Good morning. In case some of you are wondering, I'm not Linda Ruth Cutts. Linda Ruth asked me to substitute for her today. She's not quite well enough to talk. So, if any of you were counting on Linda Ruth being here, and you'd just as soon not hear me, I'll close my eyes for a minute, you can leave. And it's the first Sunday of the month, so the beginning of the talk is what we call the kids' talk. I wanted to talk a little bit about how it is that we're all Buddha. So that means not just grown-ups, but also kids. We think of, you must be Buddha. And, you know, originally Buddha was a person,

[01:01]

you know, who lived many years ago. And he was a very nice person, a very good-hearted person. And he was so good-hearted that everybody loved him. And he was so wise and compassionate, and so people were very respectful to him, and they were kind to him, and they would do whatever, you know, he asked of them. But, you know, the Buddha was such a nice person, he wasn't real demanding and fussy and bossy. So he didn't keep saying, do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that. He would say, may I have some tea? Or, you know, something pleasant and nice if he really wanted something. And his disciples knew that the Buddha wouldn't ask them to do anything bad. You know, the Buddha wasn't going to ask them to go out and kill somebody or steal from somebody or rob or cheat, you know. So they were really happy to be with such a nice person,

[02:07]

and they were such a good-hearted person. And they were happy to do what he asked. And he didn't ask a lot of, you know, funny things. And sometimes they would say, you know, the disciples might say to the Buddha, you know, we've had this experience with Suzuki Roshi, is there anything I can do for you? And he would say, no, I'm just fine, thank you. There's nothing you can do. And then if you insisted, isn't there something I could do? And he'd say, why don't you learn to be friends with everyone? That would be helping me a lot. But he wouldn't make them do things just for him. So we say now, we say each of us actually is Buddha. So each of us in this way is a special person. So this is interesting, you know,

[03:08]

because if you're a special person, shouldn't you get all the candy before the others? But the problem is the other people are also Buddha too. And you might think, if I'm Buddha, then others should do what I tell them. But the other people are also Buddha. So how could you just tell them what to do and expect that they will just do what you say? Or maybe because you're Buddha, you should go first. But then the other people are Buddha too. So this is, you know, something of a problem. How can we be all be Buddha? Yeah. What do you think? We can do it at the same time. Yeah, or we can take turns. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, we have a tradition like in tea ceremony, if somebody goes first, then they say, excuse me for going first, you know, or they say like, thank you for waiting while I go first.

[04:12]

This is how we treat each other as Buddha. And this is also true, you know, like if we're eating together, then, you know, sometimes we might feel like saying, pass the bread and hurry up, hurry up and pass the bread. Or we might say, the bread, you fools. I want the bread. I wanted five minutes ago. Didn't you notice? So this way, when we say like that, you know, we're not thinking about other people being Buddha. We're just thinking I should have the bread right now. So if we're thinking about somebody else's Buddha, then we say, please pass the bread. Or we say, would you be kind enough to pass the bread? Thank you. That would be sweet of you. So we try to say something in a way that honors and respects the other person as Buddha,

[05:14]

because we're also Buddha and then they must be Buddha. We all must be Buddha. And this also is true, you know, if you want to talk to somebody. So if you want to talk to your, sometimes if you want to talk to your mother or father, you know, you might say, look at this, look at this. See what I have here to show you. And then your mother or father may be busy, you know, and they say, go away, I'm busy. So it's actually kind of nice as a Buddha. If you think of them as Buddha, you say, do you have a minute to look at something I made? Could you take the time to look at this? And you ask somebody first, is it okay to, may I take some time? May I talk to you? And, you know, if your parents are smart and wise and compassionate, they also do this with you. You know, sometimes parents feel like kids should do this to us, but then we don't have to do this to them. So then they just come and say, why haven't you picked up all your stuff?

[06:17]

I told you to clean your room. And they don't say, could I talk to you for a minute? But if they're thinking about you as Buddha, then they will say, can I talk to you for a minute? Do you have a moment? I'd like to speak with you. And then you can say yes or no. You don't have to say yes, but usually you would say, yes, I'm not so busy right now. Or maybe when I finish this game I'm playing, I will, you know, I could talk to you. Just like your parents might say, when I finish this report, or the faxing I need to do. Huh? Yeah, this game, yeah. When you finish, when I finish, I could talk to you. So this way, you know, because, yeah, because whether it's, whether it's, you know, whether it's the adults or the children, you know, Buddhists are not someone who likes demands. You know, Buddhists will try to be polite if somebody makes a demand,

[07:18]

but none of us really like some demand. That means, like, you have to listen to what I tell you. And you can't, you know, and people, and then people can just come and interrupt you anytime. Look at this. Pick up after that, and they'll just tell you instead of asking, do you have time? May I talk to you? This is a polite way to honor somebody as a Buddha. Can I tell you one story before you go? Do you have time for one story? Yeah. So several years ago, this happened with my daughter. She was about 16 then, and we went to my mom's. It was right before Christmas, and we went to my, we were going to go, we went to the circus, and then we came home, and we were going to get some food to take to my mom's house for Christmas dinner. And I said, can everybody be ready to go in 20 minutes? And everybody in the car said yes. And then I went into the house,

[08:20]

and my daughter and her friend disappeared. I don't know where they went. And I was waiting, and 20 minutes go by, and then 30 minutes. And I'm getting anxious because if we're late, my mom gets anxious. So I get anxious. Uh-oh. We're going to be late. She's going to be anxious. What will I do? And after about 30 minutes, I was wondering, where are those dumb kids? They've disappeared. Now, what are they up to? Where did they go? They said they'd be here. Now, why aren't they here? So I started getting mad. You know. And then, so I thought, I will try to be calm. And I made myself a cup of coffee, and I sat down. Coffee sometimes make you not so calm. This is why everybody's laughing, see. And I drank my coffee, and after about 45 minutes, my daughter came running into the house.

[09:21]

So then I went stomping right into, you know, her room where she was with her friend, and I said, what's wrong with you anyway? And I, you know, you agreed to be here after 20 minutes, and now you're not here. And it was right in front of her friend. It was really embarrassing for her, you know, when somebody criticizes you when your friends are also there. And then I didn't say to her, you know, may I talk to you? You know, and I didn't plan carefully how to talk to her, you know. So then, we, I, after a while finally, and I said, you know, you agreed to something, and I'd rather you didn't agree than make some agreement you'd had no intention of keeping. So, I took care of that, right? So then we were all in a bad mood after that, and then we went to my mom's house, and, and then later, you know, we had Christmas presents, and it turned out that my daughter had been out shopping for my Christmas present.

[10:22]

And I got mad at her for shopping for my Christmas present. This is what happens when we're not so careful, you know, to think of somebody as Buddha. And we just go and berate somebody or get mad at somebody. Yeah, for no reason. Yeah. Or if we were more careful, you know, I would wait and talk to her the next day, and by then I would realize, oh, you must have been getting my Christmas present, and then I wouldn't have so much reason to be mad at her. So then I had to go, and I went and I said to her, just a moment, what? And if you said, can I talk to you? Yeah. She would have, she would, and she would have said that I went, I went shopping. Yeah. And you wouldn't be that mad. And I wouldn't be that mad. Since you didn't say it, you were. Yeah. Yeah. Did you hear that? I said, if I'd asked her, you know, can I talk to her, or I wonder where you'd gone, she would have told me she was getting my Christmas present, and then I wouldn't have to be mad at her anymore.

