sure. Anyway, time passed, and at a certain point I sensed in various ways that it would be good for this person to tell soon. I mean, that now was the time for them, now or soon in the future would be good for them to tell people, for him to tell people what he did. And then he did tell people within a week of when I suggested he told people. But before I suggested to him that he tell people, I called Mel and said, I think it would be good to have him tell people now.

[10:51]

And Mel said, you know, I think that's right. I think it would be good. And he said, but you know, we're probably going to get in trouble for now. And I said, I think we should still do it, don't you? And he said, yeah. So he did start telling people, and gradually more and more people knew. And when finally a lot of people knew, then we did get in trouble. Trouble, you know, in the sense of people not liking us for what we did. Thinking, well, I won't tell you what they thought, but... They said various things about us to our faces, and I've heard all the things that they said that I indirectly heard. So people did say stuff to me like, well, I'm not saying that what you did was totally bad, you know, that kind of thing. Or, you know, it wasn't like the most terrible thing of all time. This kind of statement I heard directly. So that was a case where it seemed pretty clear that we might get in trouble, might be looked upon, but it seemed like it would be harmful at a certain point.

[11:56]

And some people might have felt that it should have been earlier, but anyway, that's an example. But what about if I'm not sure it's going to be beneficial to everybody concerned? That's more difficult. In that case, I guess what I would suggest is... seek counsel from somebody who sort of isn't involved enough so that they won't like, you know, their opinion of you is not really the issue and they're not involved in that world. So like, if you have a therapist or a priest, somebody who's outside of the system, of where people are judging you, somebody who's just there, all they're there for when you're talking to them at that time anyway, all they're there for is to help you. That's their only agenda is to support you. And if in their mind they think you're a jerk or something for it, they put that aside because they're just there for you. And you don't have to worry. And they're not involved directly.

[12:59]

And they don't have to tell anybody. And if they say, yeah, I think it would be harmful if you don't tell, I think you should tell, it would really be helpful in the long run. Then you do it, and you still might get in trouble, but in the end, like when you die, you probably will. But sometimes I have asked this type of person about these kinds of things, and the person didn't suggest I tell, and I asked the person if I should tell, and they sometimes said don't. because they didn't think it would be helpful. People confess things to me, and generally speaking, I don't say to people, don't confess that to me. I usually don't stop them when they're confessing. But if someone gives me a potential list of things they could confess, I sometimes say, you don't have to confess the first 17, just confess those last three. I find that some people don't mind confessing certain things to me.

[14:01]

They don't mind. And I don't mind hearing them necessarily, but they aren't necessary to tell me. The fact that they're willing to tell me what's really important. But the things that they don't want to tell me, those are the most important ones to tell me. And people do often tell me things that they don't want to tell me, but they really feel that it would be good to tell me, and they tell me, and they're scared to death to tell me. And they tell me anyway, and I ask them how they feel, and they almost always feel much better afterwards to go past that fear. I've never received one of these frightening confessions. I've never come down on anybody for it. I don't think they ever regretted telling. Now, sometimes I've been told to tell other people, and then they tell other people, and then they get in trouble. Maybe they regretted temporarily telling the other people. Because in this case, that example I just gave you, this person, when this person told people, this person got in a big trouble for months. But, you know, I don't think you regretted it.

[15:04]

Sometimes you make the right decision and you get in big trouble after you make the right decision, but still you think it's the right decision. Sometimes the right decision leads you into a very difficult situation, but still you feel it's right. you don't even know sometimes how bad it's going to be. You know it might be, but you don't know how bad it's going to be, but it still may be the right decision. Difficulty is not necessarily harmful for us. Now, that's my feeling about those two examples, and I still have your example of being angry waiting there. Any comments on this so far? It sounded kind of simple, but that's what I'd say at this point. And all of this is an experimental thing. Even if you talk to somebody and they advise you to tell, and you tell and you get in trouble, you're still not sure whether it was good. You keep watching to see if it's helpful. You don't really know for sure if it was going to be harmful, but maybe you already feel it's harmful to yourself. That it's distracting your heart. if you have a lie in there and it's disorienting you, and that if you could just drop that lie, your heart will be, at least temporarily, there may be deeper levels, but temporarily your heart's open and clear and you feel, you know, what do you call it?

[16:19]

I'm clean, right? I mean, I've come clean. Here I am, I'm just a sinner, right? Well, let's work together now. Would you deal with me that way? Go from here. And maybe later you find something else you have to work on, but at least for the moment you feel like, okay, here I am, that's it, now what? If you have something in your heart that you feel that you can find a way to tell, at least again, if you tell somebody, that helps. Even if you can't tell everybody, if you can tell somebody, that will help. Tell yourself, tell Buddha, and tell a person. And it's okay to try to find somebody and get the person to agree beforehand that they're not going to squeal on you. And if you're afraid of what they'll think of you, even asking, you know, am I safe to tell you, are you going to come down on me for this? And then you might say, well, maybe I will.

[17:20]

Maybe you should talk to somebody else that won't come down on you for this. Because when you do this, you're very vulnerable. Your heart's open. And if the person's real rough with you, you can say, well, that's the last time I'm going to tell anybody anything. It's not so good. Any comments on this or questions? Two. Was it high? Yes, I was interested in this topic of what is telling the truth. Because I happened in the past thought, well, to tell the truth, you have to be consistent. But then I realized, well, the truth wasn't like that. The telling changes it. It's not lying that you said you felt one way last week and now you say something and it's different.

