I want to change the subject of the class. And what I would like us to look at is the Metta Sutta. That's Pali for sutra. And we have two versions of the Metta Sutta. One is the one that I introduced at Green Gulch a couple of years ago. Maybe five years ago or something. Eighty-nine. Eighty-nine? Seven years ago. And I took all the sexist language out of it and doctored it up so that it would be acceptable to all. And when I came here, I found we were doing this other one. And the other one is from the Sutta-Nipata translation by an English monk. I can't remember his name.

[01:00]

And that's the one that we seem to be doing now. So I had the Eno. I thought I had the Eno. We talked about printing these. We're putting them back into the sutra books. Or you have the sutra books? We were going to hand them out tonight, remember? Oh. And we don't. When it's not in the suture? You don't have? I have, I counted them, I have about 36. Well you know what, why don't we just get these, we don't need to compare them, we just get the 36. So I should be back in a minute.

[02:14]

It's 36. Oh. Well, I'll explain that when we get going. Anybody curious about my face? You were at a barbecue, right? Fell asleep. Kissed that mountain lion. It was the shoe sole. He said, If you don't tell me, I'll hit you. Well, I made it over the ladder. Yesterday? No, yesterday. I made it over the ladder and then I came down the other side and I was like, boy, I sure have good balance. And then I stepped down over all these kind of gnarly roots and stuff, you know, all piled up there.

[03:24]

And my other foot caught on something. And so I just went, pew, and my face went, poof. I could feel it, all these little bits of thing going into my face. And my glasses fell off, and my camera opened up. And I put my glasses back on and closed my camera. And Mark was horrified. But that was all. It's really nothing. People look at me in a horrified way, but it's really nothing. It doesn't hurt. It never did hurt, strangely enough. It's just a little scratch, so don't be concerned about it, please. It just looks strange. It looks like some kind of brand. Some of you will have to share these. It means loving kindness or concern for the welfare of others.

[05:04]

What's the matter with it? Part of it is taped off. Some have the old version where it says, And the other version doesn't have that. So some of them have it taped over and some don't. So I was still in the process of kind of making a decision. Do you understand what I'm saying? No. Can you read what it says? You can read through, right? Yeah. Can you say from who knows what it is? When we get to that line, we'll deal with it. It's been tempered with. That's just the way that you introduced it.

[06:32]

The whole thing. So anyway, metta means loving-kindness, but it means love which has no self-interest, except as one should count oneself, you know, one should always count oneself. Then the ten monks, do you know about the ten monks? There were ten monks and somebody said, how many monks are there? Will you count? And they picked this guy and said, you please count us. And so he said, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. That's not right. He said, you're forgetting to count yourself. So you should always count yourself. meditation on metta, there's various meditations on metta. Mettasutta is just talking about metta and expressing metta, but it's metta meditation which, and the first aspect of metta meditation is, in metta meditation you express

[07:51]

loving-kindness to various groups and individuals. But the first one is to yourself. You have to be able to accept yourself and to express loving-kindness to yourself before you can actually express it to others. So you always have to include yourself and start from this person. So I often give this Metta Meditations metta practices to people who have a difficult time accepting themselves and others. So, metta is an aspect of prajna. We say that karuna, which is compassion, is the practice of wisdom. So in Zen practice, we're very much concerned with wisdom.

[08:59]

Monjushri is the personification of Zen practice. But Monjushri is on one side and Avalokiteshvara is on the other. Actually, there's Monjushri, Avalokiteshvara and Samantabhadra. So Monjushri is the aspect of wisdom And samantabhadra is the aspect of practice, but also of compassion. And avalokiteshvara is the aspect of compassion. So sometimes samantabhadra has both aspects. Compassionate practice, actually. We say the shining practice, bodhisattva. So compassion and loving-kindness go together. Compassion, there's, you know, the four Brahma-viharas, the four divine states.