[11:24]

See? But instead of that, I start telling her everything I have to say because I'm so mad and I don't even ask her, you know, if I can talk or, you know, what happened. So then, you know, later on, I apologized. I said, I'm so sorry, you know, I didn't understand, you know, what happened, and I got impatient. So I think this is a nice thing to do, you know, with another Buddha too. You know, you can say, I'm sorry I forgot that you were Buddha. I'm sorry that, you know, I forgot, I was mad at you like that for no reason really. So it's not always so easy, you know, to think of somebody as Buddha, but we keep trying to remember. And some people are really difficult to think of as Buddha. They're so mean. Yeah, like burglars. So anyway,

[12:26]

well, thank you for coming this morning and I hope you'll practice and remember to see if you can treat people as Buddha and be polite and friendly with people. Ahem. Thank you for coming this morning. And thank you for your comments. I enjoyed them. Huh? My mom sometimes. Uh-huh. Well, you have to, little by little you might, you know, work on enlightening her. I don't know that you probably didn't hear that, but he said, my mom sometimes. So we pray

[13:38]

for everyone's immediate, you know, enlightenment. So anyway, sometimes we forget that we're Buddha and sometimes we forget that others are Buddha. And mostly, you know, we have some doubt as to whether or not we're Buddha. And this creates many problems for us. You know, you might say, you know, this is just one kind of language to say we forget that we're Buddha. But, you know, it's also to forget that we belong in this world and that we belong in this body that we have, that we're, you know, an incarnated being and that we could be actually at home in our body and we could be at home in this life and in this world. And it feels so much

[14:40]

of the time like, you know, somehow we're separate or we don't belong here. We don't, you know, it's very rare that we remember and it's easy to forget. Last Thursday, I drove from San Francisco. I have a meditation group on Thursday nights in San Rafael. So I was driving. I had stopped to have a little dinner, a light dinner at Greene's and so I left about Greene's, which is on the marina, you know, in San Francisco. I thought, you know, 45 minutes to get from there to San Rafael, even at rush hour wouldn't be too bad, but the traffic was backed up and it took half an hour even to get to Marin City. I started to think then, you know, what am I doing in this world? What kind of world is this? I don't belong here. I told a friend later, she said, oh, that's very normal, don't you think?

[15:40]

You're stuck in traffic and you think you don't belong in this world? Some people might just be angry, but, you know, and then what does that have to do with all those, you know, people thinking, don't they remember that I'm Buddha and shouldn't they clear the road for me? But of course it has to do with, you know, with some, you know, mistake we make in our thinking. We think I could go where I want, when I want, at the speed I want. Right? And everybody else could too. And you know what happens when everybody wants to do that. So that's just one example though of, you know, it's very easy to feel I must not be Buddha because look at my life. Or look at these things that are happening. And it doesn't feel like,

[16:41]

you know, and there's some basic feeling we often have of separation, being separate from, you know, source or sustenance or nourishment. You know, somehow being, you know, alone or alien in the world. So, you know, our practice, practicing meditation and, you know, we can try to remember we're Buddha. And we can actually practice finding ourself at home or making ourself at home. And as you know, this isn't so easy. But, and interestingly enough, you know, it's very difficult. It's impossible to accumulate the evidence that you belong here. It's strictly a matter of faith at some point, you know, or trust. You know, Christians call it faith. We like to call it more like trust. I trust my life, you know, I trust that I must be Buddha and that my life

[17:42]

must be the way. This, there can't be some other way. So sometimes, for instance, I tell people, there's not a Buddhist freeway, remember? You could get off and actually, you could get on to the freeway and you'd actually get some place. And then you'd arrive and it would be like the mystical city and, you know, finally, you know, you're already on the way. You're already on the path and there's not some Buddhist freeway where you could bypass all these problems that you have. You know, all the little stops that you have to make in your life. And, you know, Buddhism is not, at times, you know, not so positive about what it is to be in a body or just to be a human being because, you know, we understand sometimes that you can divide our experience into five categories we call skandhas or translation of skandhas is heaps or piles. So if you take

[18:44]

all the possible sense experiences, that would be a big pile of them, wouldn't it? You know, all the different colors and shapes you might see and all the different sounds you might hear and you'd have a pile of shapes and a pile of sounds. so the five categories is sensory experience and then what's called feeling, perception and then impulses are formative factors and the fifth category is consciousness. Sense experience and sense experience is said to be like a massive foam. It gives the appearance that something is there which turns out not to be the case. So you can see a tree and you know, when we see a tree or we see a person you know, do we know, do we ever know the thing itself? What we can see is what we see. And we don't actually know the thing itself, we know what we see. So there's something

[19:46]

considered to be insubstantial or about sense experience in Buddhist understanding. And feelings, feelings in this categorization, feelings are considered to be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. You know, it feels pleasant, it feels unpleasant. And if something feels pleasant we tend to grasp it and if it feels unpleasant we tend to shove it away and if something is neutral, well, who cares? Or, this is confusing or maybe you can just fall asleep in that case because you don't have to worry about it one way or another. So let's see if we can find some drama in our life after all. So feelings are said to be like a bubble because they soon burst. And perceptions, perception is the category of, you know, is to, is a word to, in Buddhism

[20:47]

used in a particular way which is the fact that we put labels on something. We have an experience and then we say, oh that, that's anger or that's fear, that's desperation. And we say, that's Joe or Bob or Ed or, you know, that's me, that's you. We take some grouping of sensory experience and we put a label on it and call it a thing. Sometimes this will be helpful and sometimes not. Sometimes you can call somebody a Buddha and then, you know, treat them like a Buddha and it's useful and then sometimes you say, you know, that's an animal. I can treat it however I want. It's not a human being. You know, when other people might say it's a human being. So anyway, perception, as you can tell, is considered to be like a mirage. It's not dependable. The labels we put on things are not dependable and it's not a dependable way

[21:48]

to go about, you know, acting in regard to things to believe, always believe our perceptions about what's what. And the formative factors, these are the factors, you know, the fact that mind always arises with a particular attitude or shape. Some minds are more trusting and others less trusting or more concentrated, less concentrated. You know, sometimes we're more greedy, sometimes we're more generous, sometimes we might be patient. So there will be various so-called factors or formative influences arising with mind or shaping mind as it arises. So in Buddhist understanding, there's no one that's more real than any others. There's layers and layers of formative factors. It's said in the sutras like a plantain tree. So this is to say like an onion as opposed to, you know, like a peach. You can't get to the core of it. So which would you depend on

[22:50]

or rely on or turn to or trust? And consciousness itself is said to be like a magic show. Puts on a pretty good one, doesn't it? You thought you were here today, didn't you? You knew you weren't at home. This looks like the zen to a Gringotts to me. So consciousness is like a magic show. So if you think about, you know, and then there's not some experience that's considered to be an experience outside of these. So what kind of place is this to be at home in? So oftentimes, you know, because this is a rather strange place, you know, to have a human body and be in this world and whether it's you yourself and having various experiences or the world itself which is getting polluted and wars and, you know, famines and too much traffic on Highway 101 and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard as far as I'm concerned.

