Good morning. My name's Peter Overton, for those of you who don't know me. I practiced here, when here was over on Dwight Way, in the early 70s, and then for 10 years or so, I was in San Francisco, and now I live in Berkeley here with my family, and participate here somewhat, and in San Francisco as well. I wanted to talk about one of the four vows, not so much about the vows, but about the conditions which The vows in some way are a response to, we say, beings are numbless, I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.

[01:04]

Dharma gates are endless, I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. that will keep us quite busy. Lately, I've been particularly interested in delusions are inexhaustible. Delusions are inexhaustible. Thank you. I vow to end them. In a way, it's a pretty outrageous situation. Delusions are inexhaustible. I mean, what are we really to do about that? And in fact, vow is probably the only appropriate response to such a situation. But I've been concerned about what do we do about the fact that we are so caught up in confusion constantly and how do we respond or make any kind of space for which we can feel we have

[02:17]

we feel have some freedom. It's obviously quite difficult and it's led me to think, well, what is delusion and how do we relate to it? It seems to me there's a lot of different facets here to this big problem. There is what we all think of as our own personal delusions, the ones that are seem to be mainly about our own psyche, about our own personal history, about our compulsive activity, the things that, about our fantasies, about things, you know, the kind of veils that we sort of choose to put across our consciousness for one reason or another. which seem to be in the realm of our own personal psychological life.

[03:20]

And then there's, they're the ones we share with other people, which in a way seem more difficult to deal with, because there's always support to keep up the act. And some of which, the most difficult ones, are the ones that have attained a kind of status of national obsession. You know, like racism and sexism. These are the ones where practically everybody thinks the same way. So how can you act or behave or think differently without feeling incredibly threatened? And yet, You know, these types of things, you feel like they've really got you by the neck. And yet delusions are inexhaustible.

[04:24]

I vow to end them. So what are we to do about something that difficult? So there seems to be a kind of range of things, some that are widely reflected in our so-called external world, which are seemingly intractable because they affect our relationships, and others which pertain mostly to our interior life, or seem to anyway, but are very slippery because they're so personal. The other night, I brought this up in the Shuso ceremony on Tuesday night, and tried to ask about it even though the Shuso had already talked about it several times, and I thought I had something else to ask about it.

[05:26]

But Daniel Weitzman brought up another sort of aspect of delusion, which is delusion of practice. You know, the one that you know, you're supposed to attain Zen, but isn't this kind of a delusion that we're going to attain Zen by doing practice?" And I began, I wasn't entirely satisfied with the Shuso's response to that. He said, well, you've got, think about, you know, you have 8,000 delusions, you know, but this is the one you can get rid of last. And I actually think that when it comes, when it's on your plate, that's when you've got to deal with it. And so it shows up almost from the beginning, obviously. Anybody here, I think, who's just started practice, if there's anyone here in the last few months or whatever, you probably understand this problem. This problem of, why am I going to this place anyway? Or as Dogen said, if we're already enlightened, why do we need to practice?

[06:31]

Fortunately, and I may be wrong about this, maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I consider this particular delusion to be one that is not quite as harmful because it's, although people are known to get kind of caught up and stuck in it, it's not quite as harmful because it's so internally inconsistent. Just if you think of the idea of practice itself, we're not practicing anything, you know, we are just taking it a breath at a time. And yet we come back here and we sit and we do the same things again and again and again. So it sort of looks like practicing something, but there isn't anything to practice. That's what I mean by internally inconsistent. It's impossible to get your hand around, whereas other delusions, you know, sexual fantasies or something, you think you've really got a handle on that one, you know.

[07:36]

You think, you know, I can make this, you know. But practice is pretty tough. But anyway. There's also a sort of variety of ways in which we relate to delusion, and that has something to do with, you know, our own history and how bad it is. Of course we'll suppress it, you know, if we don't really want to have You know, if you really have this, you know, strong urge to fantasize about something and you really don't want to, you want to be clear about that, you know, you won't have a clear state of mind, you don't want this nonsense. Well, maybe you can suppress it for a while. You can try that. Or we can indulge in it.

[08:39]

We can go both of those directions, which most of us have a good deal of experience with. And then, of course, we find out that pushing it away, it comes back even harder. And indulging in it just exhausts us. We're just, you know, we feel lousy after not too long, hopefully. So there's this question of how do we make this kind of space that allows us to end delusion, without being deluded about delusion, which is that delusions are inexhaustible. So I started to try to do this practice which I call setting aside delusion, just for a little while, gently.

[09:44]

Just allow my mind to be clear for just a little while. And then choose that again. And choose it again. How many of you have seen that movie that's out now, Little Buddha? Anyway, I found it very gratifying to see that story told with such sumptuousness. It was really terrific. But one of the things that I keep thinking about is the night in which Buddha realizes is on nature. And it's depicted with incredible sort of, the special effects aren't quite good enough, you know. They're there. And what strikes me about that is here he is, okay, delusions are inexhaustible, you know, they're just sort of piling up, you know, one after another.

