I vow to kiss the tooth of the darkest words. What is this? The last lesson of Father. The three that we've had for this aspect of practice that we should practice. Four, we're going to schedule a lounge at the school that he wasn't going to. Theme has been something like interpenetration. It's not a bad thought. I would add it to my next article. Negations. And how we are experiencing the world today is the model of how we are out here.

[01:26]

And how that is, I see it as part of our practice. And how it can affect our practice and also how our practice can affect history. As most of you know, it was the second director of the police police control. And in the same circumstances, he established them, which actually does work. It's a good way to help them through. It's a period of the organization's own internal problems, which are not disconnected from what's going on in the world.

[02:32]

There's issues that come up there around finances around California as well. The issues of finances, issues of currency that people feel expressed in different ways to each other are deeply influenced by the institutions that exist in our world. Because of events around 9-11, there's a whole lot less money for And so that tights the spruce on them. And so these are not abstract organizations. They're actually groups that we have to work with. It affects their livelihood. And so it's just one other realm in which things are.

[03:35]

are affected by the global effect of war. So what I wanted to do was talk for a while, maybe come at it from a number of different angles, and then have a discussion. If you suggest directions, have a discussion. I'm sure there are lots of questions that will come up. It's OK with me if you interrupt me. The notion of engaged Buddhism has evolved over the last several years. The sense is that the actual words, age, Buddhism, seem to arise in Vietnam with Thich Nhat Hanh and a bunch of other monks who were very much involved in society.

[05:03]

And interestingly, some of them have received extensive educations in France. And so it sort of came along with the existentialist movement, where the notion of engagement was an idea that was circulating widely. And I think it was circulating widely, particularly in France in the aftermath of World War II, when French intellectuals were very involved in political activism and involved in the underground. And so that's one of the intellectual streams that flows into Buddhism in Vietnam. But it's also true that The reality of engagement has never been very distant from the monastic tradition in Vietnam, in Sri Lanka, or in Thailand, or in Japan.

[06:09]

It expresses itself in different ways, but in my experience, Southeast Asia, said even though monks wouldn't necessarily call themselves Asian Buddhists, they were completely involved with life in the communities that they were in. And even though they lived a life according to the Vinaya, where they lived by very strict, clear rules, they were also working with children, working with families. What I've seen in Thailand is that the monasteries, they don't have a social service system. They did it the same way that we used to in California. And so you'll see a lot of You'll see a lot of disabled people physically and mentally around the monasteries.

[07:16]

You'll also see just about every benji dog that nobody wants around monasteries. They're just, it's, you know, taking refuge is a, is a literal, you know, constant, is a literal act of humility. But, coming here, Even before, well, no, around the same time Stephen Hawking started to come here, there were people here, Robert Higgins, Paul Sturgeon, Snyder, James Macy, Richard Baker, a number of people in the Buddhist world, Western Buddhists, both of whom were feeling that their understanding of Dharma was leading them to innate positions in the world, positions based on the holy scientific facts.

[08:17]

But I think, in many ways, the clearest statements, the clearest kind of grounding in Darwin has not been made by Marx. I wanted to start with something that he says. Meditation is not to get out of society, to escape from society, but to prepare for a re-entry into society. We call this engaged Buddhism. When we go to a meditation center, we may have the impression that we leave everything behind, family, society, and all the complications involved, and come as an individual in order to practice and to search for peace. This is already an illusion because in Buddhism there is no such thing as an individual.

[09:20]

Just as a piece of paper is the fruit, a combination of many elements that can be called non-paper elements, the individual is made of non-individual elements. If you are a poet, you will probably see that there is a cloud floating on this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no water. Without water, trees cannot grow. Without trees, we cannot make paper. So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of the cloud. Paper and cloud are so close. And it goes on. And if you look more deeply with the eyes of a Bodhisattva, with the eyes of those who are awake, you see not only the cloud and the sunshine, but that everything is here. The wheat that became the bread for the locker to eat, the locker's father, everything is in this human being. In another piece by Dick Cullen that I used to have over my desk, he had this poster about the people of Black Oak.