[23:50]

You know, this is not an easy place to be at home or to feel like I belong here. I must be Buddha. Yeah. And if, you know, and the other point about this of course is that, you know, so it will be very difficult to produce enough evidence, you know, that you belong here. You know, like because the evidence we look for will be things like people say, yes, I would help you. Yes, would you like some tea? How about some cookies? How about if I make dinner for you tonight? And somehow there's not enough of those people around doing enough of those things enough of the time to actually convince us

[24:53]

that we must be Buddha. And, you know, especially when you start getting annoyed with them for not doing better at that job of treating you like Buddha, you know, then usually there's even fewer of them around. So somehow our sense of being at home has something to do with, you know, at some point, you know, the decision we decide. It's a decision we make. Well, I don't feel at home in this world but I'd really like to. So I'm going to find out how to do it. I will find out how to be at home in this experience which is unpredictable and not always dependable. And I will find out how to trust my own body and mind. And I will find out how to trust my experience and in what way I can trust my experience and in what way I can't trust my experience. And I will learn about,

[25:54]

you know, what I need to learn about so that I feel at home in this world and so I feel like I must be Buddha and so I see others as Buddha. And then this becomes a kind of study, how to do that. I've been thinking recently about a small Zen story. You know, when the third ancestor first met, when the fourth ancestor first came to meet the third ancestor. I don't know really whether it was when he first came but the third, the fourth ancestor Daoshin or Doshin and the third ancestor was Tsengtsan or Sosan. And so when they met at some point, the younger man said, how can I attain liberation? The old ancestor said, who is it who is binding you?

[26:56]

In the story, you know, sometimes, you know, the fourth ancestor answers nobody. But sometimes it just says, you know, and then the third ancestor says, then why would you, why do you need to seek liberation if no one's binding you? So this is one way the story goes and sometimes, you know, it's just, how can I attain liberation? And the third ancestor says, you know, who is binding you? And the fourth ancestor said to have some awakening or some understanding, you know. So, I think, you know, I tend to think, you know, we can understand if anybody's binding us, it must be I myself. You know, nobody else is binding us. We all learn, you know,

[28:00]

quite, at a pretty young age, you know, we learn how to bind ourselves in order to survive in life. And then, you know, it helps us, you know, we have some, you know, preservation skills that we've developed even before language oftentimes. Before we knew what we were doing, we learned how to behave in an acceptable way and then, you know, we spend the rest of our lives trying to get out of this prison. How to, you know, be liberated. How can I be liberated? How do I get free? And actually, in many ways, you know, what we're getting free of is our own rules that we made up. Again, often before we even had language for it. So I've tended, over the years, I tend to be, for instance, like, I'm not going to say anything. They don't want to hear what I have to say. Whether they do or not. But I learned

[29:00]

a long time ago, you know, this is my rule. I'm not going to tell them anything. They don't listen. So I won't say it. And I'll wait and see. If they ask me, I'll tell them something. But otherwise, I won't tell them anything. Now, is that a bind or what? You see. And some of us, you know, we have the rule, I will tell them everything. You know, whether they want to hear it or not. And then we get in trouble for that, you know. Maybe it worked, you know, at one point. And, you know, all of these strategies will have some use and then, you know, they'll be, you know, maybe it's appropriate at times and useful. And we have, you know, some way to not be angry or to be, you know, I also learned pretty young to be sad. And, you know, it's pretty nice. You might think, oh, being sad, who'd want to be sad? But, you know, there are certain people, and I've noticed women especially,

[30:01]

you know, they want to help a fellow who's sad. So I wouldn't want to get too happy, you know, because, because then who's going to reach out to, you know, soothe my pain, you know. So, it's not always so easy to change these habits, even in some way, you know, you might be tired of being sad, but on the other hand, you know, who's going to caretake you if you're not? So, it's not easy getting liberated, you see. And the more aware we become in our lives about how it is we bind ourselves or restrain ourselves, you know, the more we become aware, this means also the more responsibility we have. So if I understand how it is I choose to be sad, I can't blame others for making me sad anymore. If I understand how I choose to get angry, I can't blame others for making me angry anymore.

[31:03]

And Buddhism, you know, is not part of this victim psychology. You made me angry. I'm just a victim of all the stuff that happens in my life and you did it to me. You know, you made me angry, you made me sad, you made me annoyed, you made me frustrated, and we say this either to people or to things, you know, I concentrate on things. All that traffic and why would, you know, Source, God, you know, the universe, why create a universe like this? Where there's so much traffic. What a stupid universe. And it's the stupid universe's fault, not my fault, you know, that I'm experiencing what I'm experiencing then. It's disowning your own experience. You know, it's stepping out of your body, out of your life, out of your being and then disowning it. And we often say, oh, I don't get angry,

[32:04]

I'm a nice person, you know, anger just overcame me. Caught me in a moment of weakness. I don't really have a reason to be sad or, you know, we'll find something. And so then, as soon as you feel something, people say, well, why are you feeling that? And the implication is, you know, if you could find out why you were feeling something, you could do something about it so you wouldn't have to feel that again. You'd tell that person. You'd teach them a lesson. You know, you'd restrain your own body in a different kind of way so it wouldn't feel that stuff. You know, maybe you could get a backache instead of feeling so frustrated or whatever it is, you know. So we do these things to ourself. You know, we have rules and coercives and we tell ourselves how we should be. And then after a while, you know, Buddhism comes along and maybe it would be better to study Buddhism because I could be a Buddhist. I could do all the Buddhist things. I could follow their rules. I could tell myself to do it that way because nobody could argue with my being a Buddhist. Buddhists are wonderful. They're compassionate. They're wise.

[33:05]

I'll behave like a Buddhist. Nobody can challenge me. They must all, they'll have to respect me then. I'll just become such a good Buddhist that everybody always bows to me when they see me. So, you know, if we can't, you know, if our rules aren't working out, we can find some spiritual ones as a backup. And then it's still trying to bind, you know, ourself. You know, so that we will be, look like a Buddha, you know. So we will try to convince ourselves so we can get enough evidence we must be Buddha. So we can feel like I must be Buddha and I must belong in this world. And we think we can do that by these rules and the courses we have and telling ourself always what to do. And this is how we do it. You know, this is how we bind ourselves. And it's very important, you know, to notice how it is we bind ourselves because you can't just become liberated by waving a magic wand.

[34:06]

In a certain sense, maybe you can, you know. If you take it to heart, you must be Buddha. You must belong in this world. Your life must be the way. There's not some Buddhist way outside of your way, outside of your experience moment after moment, pain, pleasure, joy, sorrow. There's not some Buddhist way outside of what you're already experiencing as your life. You know, that's pretty helpful. You know, to decide that, to believe that, to try it out. But then there's, you know, the details. How do we actually do it? And it takes, you know, some relentlessness or alertness, you know, because often what it is that happens, you know, like fear or shame, you know, we have such a quick reaction to it,

[35:09]

you know, that of looking somewhere else. You know, our thinking, we wander off in our thought, we fall asleep because we would rather not experience, you know, the unpleasant feelings. And practically speaking, you know, because we structure and order our body, you know, so we don't experience unpleasant feelings and pretty soon it's hard to experience pleasant ones. And actually, you know, suffering in our life is not whether feelings are pleasant or unpleasant, but it's this decision not to experience, which Buddhists call suffering. It's the resistance to experiencing which is suffering. It's the resistance to experiencing which is overwhelming. The experience itself is not suffering. The experience itself is not overwhelming. So we're trying

[36:09]

to find out, you know, how to liberate ourselves. How to understand and believe this mind, the mind I have, my mind, this mind is Buddha. This body is Buddha. You know, it's worthy of respect and kindness, generosity, patience. And so then we don't have to be hard on ourselves about the experiences we have or the difficulties we have. And we can notice when we make these decisions like, you know, sometimes we've decided, you know, I will never feel, you know, humiliated or shame again. I'd rather die. And we make decisions like that.