[10:53]

And he's just sitting there and says, yeah, yeah, delusions are inexhaustible. In a way, he's kind of not being bothered by it, but he allows it. It's all there. He allows it to happen. He comes, you know, the story about the daughters of Mara approaching him and the armies and yada, yada, yada. And it's just okay to have this delusion. But... What's interesting about it is because he's just sort of allowing it there, he's not responding to it. He's not pushing it away, he's not sort of embracing it. He just said, yes, delusion. It becomes incredibly intense because delusion wants a response. Delusion wants to be engaged. And I think this is what happens. I think it's a story about what happens when you just set delusion aside and allow it to have its own life, but it's not my problem.

[11:58]

Well, it comes knocking again. And pretty soon it's banging down the door saying, look, I'm real. You're real. You're here. You've got to do this. One of my favorite, well, one of my most common delusions is the one where, it's the one about accomplishment, you know, going to work. You know, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, and I can hardly, I can hardly sit still. You know, I've just got to get up and go do it, you know, and that's one that kind of gets me a lot of the time. And there's a lot of energy in it, you know, and you feel like, oh you feel good, you get up and do all this stuff in a very energetic way. But whether or not you accomplish much is, or how you feel at the end of the day, is perhaps another matter. But, so in certain respects, there are arenas in which all of us have, I mean, we wouldn't be here if there wasn't some arena in which we felt like we could meet this problem and end delusion.

[13:25]

But there are some arenas, arenas, and maybe these are the ones where we participate as a nation or as a group of friends or whatever, or families. Yeah, families are just, you know, as we all know, they've got their own little set of things, which, that's probably a whole other topic. But, the ones in which we participate with everybody. You know, in the Abhidharma they discuss reality, it's analyzed sort of exhaustively, and so they take on the question of, you know, is this real? And try to analyze the problem. And the analysis is that it's real because we all say it's real. It's not because I say it's real. is because we all say it's real. So that's kind of their way of trying to sort of show how group consciousness has a kind of solidity.

[14:38]

So those are problems which are very difficult, but how we meet, for instance, a problem like racism may It may be that we have to vow for lifetimes to end this delusion. We have to take up... In other words, every single effort you make may not bear fruit in this lifetime. It may only be that someone younger than you that has more energy can actually take it the next step. But in any case, even such an enormous problem as that, you know, one where maybe all you can do is make an effort to meet somebody on the street and have a real contact with a person rather than the sort of stereotype that is constantly drummed into your head. Maybe all you can do is feel the pain that is associated with

[15:49]

having been in the presence of someone who made a rude remark and you didn't say anything. But in any case, even something that big, that is seemingly beyond your control, every single effort you make, I vow, when you become conscious, when delusion presents itself, I vow to end it, even in the smallest little steps. This is what the vow means. So that's the big problem. And the little problems, the ones that seem to be more in your own sphere, or of course, the problem of dealing with those is that is that, you know, in certain kinds of addictive behavior, which you think perhaps just is your own problem, is that because you're the only one who's tracking it, you know, you fool yourself constantly about whether or not you're ending delusion.

[16:55]

This is the secret of 12-step groups, you know, that you're sharing your life. And you're talking, you know, you call somebody up and say, I really want to go out and get a donut. They say, don't do that, you don't have to do that, you know. Whereas if you were just trying to deal with this on your own, you can be very clear that you're being deluded. But who's going to notice, huh? But I think what it comes down to is finding that arena in which you can make some progress in this department, in which you can say, you can say, you can find out how to end delusion. And what, well, of course, what is delusion for?

[18:00]

We didn't ask this question. Why are we doing this? Why are we so interested in it? in all its manifestations. And of course it's just to cover up pain. And so we won't feel the pain, whether it's associated with our relationships or our own sort of personal misery. unresolved conflicts or what have you, whether you describe it as psychological or social or political or what have you, it's that pain that we want to not feel. So we embrace distraction. So maybe what I'm talking about is finding that space where you can just feel what you're feeling.

[19:12]

And you can feel what you're feeling and you don't have to be overwhelmed by the feeling. And yet you don't have to suppress it. You don't have to cover it up, run away from it. It might be a really good feeling, which in fact might be kind of threatening. It might be a feeling that would lead you to act differently. Maybe it would disrupt. It might be a good feeling, but you might see that the implications of that might be sort of disruptive. or it might be, you know, some pain or embarrassment that you can't, just can't live with. But in any case, and it might be that you're covering up feeling with feeling.