[10:56]

It says, mindfulness must be engaged. Mindfulness. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what is the use of seeing? This mindfulness isn't the center of our consciousness. It's the key to our body, and it's the key to our lives. The question to ask is, how is it engaged? Is this engagement?

[11:57]

Is it part of our understanding that arises, or is it something extra that is added on? Buddha's teaching of mindfulness. He advises to be mindful of the body, the body, the feelings, the feelings, the breath, the breath. And I think this means being aware of actions and things from within themselves. Aware that we're never apart from our body, from breath, from our feelings. And it seems as if we're never apart from the world. We're always engaged in the world. There is a Zen saying, which means, there is no place that's not holy.

[13:04]

As Mel said, a couple of months ago, he said, don't treat anything or anyone as an object. Treat everything as an outside or a self. Consider everything as one's self. Then you're treated carefully. And there's no question about whether you're engaged or not. Let's sit up. Take some breaths. Take a deep breath in through your nose. And out really slowly. When you breathe this way, we're very, very in our breath.

[15:39]

We're in this small group. And it's, the molecules of air that were just in my lungs, right now, we can create hands and arms of this, and vice versa. There's something I read a while ago, and it's kind of mind-boggling, that every breath we take contains atoms that were once made by Christ. by Caesar or by Hitler. It's like, that kind of makes you stop a second. It might be apocryphal science.

[16:43]

I'm not sure. Rain. What? Rain. Rain? The rain is also a way to keep you out of the virus. That's right. Your body is as a star. Yes. So, you know, it's like the energy that we transmute through our body, in our actions, is conserved forever. The physical molecules are there. They change. But I think that the Dharma teaches this, and it spurs us to affirm it with our own experience.

[17:44]

So right now, not so far from here, in Lucent, but there are 4,000 men reading Lucent here. or your son, or your child, or your younger, or your two, or your pilot, or your women, or your children, or your people, or your Burma, or your Iraq, these whole planet is just breathing right now. So my sense is that it's not that mindfulness must be gauged. It's that it is. We can enjoy our freedom. Because we feel comfortable. We have these beings. And we don't have to suffer.

[18:47]

Because these beings are suffering. And we're not comfortable. So mindfulness. with the reflexes. Once they're seeing, they must be active. Seeing, right view, seeing is right view. Right view is the first step of the whole camp. And it's seeing that We live in a web of limited minutes. And it's also seen into the nature of the minutes. And we also know that seeing is not enough. We have to stop seeing.

[19:47]

You know, what life was about was just to see. For instance, when you look at your teeth, it gets fuzzier and fuzzier. And you never brush your teeth. But we actually brush our teeth. And that's just action to take care of our body. You know, a lot of the stuff we do now, in our actions, our life. Books.

[20:57]

Where do you do it? You put a book in. You put a book right here in front of it. And now the book is in his mindfulness. You can open it into the next message. Nonviolence. which is the essence of Catholicism, is a not-so-exalted regimen that can be practiced only by a monk or his ambassador.

[22:03]

It also pertains to the way one interacts with a child, vacuums a carpet, or waits in line. Besides the more obvious forms of violence, Whenever we separate ourselves from a given situation, for example, through inattentiveness, negative judgments, or emotions, we, as a system, kill something valuable. However subtle it may be, such violence actually leaves the victims in its wake. People, things, one's own composure, the moment itself. According to the Buddhist record, these small-scale incidents of violence accumulate relentlessly or multiply on a social level and become the source of large-scale violence that can sweep down upon us so suddenly. And what need not wait until war is declared when bullets are flying to work for peace?

[23:05]

Buddhism teaches a more constant and equal urgent battle must be waged each day against the forces of one's own anger, carelessness, and self-absorption. That's pretty good. Because I think that there's a dimension of engaged gruesomeness. It's really hard. It's still hard for me. We understand how to deal with it. We understand the imperative to deal with our own emotions. And we have our one-on-one interactions that make sense. And we can see the suffering that comes from it. But in this very point that violence accumulates and is multiplied on a social level and is a source of a large-scale violence, then that's where

[24:14]

Actually, some of us have taken it in mind. In practice, not just engagement, but socially engagement. And that structures are created that seem to have a life of their own. Structures of oppression, sexism, patriarchy, racism, xenophobia, which You know, one-on-one, if you talk to somebody who you may feel is part of a system that is acting progressively, you may find that person perfectly nice, perfectly reasonable. And it's almost as if there's this other energy, this electric energy, that has its own life. And yet, My sense is, while that's true, there are structures.