[37:10]

And then, you know, sometimes people do die rather than experiencing shame or, you know, apologizing to someone or forgiving someone. Basically, anyway, at some point, when we notice what we're doing and we realize that I'm doing it, you know, then we have a choice whether or not to keep doing it. It's not necessarily the case that we will stop doing it or we have to stop doing it. But when we realize I'm doing this, this is the way my mind works, then we have a choice whether to go on doing it. Before we realize I'm doing it, oh, this just happens to me. I'm just at the mercy of my stupid mind. I'm at the mercy of my stupid body.

[38:12]

I just have to put up with whatever it tells me. This is not quite right. So we say, you know, if you notice like you're sleepy or if you notice you're distracted, you know, what was the last thing that happened right before you went, you know, you got sleepy or right before you got distracted? There's really tiny instance sometimes, you know, before your strategy comes in to avoid that experience. So sometimes it's, you know, it's barely a second of fear or anger and then like I'm out of here. You know, then there's a strategy. I'm out of here. I'm going to sleep. I'm going to get distracted. I'm going to look around for something nicer to experience. I'm gone. Thank you very much. Thank you anyway. See you later. And so

[39:13]

this is called, you know, abandoning yourself or abandoning sentient beings and we're trying to find out how to stay home. Do you think that will help you stay home? That's an example of I think I'll look around for a better home. This doesn't seem like such a nice home. So this is our study, you know, to see if we can be at home in our life. And when we find ourselves, you know, that we go away, you know, we decide to come back and we decide over and over again to come back, to come back, to be at home, to be in our experience, to know our experiencing for what it is. And so over time we develop, you know, some capacity to experience a much wider range of feelings, sights, sounds, smells, interactions. We develop our skill and capacity to be alive

[40:13]

in the present. So, you know, there are two I kind of feel like I've been talking long enough and I keep trying to come to the end of this, but, you know, it should happen soon. So let me just finish the thought I'm on and we'll call it quits. But, you know, there are two kinds of basic strategies for the spiritual life. If you start with Buddhism in India, the Indian culture has a little more, and this may be, you know, an oversimplification, but the Indian culture has more the idea of at a certain point in your life, you know, especially as you get older, you could start to set aside or discontinue your relationships with people and you could give away your possessions and things and it's through disconnecting yourself from relationships and things that then eventually you can realize your oneness with Brahma or, you know, everything. It's by separation from experience you have some capacity or, you know,

[41:13]

the sensibility is by separating you will be able to connect with everything or with the absolute or divine. And, you know, the Chinese had a different idea and Zen comes more from China and we're, as Americans, generally, you know, although we have, you know, various tendencies, we tend to be a little bit more like the Chinese than like the Indians and the idea in China is that you realize your connection with everything by connecting with everything and that, in fact, you, you know, it's through your various relationships with people that you come to know yourself and realize yourself. So with this kind of model, you know, the capacity to develop your virtuosity or your capacity to interact with others, to interact with your, with the experiences of your own being, your capacity to respond to the circumstances

[42:15]

of your life and develop your ability to be in a variety of circumstances and a variety of situations to know yourself, you know, and all the different feelings that can arise at different places and times, that kind of, to develop that capacity is, you know, something closer to the idea of realization or liberation. Liberation, then, is not to separate from things so that you don't have to connect with anything but to learn and study how to connect with you, yourself, in a variety of circumstances, with others under a variety of circumstances and that your response, you know, that we can learn how to respond in wider, you know, in different varieties of ways so we don't try to use the same strategy in every instance. You know, anger won't always get us through. Being sad doesn't always work. That there's, you know, that we could have a wider repertoire of possible responses and actions

[43:15]

in our life and not just one or two that we rely on and then get mad when, you know, people give us bad reviews. You don't appreciate me. Well, you're an intelligent, resourceful, creative person. You might learn some new strategies and skills and behavior. Sonja was just saying I'm very flexible since, you know, Linda's husband, Steve, called me this morning to see if I'd talk. But, you know, and it is kind of hard to give up a day without plans. You don't get that many days without plans, you know, so. To suddenly have plans for a day that you didn't have plans for. This was sometimes easier to change plans than... Well, do you have something you'd like me to talk about? Do you have questions? Comments? Interests? Yeah. When you were talking about choosing how you... choosing how you

[44:20]

respond, what reaction you have in situations, I... I know this is true and yet when I get angry I don't know it's true very well on getting angry. It's... I know it for a second that I've chosen to get angry. But it sure does seem hard to choose anything else. Yeah, once you get into it, it's pretty hard to choose something else. Emotion. And I know I once heard Yvonne Rand talking about anger being like an airplane that you've got to catch it when it's going down the runway, you know, once it gets off the ground. Once it gets off the ground, yeah. That sounds good. Yeah, but mine goes very quickly. Gets off the ground real fast. Yeah. Kind of like a helicopter sometimes. Yeah. And why do I choose it so much? It's the other one. Is that too quick? No, well, that's just... it's a... No, depending

[45:24]

on how you look at it, if you're getting angry in some situation, then it's kind of like, it can be like a strategy. But it's also, in a certain sense, it's like a... it can be like a... well, usually it's like a strategy. You know, like, this situation is one that warrants anger. I deserve it. You know, they deserve it. They should know that I'm angry and their knowing I'm angry is going to... and, you know, one believes at the time their knowing that I'm angry will make a difference in, you know, my life in the future and they won't treat me like that anymore and they won't do that again and, you know, various things, which if we stop and examine it, like you say, which we don't remember to do at the time, we would know it wasn't true, but... Yeah, so at some point you're... we're angry and it's a little too late to catch it. You have to catch it early on. It's true. Because... and it's becoming

[46:24]

intimate with, you know, how we make that choice or the way, you know, notice it in our body when we've made the choice and catch it at the time. Otherwise, yeah, you're... there's a whole rush of anger and then the question becomes not so much whether or not you're angry or whether you choose or not to be angry and it still helps probably to choose to be angry at that point rather than choosing not to because then you're... if you're choosing not to be angry when you're angry then that's like people telling you ... ... ... and it just makes you more mad. But... no, then you have a different kind of, you know, strategic decision to make about what you will do or what you will say. That's still possible. You know, and part of... part of having some freedom in that sense is that you could... you have a choice of what to do or say. I mean, that's what they're, you know, in some instances teaching kids in high schools now. Instead of just acting on your anger, why don't you think of five things you could do or five things you could say and then pick one of those rather than just taking the first one that comes your way. So...

