You know, there is a teaching of the Buddha called the First Noble Truth, which translates to, get used to this, there's always something. There's always something. Either something happens that we don't like, something doesn't happen that we want, something happens that we want but we know it's going to end, etc. When I ask if you've ever had a day like this, I know that you have had a day like this because it's the nature of human life. It wasn't the same thing, but maybe your significant other and you had a long fight over nothing, or a branch fell on the roof and everything got wet, or the restaurant that you went to either didn't have a seat for you or when you got in there they didn't have any substitute your preference here for you to have.

[01:09]

Or if they did, it wasn't as good as you remembered it, etc. Okay, so this is life. This is called human life. And I know you know what I mean by human life. that human life is extraordinarily wonderful. And part of its extraordinary wonder is its extraordinary recalcitrant character. So we can accept this. But by accepting it, it doesn't necessarily mean just to be apathetic or to have a kind of acceptance that is not alive for you. It means to accept in a vital way the possibility that our experience, just as it is, is not what we think it is. It doesn't mean that it's better or worse than we think it is.

[02:15]

It means that its whole character is larger than we think it is. And this is a very important teaching. So this morning I was trying to reconstruct my lecture, the lecture that I thought I should have given, which was the lecture that I spent the week preparing, and it was not forthcoming. I couldn't remember it because of my night. And even if I could, I got out some of the books that I had used, and the print just swam in front of my eyes. So I wasn't up for any great deep philosophical discussion. So instead, I tried to remember what the Buddha did when he was sick and how he was. And what I remembered was that once shortly after I was ordained, I was on my way to India for a yoga study.

[03:19]

And while I was in India, I thought I would go on a pilgrimage and I didn't know much about the life of the Buddha, except for the meal chant that we do at the Zenda. Buddha was born. And so I decided to go to those places. And so I looked at them on a map. And then I thought, wow, some of these names are different. What if I see what they were called when the Buddha was alive? And what I found out was that the names have changed. And in the course of my geographical investigations, I chanced on the story of the Buddha's final two and a half months of life. And it turns out that the Buddha had dysentery during that time. And that he walked, or I charted it on the map, more than 200 miles, giving the same message in simpler and simpler ways, and then he died.

[04:24]

He said that he would have stayed if someone had made a pointed request, but they didn't pick up on his very broad hints. So he died. But the message that he gave in those two months is still the same for us, and it will never die, because it is about life, normal life, not some life that we think we should have or the life that we didn't want that we have anyway. So what the Buddha said in those two and a half months, again and again, was that human beings are prone to fall into extremes of attitude about how life is, about how our life together is. And usually these extremes are the extremes of I exist or I don't exist.

[05:29]

That's one set of extremes. And then the emotional counterpart to that is I am going to exist or I am not going to exist. Or, okay, let's indulge this existence. Or let's... What's the opposite of indulgence? Let's think. Let's renounce. Yeah, let's renounce. Let's be ascetic towards this human life. And so the very first time that the Buddha taught was on an occasion in which he had been studying yoga. First he studied with a teacher named Alara Kalama when he decided to fathom the truth of human existence. And it's recorded that he attained the highest attainment that Alarak Kalama taught, which was a consciousness that was beyond time and space, as we know it.

[06:33]

And after he came to that realization, the teacher invited him to stay and teach. He said, you've fathomed my entire path. please stay and be a teacher. But the Buddha looked into his own heart. He was actually Siddhartha Gautama at that moment. He wasn't the Buddha yet. He looked into his own heart and said, am I satisfied with what I've attained? Am I satisfied that it will actually end my own suffering and help everyone take care of human life or life as it is? And the answer was no. He was not satisfied with that attainment, although it was very profound and not to be sneezed at, so to speak. He was, when it came right down to where it mattered, it didn't do it for him.

[07:37]

So then he asked around at Alara Kalama's place, is there anyone else who has a profound teaching that ends suffering? And they said, well, there used to be this teacher named Rama, but he's gone now. But his son, Udaka, is teaching. Why don't you check him out? So Gautama, Prince Gautama, went to Udaka Rama Puta, Puta's son. He went to Rama's son's ashram and started to study to see if that teaching would help. And he found another great attainment, neither perception nor non-perception. I'm sorry, I don't know if I've mixed up their attainments or not. But anyway, one of them was life that wasn't limited by time or space. Our ideas of time and space were small in the face of that knowledge.