[10:03]

Metta, Karuna, Mudita, and Upekkha. So, Mudita. Mudita means sympathetic joy. And Upekkha is Equanimity. So, equanimity is an aspect of love, actually, strangely enough. The desire to balance everything in a disinterested way. So, in Buddhism, love plays a very important role, but it's always concern, disinterest and concern.

[11:06]

In other words, non-discriminating goodwill. And when we think about sympathetic joy, which is the third. Sympathetic joy is usually thought of as being happy at someone else's success. You know, to be able to forget your own ambitions and feel good about how others are progressing, rejoicing with the progression of others. But, you know, Dogen has a fascicle, Bodhisattva's Four Methods, in which one of the four methods is identity action. And identity action means to identify with others, to see the non-dual aspect of yourself and others.

[12:20]

So I'm kind of flashing on the equality of identity action and sympathetic joy as being kind of the same thing. Identity action is to treat others as ourself, not as if they were ourself. you know, to feel the connection between ourself and others and to act according to that as enlightened practice. So, metta is one aspect and karuna, which is compassion, is another. Compassion means to suffer the suffering of others.

[13:26]

Passion means suffering and calm is with. So to practice, to be aware and feel other people's suffering. So metta or loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity to always keep our balance, not get upset by things. Actually, not to be upset by anything. Someone asked me, do you have a question, a testing question for people to see what their understanding is? And I thought about that and said, no, I don't have a testing question. I just look at people's behavior. When I look at people's behavior, I can tell what their understanding is. I can see, by the way, whether they're easily upset or not easily upset, how they hold themselves, how they walk, how they talk, how they behave with others,

[14:46]

you know, whether they're quick to anger or how they take care of their emotions and feelings. And this is how you can tell what a person's understanding is. Just to answer a question, you know, in a brilliant way, I don't trust that. You know, there are people who can have the right answers. But their behavior doesn't go along with their ability to give the right answers. So, I don't pay much attention to that. Always look at a person's behavior. That's the test. So, we have these two aspects, wisdom and compassion. Manjushri and Avalokiteshvara.

[15:51]

And the balance of these is Zen practice. And so much we emphasize wisdom. Whenever we read books on Zen practice, it's always talking about wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. But the activity of wisdom is compassion. compassionate action, or compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. So I feel that it's really important for Zen students to be aware of this side. And it's very easy for Zen students to kind of forget this side and get kind of caught up, you know, in wisdom and ideas about wisdom and reading difficult passages in sutras and trying to understand them.

[17:08]

But to actually just think about how we relate to people, how we relate to each other, how we create harmony. And Dogen is always talking about this. Dogen is always, although he's always dealing with wisdom, he's also dealing with compassionate action. And he very well balances the two sides. And he also, has a commentary on the eight aspects of an enlightened person. You know that fascicle? Eight aspects of his last, Dogen's last commentary. It was also supposed to be Buddha's last commentary, but who knows? We know it was Dogen's.

[18:15]

where he talks about how do you recognize an enlightened person? What are the qualities of an enlightened person? So I'll read to you what the eight awarenesses or qualities of the enlightened person are. The first one is having few desires. So he says, not seeking too much among the objects of the five desires, which are not yet obtained, is called having few desires. And the second one is knowing how to be satisfied. Knowing how much to take of those things which one already has is called knowing how to be satisfied.

[19:24]

And the third is enjoying serenity and tranquility. The fourth one, exerting, he says meticulous effort, but you could say continuous effort. That you know, you can see when someone is exerting a continuous effort. They don't stop. They don't take time out. But all of their activity, their whole life has this exertion to it. And not forgetting right thought. In the Eightfold Path, right thought is the second factor, path factor. And right thought means Metta. My right thought is metta.

[20:32]

It also means keeping your eye on nirvana. Keeping your eye on nirvana and expressing loving kindness to others. And the sixth is practicing samadhi, zazen. And the seventh is cultivating wisdom. And the eighth is avoiding idle talk. Sometimes when people don't talk enough, we wish they would have more idle talk, actually. So idle talk is maybe not what we think it is. When someone's talk is not dualistic, and not gossipy, and not judgmental, and somewhat innocent, then idle talk is fine.