[47:26]

So basically looking at different strategies before you get to that point? Well, before you're actually abusing somebody verbally or physically with your anger, you know, you think about all the things that you could do or say or, you know, you... that's the strategy of thinking. Think of a variety of things. Give yourself some options before you feel cornered into doing something, you know, or trapped or having... before you feel like, I have no choice now but to, you know, lash out verbally, physically, whatever. Give yourself some options. You know, don't add helplessness on top of that. Whatever. So... We're lucky to be here, aren't we? I mean, you know, I was thinking of all the times that I've gotten angry and, you know, people I've known have gotten angry and they were still alive. And, you know,

[48:26]

my cups and teapots and various things, you know, a lot of them still exist too now when they could easily have been smashed or the VCR or the computer. The other day, I couldn't find something on my computer. I'd... you know, I have a... a book My new book came out in April, I guess it was, Tomato Blessings and Radish Kitchens. And actually, for more than a year now, I haven't written. I'm not an avid writer, you know, where you make a practice of writing, you sit down at 9 o'clock every day so the muse knows where you are, you know, that sort of thing. And... so I don't write much but I'd written... started writing a little story and I'd gotten about four pages or so and then I couldn't find it on my computer. And I reminded myself to be calm and I'll just keep looking and I'll keep trying these different things. And... I started getting more and more upset at my computer illiteracy and the computers in general. And...

[49:27]

then my daughter came up, she's 24 now, came out to say goodnight and she said, are you looking for something on your computer? I could probably help you. With kids, you know. And... So I said, okay, why don't you look for it? And I told her about it. And then I started going on, you know, whimpering and whining. You know, I probably lost this and it's the only thing I've written in a year and a half. And she said, Dad, stop whimpering or I'm not going to help you. At work, too. You never know what's going to work and then Patricia, I heard her saying that Patricia, this person I live with, and then Patricia said later, gee, that was very brave. You know, she said to my daughter, like, and she said, that was very brave. He could have gotten angry and she said, yeah, I figured he'd either get angry or shut up. So she took a chance.

[50:30]

Hi. How are you doing? Well, what else? Yes. When you say that Rob would have, what exactly would it be? Like, what is your definition of Buddha in that sense that we all are? Awake. Enlightened. Perfect. Having trouble believing that? No. Well, I think there's the absolute sense and there's the relative and the absolute sense. I can see that it feels like a matter of faith really to believe that that is your true identity. Yeah. Right. It's a matter of faith certainly to start with. Yeah, but it's like,

[51:30]

it's so, as I was saying in my talk, it means that, you know, none of us deserve to be, you know, abused or you know, scorned. You know, and it doesn't help us either. So the way we, you know, treat ourselves, by and large, most of us have a strategy of aiming for self-improvement through self-disparagement. You know, and the better I disparage myself the more I'm likely to try to, you know, do something about that to prove that, you know, the disparager was wrong. So, basically, that kind of strategy doesn't work and then it's also inaccurate because, and what, you know, another way of saying it is just like, you don't need to have somebody tell you what to do in your life. Actually, we're perfectly capable, competent human beings and if left to our, you know, resources or devices in some sense, you know, we'll find out how to live our life

[52:31]

and that's what we're doing anyway but we might even do it a little more so. I like very much the expression Nanchuan, or one of the Chinese Zen masters, said, put yourself in the time before Buddha appeared in the world. He said, actually, I tell my students to put themselves in the time before Buddha appeared in the world. Very few of them get my meaning. But I think, I think it's pretty simple, you know, before Buddha appeared in the world, I mean, for the sake of our story anyway, there's nobody to tell you how to meditate, nobody to tell you how to live. What will you do? Well, you've got the resources and capacity to figure out how to live your life and to realize, you know, what was, what did you come to this world to do, you know, what's in your heart of hearts and, you know, to, Suzuki Roshi said, you know, you can see it as to purify your love or develop your character. You know, there's many ways to look at what a Buddha might be up to

[53:31]

as far as that goes. And it's, you know, and it's the understanding that inherently human beings, we don't come in this world to do evil for the most part, you know. There's very few people like that. You know, when we know, when we have some sense of our, what we came here to do, it's generally something to do with helping others or, you know, not causing harm, being non-harming, finding out how to love, how to be, you know, at home with, in the world and be of service in some way. So you're kind of telling us to have faith in the, in the goodness of human nature. Yeah, certainly in yourself, yeah. You know, in some absolute sense, human nature isn't good or bad, but, you know, tentatively speaking, we say, yeah, trust in your inherent goodness. You know, the idea, one of the stories that, you know,

[54:32]

whether it's the ten Oxfordian pictures or what, Zen teachers sometimes, I remember Irmgard Schlogel who was a Zen teacher and she used to say, you know, when you were little, you, you know, you, you took the parts of yourself that were happy and, you know, energetic and dynamic and put them down in the basement. It's the little dog. It's a dog, you know, and you put the dog down in the basement and you, and when the dog barks down in the basement, after a while, you move upstairs because you don't want to hear the dog barking. Pretty soon, you're in the attic, the dog's in the basement and then at some point in your life, you realize like, whoa, something's missing. You know, I've separated myself from myself. I left the dog in the basement. Now how do I get in touch with that? You know, with some real vitality and spontaneity and, you know, in a certain sense, goodness. But I thought I had to tell it how to behave. I thought I had to tell myself how to behave and I thought I, I thought I had to reject certain behaviors. So, by that point,

[55:32]

when you go down to the basement, you know, and you say, I'd like to become friends with you, you know, the dog snarls at you. I mean, let's face it, you know, you're most of, most of what happens to us, you know, most of what, I mean, a lot of our response like that then is what we've done to ourself. That's not just other people doing that. You know, it's also what we've done to ourself. We put some part of ourself in the basement. So whether it's the dog in the basement or, you know, Robert Bly has the black bag that you stuffed a lot of stuff into, we're spending a lot of our life trying to get stuff out of there. And re-own and, you know, re-inhabit or re-own our being. And know our resources. Do you have your hand up or are you just stretching? What's up? Having Buddhist jokes. Buddhist jokes? Well, how about this one? This is a good one for you, I think. If you have a bee in your hand, what do you have in your eye? A bee.

[56:32]

A bee. Beauty. Because beauty's in the eye of the bee holder. That's an old saying that beauty's in the eye of the bee holder. I have some more complicated Buddhist jokes, too, but... Do you have one? But speaking of jokes, did you hear that last Friday was the fourth critical nap? They're now having, you know, on Fridays, the last Friday of the month now, some people are having the, you know, some group of people basically through the net, they're having the fourth, they had the fourth critical nap. It was for 2 p.m. on last Friday, the last Friday of the month.