[08:45]

And the other one is that our perception, is the boundary of all experiences. He became free of that. Became free of the patterns of perception that we fall into that condition every moment of our lives. And he said he was savvy to what was most of his priority. And he said he felt the non-satisfactoriness right away, and said to Udaka, was there anything else that your dad taught? And Udaka said, no, this was it, and would you stay and teach? And he said, no. Then, some of his practice buddies from Udaka's place, and he developed a pact, and they were going to practice asceticism, unlike his earlier life as a prince,

[09:47]

he was now going to practice asceticism with some like-minded friends. They were going to eat very little and see if they could tame the mind and tame their suffering by not feeding it, because this human body, they thought, was the beginning of all problems. And anyway, they tried, and it's recorded that he lived on one grain of rice a day, one lentil a day, that his skin changed texture and color, that you could see his spine through his stomach, and his stomach through his spine, so he was skinny. And at some point he thought, what am I doing? I've now gone from the extreme of being an indulgent prince, gave that a check. But now I'm at the other extreme.

[10:51]

So indulgence, in a way, assumes that life is infinite, or that life is going to keep going on, and holds that up, and tries to get the best of it. And asceticism assumes that life is misery, and tries to Masorette. But basically, neither of these approaches has worked for me. And so it was at that point that he went down to the banks of the Narantara River and bathed against his pact. He washed out his clothes. And there was a young woman, maybe in her teens, who had a bowl of rice cooked in milk. And she said, you look awfully skinny. Would you like some? And he said, yes. Thank you. And so after Sujata, the girl, had fed him, he went and found a tree.

[11:59]

And it was there that the enlightenment story that you probably heard about a lot in December occurred. So he finally was awakened in a way that would end suffering. And this story and what he found are encapsulated in all the teachings that he gave in the last two and a half months of his life. So it didn't matter how bad he felt. He was taking refuge in what he had discovered about human life. How do we do this? How do we live this life? And he taught to that. He said that basically we have a problem. We think of suffering as a problem. And to find out how to cure a problem, we have to understand how it arose.

[12:59]

That would help us. And then we Understand from that experience that the problem stops. It's not that the nature of human life changes It's that it changes for us You know it is exactly what it is and at the same time it is profound And how how do you how do you awaken to that That state of transcending human the human condition By transcending, I don't mean that you doubt it. I mean that you appreciate it. How do you do that? And he said, the path. And the path is eightfold. It starts with right view, or wise view, in which we don't keep doing the same thing again and again and hope that it's going to turn out different this time.

[14:03]

But instead we have a big picture of human life as of the nature of suffering and frustration. And we accept it and respond in an appropriate way from a sense of possibility rather than a sense of habit. And then the next step on the path is right intention. where we can develop our intention and understand what it is. What do we want? Suzuki Roshi said, what is our inmost request? So the Buddha said what's universal is that people want to wake up to this life and be of help. And then While we're going about working with intention, the third step on the path is right action, which in our lineage we encapsulate with the 16 Bodhisattva precepts.

[15:11]

Bodhisattva means awakening being. So once we've understood that awakening is a priority in our lives, we have acknowledged that we ourselves and everyone around us is an awakening being. that changes the character of our life with them. But how we work with people and things, with ourselves and the world, is called precepts, which are not rules. They're guidelines by which we can understand what we're doing and what happens when we do it. And then, of course, out of right action comes right livelihood. How do we earn our living? What are we willing to do? And what are we not willing to do? And so right livelihood is, you know, a way from working that's working in our lives that ripens on the side of attachment.

[16:18]

And another way of working that ripens on the side of liberation. It's pretty easy to tell because we have a kind of inner sense or inner garbage-o-meter for our thoughts about our lives. And we all are built this way. It's just that we've become habituated to not paying much attention to it in certain senses. It's not even that we have this innate garbage odometer. It's not like an innate thing that we have. It's that all of us entirely are completely of the same nature as awakening. There isn't anything left over. It doesn't mean that everything we do is perfect and right. But it means that we're always able to

[17:22]

witness our actions in a conventional sense, but also in the kind of sense I don't know if you've ever had an argument with someone who loves you very much when they just stand and look at you and call your name. It's a very unsatisfying type of argument to have because you can't continue to argue when someone is looking at you with complete love. It just doesn't doesn't seem as attractive as it did before. So our sense of what we're doing with our lives, for our livelihood and in our daily actions, when we want to check it, all we have to do is look. The question is whether we do or not. So that's one of the aspects of the path. towards waking up, we have to make certain efforts.

[18:26]

And that's called wise or right effort. And then right concentration is the fruition of that. And wisdom comes forth from there. So that's the Eightfold Path. It's not complex to understand, but it is complex to do. Because there's so many ways to live our life that aren't of the nature of death. And we're habituated to doing things that way. Anyway, so this was the method that the Buddha established and continued to teach in simpler and simpler ways. First he taught it for 45 years, and then in the last two and a half months of his life at many, many little villages, saying the same message again and again, until his final teaching was, everything passes, nothing stays.

