When we think about practice, about what we're doing, how to live our life as a bodhisattva may sound kind of too idealistic. It's hard enough just to live our life as a human being, just to think about how do we live our life as a human being. But if we, actually there's no difference. In one sense there's no difference, but in another sense there is a difference. Even though ordinary human beings are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, even though Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are ordinary human beings, there's some difference.

[01:06]

The difference is that a Bodhisattva will live their life intentionally. or through vows, rather than just collecting karma or creating karma through actions which have no basis in reality. So life of practice is actually life of vows. A vow is maybe a little strong, so I like to use the word intentions, strong intention, clear intention.

[02:14]

And what is the intention of a bodhisattva? We say in the Four Vows, Bodhisattva says, I vow to awaken with all beings. We used to say, I vow to save all beings. Sometimes you can say either one, but the meaning is the same. Save all beings is a kind of koan. Because you say, well, how can I save all beings? How is that possible? So another way of saying it is to say, I vow to awaken with all beings. But then, how is that possible? When we think about others,

[03:23]

the task seems overwhelming and impossible, ridiculous. That's because we think about others. When we think about all beings, we think about everyone out there. We think that we can change somebody or do something to somebody. That's a delusion. All sentient beings are the sentient beings of our own mind. In the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch is reported or supposed to have said, if you read the Platform Sutra it says, the Sixth Patriarch says, It doesn't mean that I, Huy Nam, am going to personally save each one of you people out there.

[04:26]

It means when greed arises in my mind, I have no attachment to greed, to the objects of greed. And when anger arises in my mind, I have no attachment to the object, the objects of anger. When delusion arises in my mind, I have no attachment to the objects of delusion. All beings are the beings of our own mind. Usually, when we have anger, we blame something on our anger. We're always blaming something on our anger. There's always a cause for our anger.

[05:30]

There's always a cause for our greed. If there weren't so many delicious things to eat, maybe greed wouldn't arise. Or if we put everything away, maybe greed wouldn't arise. But greed arises from ourself, from our own craving, from our own dissatisfaction. Anger arises through our own ignorance. There are always causes out there. But the anger is our own. The attachment is our own. Even though a desire arises, or a feeling, like anger, or jealousy, envy, rage, covetousness.

[06:55]

Even though these arise, feelings are constantly arising. Human way is to attach to these feelings, to hold on to these feelings. Bodhisattva way is not to hold on to these feelings. This is a big difference. Even though anger arises, not to hold on to anger, not to be covetous of anger, not to be covetous of anything, any feelings which arise. So in a Buddhist Sangha, ideally, everyone should be getting along with each other. People should be kind and considerate and understanding of each other.

[08:02]

But actually, greed, anger, and delusion are always arising. This is not a problem. That's okay. Greed, anger, and delusion will arise. whether you have a congregation of bodhisattvas or ordinary people. But in a Buddhist Sangha, our effort, our direction, our intention should be to not be attached to greed, anger, and delusion. Big difference. It's a matter of what you cherish. What do we cherish? Very often when we get into an argument with somebody, each one holds their own view.

[09:17]

So, cherishing a view is delusion. Very difficult to give up our view. I am right and you are wrong. Very hard. How do you do that? I know I'm right. I know you're wrong. And the more we feel that way, the deeper we get. It's like the dinosaurs in the La Brea Tar Pits. You step in and pretty soon you can't get out. You just can't get out. So there's always this standoff, constantly making a standoff, because we can't let go of our view, for one thing. The other thing is,

[10:21]

that we cherish our feelings. Anger rises up. And anger is righteous. We feel really right with anger. And it's natural for anger to arise. It's natural for views to arise. But We'd much rather hold on to our anger than to correct the problem. Most of the time. Very hard to let go of our feeling because behind anger is righteousness or something. So it's really difficult, really hard to deal with these feelings and views and attachment.