[57:33]

There's tons of net-connected professionals that have been yakking about it, and it appears to be growing. So it's possible, actually, to do critical nap and then critical mass. The formal instructions for critical nap are simple, just do it. But if you are more of the activist type, prior to your nap, you announce it to a co-worker or to your boss. And then if you're, you know, if you want to take it even further, you can tell people that you're participating in critical nap. I try to keep up on the news, you know. Yes? Yeah, me too. But then I got into it and I got really scared because I thought, I've got to take a breath but if I take a breath this is going to stop,

[58:36]

there's going to be a big gap here. And I ran out of breath and I had to take a breath and there wasn't any gap. It just, it was quite wonderful. And it made me laugh. I mean, it was, it was, I was smiling. I was laughing, but I didn't smile. And it was really interesting to think that there was such an important part of this. And of course, I wasn't important. Yeah, you were and it turns out there were other Buddhists too. It turned out there was other Buddhists too. Yes, right. With or without me, it would go on. I was really moved by that. Yeah. Great. Did you say, oh, was an Indian word for peace? American Indian? American Indian. Yeah, there's some, you know, but there's many languages but, you know, apparently in at least one American Indian language it's something like chow or shalom. Shalom. Peace, right? How? Oh. I don't,

[59:36]

anyway, I don't know, but, you know, part of this is just, how, oh. Yeah, how, oh. Something else? Yes. I was at the gym the other day and I don't watch TV very much, especially don't watch the news. And I'm sitting on my bicycle and there's a TV in front of me and it was, the police put a face in the eyes of, I don't even know how many people were there, I couldn't even look at it. It was just so upsetting to see that. I, so often I see things like that and I want to do something but I don't do anything. I'm thinking, even in speaking of this, I question myself speaking it. But as you said, computer, and you said something about eyes,

[60:38]

I'm going to make a commitment to write a letter to the newspaper. I study martial arts, I have for a long time and there are other ways to calm people besides that. Yeah, maybe sometime the martial arts people will start working with the police departments. Well, one of our people is actually a park ranger. I think it's so important, I think we need to. It seems to me like so many of them aren't looking for a reason to get out their anger. And they need to control. I mean, we all want to be in control but if we can control ourselves, that's the main thing, controlling ourselves. I'm going to write a letter. Thank you. Daniel Barnes, who's in a wheelchair, he started a program to do grief counseling. And they're now doing

[61:40]

grief counseling for, you know, all throughout the Bay Area for fire departments and in some instances police departments because it used to be that if anybody died, they called an ambulance. So it actually saves towns lots of money if the fire department can come or the police department and they don't have to haul the body away in an ambulance right away and not deal with it at all. So that's an example, actually. People are interested. You know, there's a point where people, government, you know, is interested in alternatives to what they're doing and especially if they can, you know, at some point it actually saves them money. Aside from, you know, their improvement in their behavior and in their, you know, knowing their own, you know, capabilities and capacities, as you say, to come in other ways. Just a moment. Yes. But more in the sense that,

[62:55]

you know, if you were a Buddha, you simply would act in that way. There's this sort of question in me about that everything we do is our life and it just is that in some sense. And I know that what you're saying is not only that it's fine if you are cruel to people or cruel to other beings, you know, but I find it very difficult to know where that space is. You know, the space where you're not. I mean, I actually,

[63:57]

I find it a little bit tricky to have them saying that you don't want to control other people, you want to control yourself. Because you don't want control. I mean, I don't feel like I want control of myself. But that there is some, there is some depreciation right and wrong. I mean, I just find it so hard because then it's kind of like there isn't, right? There isn't life at all. I don't know if I'm being too clear, but I was wondering. Well, the basic concept you know, is a little sort of confusing or scary. Suzuki Roshi used to say, as you were just saying, you know, if you try to follow the precepts, that's breaking the precepts.

[64:58]

You know, if you, and in that sense, if you control yourself through the application of some rules and regulations, that wasn't the spirit of, like Gargi Roshi used to say, let the flower of your life first bloom. How can your, how can the fullness of your life and the fullness of your heart, you know, be expressed in the world? So, he said, when you, you know, act from your true nature, then that's following the precepts. And yet, sometimes when you act from your true nature, somebody will say, that wasn't so good. Or you might later reflect on it and say, that's not so good. When you reflect on it and say, that's not so good, then you can apologize or you say, I'm sorry. Now, that's different than saying, I must be a bad person. Or if the police do something, you don't have to say to the, you try to respond to particular circumstances and not, you know, it's not any different than psychology, you know, where we say,

[66:01]

you know, let's look at the behavior, not the person. And let's see if we can change behavior and not think that, you know, this is a person who, you know, is fundamentally mean and so we don't even, why even talk to them? You know, even to talk to somebody, then we have to assume they have a, there's a possibility that they'll listen. Not that we can make them listen, but, you know, there's a possibility. So, the effort, one's effort becomes more like looking at, we don't have to question, you know, whether or not we're Buddha or something about our basic integrity or goodness, but we can look at particular behaviors and say, actually, that wasn't so skillful. That wasn't so good. I'm sorry, I could have done better. And we can, you know, encourage others to be able to say that too and not, when they say that, then get, you know, mad and, you know, mace them or whatever we do to people who admit that they actually did something wrong or, you know, they might have done better.

[67:03]

But yes, this is, this is exactly something, you know, that bears some, a kind of ongoing study. So there's no answer just today that we'll know from now on. At some point, you know, there's a way to understand good and evil that, you know, evil is, evil is thinking you could, you, you are the, evil has something to do with believing that you're the sole arbiter of good and bad and that you need to correct it. You know, if you're a policeman and you believe that that person is evil and you need to subdue them and you, you know, then that becomes evil. You know, it becomes evil to try to, to believe, well, it becomes evil to believe that you know what evil is and you should, and you're going to get rid of it. You know, then you will do all kinds of bad things, you know, in the name of good. So yes, it's an ongoing kind of problem. And it's not so easy for any of us to trust something

[68:06]

or to begin to learn how to trust our body or our being or our nature to respond rather than, but, you know, in my example earlier, if I, you know, I used to not be able to talk or say much of anything because I'd think, well, if I'm going to say something it should be the most profound thing that anybody's ever said and otherwise I better keep my mouth shut and all these other people are saying such foolish, trivial kinds of things. I don't want to be a foolish, trivial person like them. I want to be known as a deep and profound person. So then, pretty soon, how can you even open your mouth? And then that begins to get very frustrating, you know. These people are such idiots, they never want me to say anything and, you know, various things. So somehow I have to give my, if I want to develop my capacity to say much of anything I have to give myself permission to say some idiotic and trivial things just like everybody else and to say whatever I have to say

[69:06]

and then in the process of doing that I can study how I say things and how saying things one way, you know, there's certain reactions and then there's other reactions and I learn how to say things actually by talking and by making mistakes and putting my foot in my mouth and the only reason I can sit here and talk at all is I have some willingness to be a fool in front of all of you and if I wasn't willing to be a fool how could I be sure that, you know, something will come out of my mouth that, you know, might be relevant or might not but I also give you all permission you know, it's part of my capacity to talk is also that I give you permission to experience it however you want and you're welcome to think that it's, you know, kind of nonsense what I'm talking about or that it might be useful or it's interesting and at some point, you know, I also am convinced and part of my understanding of being a Zen teacher at all is, you know, the only real answers are going to come from you and finding your way in your life and because of your experiences

[70:07]

and knowing your experiences well enough to know what's what for you and that anything I say will basically be pretty insignificant or irrelevant except that, you know, maybe you're a little encouraged to go ahead and do that and at worst, you know, teaching will be something that interferes in your capacity to do that and you'll think that, you know, the answers are outside of you so, you know, there was a young American who was a monk in, you know, in Thailand with Achan Chah when Jack Kornfield was there and the monk says, well, you don't seem so enlightened and he said, well, thank goodness, huh? And the monk said, well, why is that? And he said, well, if I seem like enlightened, you'd still be looking for the answers outside of yourself, wouldn't you? You'd be looking to me for the answers. So, I encourage you, you know, to continue and actually, you see, in that sense, it's actually useful then to be confused and to not know the answer because if you,