[18:24]

Right. The truth is kind of a live thing. Yes. And... Yeah, the truth is a live thing. Yeah, so... And lying is kind of dead. Yeah. And so, you know, to present yourself in this kind of inconsistent way can be very confusing for people, and maybe even harmful. For instance, with children, you know, or people who are very fragile. Yeah, children's a good example. They often say that it's very important to be consistent with children. But you could be consistent, you know, you could be consistently changing your mind. You say, you know, last week mommy felt that way and this week mommy feels this way. But then, you know, be consistent about that. Just keep saying, you have a mother who changes her mind a lot. And I consistently do that way. I'm kind of like, I'm a little bit of a, you know, dizzy dame or something.

[19:27]

So anyway, you could be consistent in having a changing mind. But if you present yourself as, I am like, you know, here's the law, that's it, and then you change it, and the kid says, well, wait a minute, you said that was an indestructible reality. then it's kind of hard to switch into another indestructible reality. Not to confess and say, well, you know, I actually have changed, and from now on we're not going to have indestructible realities around the house. The children might be able to deal with that. So I think there should be some consistency for the sake of little people, young people, but to perpetuate a why, will probably eventually lead to some big inconsistency. Can you think of another example you think that inconsistency would be?

[20:34]

Why? Well, just having the kind of freedom to be able to evolve, have the truth be an evolving thing. Well, again, what comes to my mind is that if you're working with the truth, you're consistent. If you're consistently working with the truth, then that's your consistency. But the truth is changing. So the people, children or whatever, or even fragile people will learn that you know, Carrie is consistently working, trying to work with, trying to find the truth in the situation. She always, whenever we have a conversation, she always is trying in herself to come up with the truth. She always tries to get me to tell the truth. She always tries to get Dad to tell the truth, or whatever. That's what she's always focused on. She's really consistent about that. She's got a lot of stability and concentration in that point. But the truth... is really out of control.

[21:35]

It's changing all the time. We never know what that is, you know, for sure. We're always trying to figure that out together in the family or whatever. So they learn that the truth isn't like a fixed thing, but your vow, your intention, is to work with the truth. That's your commitment. And that's very helpful if your children or fragile people know they can depend on you to always be dedicated to such and such. And you may slip, but then you say, I'm sorry I fell down, but at least I take conviction. That's helpful, I think. Sometimes people say, well, I use the phrase, if you're saying something that's kind of cruel... No, you don't want to hear it, but it's the truth. Yeah, or it's good for you. Yeah, it's good for you. And so, you know, the limits of that sound really hard to know.

[22:42]

The limit of, you know, even if it is the truth, It's not kind or helpful at that time to say to that person. Well, actually, the truth, right, there can be a truth, but then it shouldn't be expressed harshly. So that's the other aspect, that you can express truth harshly. I mean, what you really think you're telling the truth, you know, you really think the person didn't, you know, do their best. Perhaps. You think you can do this, and you didn't do that, and you express it harshly. And if you express it harshly, and then the person is undermined and discouraged and traumatized by that harshness, then the harshness probably wasn't helpful. Now, there are some cases, however, where harshness benefits people, where there are You know, like that example I brought up before, it's not exactly harshness, but kind of harshness of where Isaac Stern is teaching this Chinese boy how to play the violin.

[23:55]

He went to China to teach music, and this Chinese boy, this 20-year-old boy probably, playing the violin, and he was very good, very proficient. But he was stiff, and the music was, it sounded like he was very skillful, but it didn't, wasn't moving. And Isaac Stern started talking to him while he was playing. And then he kind of started almost like yelling at him. And he started saying, you know, sing, make it sing, sing, and he's yelling at him, you know, and that could be considered harsh. But it pushed the boy out of his rigidness into the realm of music. And you could hear the violin started singing. It was amazing. It was so beautiful to see the teacher pushing. Now, if you push too hard and he drops his violin and is embarrassed and feels like a failure in front of the great Isaac Stern, everybody laughs at him afterwards and blah, blah, blah, because he made a fool.

[24:59]

Then I think that's push. But Isaac Stern was, I think, telling the truth. I mean, you could hear it. The boy was very good, but the music was not happening He pointed that out. And he actually sensed that with this push, the boy could move beyond that into this other realm. And it was the success. But if it would be too hard, and the boy couldn't move with it, and it would undermine him, then that would be harsh. That wouldn't be appropriate. So in both cases, it's true that if you push too hard or if the person's not ready, then that's an improper way to convey a helpful, truthful observation. But sometimes, it was pretty harsh, you know. You can imagine, it sometimes happens in situations like this, that someone's talking, you know, in an open court like this, someone's talking to me, and I'm pushing them a little bit, and if I push too hard, they, you know, they don't do well, it's a mistake. But other times, I'm pushing them, and everyone can see that they, under the pressure of everyone watching, they stay present, and they're able to interact with me, and it's great.