[25:20]

But I feel like our work is to win people over, to see their lives. To see that these structures are actually, they are also impermanent. and non-self. They're co-constructed by people who participate in them. I'm sorry, but I wanted to ask you, you use the term engaged in Judaism several times, but I haven't heard that before. It sort of seems like a proxymoron. Is that a term that Is that something that you've ever learned about? Because I just don't... I don't... because I don't really understand... I just don't know what it means exactly, or if it's a sort of a stamp, apparently, that everybody else has heard.

[26:28]

I just don't know what it means. Just somebody ask for me please. I'm still accepting the term because it seems like I would accept it if we engaged. It seemed like it moved beyond this direction that Dave and Eric had gone on. It just, it just kind of kicked out of I think it's about this awareness that we don't have. I think we have the ability to communicate about what's going on.

[27:33]

So, you know, we're trying to set these up as practices that, you know, allow us to think about what's going on, what's going on, what's dangerous. It's really simple. Well, was it, was it mindfulness? It must be engaged once they receive it. You've heard of that? Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't in the book. It wasn't in the book. It was me. Anyway, go ahead. So it seems like the school of photographs, social activism, engaged with it, is a community of people that are doing things that are, in a sense, kind of fun, lively, very unique, that want to write about it, read about it, mix it, and see things that are going on.

[28:47]

This might be part of what, in fact, it is. All practicing sincerely, there's engagement in each movement, so at least we're looking forward to actually writing about it or transmitting it to colleagues. Well, I take that. Thich Nhat Hanh is a really good example. Because he comes down strongly on both sides of the fence.

[29:50]

And it's like he jumps on his horse and rides off in all directions. So. You know, when you hear him, well, let me read something else, because I think we'll get away with this. After 9-11, he gave an interview. And so he says, if I were given the opportunity to be face-to-face with Osama bin Laden, the first thing I would do is listen. I would try to understand why he had acted in that cruel way. I would try to understand all the suffering that had led him to violence. It might not be easy to listen in that way, so I would have to remain calm and lucid. I would need several friends with me who are strong in the practice of listening, listening without reacting, without judging and blaming.

[31:00]

In this way, an atmosphere of support would be created for this person and those connected, so that they could share completely, and trust that they are really prepared. After listening for some time, we might need to take a break, to allow what has been said to enter into our consciousness. Only when we felt calm and lucid would we respond. And we would respond point by point to what he would say. And we would respond gently but firmly in such a way as to help them discover their own misunderstandings so that they will stop violent acts from going on with them. Can you back up to that violent brief, the sentence before the end? After listening for some time, we might need to take a break to allow what has been said to make room for our consciousness. Only when we felt calm and lucid would we respond.

[32:03]

We would respond point by point to what had been said. We would respond gently but firmly in such a way to help them discover their own misunderstandings so that they will stop filing acts of their own will. And whether or not this is practical, I have three doubts. But there's a principle to it. So one of the things that I've heard people online teaching and seeing doing over the last decade or so, And it's appeared that from his early days in Vietnam, he was an activist and he was a pretty radical person in shaping up the Sangha. And in becoming involved, he started this large training project called the School for Social Work.

[33:09]

Vietnam during the war. And he had students on both sides of the war. And he saw his fellow Huns and Huns killed, assaulted, set themselves on fire. And they would lead their meditation retreats when it comes to going to pick up bodies in the streets. This is very hard practice, very hard practice. And he came to the United States as a theorist voice for Buddhism that was linked with social action. So that's the one thing. And over the last decade, what he's been talking more and more about has been communications within one's family.