[71:07]

once you know the answer, you'll start to defend it, you know, because you'll want, you know, you want your answer to have been right and you won't want to admit that your answer was wrong and you won't want to admit that actually you don't know what's good and what's bad. You won't want to admit that so then you'll attack anybody who questions, you know, your understanding, you know, and starts to give you a little idea that maybe you're wrong. No, I'm not. So, if you're confused, then actually you can, you know, check out a lot of things. If you don't know the answer, then, you know, you can actually find out something. So, it's not so bad. It's, you know, rather good. Thank you. Yes? Yes? How did I overcome my fear of being a fool? I asked the,

[72:09]

I asked my internal critic to take a break. Go watch TV in the other room. Let me say something because, and I, I spent some time one day explaining to my inner critic that, you know, I don't, actually, I wasn't going to be much good at saying anything if my inner, if you don't let me say anything, how can I learn to say anything? It's not working, fellow. So, you know, wise up. And, you know, give me a chance to say something. And the big fear of your inner critic is that if your inner critic ever shuts up, you'll just do her in. Like you're, you know, you know, the inner critic knows damn well that you're just as soon be done with her. You know, so, so then, you know, it better keep busy all the time and not ever shut up because otherwise, you know, you won't ever let her back again. So, it's actually skillful means, you know, in that sense to promise your inner critic that, you know, leave you alone for a few minutes to say what you have to say and then, and then welcome her back to tell her what she has to say about what you just said. That's,

[73:10]

that's skillful means, you know, not like I should never have an inner critic and I should never have to listen to you again and just shut up and leave me alone and let me do what I feel like. That's not quite right. We have the capacity to act and express and, you know, ourselves and then we have the capacity to reflect on it and we should have some good balance and there's a time for both of them. So, you give yourself, you know, whether you see it as, you know, asking your inner critic to let you do that or just giving yourself permission. You give yourself permission to go ahead and do and say something and then, and then, you know, reflect on what that was about and how well it worked or didn't. And, of course, the ironic thing was, you know, the more I've given myself permission, the more, actually, what I have to say and do seems not so bad, you know, on the whole. You can still make mistakes and put your foot in your mouth but, on the whole, gee, that's pretty nice. So... Yes? I just felt compelled

[74:12]

to say that, regarding the pepper spray in your eyes, that that was, that that was really about the protesters who were really, were protesting for headliners. I feel like it's just something that has to be included in that, the whole idea since they were, you know, if there's anything to come out of this besides just some really damaged young people that they were trying to bring this issue to people's attention. So, if there's any celebrating going on right now at those hospitals, it's that they're back on the front page. Yes? Yeah, um, I feel horrified that there's a paper, too, and that a video's gotten out, and so forth. But, I also have to look

[75:13]

at what happened at Stanford about a couple of years back when students were Yeah, that's why we have precepts. We're all capable of behaving like that. So, we need something to remind ourselves of that. And, in some way, you can understand the precepts, not to kill as, you know, don't rely on killing or don't depend on killing as the solution, because it's an easy thing to do. And any of us can get caught up in it. So, we remind ourselves, you know, to look for other answers and other solutions. Yes? I read something recently that, um, the beginning of evil is numbness. And, maybe, it goes to what you were talking about at Stanford. If you start thinking

[76:14]

about groups of people or, or seeing people being prisoners or being in the wrong, and it's easy not to feel empathy or compassion for, for them. And, and then that's the beginning of, of evil. Also, I think it's interesting that this happened near us at a week where the premier of China is visiting and everybody's going, well, we shouldn't even welcome this guy because of horrible human rights abuse. And then, here it is right in our backyard. Yeah, the Chinese don't have a monopoly on human rights abuse, do they? Yes? I have a question about Sangha. Yes. How do you choose Sangha? Oh. That's a tough question. Yeah. I feel very torn because here in my home, I, I've become kind of indulged

[77:14]

in for some reason, but I just got back from traveling for a year and I was supposed to be in Tibet, which I love as well. Yeah. I don't know. I think choosing a Sangha is pretty similar to choosing anything, choosing a relationship or and it seems to me there doesn't necessarily need to be a problem between, you know, which, which is which or, you know, which is yours. I don't know that you, that you can't belong to more than one Sangha as far as that goes. At some point, you know, our life is, you know, has something to do with some basic

[78:15]

interest we have or wish, you know, so you could also look at it in terms of, well, wherever I am, I'm going to see how to find out how to create Sangha, you know, and when I'm with this Sangha, I will, you know, see how to be with this Sangha and when I'm with another one, I will find out how to be with that one. At some point, you know, there's no answer or way to say how to choose a Sangha. It's something to do because your heart moves in various ways and there you have it. I came, you know, at a pretty young age to Zen and I met Suzuki Roshi and that was pretty nice and, but I also like black cushions, you know. I go to Tibetan places sometimes and I think, this is garish, all these red and yellow cushions and, whoa, all these decorations and these tankas and things, whoa, and then, you know, if somebody's a student of Tibetan Buddhism, they could come in here

[79:15]

and say, it's all so somber and, you know, black, what's with this place? So, my aesthetic is, you know, I kind of like the aesthetic of monotone chanting, you know, rather than, but when I go to, I have some friends at an ashram, so then when I go there and they go, da, da, da, they have all this singing, chanting, you know, that's kind of Indian, it actually moves through your body. It's pretty sweet, you know, and nice and the tones go up and down and, you know, pretty soon your body's, you know, sort of energized and so, I don't know, but, you know, basically, I kind of like, you know, it's just an aesthetic decision, you know, so there's no telling, there's no accounting for, you know, your heart having its aesthetics and it will, it will take you to various places as you've noticed. Yes? You were talking to me about separation and somehow it just kind of

[80:16]

forced me. Yeah. Is there a time when separation is a good thing? I mean, as far as being a good instructor? Yeah, actually. You know, you know, because separation also has to do with survival. So, you know, if your, if your immune system is compromised or you're not well or you're sick, you know, some sense of separation generally is stimulating. You know, it actually stimulates your immune system like this is a matter of survival and, you know, and, um, but also, um, there's a sense in which, uh, you know, regardless of what your experience, you know, you can call it, you know, separation or sadness, uh, desperation, fear, uh, you know, there are different strategies. This is something I didn't get around to in my talk, um, but, you know,

[81:19]

the, the overall strategy in Zen or the, you know, the high, the highest strategy is, uh, just, you know, don't fuss or don't meddle with the way things are. Mirror the way things are. So, if you're feeling separation, you know, the, this strategy is just go ahead and mirror separation. You know, and people's idea tends to be, you know, we tend to have a more direct approach. No, actually, I want to feel oneness or I'd like calm. I want tranquility. I want peace. And so, then, we practice, you know, inducing that in ourselves. And actually, there's this, there's a place for that, you see. So, there's a place and a time for having a direct strategy. You know, if you sit down and you go to follow your breath and after a while in following your breath, you can start to feel actually calm and stable. And it's because you make this direct effort. I'm going to

[82:19]

follow my breath now. Now, at some point, you know, you, you may start to notice I feel awfully separate. You may have some feeling or sense of that. So, at that time, it may be useful kind of strategy actually to support that feeling. You know, and to see how to actually give yourself permission in that sense to feel that feeling fully and actually strengthen it a little bit. So, you really know what it feels like. And that kind of effort is, tends to be quite empowering, you know, at the right time then. It's very empowering because it lets you be you. And it supports you being you. Oh, you're really feeling separate. Okay. Let's do that. So, regardless of whether you say, and so, because it is actually hard to know then, you know, what's appropriate or inappropriate. So, we're, we're trying to find out when is a good time to be direct or when, when should we be indirect,