[26:06]

It's like you're doing right now. although I'm not pushing it real hard because, you know, you're not that stiff right now. But if you were stiff, I might start, you know, reacting, responding to your stiffness and hopefully that will move things into another dimension. Okay? There's a book called Magical Honesty. It's how to tell the truth and transform your life. And it's kind of, you know, really kind of a guy who's really kind of obnoxious, but it's very interesting because he really believes this. He's a therapist, and he'll comment, and he says things like, I'm not going to work here until you lose weight. you know, that helps them work out exercise programs that they can be healthy in their body and then start working with them.

[27:11]

It's kind of very harsh. But the basis of it is very loving and really want to help people. And it's almost kind of hard to read it because it's just... Good. Matt's point is still resonating, so let's stay on this current topic and move to his before we get too far away. Did you have something about what we were just talking about? Yeah, when you were talking about confessing, what came to my mind was all the things that I withhold, but I'm usually unconscious that I'm withholding. how do you stay conscious of that?

[28:11]

Because it really wasn't until I started talking about it that I always thought for it to come up. Well, I think the process of confession brings stuff up. So, like, the traditional ceremony of Buddhist monks is to get together on the new moon and the full moon and confess any violations of the code of discipline which they've committed themselves to. We don't do that at Zen Center as a group. We don't have each person come in and say, well, I killed an ant, I stole a cookie, or I spoke harshly to someone, or I told a lie, or I got involved in inappropriate sexuality. We don't do that in a group setting here. We get together and we confess all our energy twisted karma. And when you do that sometimes, while you're doing that confession, also while you're doing the bows, I find when I'm doing the bows, it's like things that have happened during the month that didn't flow, that got stuck, that really weren't in harmony, they tend to get washed up during the bow for me.

[29:22]

And oftentimes when you confess, you bring up 20, 30, 50% of something. And when you bring it up, you think you confessed it, but then you realize, oh, I left this up. So you notice that. And you bring that up and say, oh, there's more. Or the person you confessed to says, well, I don't understand what you're saying. Doesn't sound so bad to me. And he's telling the rest of us, I say, oh, I see what you mean. But the way you first said it, So the process of confession generally tends to bring stuff up from deeper and deeper. Confession is like the upwelling here on the ocean. It is upwelling. It tends to bring the food up from down below. All the stuff tends to bring it up. So you can't confess what you don't know about yet, but when you confess what you do know, it tends to bring up more stuff. So you say you just kind of have to get in the habit. Yeah. And prostrations, just prostrations, even without saying anything, if you just do prostrations, oftentimes stuff gets drawn up.

[30:30]

When you do it, just stuff comes up. Sometimes, also sometimes after, sometimes you do a confession ceremony and you go sit as asana and also a whole bunch of stuff comes up. So if you keep things churning in your spiritual life, then you tend to, unconscious stuff tends to start coming out. And particularly stuff that's stuck. Your psyche wants to extrude this stuff so it's free. That's my experience. So the more you confess, the better you get at it. And your friends can help you. Because again, if you do a confession, some other people maybe see it, it doesn't seem like a whole story. It seems like there's a chunk of that story missing. A good story, you know, contains the whole picture. Really nice. You tell part of the story, people just say, that wasn't a very good story. And say, I wonder why it wasn't a good story. Oh, how about if I said that? Oh, that's much better. Yeah, that detail is very good. Thank you. So now the case of you have some anger in your heart, and part of you doesn't want to let people know because they might not like angry people, and part of you thinks, however, if you don't, it's going to hurt you maybe to keep it inside, and it might even hurt them.

[31:50]

Right. Because they might be doing something, for example, they might be doing something to someone else that's harmful to the other person, So if you don't express anger, first of all, they may keep harming this other person or these other people. Or if you don't tell them you don't like it, they may keep harming this other person, which also means they're harming themselves, which also means they're harming you. So if you could tell them that you don't like or you feel angry about what they're doing, it might help the situation. But it might not. But if you... Yeah. But generally speaking, not generous, but sometimes, if someone's doing something that you feel you don't like and also that it feels harmful. Now, sometimes people do harmful things and you don't mind, right? In that case, you might say, well, you let them keep doing it. We're talking about a case where they're doing something harmful. This example, they're doing something harmful and you don't like it and you're getting angry about it.

[32:53]

Now, in cases like this, if you tell the person that you don't like what they're doing, and you feel that what they're doing is harmful. But you say with anger, they may not even hear what you said, because the charge on what you said may be all that they feel. All they really sense is, There's an angry person in my face, and this hurts me. I'm being hurt, I'm scared, and this person is angry at me, this person thinks I'm a jerk, this person hates me, this is an insane person. And they're right. You're kind of insane. If you have that kind of charge. So the charge distracts them from your message. So in that case, although it might be helpful if you could tell them you don't like it, And it might even be helpful for them to know you're angry. Can you convey that you don't think what they're doing is good?

[33:59]

Can you convey that you think it's harmful to all concerned and also that you're angry? Can you convey that without this charge? And if you can, that's great. But if you can't, you may have to wait for a while until you can convey the same information without that charge. Not to mention hurting them, actually. But even the charge is, a lot of people make good points and nobody hears them because all they're getting is the emotional charge. They can't hear what the person is saying at all. And also they tend to disqualify or devalue what the person is saying because the person is acting in a disrespectful way towards them. If you can look at the person really with compassion and really with appreciation, really, And also say, I don't like what you're doing. The respect and compassion makes them look at you and listen to you.