[34:15]

Basically, this awareness as the necessary ground for any action, awareness of independence, awareness of how we co-create our suffering, first of all, with people that we're closest to, with our friends and our family. And I think implicitly suggesting that if we can't get those relationships straight, probably is wise not to try to fix the larger and more intractable problems of the world. In other words, you begin very close to home. In fact, I think you begin right at home by, as Donut said, by taking a backward step to shine your light in the world, to actually see

[35:22]

What are the tensions, the contradictions, the forces that are operating within oneself? So you start there, and you work with your partner, your family, or work in the Sangha. You think it's a day at the beach. Just being in the Sangha, It's not. It's a surprise. Probably most of you know. I'm sure there are people who don't like what we do online. How we work together and how we are aware of our own participation is the essence of DH Boots. So in that sense, I think, from what people say, what Ross is saying, I do think that engage Buddhists in this kind of consumer.

[36:29]

And there are people who feel that their practice is to take this further path, to actually take it in some gallons and say, service, you know, our homeless leaders and men's shelter. To me, that's social engagement. That's social inclusion. It's sharing just the tiniest part of the privilege that we have with these men who have very little. And what's surprising is that people who you might pass in the street and not be in contact with, you're serving them food. They're just people. And they're really appreciative.

[37:33]

And there's a warm feeling in that moment. You're not solving the problem of their lives, and they're not solving the problem of your life. But right in that moment, there's awareness of connection. And in that connection, through that moment, there's non-suffering. That seems like a really important point. We've already lost it. Like, we're not solving their problems, but we're helping them. We're [...] helping them. I regret it for a long, long time, but it's something that

[38:41]

But life isn't like that. We have to play the most difficult sonata before we know it's going to succeed. It's not like the first work of a star is going to fail. Right. You're thrown right out into the deep water from the beginning. Right. I said about life. But I think what we do, what we learn in this practice, is even though that's true, you have to totally master swimming instantly. What we learn is how we view our experience moment to moment and moment to moment. So it does actually get, while there is some continual flow, But there also is moment-to-moment awareness.

[39:44]

And within each moment, within any given moment, we can be free, and we can help something else be free. And we have to reckon with... So we've talked about, you know, in Mahatma's Once there is seeing, so seeing is seeing into the nature of things that exist. Seeing into the nature of not self, that things are co-constructed. And seeing into nature, so these are the three marks. Seeing into the nature of that they are. All things are marked by Dukkha, which you can consider as suffering, or you can consider as ill, or incomplete.

[40:46]

I like incomplete. And we have to accept moment by moment that these things are incomplete, that I may have this wonderful and freeing exchange with somebody, a revenge shelter. But that's not complete. It's complete for that moment. But it's not like necessarily going to change the communication. It's a fact of life. It's like my life. That each moment just leads to another. And we have to leave things unfinished, or not. And we have to reckon on people's suffering. Does that make sense? Some Fridays I would have a sign up for a show, and I'd go there, and I'd sit with it, and I'd probably scale myself.

[41:49]

You know, in your words, it's kind of like that moment, there is... No, it's not like I could see this conversation and it's not really big problems, it's just, you know, just getting out of the world, re-engage. I come back and I still have that problem, but that moment I felt free, you know, for a couple of hours, I felt free. I mean, I had that experience. I've been working for a while at the federal prison. It's supposed to be in Dublin. It's always people out here. And I went out there today. And then once I'm there, I mean, basically what we're doing is sitting in Zazen. And then after Zazen, we have a discussion. And you know, it feels good. And when I'm on my way out there, it's an A-air. And it's them.

[42:54]

And you have the guards at the gate getting in. It's like this whole thing that I've objectified as absolute. Once I'm there, I'm in the middle. And we're just sitting in a circle. And I see this as meaningful and useful, especially in a place like that. And it's like an event shelter. It's like, for them to have a moment when somebody's offering a meal, is really, it has an effect. You don't know what that effect is. To go and, you know, use Austin with these women, you know, it's so chaotic. And so we'd like to have a half hour or an hour where it's safe, you know, that's offering something. So, I think that's what, Naive or not, that's what Thich Nhat Hanh is talking about.

[43:59]

That he feels he could offer to the Sangha a lot. I don't want to get caught on the Sangha a bit a lot. It's like... Whenever you talk about accepting things as they are, invariably so many people come up in them. And Osama bin Laden is right up there for us. But it's the process. So one of, I think, the key tool, I think I can think of two tools that I use. in the process of engaged Buddhism. And I'm kind of leaving open this question about how we act in the world, whether it has to be all individual. one-to-one interactions, or whether there's room for mass activities, demonstrations, or whatever.