[21:51]

No problem. But what he means by idle talk is dualistic talk, speculations, views. And if you can't hear me, you can come up closer. Yes? So how about abandoning vague discussions and idle talk? Are those related? Yes, I think that, yeah, abandoning idle discussion. That's just somebody's translation, you know. That's why in this particular sutra there are various translations. And it could be expressed in a little different way, which the other one does, actually. The other one says, not falling into wrong views. which probably, that's what, you know, one's not falling into wrong views, and this one says, not abandoning vague discussions.

[23:12]

You know, it's just two different ways of translating the same thing. So, Those are eight ways of recognizing enlightened activity. And that's a whole study in itself. I just wanted to bring that up to talk about that, just to touch on it. So prajna, or wisdom, is the source, and the metta, or karuna, is expression.

[24:15]

And I don't care how enlightened we think we are, how much we know, how many koans we pass, if we don't have this, it's not enlightened practice. just not. If we don't know how to take care of our others and control our emotions and our feelings and have equanimity and settledness, being settled and free of reactions then everything we know doesn't amount to anything. So this is very important to think about. So this sutra starts out, it says, in this translation, it says, this is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise.

[25:18]

So that's why I say the one who is wise means an aspect of wisdom. who seeks what is good and has obtained peace. Peace here means nirvana, which means the ceasing of attachments and being grounded in equanimity, which is upekka. So let one be, this is, let one be strenuous. You could say various things, say able. Strenuous. You could say, what did he say here?

[26:22]

Exerting continuous effort. Yeah, like exerting continuous effort. Upright and sincere. Upright means upright. It's like Zazen. Don't lean to the left, don't lean to the right, don't lean forward, don't lean backward. Just really sit up straight. But sitting up straight means being upright. Sitting up straight in all of our activity. That's how we carry our activity into the world, through our posture. It's so wonderful to sit on the cushion again. Because I realize, you know, zazen is posture. You can cross your legs, you know, but zazen, posture, is really the essence of zazen. And sincere, without pride,

[27:32]

are easily contented and joyous, which is what he says there too, as aspects of enlightenment. In the other sutras, the other translation says noble speech, gentle and humble. Those are also good qualities. But easily contented and joyous. And the other sutra says, the other translation says, few duties, right livelihood. Few duties. Well, that's nice. But I think what it means is like not taking on too much, you know, not being, not having a lot of stuff to do, but just taking care of simply the things that you have to take care of. And it's very hard to do. Suzuki Roshi used to do it very well. Some people have trouble taking on a few duties and other people can take on many things and it seems like just a few duties.

[28:46]

And Suzuki Roshi used to do it very well by just doing one thing at a time. He was a really great exemplar of how you do one thing at a time. Because things would pile up on him and he got busier and busier and busier. He just only did one thing at a time. And when he was doing what he was doing, you know, you could just... There it was, you know. This is all there is in the world. It's just this one thing. And then you just go on to the next thing. And that was the only thing there was in the world. No anxiety. No anxiety about the next thing. No anxiety, even though things are coming. I remember one time he said in a lecture, he said, the character for patience, the root of the character for patience is a man, character for a man, like that, I think, and with a sword at his neck.

[29:53]

Just a sword just touching the skin of his neck. The character for patience. And he had that kind of quality. No matter, you know, how close something's coming, just taking care of this. And then when this is done, it's at the right moment, taking care of that. But not anticipating. Not anticipating. I always say to the Dawn, don't stand there waiting to ring the bell. Just relax. When it's time to ring the bell, just ring the bell. I know it's easier to say. But that's what you should be working toward. Not anticipating, not getting nervous, not being anxious. Musicians, you know, they play in the orchestra and they sit there like this.