[35:00]

And there's no charge there. Because you feel one with them. Because you appreciate them. But you don't like action X. And even you're angry about action X. That can convert the people out of that thing sometimes. But if you're not at that point yet, if you feel like you're not able to do it quite that skillfully, this is a situation I often find myself in. I find the choice is between a very imperfect expression, a very imperfect honesty that has the potential to be harmful and not hurt, or holding it back. It has the potential to be harmful and not hurt? Not heard. Oh, not heard. Upholding in fact. Yeah. I would love to be able to express how I'm feeling without that kind of charge, but most of the situations I'm in, I feel like I can't do it without getting rid of that charge.

[36:07]

My personal experience is, when I'm in a place like that, and I would talk to the person at that time, my personal experience had been that it has usually not been helpful. I regretted it. So then most of the time you would choose not to express it? In that case, 99% of the time I would recommend to myself not to do it. I might do it, but it would be impulse. Right. I found this little note, fell out of some book today, and I wrote this in 1969. I think this is Dogi Zenji. Students, when you want to say something, think about it three times. So, like, if you're talking, you know, at the end of the sentence, does that mean, like, finish the sentence, think about three times the next one? Think about it three times. Speak, think about it three times before you say it.

[37:09]

Speak only if it brings benefit to yourselves and others. Do not speak if it is no benefit. These are difficult to do all at once, these kinds of practices. Keep them in mind and learn them gradually. So, I've had people express anger to me without a charge in it. But it wasn't the person that was being angry at me. It was like a deity, a wrathful deity. I didn't take it personally. And the person, like the little person, got, you know, like, It seemed like they were about eight feet, eight by eight feet tall. And they weren't even standing up. It just got huge and red and fierce. And I was kind of like, okay, time to listen. There was no charge, you know. And there was no disrespect. And it was love. And it was about my conduct.

[38:10]

And I really felt ashamed. And it had to be that fiery to get my attention. It was successful. But where it's an individual person who's angry at a person, then it usually isn't helpful. I had that case also later, though. So in cases like that, what I'd recommend is that you go to third person. And you don't go to the third person and tell the third person what you're angry at about the first person. You tell the third person that you feel as if you want someone who's doing something you don't like, you want them to stop. but you feel like if you tell them, it'll just make them angry at you, and you'll just regret telling them, and it won't stop them anyway, and they won't listen to you. Get a third person or ten people to help you talk to the person. It's still better for you to tell them rather than to tell them. Or if you can tell the other person with no intention to undermine this person's opinion of the first person, then they can also help you. So be careful of that too.

[39:12]

So if you feel like you rarely can simultaneously see the problem and talk about it without getting angry, then I would say anger may be very helpful. Anger sometimes is what you feel when you're drawing a line and you're saying, no, no, this is no good. It's good. But then if you take that anger and use it wrong, it distracts your correct opinion. The anger should not be turned to hurt the other person. The anger should be used to tell the other person that they're pushing on a line they shouldn't be pushing, that they're not respecting something. Your space, whatever, that person's space. Anger can be good. And it's not right speech to not say anger when anger is beneficial. And it is not right speech to speak anger when anger is harmful.

[40:16]

So anger can be harmful, can be useful. So when you feel anger about some deed that someone else is doing, or yourself, and you don't feel like you can convey it to the person in a helpful way, get the help of somebody else so that the anger can be used, that energy can be used to help the person. Because this person now has, they got their life, plus they have your energy, is available to give them information about their life. That their conduct is such that you're getting heated. That's information for them, that can help them. How can you get that information to them in a way that they can receive and learn from? That's the next part. And a lot of times you can't do it on your own. Or you have to wait until you're not angry anymore, but you still don't like, or you don't have a charge on your anger, but you still really don't like, you feel angry about activity X. If you just don't like the person, like there's some people that you just don't like.

[41:27]

You don't like the way they look. You don't like the way they smell. You don't like the way they talk. And they're not, strictly speaking, doing anything harmful. You just don't like them for some reason. In that case, it doesn't sound like you should tell them. How does that set with you? Maybe some other detail that you'd like to bring up. A lot of it sits well. The advice about talking to a third person I like. Something I'm stumbling over is... Not expressing it, say, 99% of the time if there's a charge to it. I feel like if I practiced that, I would have a really intense feeling of... Keeping things in and not expressing them. Yeah. Yeah, but I just said, if you have that feeling that you're keeping it in and it's not good for your health, then tell somebody else. Right. Get it out. Don't just stuff it. Or go talk to somebody else and tell somebody, so the person, say, I have this thing in my heart, which I don't know how to get out, and if I don't get it out, I'm going to get sick.

[42:33]

So can I tell you? Are you ready to handle some, you know, really hot stuff? But I still wonder if in the case of... not telling the second person directly, I think I would still feel, if I always was going to a third person, I think I would feel that there was some lack of honesty in me. Well, if you have this strong feeling, and keeping it in yourself will make you sick, And, you know, in a kind of a strong, dominant way, like you're thinking about it over and over throughout the day and it's making you feel tight and sick. And then if you go talk to somebody else, sometimes a charge comes off it and then you can talk to the other person. And you need to talk to the other person to complete the process. But by taking the charge off it, then you can talk to them, even while you're still feeling the anger, but without the charge. And this tight feeling, you can even get angry at the person about that.