[19:34]

My teaching is done. I guess what I'm interested in knowing from you is, the little story of the Buddha and of illness and how this lecture came to you, of a terrible, no good, very bad, horrible day, and how to live life. And I have to tell you that I've been practicing this path now for 41 years, and there are people in the room who have practiced much longer than I have, and with more diligence and wisdom. stays fresh. It doesn't get stale. And it stays of the nature of liberation and doesn't go sour. So, I had to think today, well, what do I want to not just tell you about, but what do I want to impart?

[20:43]

What do I want to give you? If I could only give you one thing, what would it be? And that is the opening into a conversation about what our life is like and what it's important for us to do. And so if you have any comments or questions, I know this is not the lecture form, but please undo your legs, recross, be comfortable, and then let's talk about it a little bit. Okay? Go make yourself comfortable. And then if anybody has something to say, please say it. Yes? I'm deeply touched today. Thank you so much. Thanks. In the pre-dawn light, I was awakened by a song that came, something that doesn't usually happen to me. And it all seems at a pace with what you're talking about, not something that was written down to be shared as a lecture.

[21:48]

And it was related to not knowing if my brother was alive or dead, not knowing if I would get up in the morning and run for an airplane or not, not knowing, not knowing, and just being present. I'm glad you responded to your situation as you did. This is going to be something that will stay with me a long time. Thank you. What's your brother's name? Ed. Ed? I wonder, Ed, where is he right now, physically? He's deep in the mountains in Vermont. Which way is Vermont? Somebody point to Vermont. That way? Yeah. What if we just have a few breaths of good wishes for Ed? We aim them towards freedom.

[22:52]

Thank you. I have to say that when I was really messed up, I could feel when people were interested in my welfare. And it helped me. It didn't change what was happening, but it helped me. It changed what it was like for me. I hope that you stay well and happy, and I hope that whether Ed lives or dies, that he's well and happy too. I have two questions. In terms of suffering, so what you're saying is that a child is born with suffering.

[24:23]

Is that what you're saying? Well, what I'm saying is that our life is of the nature of suffering. So a baby doesn't necessarily reflect and know that they're suffering. That comes later. And you can hear at the moment when a baby's cry changes. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. So it comes later. that self-consciousness and self-orientation that kind of pushes away the fact that mom and dad are trying to help them. No, wah! Wah! I mean, wah! It's a kind of insistence. That's what we mean by suffering. And if you check it out, don't believe me, I could be completely off on this, but my understanding is that we do this quite a bit.

[25:24]

And that's called suffering. There's a huge difference between pain and suffering. Like if you go to a children's ward, or a children's oncology ward, you'll see that a lot of the children are just, well, they're everything, right? But many of them are astoundingly okay-seeming, even though they have various things. So pain and suffering are not necessarily the same. Even when a computer doesn't work, something that trivial, or if they only serve something with wheat in it, and you're gluten-free. That can be painful. Everybody else is having dinner, And I have to just eat the toppings. Or not even, because when I do that, everybody looks at me like, why are you slipping off the toppings? So that's what I mean.

[26:32]

My other question is, we're Yeah. So let's just make a working definition of evil. I don't want to be philosophical about it. So again, is this right or wrong or part right? And if it's part right, say more about it. But I think of evil as a kind of deliberate turning away from that awaken-o-meter sense that we have. decision to ignore it or to flout it, or to counter-phobicly go so deep into it and get so confused by the particulars that you lose its meaning or function.

[27:33]

Anyway, I think of evil as a turning away from what makes life vital and Intimate Deliberate there's an element of deliberateness in it So it's like institutionalized ignorance So like for instance if Let's say there was privilege in the room unconscious privilege in this room and some people were unconsciously Endowed with things that other people weren't and that our lives were founded in the assumption that those special things would continue And then somebody else talked to us and said, ouch. You're in this situation where everybody just listens to you all the time because you sit up in front. But I don't think that very many people care about what I have to think, so ouch. And then if I were to turn away from that and say, my child, you do not have to

[28:45]

obsess about privilege. That's evil, because there's an uncaring or non-caring about what causes the other person pain. But it's different. It would be different, let's say, if I were the person's teacher, and we were talking about privilege, and having a discussion that said something like, Well, is unconscious privilege going to stop? And the person would say, yes. And I would say, well, how about X, Y, and Z? And they would say, I'm so mad at you. You're just making things up. And then we would keep having the conversation, right? And we would both learn something. So that's a different attitude, a caring attitude. But the person doesn't necessarily get for me to believe exactly what they came in believing.