[30:56]

And then as soon as it's time for their part, they pick up the instrument and play it. They can't sit like this. Is there a time to anticipate? We just kind of went through a period where we're engaged with anticipation and wondering what would happen. Yeah. This is a great, that's why I said this is a great test, you know, that all this stuff happening, you know, one day You don't know what's going on, you know? And especially, you know, when all this water was coming, you know, and we'd walk out thinking we were going to do one thing, and then suddenly we were doing something else, you know, because there it was. So that was, you know, how do we respond, you know? How do we let go of one thing and take on another and not worry about, and not have anxiety? You can think about and worry a little bit, but, you know, how do you stay settled?

[32:00]

and not get upset. That's why I think this is such great practice. This kind of stuff is where we test out our practice. It's the field of practice. How do you handle yourself, you know? And you can see, well, what am I worrying about? And how do I deal with what I'm worrying about? And how do I deal with the anxiety I have? And how do I deal with the upset, you know? Yes? I thought that you brought us a great gift a couple of weeks ago. You wore that t-shirt of his that says, worry is not preparation. Worry is not preparation, yeah. That's weird. So... Yes? I'm sorry to interrupt, but thinking when you... it sounds, I mean, it's so easy to say. but the reactionary feeling when things are happening right then and there, you know, it's not you get closer to work.

[33:13]

I mean, I recognize that after it's already happened or before I know I'm going to do it. And then I say, I'm not going to. And then when it's right there, you do the best you can. Yeah. When push comes to shove, you just do the best you can, you know, Like somebody said, in the army, you train, you drill, you fire at the range, and you get all prepared. And then when you go into battle, you just shoot. Or freeze, or whatever, right? But you continue to train. And then you become more and more seasoned. more and more cool, and you'll be able to stand there longer and think and take stock of things before you do something. So this is so-called training.

[34:18]

And Zazen, it's all there in Zazen. It's all there in Zazen. Yeah. You know, if you have anticipation in Zazen, it doesn't work. If you have a goal in Zazen, it doesn't work. If you have anxiety in Zazen, it doesn't work. You just settle. And there's no past and there's no future. There's just the present activity. And whatever comes, it just comes. And it just goes. And that's how you act. You don't take anything, but when that becomes so much a part of you, then you act that way all the time. Zazen is the teacher.

[35:23]

And, you know, none of us are perfect. But there's a mode that's expressed in our activity. And so, you know, it takes time. You can't just make it happen, you know. It's like they say, it's like walking in the fog, you know. Then you reach down and see your clothes are wet, but you didn't know they were getting wet because it's not raining, just foggy.

[36:34]

The hazy moon hazy moon of enlightenment. I saw the moon tonight, the hazy moon of enlightenment. So, little by little, you act out of that So then it says, let one not be submerged by the things of the world. The other one says, contented, easily supported, with few duties or right livelihood, with senses calm, discreet, not impudent. Not greedily attached to families. Goodness.

[37:37]

Don't be greedily attached to families. That was written by a monk. That was translated by a monk. This one says, let one not be submerged by the things of the world. In other words, don't take on the weight of the world. The world is so full of suffering. And it's so full of temptation. It's full of suffering, and it's full of temptation. And full of things that bring up your desire. So being submerged could be by the suffering of the world, it could be by the temptations of the world, and it could be by

[38:39]

the delusions that you have about it. Like, you can get something, keep striving to get something that you think will make you happy. What else could that be? Yes. Few duties. That's right. Relate somehow to the idea of not being filled with self-importance in relation to one's duties. Or being submerged by the things of the world. Being submerged by one's duties. Yeah. Could be like, yeah, not get caught by caught up in the kind of matrix of worldly life. Yes?

[39:47]

I have a big problem with this one because it's been called a lot. It's all about compassion. You're picking on the suffering of others. Didn't you say don't be submerged in the world? Yes, don't be submerged by people's suffering. Right. To suffer people's suffering without being submerged by it, because this is a very important point, you know, how you realize the suffering of others and suffer their suffering without being pulled down by it. The person who helps people, has to be standing up here. You know, if you reach down to get somebody up, you have to be careful that you don't fall down and then you're both down there.