[45:01]

I'm curious to know what people think. The tools that I can see offering that have proven most useful to me is, first of all, is just receiving, just hearing what someone has to say, what their suffering is. And sometimes what's called for is to then ask them to listen to you, but not always. To me, that's what's missing from listening to you. It's a little troubling to me. What I was going to say, having a qualm about saying it, but I'll say it anyway, is that there's something about this piece that I've been thinking about a lot.

[46:08]

I think this listening, sometimes there's just listening, and sometimes this listening is exciting. Often it has a lot of excitement. And I felt in this piece, as I was reading it, that in some subtle or not so subtle way, Thich Nhat Hanh was taking the position of power in the dialogue by setting himself up as the person to listen. without there being the other side. Yeah, and he's ganging up on her of some, too, because he's getting his buddies there, just as good as he is, of course, to support him. Maybe. Yeah. Well, he says that, right? Right. Well, he said he would need some friends, and I think that's actually a good idea. Well, I do, too. But there has to be people in this process of listening, because there is risk involved.

[47:23]

There also has to be some container of safety. This has been my experience. So sometimes each person needs to have a friend, not necessarily even to do anything, but to be there with you. to be there as a witness for the listening to be true. It needs to be as safe as possible. So anyway, that's one. Thank you. Thank you. It seems to me, you know, there's no answer. Right. But that's important. Right. We know that it's there for a reason. The stuff that we do, where it is for a reason.

[48:28]

Right. Right. And that's the mind. We cultivate that mind that hears the cries of the world. We're also, in our human form, perhaps more fully liberated than we are. It's completely open and as free as we are. I still don't fully understand what it is you're talking about. I wish you could explain it. I feel that Kim Kahn-Lan is taking a moral high ground in this particular piece. And I think that taking a moral high ground is

[49:29]

highly impractical with most people, actually. It's not only practical, it's naive. It's both. Naive is a whole other thing. But how do you make it Once you take the moral high ground, you're already unconsciously projecting power over it. And that's not going to... that doesn't lead to peace. So it's really hard. This is a really tricky question. Do they feel, in relation to any of the political or social conflicts we have in the world, that that your view is the ethically morally correct. And it, in fact, may be according to some standard.

[50:32]

But if you go into resolution with that mind, then probably you won't find a resolution. And so there's a tension. So here's the tension that It's the next tool that I think of, which is offering or not giving generosity.

[51:35]

And in one of these old collection practices, like the city of Bagra, the battle of purification. You know, it basically says, when all else fails, when you're in conflict with somebody, just give a gift. You know, you give a gift without the expectation of anything. But it's just, if you can't talk to them, if you can't resolve, you can always give a gift. But you have to do that without any expectation of an end. Well, that's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking. So this is the intention. The intention is, in the realm of Buddha mind, you give a gift.

[52:39]

without any expectation about it. You just listen from the point of action. And in the world, we also have, particularly the world as it comes through various Western traditions, we have the notion of justice, which is exemplified by status. And the tension between accepting things as they are and balancing the scales is a real challenge for how we do that. The challenge is constantly with that what we do over and over. That's a constant challenge. So actually, I'd like to open up for questions.

[53:42]

I'd like to just hear what your second tool is, please. Generosity. Thank you. For instance, if you want to talk about naive, fiercely naive, what would What would the effect be if we just really gave the Iraqi people all the food and medicine and education that they may be forgiven to go back to Islam? What would the effect of a foreign policy based on that be? I mean, yes, just give it freely. It would be cheaper than the bombs we're going to do. It might jumpstart a whole lot of industries other than the

[54:49]

military industrial complex in this country. But that's, so that's something I've been thinking about, actually. I've been trying to do some research on. You're from India? Yeah. Yes. He's an economist. Uh-huh. He's carried this idea to my left, to my right. And he's carried it to extremes. Just exactly right, yeah. He's also very much working with the World Health Organization on the TB, malaria, and AIDS legislation. I mean, my feeling is, how could it be any worse? How could it have a worse outcome? And would it be any more expensive? What I don't understand is, is they have, they have all this oil.