[83:19]

you know. When do we stand up against something? You know, when do we, you know, what should we do? What's some, you know, appropriate or useful behavior? And then sometimes, you can just be transparent with your separation. So, to be transparent, you know, is you don't say it's right or wrong or good or bad. You know, this is basic, you know, fund, the most fundamental instruction for Zen meditation, Dogen says, it's the essential art of meditation, you know. Not thinking good, not thinking bad, not deciding, oh, it's bad to feel separate. And just letting your separation be what it is. This is to be transparent with it. And this, in itself, is healing because our tendency will be to start to think when I feel separate, there's something wrong with me. I'm a bad person. I'm an evil person. It's, it's because I was bad or evil that I feel separate. This goes back, you know, also, you see, to the,

[84:19]

the Christian idea you know, even to be born as sinful, to separate, you know, from the divine and get incarnated as an individual being, you know, you must have done something, you know, because here you are. And you're now in a separate body. You know, you're separate from God. And you'll have to start to say, so you must have been sinful or bad. So, this idea is something that comes up in a lot of instances that the reason we feel some way is because of our goodness or badness or our rightness or wrongness. So, teaching in Zen is, you know, don't think good, don't think bad, but can you just be with the experience in a kind of transparent way? But again, you know, that's not the only answer because then at some point you will start to think this is bad and you know, I shouldn't do this and you might try then. Can you just promote or, you know, you can, you could work directly at being calm or, you know, sitting or stabilizing yourself or you can actually give yourself permission and accentuate the feeling of separateness

[85:20]

and then because you accentuate it, when you accentuate it it's like finding out how you do it. And then when you, as you find out how to do it, then you, then you have the capacity not to do it too. So, you actually, the usefulness of it then is, you know, to identify with it at times and actually in the long run you will be empowered by your capacity to experience it. And it, and it, and it is connected as I said to, you know, there's a kind of energy that goes with separation which is a survival energy. There's a lot of power there. Yes? I applied to the practice period at Tassajara and in terms of what you're talking about restricting the self, there's something about a monastic way of life that, it's pretty restrictive. How you do things, you know, begins to guide the community living. Yeah.

[86:20]

So, maybe you could talk a little bit about how to respond to that situation still encouraging your at-homeness. Well there, did you hear the question? No. Okay. This is someone who may be going to Tassajara and entering the monastic life. So the question is if you, by the way, if any of you, rest of you, you know, would like to leave or anything, I noticed some people are going so we'll stop pretty soon but if you, you know, have things to do or whatever, you're welcome to go. So the question is if you take on the monastic regulations and you put those on yourself or you are, you know, you accept them as your way of life then how do you also then, you know, how is this different than your own rules or regulations or how do you have some freedom or being at home in that circumstance? And it's true, you know, some people get in that circumstance and they feel very alienated especially when it comes to those fool

[87:20]

little eating bowls, you know, and their claws and everything and you're eating with a spoon and chopsticks and whatever. You know, I used to think of it sometimes as a revenge of the Japanese for losing the Second World War. You know, the weird part, the weirdest part is that little stick, you know, that's the cleaning stick and you've got that cloth in there and you're cleaning your bowl with this little stick and you start to wonder like what's in that, what's in that cloth and anyway. There are various, you know, there are various ways to think about forms and, you know, one way, you know, and certain people will find it useful to study with forms or, you know, in that sense, rules, regulations and study particular forms and other people won't think it's so useful, won't find it so useful. So, I think it's helpful if you're going to be following if you have some,

[88:23]

you know, at the same time you're studying like what's the true spirit of this and not just how do I get the form right. How do I perfect my practice of this form as though that was the reason to have form and that you could get better at it and do it better and that you could do it better than other people and that you could be proud of yourself for that and, you know, that you could think you were getting somewhere. So, this is a possibility, you know, we've all known people like that and then, you know, I could never do it well enough or I would have been one of those people, you know, so, because other people were already doing that I didn't have to, you know. So, I studied more like well, what's the point here, you know, what is, what's the spirit of this kind of practice and in that sense then form has something to do with noticing what you are doing and it's not so much that you actually accomplish the form but because there's a form you may notice at times you're doing something else and so, again, it's like, so, it's what I was talking about earlier

[89:23]

to notice what it is you are doing gives you freedom because it gives you the capacity then to do it or not do it and so, usually, you could just say to people, well, why don't you just notice what you're doing? Why don't you just be aware? And it doesn't work that well for most of us. Most of us don't have that kind of capacity to just be aware and actually notice what it is we're doing. So, we get little devices like, okay, well, in that case since you can't just notice why don't you try doing this? Then you'll notice that sometimes you do and then you'll notice all these other things that you do besides this thing that we said to do. So, it actually gives you, you know, if you study it that way you can, you actually will end up, you know, finding out something about yourself and knowing what it is you do do and you, you know, in the meantime, you know, Kadagiri Roshi said to me one time I asked him, you know, a similar or kind of a question, you know, and he said,

[90:24]

for 20 years I tried to do this asana of dogon before I realized there was no such thing. You know, form isn't about accomplishing it or attaining it, you know, or perfecting it and so, but it can be a very useful tool to notice in where you are. If you'd go to do this bow, you know, simple example, if you go to do this, you know, the form is your hand is, your fingers are at your nose level, your hands are one hand width from your face, your elbows are, you know, your fingers come together, your fingers don't go like this and they don't go like this, you know, and that takes a certain, you know, degree of, you know, one hand you're being very direct and you are directing your hands and, you know, how do you get your energy and how do you get your energy out of your head for one thing, you know, this is another side of form is that to practice a form your energy has to go out of your mind, out of your thinking and some place into your body and especially useful is into the extremities, you know, so then if you can

[91:24]

get your energy to go whoom, that gets your energy out of your thinking and out of your head and then, but sometimes you'll find you're doing this. And I had times where I couldn't get my elbows away from my side and it's something to do with, oh, there's some fear there, isn't there? Whoa. So you find out something about what's going on because you go to do this and you're not doing it. Then you realize, oh, I have fear here and, you know, if I move my elbows away from my side that's protecting my fear and I have length and how can I be a little less fearful, more fearless? You know, so you're finding yourself in your body and your being because you try to practice a certain practice or a certain form and it's so you don't, and don't get caught in actually accomplishing it or attaining it and you'll be okay. Yes?

[92:27]

What is it like when you experience it? I think you've probably done that, honey. But you probably, you know, so probably, you know, what you actually want to know is how could you know, yeah, which is which and whether I've actually done that. So, how do I know when, what's it like to, you know, experience your experience? And, you know, in a certain sense we're different and we're doing that every moment and you, you know, it's useful to believe in that sense that you, I must be doing it even this moment so my experience of feeling separate is a true experience of my experience of what it is to feel separate. You know? And to experience my experience doesn't just mean like, oh, then I would be in bliss if I did that or something different or special would happen if I did that as opposed to what's happened so far in my life. You know?

[93:31]

But, so it's, it's just as useful to, you know, it's like the idea, it's like enlightenment, say, you know, if you have the idea about enlightenment that, if you have a certain idea about what enlightenment is.

[93:42]

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