[40:49]

Sometimes you both have to be there. Well, you know, how does a doctor operate on people without getting sick? How does a psychiatrist, you know, talk to people without losing sleep. Well, there has to be a certain amount of detachment, you know, and this is always a problem, you know, to balance your sympathies and your work in helping people, and at the same time not getting dragged down. You know, I've seen people, you know, who work with other people and, you know, they're crying and they're constantly worried about the people, you know, and they have no life, you know. And they can't, there's no way that they're detached from that so they can actually have their own life.

[41:52]

And otherwise you can't help people, you just become one of them. So you should be more selfish? No, it's not being more selfish. Only you can help yourself. And I can help you to help yourself, but I can't help you. If I think I can help you, then I get dragged down, because I can't. So, Yeah. So, you know, there's just so much you can do with a person. And after that, you have to know when to let go. If I didn't do that, you know, I wouldn't get any sleep, you know, I wouldn't... But I don't think about it.

[42:54]

As soon as I, you know, I can be in this thing with people, you know, very intimate, and when it's over, I'm just doing the next thing, you know. It's not like I abandon that person at all. It's just that there's this to do now, and there's this to do now. So you let go of it. You just let go of it, you know, and trust that a person, that everybody has to take care of themselves, you know. I remember somebody saying, some teacher saying, well, I'm responsible for all the students. But I don't feel that I'm responsible for all the students, although I respond to all the students. I definitely respond, but I'm not responsible for it. Everybody's responsible for themselves, ultimately. And Buddhist practice is, or Zen practice, that you find your way through your own effort. So what I try to do is help everybody to find that part of them that stimulates their effort.

[43:56]

I don't have any method, but my attitude is to encourage everyone. I always encourage it as much as I can. I've noticed that when I get caught up, in the way that she's referring to, if you go down to this, but not puffed up, that there's a tendency to be a little self-important about one's helping of somebody, and within that self-importance, there's the easy possibility of being submerged. Yes. Because then how do you detach and go on to the next thing when you in fact are getting something out of your compassion for their pain? Well, it's complex because the relationship between someone who helps or a teacher and a student

[45:09]

has to go both ways. And so the teacher, so to speak, or whoever that is, gets nourishment from the situation. If the teacher doesn't get nourishment from the situation, then they feel that they're always being depleted, because they're always giving. And unless you're receiving something back, then you just, whatever you're giving is depletion of your stores, you know? And people say, well, I can't give anymore, I can't give anymore. That's because they're not receiving anything, because the teacher is just a conduit for energy. And if there's nothing coming in, and everything's going out, well, then you feel tired and depleted. So, you know, people say, well, how can you do so many dokasans? How can you give dokasan all day long? Well, because there's energy coming in and going out. There's no person there. There's just energy. As soon as the person's there, then they get depleted.

[46:13]

Just the energy is flowing, you know, and we just create this energy. And everybody, at least, I always feel actually energized after a day of dogsong. I feel really depleted, actually, a lot. Yeah. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, for me, the more I give, the more energy I get. You'll get there. It's not really creative, it's just movement. It's just movement, yeah. I get stuck. I'm also thinking about what Barbara said in relation to what Jesse said, and it reminds me of hospice work, where this really becomes obvious, you burn out in three months. unless you figure out what's going on, how to stay close to someone in their suffering, but not pick up their suffering.

[47:15]

And it also becomes very obvious in a one-to-one relationship. If you have a very close relationship with a lover or somebody like this and they have a problem, the tendency is for you to pick up their problem, try to solve their problem, carry their suffering, And it doesn't work, because they resent it, and it just makes the whole mess worse. But what is operative in that, that I discovered, for me, was that it was very difficult for me to stay close to another person's suffering, because I began to feel my own pain. We're the ones that have all the problems. So, hospice work, It's very interesting sitting with someone who's dying and what do you do there? Well, you don't have to do anything. You just be there with them because it's just sharing life with them.