[55:57]

Really? Yeah. Why can't they just buy their own food? Well, that isn't true. I mean, I think they're selling it. I wanted to ask about the- about the listening, the deep listening. I've heard Marshall Rosenberg with the Center for Nonviolent Communication, and I read his book on that, about the power of listening and the kind of help you need

[57:06]

And that you come to a place when you have that deep listening, and my limited experience of equality, which I don't know how that fits into the Western notion of balancing, but there is... I found that I always let go of my moral high ground. But it sort of comes at the end of the process, not at the beginning. And I wondered if you have had a chance to talk to to take that on a bit. No, I haven't had a chance to do that. Most of my experience is just my own experience, which I've worked on conflicts, some of which couldn't be worked on, some of which I just really had to walk away from. But I can't think of hardly any conflict that I've walked away from. I just really turned my back on it and totally walked away from it.

[58:11]

Sometimes I just stepped away and still held that person in my mind. And over time, I have my grip on my particular feelings of hurt and loss, and the other person's. And so things can change. But, you know, it's much more difficult where the depth of injury is at very deep, very small seeds. I was struck by your story going on two or three weeks ago. And it sounded like it's kind of more of a concept. You have resistance going there, and it's ridiculous actually. It's inspired me. with the real fire as well.

[59:20]

And I would like to give a hand for Ben Shillinger, who had a similar dream. I think that's good. I'm doing this, and once I get there, it's fine. I can't make much, but she's good enough to help me a lot there. It takes a while to get there, but I'm happy that we made it there, so you guys can have a comfortable experience there, too. It takes some time, but it's worth it. I think why I forget is because the habit of self-centeredness is so deeply ingrained. I think so. Yeah, I mean, I can't remember what went on.

[60:25]

I've got to get up. There's all these other things that I could be doing or I think I should be doing. It's actually, yes, it's like Zazen. I go out there because I said I'm going to go out there. And also, because when I think of those women. And all of a sudden, people like this in our lives. What I've learned about doing that particular kind of work is that the most important, precious thing is just showing up. Because for a lot of these people, particularly in males and lesbians, people have not just shown up in their lives. And they don't know how to show up. Some of them don't know how to show up.

[61:28]

So for them, as long as they're showing up, I'm going to be able to show up. So that's kind of in that. And so it's sort of the highest, to me, it's about as high a priority in my life, other than my children, that I have. If I have an appointment at a prison, it's like I'll drop almost anything else, rather than break that appointment, because establishing that mutual presence. And I could see it. You know, some of the people today, when we walked up there, I couldn't get in because there was like a fire door. And someone, they said, and she just kind of lit up when she saw me. She said, oh, you're here. So glad that that's affirming. It's not like doing it. So do you think it's a little bit like the scripture says, don't think about anything you break up.

[62:31]

Like, why do you want to break up? Just move. And that's the sort of thing that your mind, if you allow your mind to go out on all these things that you're trying to do, it will be too slow to actualize. You know, for me, it's like mostly The challenge is getting out of the house. Once I'm actually in my car on the way, then it's like, OK, that's my move. It's like for Zazen, the challenge is actually getting out of the bed.

[63:37]

Once I get out of the bed, I brush my teeth, and I know I'm going. And once I go, it's one and done with. But you're not going anywhere, are you? You'd be surprised. It's a very long way from the top of those stairs. Yeah. There's sort of a follow on what Ross said. Does it actually happen less often, that resistance, like getting up in the morning and going to the sauna. It seems like for me it doesn't happen as often as it did in the beginning. It still happens pretty regularly, but it's not every single time I get up and go to the sauna. So is it sort of like going out there? Are there times, like maybe in the beginning it wasn't like that, but now

[64:40]

you don't feel that, it's sort of like you've been practicing long enough, you've been going long enough, that whatever you feel out there takes precedence over that, oh gosh, am I going to go all the way out there? Well, I wish I could say things like that. To some degree, yes. I was talking with them about this today. Someone was expressing appreciation. Just the zazen filters me. And one thing that's changed is I'm not nervous. I'm not saying, oh, women's prison. I'm a man. They're women. I'm Anglo. Most of them are Hispanic. They've been in the drug trade or whatever. I wasn't creating this me and them.