[11:47]

Really get attached to views and feelings and thoughts. Our intention, our vow is to awaken with everyone or to save everyone. How are we awakening with someone that we're arguing with? How are we awakening with someone that we have a standoff with? I'm not saying that this shouldn't arise, but how do we deal with it in a way that doesn't keep us on the wheel, continually perpetuating the same thing over and over again?

[12:55]

How do we give up views? How do we give up anger? How do we give up retreating or assuming? There are two sides of how we enter a situation. One is either to come up to an immovable impasse or to back off into retreating or jump into assuming something. How do we open ourself up so that the situation flows? Often, we're interested in our own... in winning.

[14:03]

If we're interested in winning, then we... we come to create more of a problem. So, who should win? When we have an impasse, who should win? Well, at some point we realize that the situation should win, and we should take whatever comes our way from the situation. But that's very hard to do. because we really want to win. So to be able to give up our need to win, pretty difficult. Our need to be right, our need to win, our need to have others submit

[15:06]

So until we know how to, until we have the intention to do this, we are ordinary beings living a life of karma. Buddhist, the one thing that is the Buddhist way is not being bound by karma, not being restricted or caught by karma. There's a famous koan about, is a Zen master subject to the law of cause and effect. You know that story, Hyakujo and the Fox?

[16:23]

Hyakujo used to give talks to his monks, I don't know how often, once a week, once in a while, and every once in a while he used to see this old man in the back of the assembly He didn't know who he was. And one day, after all the monks had left, this old man came up and said, you know, I used to live on this mountain. And as a matter of fact, I was the teacher here a long time ago. And one time, a monk came up and asked me a question. He said, is a Zen master subject to the laws of karma, to the laws of cause and effect." And I said, no.

[17:29]

And from that point on, I was... I had to live 500 lives as a fox. And he said, now I've come here to ask you this question. He said, is the Zen master subject to the law of cause and effect? And Yakujo said, yes. But our effort is to be free of karma, to not create karma, even though we're always creating karma.

[18:55]

Even though we're caught, even though we are all living 500 lives as a fox, over and over again, we create this, our fox nature, we get caught as a fox over and over and over again. We think that we don't realize that what we do is creating a situation that keeps perpetuating itself. Constantly creating a situation that keeps perpetuating itself. And we blame circumstances. You made me angry. You made me this. You did that. It's your fault. pretty difficult to see something from the opposite point of view.

[20:12]

If we have some problem with somebody, that person is the other side of ourself at that moment. As we know, our state of mind at any moment is ourself. Our state of mind and the circumstances that we're in at any one moment is what we call our self. But we think, this is my self. This body and this thinking mind is my self. But my self is whoever I'm talking to and the circumstances surrounding that and my state of mind and the other person's state of mind. two sides of one person.

[21:15]

So how do we bring these two sides of one person together as one person? So delusion is thinking that I am me and you are you only. Right view is although I am me and you are you, you are also me and I am also you. Even though we hate each other. But don't we hate ourselves? That's not so difficult. So, Bodhisattva practice is a practice of boundless love.

[22:40]

means has nothing to do with self-interest. Usually we think of love as self-interest. I either love you or I don't like you. When everything's going well, I love you. That's self-interest. You look good to me. As soon as you don't look good to me, I don't love you anymore. Or as soon as you're not acting in the right way, I don't love you anymore. That's just self-interest. And we call it love. We really get enraptured by our own self-interest. And we misname it love.

[23:44]

And usually when we think of love, that's what we're thinking about, enraptured self-interest. But love, Bodhisattva's practice of love, has nothing to do with self-interest. Nothing to do with feelings particularly, or views, but has to do with understanding reality. And the realization that the other is really our self.

[24:57]

And we always, rather than expecting the other to change, how do we bring ourselves together in true understanding, true harmony, true realization of what's really going on. So instead of standing off with each other, we have to be able to constantly give or give up. Giving up dana is the first paramita. Dana means giving cash you know, or things. But really, dana means giving up, knowing how to give up ourself and how to make ourself an offering. The things that we give are only an extension of offering ourself.