[48:21]

You're sharing this part of their life with them and helping them to move into that space. Sometimes people try to keep them on this side and then you have this big problem. because you don't want to see them go and you try to keep them there as much as possible. But if you can let go of that and help move into that, letting go, then there's some reality and some samadhi. And you can actually create the samadhi in which the person feels contented to accept what's happening and go into it. And you feel okay too, because it's real. And you can let them go. What? Us? Oh, we. It's we, yeah. Yeah, we're the ones that have the problem. They may have the problem up to that time,

[49:25]

then we're left with the problem of grief and so forth, which is real, very real. We actually go into that process of like helping, you know, say if we get to that place where they're at peace and we help them let go and we find it. Say for us, like you said, you know, we're the ones that suffer, we go through the grieving or whatever, but I was just wondering if if there's such a thing as not grieving or being okay with that. There is. You know, people look at you like, what do you want to do? What's the matter with you? Yeah, that's right. Because I've experienced a little bit of a parting of ways and I was like, okay. And they were like, that's right. What's the matter with you? You're not grieving enough. Well, you have to put on a little act. Listen. Listen, people, I used to hire mourners.

[50:36]

In many countries, the accepted way is you hire people to mourn. You know, they sit there and they wail for a week or two weeks, you know, or a month, and that's their job. And you can go about your business. Transference. But I'm not suggesting that. Of course we have grief, you know. But the grief, you know, you can be at peace and still have grief. We do it all the time. It's not like, you know, we say, escape suffering. Escaping from suffering doesn't mean there's no suffering. It means that within your suffering you have peace. You reach the place of peace within your suffering. It's not like there's no suffering. It's just impossible to live in this world without suffering. But you have peace within your suffering, within nirvana, within the world of suffering.

[51:42]

You know, when this situation arose, from previous experience, I just found myself that I just didn't want to participate. But I could see that, and I was like, fine. I mean, I love you, see you later. And it was so difficult to understand, but I said, I just was as honest as I could be, and I said, look, I just don't want to participate in this drama. But people have different ways of dramatizing. Yeah. And it may not be, you may not have the same feelings that they have, right? So there's always some discrepancy. But on the other hand, you may have to examine whether or not you're just cutting off your feelings. You know, that may be too. Later on. Yeah, later on, you know. I don't know, you know. But what I'm saying is that you can help this person and you can both be at peace because this person, you know, you have this understanding which is very wonderful and still and you can experience the grief within that peace

[52:53]

But it has a different meaning, a whole different meaning when it's encompassed with this peace, peacefulness. You still have the grief. And it's a wonderful way to accept the grief because it's a settled way. It's accepting it in a settled way and not frantic or anxious or guilty. So many people feel guilty. When somebody dies, you feel guilty. for some reason. You're talking about when you have to control it, but not feeling it, right? Yes. You feel it, but you control yourself. Yeah, because you know that this is inevitable. So it's not crying, controlling yourself? I mean... No, you should cry. You should cry the good cry and then stop crying.

[54:00]

You know, there's a point, there's a place where you should cry. I'm not telling you how to do this, but there's a place, a point where you should cry and you should grieve. And then you stop crying and you stop grieving and you go about your business. And if there's anger, you know, ask for forgiveness. You know, usually when somebody's dying, you don't want to carry all this stuff, you know, and so if you're angry at this person, you ask them to forgive you. Forgiveness is, like, so important. That's why what I really want us to do is I want to At this point, since it's getting to be late, there's a Metta meditation, which some of you probably know, and there are various versions of it.

[55:12]

What you do is, in the Metta meditation, one common way of doing it is, to sit and then you express love to yourself for a while and then you express love to a person, an indifferent person, someone who you're indifferent to. You just pick out somebody and express love and kindness to that person, metta. And then you pick out a person who you know, a friend of yours, but not someone who brings up passion in you like your lover. And then you express this to someone who you feel is your enemy, which is very difficult. This is simplification. And then you can express it to the world or to the universe and so forth.