[43:37]

And that's not really their problem. So once you get that cleared, which you might be able to do, you might still feel, this is really no good and I still don't like it, but then you might be capable of talking to them, even without the first help or One other example of this, not example, one other aspect of this, is if someone's doing something that's really harmful and you can't interact with them without the charge, but you really need to because the harm that's happening, then in that case you probably can't get them to stop by telling them that you're angry. That probably won't work. You need to do something actually to try to stop them without this communication thing. to intervene to protect whoever's in danger, rather than having interaction with the person around your relationship. So if that's the case, I think another kind of action should happen. But it's not about expressing the anger.

[44:39]

It's about stopping the harm. So that's not speech. Yes? It also seems like often it's helpful to tell the third person because maybe it's just that the charge comes off, but it's often encouraging to, or if there's some fear of telling the person directly, you tell the third person, you suddenly realize, oh, that sounds so scary or something. Right. And it's often, then you really want to go. Right. Just to get it out of your mouth. Mm-hmm. Just to say it out loud in the presence of somebody else, it doesn't sound so bad to you either when you say it sometimes. Right, so it does help to those situations. So practice it and then see, does this happen once in a while to you? Yes. So why don't you start practicing it and see if this works. Try it. I find it works myself and I find it works for other people.

[45:44]

It's not easy to bring this stuff out in the first place to the third person. But... Things deteriorate. I don't actually know the history of Richard Baker here, but I do know that a lot of people were extraordinarily angry and are still angry to this day. So practicing not speaking out proved to be disastrous for a lot of people. And so in community, how do we deviate anger between telling the truth which will hurt and being mindful of what we're saying when it's extremely hard to be mindful? when there's so much anger. I don't think there is anger here at this moment, but I think at times it arises. And Richard Baker, the anger here, he was not angry. I don't know if that's true. Well, actually, you know, I think what you said is true until you use the example of Richard Baker. People were not angry with him, really.

[46:48]

That wasn't the main thing they were stuffing. They disagreed with him. But most people who got angry, I think, left during the years he was here. and they expressed anger, and it didn't work very well, so they left. But there wasn't a lot of suppressed anger, really. What there was, was there was some anger expressed, or some dislike, or some disagreement expressed, but then usually people were talked out of it, and they suppressed their own view. I think it's more important, more significant than what's going on, is people were denied their own reality in the face of the leader. And then, when things shifted, And they realized that they had sold themselves out in order to get along with the community and the leader, which were kind of very closely related. If you didn't get along with the leader, it was hard. In those days, it was hard to have a problem with the leader and have other people support you in that. It was like you weren't supposed to have problems like that.

[47:49]

In Dharma events, the senior people never talked to speak up. And the intermediate people followed the senior people. And the only people that talked in most army events, especially here in the city center, were the new people who didn't know that it wasn't cool. Because a lot of people were afraid if he didn't approve of them, that other people wouldn't approve of that. So there was a high level of people denying their reality and assuming that if he didn't agree... they must be wrong rather than they just don't agree. Not that he's wrong and they're wrong or they're right or vice versa, but just, and people really, I feel people really stuff that. And then when things shifted and he was criticized, then the anger came, but then the anger had to have been, and this part supports it, is that people didn't know anything about how to be angry. So it would have been nice if people had some exercise at being angry, but I don't think it was so much that there was a lot of anger, it wasn't being expressed, is that when anger came, it came in this tidal wave, and there was no way to learn under those circumstances.

[48:58]

So the anger was extremely strong and blew him out of the water. But anyway, I think that... I would encourage us to, what you said, I agree, if we do have anger, we should bring it out. If the anger is behind us, inside, it will destroy us. If the anger gets out in front, it will liberate us. Even if unskillfully? Even if unskillfully, yes. But I don't recommend doing it unskillfully. But better to do it unskillfully... than to have it be in the back, driving your life. But try to do it skillfully, and try to do it the most skillful way, and then make mistakes, of course, and learn from your mistakes. But try to do it the most skillful way. And so, in your case, if you can't get it out anyway, or in anybody's case, if you can't get it out in any form that's not unskillful, I would say, well, get it out somehow. If you can't get it out, if there's zero output, zero expression of anger, and you've got it inside, and you can't find any way that seems good, I would say, well, if you're talking to me, I would say, well, do it.

[50:12]

Let's see that I'm there, right? So somebody's encouraging you. So find somebody that would encourage you to do it. Find some situation where you can bring it out. Even if unskillfully, you know, like it comes out, it turns into like defaming and slandering and all that stuff. The person is which you might say, you know, no, that's not necessary. You don't have to talk that way. And they can help you, and you can learn that way. So I think it is very important. And if anybody's angry now, let's hear it. Just kidding, Jordan. You want to hear about it? No, no, no, I'm just kidding. Really. If you're angry about anything, I'm ready for it. Are you guys ready? Yeah. Okay, so go ahead, Jordan. Well, then... I have two things. The first one was... Before you say anything, I just want to say something to you, okay? Yes. Because I really appreciate that at the end of the last class you told the truth.