[65:44]

I mean, I was original, much more. And after a while, I mean, I do know it's not like that. I do know these people who show up, there's 700 or 800 women there, and the 9 or 10 who show up, they're not there because they thought it was lunchtime. They're there because they want to be there. And there are things in the way. So I'm not nervous in that respect. But I've always had to deal with nervousness. I just want to talk about the conflict again. I used to do that in middle school. But I found that it wasn't necessarily the end result. The kids didn't really care what the problems were solved.

[66:46]

It was the end result. It was just both parties doing that, regardless of what happened afterwards. I think that's usually the case. So I'd like to list maybe just a few. That's usually the case, but it's not always the case. But in a way, And that's where the element of justice comes in. Sometimes there are decisions. For instance, there are going to have to be decisions made, say, in Israel-Palestine, before there's any resolution. I don't know what those decisions are, and I don't know what the resolution is. But it's not just going to be that they're going to sit down and do each other. There's going to have to be some adjudication of resources, and it's going to mean, usually in the real world, it means, in the social world, the political world, it means somebody has to give something up.

[67:55]

And that's the element of justice that we have to live with. That's the real world. That's the real world. That does go beyond the simple human one-to-one communication. Now I'm the phrase making a difference individuals

[68:58]

We really, deeply want to make a difference. You go out to the prison because you see that it does. That the vow is somehow wrapped around the vows, the intentional vows, to be connected with people, making a difference. And connection, the connection of listening, of hearing someone, That seems to be very satisfying. I wonder if you've got anything to say about that in terms of engaged Buddhism. Well, I think it's just, it's usually the social manifestation of the Bodhisattva vow. Yes. You know, the awakening of all sentient beings. You know, Wednesday, when I go out there, That's an awakening experience for me. It's also an awakening experience for them.

[70:02]

It's something I'm trained. I know how to give meditation instruction. And I know how to talk with them and how to listen. And I can do it. So it's part of the expression of my vow. But the great thing is that it includes one's self. It's no longer... This being here, this being here, is actually one circle that includes all of us. And the reluctance to get up in the morning or to go out or whatever we're doing in our own lives, it's something that can't be remembered somehow. Why don't we just go out and do this? Because I don't think I can remember it. It takes a while. It's experiential. It doesn't live in the place that you should dwell.

[71:08]

I think it's just this habit of self-centeredness is so important. Yeah. And delusive. Because we think we want something, And if we really did that, you know, like, do you really have to write these e-mails? You know, really? I don't think I'd feel any better after writing. I guarantee I'd feel better going to prison than after I sat down and wrote these e-mails. But the problem in our self-centeredness is I still got to write these e-mails. So it kind of spoils. So I don't want to do this. I've got to get that and clear this out of the plate, off the plate. Instead of just doing things one by one, and then later on. Yeah, I found that the idea of being a self-centered, self-developed, self-developed in the last few years was very interesting.

[72:20]

I found that my... ...my sip wasn't coming out the way I was expecting it to. It's a really traumatic experience. It's a shame. It's a waste of water. And actually, I've always had very low expectations. So, I feel like I'm really not doing a lot, but I'm just being very present, available to work, and it's more like this, really. And the challenge, I think, is continuously to do that with the lives of these people who are different from us.

[73:33]

And on the social level, it's an issue of addiction in that way. And it's very hard. Yeah, are you on that? My reaction was, here I am. I'm sitting here. I'm looking at this guy. I'm looking for a man. [...]

[74:34]

I'm looking for a man. [...] I I don't know what my reaction was, but I'm going to talk to the police, or help those people. Well, it's too late. You're on the jury, right? You're on the jury in a second. They don't want anybody who thinks. So don't let on that you think. And what's the expression? Well, first of all, we don't know if you will get this. if you're going to find this person guilty or innocent.

[75:44]

But what's the expression of compassion if you feel he's guilty? What's the appropriate action? Because you are dealing with him. You can't get away from the fact that there's a social structure that you're operating within. And so how do you, what difference do you make in that position? And obviously, you know, compassion doesn't mean, you know, oh, this guy, you know, no presence, this guy should just walk. So this is like, living with Dukkha, you have to live with that.