[56:16]

This particular one by Usilananda, it's not his, this is what he usually does. I'll read it to you, okay? First it starts out by practicing forgiveness. If by deed, speech, or thought, foolishly I have done wrong, may all forgive me honored ones. Honored ones means everybody I know, or it means all the Buddhas or almost the Sangha, who are in wisdom and compassion strong. I freely forgive anyone who may have hurt or, it says insured, but injured me. I freely forgive myself. And then, that's the forgiveness meditation. Then there's the metta, loving-kindness meditation, where may I be well, happy, and peaceful.

[57:24]

May all beings in this house be well, happy, and peaceful. May all beings in this area, may all beings in this city, may all beings in this country, may all beings in this state, in the world, in the universe, swaha. practicing, but sending to particular persons, starts out with, may I be well, you start with yourself first, happy and peaceful. May my teachers be well, happy and peaceful. May my parents, my relatives, my friends. May the indifferent person be happy and peaceful. The unfriendly person, all meditators, all beings. And then at the end it says, May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief and all beings find relief. So what I was thinking was that instead of doing the four refuges, the three refuges in the morning and the evening, that in the evening we could do some version of this.

[58:42]

I know not everybody would like that. Okay, yeah Good from from now until the end of the practice period and see how that feels. So we could kind of condense it so that we don't have repetitions. Because some of these, you know, and put and have the three, or the two, yeah, the three sections without repetition, repetitious stuff, you know.

[59:46]

I think that would be a very nice thing for us to do. We were supposed to have it in the kitchen. Yeah. Yes, in the kitchen. Perhaps before we get it copied over. Oh, you already... Do we have an update? No, we have to copy this. I was thinking in order to do it tomorrow I had an idea. Oh, okay. Which would have been the rest of the team, you know, like... Oh, just one person? You say one, and then everybody chants it after you. Oh, I see. Everybody chants it after you. Because it's not very long. Yeah. But it might be a nice way of... We could do that. Yeah. Okay. So... That... Let one not be submerged by the things of the world.

[60:49]

That's an infinite thing to talk about. So, let's go on. Let one not take upon oneself the burden of riches. So, for most people, riches is something they want, but for a practitioner of the Dharma, monk, riches is a burden. Having a lot of things is a burden. because it ties one down. And you have to think about all these things, and you don't have time to think about the Dharma. And you get greedy, and your desire rises up. And let one's senses be controlled. Let one be wise, but not puffed up. So as you were saying, to not be full of pride, that you did something good.

[61:50]

That's the hardest thing, you know? Hard thing for a teacher, for someone who wants success, wants to be successful. How do we control our senses? How do you control your senses? Well, that's a hard one. By saying no to a lot of things, Not letting them run wild. Not running after everything that you see or hear. It's not that you control the senses. That's just a way of saying it. What you control is your desire. Your desire that is aroused through what you see, hear, smell, taste, touch and feel. Touch and feel. But feel.

[62:51]

your inner feelings. Yes? I think that the meditations associated with the Vishnupamukha Chakra CD are about the control of the senses. Yeah. Through the sense consciousness. Yes. And if you read any of the Pali literature It's all about controlling the senses. Without exception, it's all about how do you control the senses. That's what it's all about. That's why the Mahayana arose. Too hard to control the senses. Where you can control the senses to the point where you no longer are living in this world.

[63:56]

So, if you control the senses to the point where you no longer have any reaction to anything, that's perversion of sense control. So, controlling the senses can be acting in a reasonable way. Acting in a reasonable way with interacting with material things and interacting in a reasonable way with desire. So, you know, Buddhist texts say cut off desire, right? Get rid of desire. You can't get rid of desire. You can't cut off desire. Desire is what keeps you going. If you have no desire, You're just a lump. So what they mean by desire is desire getting out of control, inordinate desire.

[65:06]

There's a desire to eat, there's a desire to sleep, there's a desire for various things. And to keep those desires under control means to not turn up the fire too high. get heated up, you know, and then you, like Mexican jumping beans, you know, put them in the fire and then, like monkeys swinging from the trees, as Dogen says. Okay, so, and let one not desire great possessions even for one's family. So, if one has a family, you know, this one says, not be greedily attached. Not be greedily attached to families, which, whose families? But keep your family's desire under control, you know?