[51:14]

Yes. And you're doing a great job as Inu. I'm kidding. Isn't he? Yes, yes. You really are. So what did you want to say? That's a very disturbing way of... No, I've been wanting to tell you in public. You know, I have told lies to people on some occasions in my life. But I think that the number of times that I've told a lie where I knew I was telling a lie is much less than the number of times I've told a lie where I was also telling myself a lie. Right. I agree. And, like, the lies of Stern with the Chinese musician. Yes. In some ways, the Chinese musician was telling lies, but the violinist still played. Right. He was walking up to the truth. by the teachers that help, you know. And I think just, and so, sometimes in hindsight, I realize I told a lie, and maybe even a friend of mine might realize I told a lie, but actually I didn't realize when I said it, it was a lie.

[52:21]

And this was part of, I mean, it's part of the truth being kind of flexible sometimes. Right. Right. Something that changes. But then I also like this comment on Matt, and the idea of talking to a third person, because I think it could be really problematic to talk to a third person, because it could be, if we do it nobly, in the best way, you know, maybe it serves the purpose to describe, but I think more commonly, at least for me, when I talk to a third person, it's actually served to serve the session. Right. And that's tailbearing. That's tailbearing. So it shouldn't be done that way. That's why I didn't want to say it. I said a third person, but I think, like I say, it should be a confessor, a professional confessor, for starters. Somebody who... I agree with that.

[53:24]

Because if somebody comes to me and starts badmouthing somebody else, I will not listen to it. I say, have you told them that? If they haven't told that person that, I won't listen to it. Now, if they say, I can't talk to that person about it, and I say, I'll help you, but don't come and tell me about these bad things until we talk to that person. I generally would do that. But if it's somebody who's going to sit there and be influenced against this person, you shouldn't tell. Like, you know, Yeah, there's some people, if I had a problem with so-and-so, and I told somebody, that somebody might really be turned against that other person, and that really would be bad. So I should tell someone who's not involved in that thing, who's outside of it, or at least even if they're in the community, who in the context of confession is outside of it, who could separate themselves from the community in that way, or stop the talk until it's told to the other person.

[54:24]

Seems to work, pretty much. Yes, Suzanne. Well, I just have to say that I think in addition to telling a certain person here, it seems to me another way to handle a situation is if you wanted to directly speak to the person that you're angry with, isn't it just possible to say, you know, I feel... angry right now, and I would love to be able to talk to you about it, but right now I'm not able to because I'm too angry. Yes, it is. You need to leave this discussion for a later time. Right. Yeah, simply, oh, I feel that they also say I don't want to discuss that right now. It is possible. It is possible. But sometimes it's not. Because where you just did it, you know, that would work pretty well. You could even say, like right now, just talk this way. There's not much charge in what I'm saying to you.

[55:30]

Just say, you know, I really have a problem with what you just did, with what you just said to so-and-so, or what you just said to me. I'm really feeling angry, and sometime later I'd like to talk to you about it. And the person might say, oh, okay. And then you might say, the reason why I'd like to talk to you later is because I'm afraid if I get into it, I'm going to get all wrought up, and that won't be helpful for me to tell you how I feel. And you might even be able to say, make an appointment right then. So let's talk next Tuesday. And the person might say, okay. Because you're talking to them respectfully. Even though you've got a problem with what they did, you're talking to them respectfully. You're not hurting them. And you're telling them, you know, that something serious has come up and maybe they're willing to listen to that and then they don't know what it is yet, but talk to you. But what sometimes happens is as you start to tell the person you're angry, it blows up and then they come back at you and then you come back at them and then

[56:38]

You have to also take into account, if you're in a group situation like this, and you're in a position like Eno, Tonto, or so on, if you tell someone something, it's different than other people telling it, too. So you have to be careful. You might say, you know, usually this is what's done, and we're expecting you to do that. And the person might get really upset, because it's not just some person saying that to them. not just an ordinary friend, but the Eno. When I was, you know, like 26 years old, I was Eno of the city center, and some person came to Zen center, and he wanted to talk to me, and I was talking to someone else, and I said, just a minute. Just like that, just a minute. You know, he didn't want to interrupt me. And that really shocked that person and drove him away from Zen center. Just that authority figure just going like that. pointing a finger, shaking a finger.

[57:45]

And I might have been a little irritated, but maybe I was busy or something, and he was trying to talk, and I don't know, I don't remember, but just you've got to be careful. But anyway, I guess the two sides are, one, that in order to be liberated and in order to help people, you have to express yourself. So I'm always, not always, but I'm championing, championing, championing me, encouraging full expression, full self-expression, full self-expression. At the same time now we're talking about not being harmful with your speech. So how can you fully express yourself with this issue of right speech? And again, I would say that full expression is only possible with some resistance. So you've got the precept or the practice of right speech, and you've got the expression of yourself, and those two are pushing on each other.

[58:47]

And with the practice of right speech and abandoning all these things and trying to express yourself, that dynamic, that struggle there is how the full expression comes out. if you never have anything to say that is the slightest bit, if you never have any gossip to say, you never have any harsh speech, you never have any criticism, you never have any idle chatter, you never have any anger, if you never have any of that stuff, then you can say, well, I'm expressing myself fully, I just don't have anything like that to say. Well, I have some nice things to say. And I would say, well, that may be true, but you still haven't fully expressed yourself until you have these things to push against. Your full potential hasn't come out yet. There's more to you than that. Just like you can think of, you know, like what? You can think of sculpting, making a statue. And if you take, you know, just think of it.