[20:23]

It might be that you're evoking tremendous passion or anger because there's something there that you can't be quiet with. Because if you're quiet with it, it's just, you know, it comes knocking, it comes knocking and it says, and it needs to be answered. But, you know, that's... The other vows are the ones that you can act on from that space, from being able to feel what you're feeling clearly.

[21:28]

Then you can meet other sentient beings and you can enter dharma gates. knowing that that's what's going on. This sounds all very discouraging, but I think it's... I think that opportunity is there for all of us. In some way it's there for you. So, I don't know, does anybody else want to say anything now? Yes? So, what would you say was your working definition of delusion? Working definition, kind of a convenient phenomenon to kind of, well, let's put it this way,

[22:40]

the mind contracts around delusion. It doesn't remain open. It's not that the thought of chocolate cake is a problem. It's when the mind contracts around the thought of chocolate cake. Then you've got a problem. You have an entirely different type of experience when you eat it. Anyway, that's an aspect of it, I'd say. I had one teacher define delusion, or Reddit, as the belief that you're separate from... Yeah, I have a little note down here that says, self and other. And so, you know, that's kind of what we're talking about, is how do we deal with

[23:42]

you know, that construct that I have myself, and there's others, and it manifests in all these different varieties, both from a very personal level, in terms of your own sense of self, as opposed to somebody else, or in terms of wider societal identities. Identity is another you know, that's another discussion. But, yeah, it's all part of that. Yes, Mary? How do you focus on knowing what you're feeling, feeling what you're feeling, and not become self-absorbed? I don't know if self-absorbed is such a bad idea, but maybe, again, I'm thinking of this term contraction, about how, you know, Darlene Cohen, who's chronically ill with arthritis, has done a lot of work around how to deal with pain, and she'd given several workshops on, she described this as,

[25:26]

her practice as the, what was it, it was a really great phrase, something like the mindful and intent pursuit of pleasure, or something like that. But in other words, anyway, her, what she said to me once about this was, The problem with the pain is that it's so, is that you, you start to think that this is really the only thing that's happening. You get caught up in that. And that really there's a whole lot of things going on. When you find yourself, for instance, when you're sitting and you find yourself just totally fixated on the pain, one way to cope with that is to be aware of the birds and, you know, the feeling of, you know, your clothing and other sounds and your heartbeat. There's just a lot going on. And when we focus on one particular aspect, that's what I think what you're talking about, self-absorption.

[26:39]

So I think maybe that's the key is to kind of pay attention. As we cultivate objectless mindfulness, that makes the space for you to be able to see and feel, etc., hear what it is. Yes? I think there's a close connection between then it becomes very difficult to differentiate what's authentic and what's fantasy and delusions. I think it's for most people, you know, it becomes... I know. ...a grey area. It's very difficult. One of the problems with this discussion we're having is that we're still at the very beginning of trying to understand some terminology that's been translated from another language that we use in Buddhism.

[27:41]

And maybe, you know, our grandchildren will begin to understand this in a way which will be useful. Sometimes it's hard to have to talk about this. Sometimes when we talk about these kinds of things, particularly sort of things that are more personal, we shift into the language of psychotherapy, which seems to be more developed and articulate. And then But it doesn't have the same, perhaps the same orientation. At least we don't have the same orientation when we're using it as we do when we're using Buddhist terminology. That's a problem I'm very interested in, but I haven't quite figured out how to approach it. But your question, I think, is interesting because it's true that desire, you know, as it occurs in our Buddhist terminology is a kind of a loaded term, and we haven't quite unloaded it yet.

[28:44]

And so it has, it's sort of like this with delusion in Buddhist terminology, but in a way I think what you're suggesting is more like this. And so how is it that we experience desire without totally glomming on to it and kind of, you know, riding the waves, getting caught up. But without, you know, I mean, we have desire, we act on it, that's life, you know. And so how is it that these things come and we we respond in a way which doesn't throw us completely. Yes, Brian. Well, yes.

[30:35]

I mean, in some ways, fiddling around with it, whatever it is, can get you in trouble. I mean, maybe that's the first step. Oh, it's a delusion. Maybe the first step is, I don't like it, or I like it. The next one is, oh, it's a delusion. And then something else happens. Is that what you're talking about? What do you mean by fiddling around? Well, labeling, as you say, you know, too quickly. I mean, if you can, if you can have experience without too much involvement, it starts to, you know, you can kind of let things fall where they will lay, you know, without kind of, I mean, what are we talking about here? We're talking about We're talking about letting phenomena have their own life without trying to channel them or push them away or something.

[31:47]

Yes. It is convenient. It is convenient. Yeah. There's like a feeling of streaming into the universe and bumping into everyone else and, you know, trying to respond to that feeling that sometimes to me becomes so overwhelming that I have to feel that separation or identify it and so give it a name and say, okay. Yeah. Well, it's curious when you come back to the analytical process and I boundaries, you know.