[26:08]

It's not a matter of buying something. So as long as we're always offering ourself and giving ourself up, we have freedom. So it's a kind of self-interest, you know, because when we can do that, then we really find our freedom. But until we do that, we're bound. We're bound by our opponent. We're bound by our anger. We're bound by all of our feelings and limited views. So, when we can free ourself, then we can free the other person. So, saving beings means to save ourself, and automatically we save all beings. Automatically we awaken with everyone, not automatic, nothing's automatic, but together, all at once.

[27:18]

But it's pretty hard. And it's our effort to continue to do that over and over again. And we may not even succeed. We may never succeed. A little success helps. A little success helps. I think that we really, our effort is really to do that. I see it around us all the time. But that doesn't mean it's easy. But we have to always keep that in mind. We just forget. You know, it's like in the tiger's cave, the author Abbot Obora talks about, gives us an example of how we lose our mind over something very easily, how we lose our composure.

[28:33]

In Japan, you've heard of the Chushingu, I think it was, the story of the 70-something ronin who We're going to commit harakiri and all this story. Very dramatic story. And this is played out by a troop of monkeys. Somebody's trained the monkeys to act out this story. And they do it really well. When the monkey is talking to the Lord, It looks like, yeah, he's really concentrating, you know. And all the monkeys are really playing this out very well. And the drama is really coming to its peak, you know. And it's very believable, played through these monkeys. And then he says, and then somebody threw a peanut into the middle of the stage. Suddenly, poof, you know, all the monkeys broke loose trying to get the peanut.

[29:40]

It's so easy to forget what we're doing. When something comes up, you know, some little thing comes up and bam! We forget. And we're just in there with our feelings and emotions and limited views and just hammering it away at each other, trying to get our peanut, scrambling for our peanuts. There's another analogy. It's the analogy, very old Buddhist analogy. When you shake a stick at a dog, the dog starts barking at the stick. And you can take the stick anywhere you want and the dog will follow the stick. You just leave the dog all over the place with the stick. But the lion doesn't pay attention to the stick. The lion jumps for the person. So, when we realize that we're being caught by the stick, by the end of the stick, that's when we should do something.

[30:57]

And we should really make a big effort to realize that when we start, when these feelings start coming up, we're being caught by the end of the stick. Hanging on to our limited views, our feelings, our desire to win, to be right. When that starts to come up, right there is the warning signal. How do I deal with this then? If I'm not going to hang on to these feelings and emotions and anger and so forth, what will I do? The question of what will I do is the big question. At that point, you have a way, just by asking the question.

[32:04]

Asking the question gives you distance. Suzuki Roshi used to say, if you count to ten when you get angry, at that point there's no anger, there's only counting to ten. Anger may return at the end of ten, but at that point you're not in that space. Of course, we want to be true to our states of mind, true to our feelings, we say. Well, I must be true to my feelings if I feel angry. That's true. I think so. We have to acknowledge the anger, but true to our limited views, true to our greed for anger, true to our

[33:06]

attachment. It's a very tricky area. It's a very tricky area. So, maybe you have a question about this? Yes? I understand what you're saying, but the koan aspect of the problem, the sticks, I haven't penetrated yet.

[34:13]

That is, when you live in a world where everybody has a stick, Yes. It's actually made up of sticks. Right. What's your defense? So, well, not so much defense, is if they're all waiting for sticks, there's a certain amount of excitement created in that, and you don't want to buy into it, what are you left with in the real world made up of sticks? Yeah, that's your goal. That's not a very good answer. It is a good answer. Pardon? It is a good answer. Well, I've been living with that for most of my life. Yeah, that's right. That's why it's a good answer. You have to keep getting down to it. What do I have? You know, when I don't have anything, what do I have? When I have no stick, when I have no defense, what do I have?