[59:51]

There it is, you thought of it. And that's nice, but you haven't fully expressed yourself until you work with some material. And then if you, I would say, you know, if you start with clay, that's nice, but you might not be able to fully express yourself until you work with marble. And spend a lot of money on it. And then every chip counts. That resistance is what, then you really have to express yourself. It pushes back. If everybody just backs away and knows no resistance, then you go forward and nothing happens. I'm feeling so resistant to what you were saying about the egg. You're like, just get it out there. Just get it out there. And I actually felt like I could imagine someone saying, like using that as a kind of, okay, I've got full permission to just go with this anger and laugh. I feel like this community is particularly, or I should speak about myself, the people who are the bullies and have like venomous, harsh speech that's just like kind of splat, you know, end up being, they kind of,

[61:02]

it happens that they run their own show. People stay away from them. They don't confront them. This committee in particular, if there's a kind of perversion of what you just said, because I don't feel like you're saying, don't follow people. I just feel like it's... I would much rather hear a lot of emphasis on... you know, remain like a piece of wood, like Shantideva, with that whole thing about, or count to ten, think three times before, like, emphasizing that, because what you have with that. Anyway, do you know what I mean? Well, could I say, first, before I say anything, is that, see, she's resisting. See, that helps me express myself more fully. Thank you. Thank you. Well, we could emphasize this, what do you call it, if you feel angry and you don't have something beneficial to say, just be like a piece of wood, just be like a bird stump.

[62:07]

But then he said, then I get sick. So I say, anyway, I'm here to say, I'd rather have you get it out with me than be sick with it. So I'm welcoming you to stump on me I really don't want you to dump on me. What I want you to do is express it. I'll stand next to you and just put it out in the air and I'll watch you do it. But I invite you in safe situations to try to get it out if it's like making you sick. If it's not bothering you and you can be like a burnt piece of wood with it, if you can really be like a piece of wood and not be stuffing it, then better not to do it. There's a lot of stuff I have to say which I'm not stuffing and I don't say it and it wouldn't be helpful to say it. I have a lot of things to say. Every time I see most of you, I have about 10 things to say. I do. I'm inside, I'm a real chatterbox. But, you know, you don't need to hear all that crap.

[63:10]

It's just, you know, and a lot of it's just affection, but it's really, you know, what's he talking about? I know this lady once, she was very big, and I actually liked her a lot. And every time I saw her, I thought, hi, Fanny. Or, hi, tubby. That's what came to my mind. But I never said it to her. But I wasn't repressing it. I didn't say, I say, tubby, no. And I think of a lot of things to say to people. Those little whimsical things come to my head that I don't say. And I'm not stuffing it. But if I was stuffing it, and if it was making me sick, then I think I'd need to find some situation to get it out. not just to make myself feel more comfortable, but to find out what it is. And so I personally invite anybody that's got that problem to come, and I will help you do that. I will help you get it out in a way that doesn't hurt people. But I'm not telling you to go dump on so-and-so. And dumping is not good. When you confess, it's not dumping.

[64:12]

Dumping is like, hey, you have my problem. You deal with it. I mean, get it out in a safe way. And there's always a risk. But do it in a safer situation and do it with somebody. Another rule which I often say is always pick somebody in your own weight class. Pick on somebody your own size or bigger. Don't pick on people smaller than you. So, That's important. Some people are up for dealing with your stuff. Because are you up for it? Yeah, okay, listen to it. Here it is. Other people are not. So don't bother them. And if they're the person, object of your problem, your lust or your confusion or your anger, leave them alone. Go play with somebody else who's not really, you know, what do you call it? How does it go? It's the wrong face at the wrong time.

[65:18]

That one, you know. It's not the one I want to talk to, but it's a good one. So work with the one that's appropriate, that won't hurt. Somebody can deal with you. I bet. And I'm foolishly saying, I'm here to meet you. You've been raising your hand quite a bit there, young man, haven't you? What do you want to say? Something you said, and it reminded me of a quote, first of all, if you're really blocked up, it's definitely a historical means of speaking respectfully to another person, speaking with respect, whether you're angry, happy, whatever it is. But I think you can really get locked up and get into a line by not stating the truth if you start trying to take responsibility or picking up control of the other person's reaction to what you've expressed.

[66:23]

Yeah, that's right. That's a problem. So actually, after that, after that happened, for a while, I used to walk around kind of like this. Not quite like this, anyway. Because I sensed that if I expressed myself, there would be some devastating people. I just tried to hold myself back and crunch myself down. But I realized that it didn't work because everybody was saying, looking at me thinking like, when is he going to raise that finger? You know, he's not raising it. It's not coming out. When is it going to come out? It's like, you know, my sister said, if you want to scare people, if you have a big dog, don't let it just run alongside of you because it's a friendly dog. Don't just hold it on a choke chain and hold it like a... So, yeah, if you're holding yourself back, people are even more afraid of you. It doesn't work. You can't stop it. At the same time, the point is, you should always...