[76:58]

His, which is now, because of the social contract that we have, you've got a piece of it. And you have to figure out what's the right thing to do. and live with knowing whatever you do you know so maybe he's guilty and you're going to send him and maybe it's a third strike you're going to send this guy off someplace um you know that's not a very happy choice nor if he's guilty is cutting him loose you know so you have to sit with this incompetence this feeling of being uneasy. And we have to have some faith, and we also have to look at our role in this individual role system.

[78:07]

So it might mean you might offer this e-sport to do something else that would help another person, another person from an academic perspective. And that's also part of his point. I've sat on a similar jury, and there's also compassion. There are multiple conflicting passions. In my case, it was in myself also. There was compassion for the man that had 18 stitches on the back of his head. There's also a compassion for a culture that really doesn't allow people to go around swatting people on the back of the head with baseball bats. You have a compassion for the larger culture also. I certainly don't want to expose my son to a world where a poor boy won't be able to beat a young man with baseball bats. That isn't sitting in the room with you, in this case, where as you're looking at this person, it's destroying his life, but to make that decision is presumable.

[79:13]

But there are so many other victims. In the case that I was involved in, it was the husband of one woman and her sister was going with the guy that actually hit him. And can you imagine what happened to that entire family from that? I mean, there are just many, you know, passions. And yes, I voted to send him up the river, but I think I should go around doing that in my country. But not with that feeling. And I did not see one. I'm actually very broad. When there are executions scheduled in San Quentin, some few have been out there, vigils. There's a very sizable group now that just goes out, that just sits. Meanwhile, there's this noisy rally going on. It can be wild. But however wild it is, we're just sitting there in silence.

[80:16]

And the way I think we understand that, the frame that we try to create, This execution seems wrong to me. It's furthering a cycle of violence. But the compassion that's generated is not just for the person who will be executed. It's debating more for the victim and their families. And it's all the people who participated in the decision, which includes the governor and the board. It's for the people who have to put in place, put in action this execution. So the system within which, the human system within which this execution happens, the whole thing

[81:19]

calls for compassion, and that includes ourselves as citizens of the state of California, where this is the law. So it's a very broad wish. Yeah. And it's interesting. It's a good example. We don't have time to go much further than this, but it's an example where a mass action actually affects consciousness. You know, it's affected the tone of those rallies, and where now, these people, you know, most of them left, who could not, you know, who couldn't touch Buddhism, who could never pull, you know, our now look to us and invite us, and some of them actually sit with us.

[82:23]

And it also has, you know, I feel like it has an effect on our relations with people in Silicon Valley. We're not, we're in opposition, but we're not oppositional. And so it's a mass activity that does It's composed of these 200, 250 individuals sitting down. But it has some force that's there. I just thought of a moment ago, a little bit ago, you said something about the difficulty of the justice. I think that what you said was taking a moment, living in a moment. Because I think that that's got something to do with what we're talking about now.

[83:31]

Balancing the scales and accepting things as they are. Yeah. I mean, that's sort of what For example, we can do it on the journey, right? Right. But you have to find the balance moment by moment. Because scale is not constructed in such a way that you find the balance, and you turn the screw, and you lock it down. It's the same way with our bodies. It's awesome. Our bodies, they sway one way, forward, back, side to side. Our minds, which are trying to attend to our breath, veer off of the thoughts and come back. So that, you know, justice is not this static thing. It's actually a dynamic thing that's always finding It's always falling off balance, and we need it back. But if we come to it from a place of non-self-centeredness, where we can see that someone else is doing the same thing, then hopefully we can be open to that.

[84:42]

And open to the fact, at any given moment, things may be in balance, and also they may be a little out of balance. And we're always trying to return to balance. And what we do in the zazen instruction that we give, we return to that without any judgment. We return to balance without saying, oh well. I was a bad boy because I was thinking about lunch. I said, right, thinking about lunch. without getting any answers. And that's a model of how we can live our lives. So that, to me, is at the center of engaging Buddhism. And it's not treating anything like an object, but just your subjective consciousness through the connective.

[85:46]

And that's the place that So that's the end of this discussion.

[85:53]

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