[35:21]

That's what Zazen is about. Nothing to defend. No defense. That's a really difficult place to be. And so we're always bringing up something to defend ourselves with. Yeah, but I don't use it to defend myself with. You know, how can I feel okay, right within myself, without carrying a weapon? Even though, you know, someone may chop my head off. And this kind of story is actually, you know, I don't know if it's true or not, but there are lots of stories about people who have had their heads chopped off and said, please, okay, if that's what you want to do.

[36:40]

Just a minute. If, you know, if we really think that peace is what we want, then how do we, you know, we want other people to be peaceful. But what about ourself? How do you demonstrate that? that the very core of, I think, religious practice in any religion, almost, not every religion, but almost, is how you depend on nothing. And how you

[37:59]

face any situation with no defense or no weapon. And how do you do that? Well, you have to find something in yourself that satisfies it. That's, you know, it's really hard. It's really hard. You know, you can stop at this level, or this level, or this level, but it's really hard when you get down to this level. Sometimes, you know, you have to, if there's a dog chasing you, you know, you might, you know, you might have to do that, or, you know, somebody's, harming somebody, you might have to intervene, you know.

[39:02]

But how to work on having less and less defenses means that you have to have more and more something else. And that's something else that we each have to find for ourselves. And the less defenses we have, the more open we can be to anybody. We can be open to our enemy.

[40:05]

So zazen is completely defenseless posture. When we sit in a zendo all day, we're completely open to everything, with no defense, no ego, no partiality, no views. And even though they have some big problems, no anger, no blaming, just more and more opening. So we don't want to push people around, but how do you want to influence them?

[41:32]

How would you like people to be? How would you like everyone to be? How would you like your opponent to be? Either your opponent will be like you, or you will be like your opponent. When we get angry, if someone is angry at us, and we get angry back, that means we may win, but we become our opponent. We become that state of mind. How do we maintain the integrity of bodhisattva mind? Pretty difficult, but possible. Little by little. Now and then. Sometimes. Good. Sometimes it's good. We all fail.

[42:38]

Failing is okay. Because failing is within the path. If we think that when we fail we're outside of the path, that's a problem. That's a big problem. We don't fall outside of the path. No matter how far we fall, we can always get up. So failure is also a lesson. Failure is a good lesson. So failure is good, and also success is good. But success is sometimes not so good. If we're too successful, we may get too cocky. So both success and failure are important. So, when you're successful, we love you very much.

[43:43]

When you're a failure, we love you just the same way. No problem. When you're good, oh, we love you. When you're bad, we love you just the same because it's all within the path. This is a bodhisattva path. That's why the path, knowing what you're doing, is the main thing. Having that intention is the main thing. All kinds of things will happen, but they happen within the context of the path, the Tao. So, when we do something wrong, I'm sorry. It's a big thing to say, I'm sorry. It's a big thing.

[44:44]

This is one of the most important aspects of practice, is to be able to say, excuse me, I'm sorry. It's called, on a large scale, it's called repentance. On a small scale, it's, oh, excuse me, or I'm sorry. I won't do that. I'll try not to do that again. If we can't do that, then we're really locked out. So that's what our saving grace is, that we can actually do that. We can actually forgive ourself, or forgive each other, and start over again. We don't have to be stuck where we are. And we can stop the effect of karma. If you can't say, I'm sorry, then karma, just the effect of karma, just keeps building up and building up and building up.

[45:53]

And pretty soon we become very miserable. So unloading, you know, constantly unloading is our practice. So that every moment we can stand in a new fresh place. So having some kind of contention Do you see that as a warning? That we're loading ourself up with something. Of course there are a lot of things that are really hard to resolve. No doubt. Really hard to resolve. But when we have that kind of problem we should look and see what is it that I can give up that will make this problem easier. That will make this thing move. that will make my friend, who is my opponent, happier. Anyway, maybe that's enough on this subject.

[47:16]

Thank you very much. beings are.

[47:24]

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