[67:25]

The Buddha way is to always think of what's beneficial. That's the point. Always stay on that beam. Always think of what's beneficial. And then if you do something you don't think is beneficial, well, you just blew it. You know it. If you tried to be beneficial and it wasn't, then you learn. May I tell a story about being similar to the figure? This is the last story about you. This is the next story? Right. It is nice. If you're, you know, the city center and someone was hitting the hound for 1,000 men. It was the work drum. The work drum. And you walked by and kind of pulled out. I removed the toothpick from the drummer. Yeah. And you forgot?

[68:29]

I never forgot. And he said he was hitting the drum like this and he had a toothpick and then I came by and pulled it out. He was going like this, you know. And he said, I felt like going like this. Anyway, I've been videotaped during that era. Do you want to see what I look like? There's a videotape of me carrying the stick at Tassajara, so you can imagine how people felt in those days. What? I didn't hear what you said. There's a videotape of me at Tassajara carrying the stick and also hitting the haunt. And hitting also them the clappers. A lot of hitting. That's the way I was at that time.

[69:31]

And Suzuki Roshi encouraged me to be that way. He encouraged me to get it out. But a lot of other people didn't like it. But there was nothing I could do about it because that's the way I was. So I encourage you people to also express yourself fully. But again, if you really got something powerful, you're talking to me because I just invited you to tell me, check with me beforehand whether I really mean it. Do you really want to hear what I have to say? Get ready. Okay, yes. Don't just, like, you know, come up and dump it on me when I'm sort of, like, not totally present. So if I'm sitting there cross-legged, you know, on my zafu and so on, I can take it. But if I'm just walking around, if you come up and dump it on me, it's good to give me a warning, okay, that you're going to tell me something really powerful so I can really get ready and give me my full attention and really open up, take, and receive it.

[70:40]

You're saying to somebody else, you should really make sure they're really ready to receive this big, powerful message. And if they say, yes, I am, maybe you can deliver it. You do need that. That's your side of it, right? You're delivering something really important. And some people say, no, thank you. I don't want it. And don't give to them. Exactly. That's what happened to Houdini. He told her, he told people they could slug him as hard as they want on the stomach. And so after one of his performances, some college guys came up to him and said, is that true? We can slug you as hard as they want on the stomach? He said, yeah. And they slugged him right away and ruptured his spleen. And he didn't have it treated and he got infected. And then with an infected spleen, he went swimming underneath the ice in the Niagara River or something like that, or one of those rivers up in northern New York. Went swimming under there and got pneumonia.

[71:42]

With complications of the pneumonia and the infected spleen, he died. So, you know, I'm personally saying that I'm open to hearing your difficulties and your anger and helping you get it out and learn about it or whatever else kind of things that you'd like to get out and wash through your life. But I also say, you know, if it's really powerful and you have any question about whether it can be processed, just warn me. You've got to get ready for it. And there's some other people here who might also be up for it. They can speak for themselves. But you can check with people. And just generally speaking, you know, do useful judgment yourself, too. Yes? I mean, I guess Linda would state something as part of my question. I keep thinking, is there the responsibility of right listening?

[72:48]

I mean, that On the one hand, I think it's true that, you know, it's hard if somebody comes and just dumps, you know, dumps stuff. I mean, there's no question. I mean, anger is hard to hear. But I just started realizing recently how much I resist hearing people's anger, and yet there's often... some truth, I mean, that there's often, it seems like, some truth and the anger, and that only gets expressed, or, you know, the people aren't always, you know, can't always express what they really want to say when the anger is not there. And so that I miss some truth by not being able to hear it. I miss some truth when I can't hear. Therefore, I would like to be in a position where I can hear.

[73:49]

But if I can't hear, then I don't hear anyway. So if you're going to come and tell me something that I can't hear, then I'm going to miss it anyway. So I would rather say to you, if you've got something that's going to be hard for me to hear, why don't you come and see me when I'm up for hearing it? Because I do want to get that information. My experience is that when the person's ready, they can hear anything. And they're not ready, they can't hear anything. So the question is getting yourself and the other person in a position where the communication, where the openness can happen. Because it is helpful if I can hear from you if you're angry for me. That helps me. But if I'm not going to listen to it, it doesn't help you to tell me. Now, of course, if you can keep escalating until I do listen to you, then that would be nice, but I can't necessarily do that unless I agree that you can keep trying and trying until you get through to me. And basically I do agree with that, but then on my side I can say, you can keep trying and trying, but I want a break.

[74:58]

I want to take a break for a while. Then you come back and try again. I think that should be allowed too. If you're passing some difficult, difficult conversation with me and I keep getting wounded in the process, I can take a break and come back. So that's the practice for me wanting to be able to hear people's anger, is to just be as present as I can be and then ask to take a break while I can't hear anymore. Yeah, but tell them that you do believe that it's helpful to you to hear the whole story. But right now, you need a little break, and the break will be a certain length of time, and after that time, you must come back. And then at the end of that time, if you're not ready, you come back and say, I said I'd be back at this time, but I want an extension. So they feel that you're not running away. So they have recourse to complete this process. If that's the way you feel. If that's honestly how you feel.

[76:00]

And I think in the end, the bodhisattva honestly feels that they want to go through the process. Okay? So, I'm sure we can go on with this forever, but maybe next week we can talk about right action. The next fold. Eight folds. Maybe they'd be happy about it. It's interesting.

[76:31]

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