[32:57]

Boundaries imply that we're one. And we need them. We need them to... But there is this... We also need, at the same time, to not have them. We need to have them and also to transgress them. We need to be able to do both. Because we know we can't live with just one side or the other. We can't live with boundaries and we can't live with no boundaries. The delusion is clinging to one side, to saying, ah, this is it. Yes? I was just thinking, and it's connected with Mary's question for me this morning, and what Lois is saying, and somehow the analogy came to my head about a cell.

[34:14]

A cell is a unit. However, a cell cannot be healthy unless it follows mesmosis with other cells, whether it's material exchange and so on. And I was, this morning, I was wondering what to do. conclusion, something said, well, you're in context. You're not alone. So I was sort of opened up, as you said, to the diverse movement of life around me. And the breathing was on. It was like something like what happens in the cells.

[35:16]

And there was a kind of breathing of that constant concentration of intense pain without letting go of it into the context of my environment. I'm not sure that is the right way to practice, though. Sounds good. Do you have a question, Marla? I'm just so interested in that what I was experiencing is being talked about. And I wanted to include my experience. I'm not clear on the connection between separateness and delusion. I don't think that we could say, for instance, that separateness would be classified as delusion, but to think of separateness as something that, well, that's the way things are, you know, it's me, and there's other people out there.

[36:35]

I don't know if that's the right analogy. Well, that's one delusion. Yeah, yeah. But there's a whole, like, it was brought up together by a DNA thing. Yeah. Delusions and separateness. Self and other. Yeah, I'm just trying to get out how to respond. It's when you're stuck on that side of, okay, there's me and there's this other guy, and I have to communicate with this other person, and I have to make space for them. then the sort of flip side of that is sort of merging, you know. We're just really, we're like that, you know. There's no, you know, this is it, we're really close. Either one of those kind of experiences can be sort of, you know, you can kind of say, well, I guess this is it.

[37:36]

I mean, that's the way things work, you know, I'm, you know, I'm just, you know, that's what I'm trying to say, is that it's not so much that the idea of separateness is completely out the window, it's more that it's, if you think that's, if that's the only mode of thinking, or if that's a sort of something you really, you know, you really have to go to, You know, you're really drawn to it because it's safe or whatever. Maybe they weren't talking about delusion. I'm just trying to kind of say it in a way which rings a bell with your experience, but I'm not sure. Oh, I see.

[38:42]

I see, I see, uh-huh. Well, that's true. I think that when you think about, pick a delusion, okay? And think about how that defines your reality. How it, um, how it, in some sense, narrows the scope of, or the possibilities, so that there's this. In order to embrace this delusion, I've got to exclude a whole lot of reality. I think that's what we're talking about. Yes, Mary Reichen? I guess when I think about delusions, Delusion is inexhaustible. I guess the thing is that for me the big delusion is not the separateness and togetherness.

[39:53]

I feel somewhat usually comfortable with that. But it's permanence and impermanence. And that's the hardest for me to deal with. And it's the hardest for me to deal with to not reinforce it with other people, to say to a child, oh, no, dear, you're not going to die for long. Or eat your spinach. You really like it. It's OK. You know what I mean? But the whole delusion of permanence that we're... I'm not convinced that I'm going to die. Neither am I. I'm older, I get it intellectually, I know, but it's always going to be some other time. Yeah. And to me that's...

[40:54]

Or the delusion nationally, I think our biggest delusion nationally is everything can be fixed. Well that is one of them, yes. We're going to fix it, yeah. No matter what it is, it's going to be fixed. Or it's already fixed. But in a way the biggest delusion, the most, you know, it's like the chocolate in the middle of the night calling to me from the refrigerator. Is that one stronger than permanence? I don't know. I guess we're all going to die. Believe me. Thank you for reminding us of that. Yes. Oh, that's a good one.

[42:02]

You know, the thought that if I understand it, I'm in control. Or, you know, that if I understand it, now I've ended it. Yeah. Yes. Okay, one more. Go ahead. Well, this morning as we were chanting the ancestors, this little space opened up and it occurred to me that maybe the people on that list, who've never really been very real to me, they're just hard to pronounce names, mostly, that I have trouble getting out because my voice isn't quite lubricated that hour in the morning, etc. actually felt as crummy as I do sometimes. And I thought, oh, is that a possibility that, you know, like the delusion of separateness again.

[43:08]

Oh, I see. They never felt that way. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They should better shape up and start getting their voice in order. And wake up and just keep getting aware of how to sleep. I have pictures of these old men that are about 75 or 80 trying to get out of bed. Then I wasn't sure if I'd feel worse or better. Sometimes the more we study history, you don't know whether to be encouraged or things are getting worse. I think we have to end now. Thank you.

[43:53]

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