[29:49]

I hope this makes sense. Thank you for your talk, Vicki. It's very inspiring. And one thing caught my ear when you said that There's more to our suffering than we know is something larger. And I'd like to know about the something larger, please. The something larger that gives it a sense of meaning, huh? Yeah. So, you know, my experience with, and it also makes that sense of connection with something larger also. is a kind of a transformation in which suffering can take on the character of mere pain instead of actual suffering. It becomes supportable at that point. So for instance, let's say in my own experience, I was going out to lunch one day, and as I reached to put a quarter in a parking meter, this wall from a construction site fell on me.

[31:03]

So then I was messed up. Then I was about 18 months into that recovery, walking across the street to my last surgery appointment, and this guy started turning the corner in this large SUV, like an ML350, big one, and I saw him coming, but because I was still slow from the first accident, I ran as fast as I could, but that was like... And so it was very scary. I could feel and see. And then I woke up in the hospital, and various things had been done to me, and suffering at that point had been... There were many moments at which, well, what I said to myself is probably not repeatable in the context of this lecture. There were many moments like that. But, you know, one has to make a choice.

[32:04]

to live where life really is, in which case it just became various kinds of manageable pain. And in the words of recovery, one day at a time, one moment at a time, or one second at a time. But there's always, if there's a sense of something larger about the suffering, something larger than the suffering, I would actually say that to to make the decision to be awake in that moment evokes our larger self. If we have such a thing as a larger self, it's bad words for what it really evokes, right? But a sense of possibility, a sense of union. And it's never let me down. It's not that there's a thing that's bigger. It's just that what I think isn't quite true.

[33:14]

You're opening up. Yeah. My experience is that we can take different, or I can, I think we can, take different positions on the spectrum of opening up or closing up. Let's say the koan in which the ox is going through the window. Do you know that koan? So the ox is going through the window, and the head goes through, and the legs go through, and wriggles his belly through, and the hind end goes through. Well, why won't the tip of the tail go through? So in that Exactly, right? Yeah. I'm at the edge of my Zafu here. You're right. You think I'm going to tell you why it won't go through? No. I'm going to tell you that in this story, you can be the ops, you can be the witness, you can be the window. You know? There's a larger reality there. Check it out. I don't know why it doesn't go through.

[34:18]

Why? Why? Maybe because, you know, Oxen and windows were not designed for each other. Because my mother said not to let that ox go in and out of the window. So that's why the tip of the tail won't go through. Because he hurt her. My ox probably did that. That was just a story. It wasn't really true. Yes. Yes. Yes, I am. And I'm not even getting drunk. I think you had that. Somebody back there. Yes. So you answered my question. What was it? I didn't know that I had words yet, but something along the lines of, in a moment where you and I are coming, what?

[35:20]

which I guess is always true, from different vantage points. And it hurts the heart. And how to keep that child front and center and really show up both in listening and in voicing what seems true in the moment for true intimacy. And there is a pain sometimes. And there is a tension. Yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. And what I heard in what you were just saying, that particularly hit home, is that that dialogue, so to speak, with myself, is actually the most intimate and the most painful. And something about how you were sharing what happened when not one, but two, in slow motion and seeing it and being present, in yourself, and so to speak, in the other.

[36:23]

You know, just that intimacy. Yeah. Yeah. What's so amazing is that we get to practice this every time we sit down in the Zen Dome, and there's so many periods of zazen. I mean, if you count them up, we've sat thousands and thousands. Count up this room. How many thousands and hundred thousands of periods of zazen have there been in this room? You know? And that's just the formal Zazen. There's also the informal Zazen. You know, the moments of just sitting in life. But what I'm saying is that every second of that Zazen practice, thousands and maybe even a million years of Zazen in this room, every second of it was the beautiful, unfathomable, yet always accessible in some way, holding up of life as a direct springing forth from something that's larger than our concepts.

[37:35]

So there hasn't been a moment of it when it wasn't so. Even though, you know, I sat there and was impatient with my knee pain with it, the rest of us, So, anyway, that's what that brings up for me. Thank you. First, I want to listen to your discretionary debate and then listen to your lecture. getting out of bed and getting around and what that must have been like going across the bridge. So I'm very appreciative. And so as a little offering of gratitude,

[38:46]

gives talks, but also there are the things like a dinner, or just we sit down in the community room and eat together. And in this case, and maybe in the others, afterwards he did translations for them. And I would listen to the people and have fun. Wow. This is deep stuff. This is great stuff. I can't wait to get to Mars. He didn't speak it.

[40:20]

He wrote a thought back. And what he wrote was, every day is a good day. Then put in parenthesis, whether you like it or not. Yeah, that was the reason. That was an L. That was an L, right? That was an L coming from my face. Today, to me, is a good day, whether you like it or not. You have come. Thank you. Thank you. OK, so it's time, right? I've been told it's time. And thank you. Take care. And let's go out in the day. Thanks.

[41:14]

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