[66:10]

Well, if the Sangha is your family, don't desire great possessions for it. No, the part of not being greedily attached That's right. But if everybody's practicing in the same way, in your family, then it's much easier. And that's why if you marry somebody, you should marry somebody who's going the same way you are. Otherwise, you will have less. How many minutes? That's a good point. For how many minutes? So when you get married, you should really make sure that you're both going the same way. And because when you meet somebody, you're both going like this.

[67:16]

And then you happen to go like this. And then, you know, you go like this. And then you go like this again. So if you're going to go like this, you should go like that. So... I think maybe not being greedily attached to families is more possible. That's right, it's more possible. It's true, it's more possible. But when you become a monk, then your old life is over. That's why I will not ordain somebody who's going like this. I only ordain somebody, and I won't ordain everybody like this, but the condition is that they're not going anywhere. Their old life is over. You know, they're going to college or something, you know, they're going to be this or that, and I want to also be, can I also be ordained, you know?

[68:27]

No. Your old life is over. I mean, you may be married or not married, you know, but it becomes more complicated when you're married to somebody who's not going to become ornate, because your idea, your life is over, your old life is over, but theirs may not be. It's very tricky. That's why, I mean, it's very obvious, in the olden days, and still in many parts of the world, when you become a monk, you don't have any family, you know? Great to be a layperson. You can have all that. So we have a kind of in-between thing, you know, from our Japanese ancestors, in which we have married priests and families. So we have to... It's not easy. It's not at all easy. It's very difficult. You have to be so strong to maintain all that and so dedicated, you know, that it's, I don't know.

[69:35]

Otherwise you just can't make it. So I don't recommend it for anybody. But anyway, your own life is over, you know. Even if you have a family and you have a house and you have stuff, you're still the monk and you, You do this stuff, but there's a detachment to it, you know? Because you have the family, but you don't wish for great riches for it. As long as you don't, and everybody understands how it's going, and they go with you, you know, then that works. But if they have different ideas, you know, there's this tension pulling in different directions, which So if you marry somebody, make sure that they're going the same way you are, not just at that moment. But what's the future? What do you want in the future? I mean, what do you really want in the future? How's your life really going to go in the future?

[70:39]

I've seen so many people come into Zen Center and they get married. I mean, they're great students, you know. They get married. They go off someplace and do something else, and one of them really wants to be here but can't do it because, you know, they make that choice. So there's always this kind of longing for the old practice life. But somehow, you know, as soon as you get married, your life changes. I don't want to go on about marriage, but your life does change. And the nesting instinct, you know, you think that The person you married is the person you see. But there's all this stuff underneath, you know, all this karma, stuff underneath, that comes up after you get married that you didn't see there before. The nesting instinct becomes very strong. And when someone becomes ordained, you think that you see them in a certain way, and then

[71:51]

Somehow it brings up that other thing very quickly. Like, look at Charlie. I mean, I don't want to talk about people. It's just an example. It happens all the time. All the time. So, when this thing comes up about devoting your life to something, then all the other stuff comes up around it that you forgot about. And it says, what about me? Hey, you're leaving me behind. What do you mean you're leaving me behind? You can't do that. But that's another form of practice, I mean. Yeah, if you see that as practice, if you really see everything in your life as practice, then you can do it. That's right. It's another form of practice. If you really see it as another form of practice, if both people see it as another form, if one person sees it, it's okay, but it's really hard. If both people see it as a form of practice, then it's okay. Yeah, it's good.

[72:54]

Somebody said at some meeting we had once where we were talking about this subject, that there's a rabbinical thing of being married before you are whatever you are when you're made a rabbi, ordained as a rabbi. The notion being that you take care of that. you got the family settled, you're no longer sort of a free-wheeling character. And then, from that spot, you devote yourself to the Sangha, which is kind of an interesting... Well, it's a little different because the rabbi is supposed to be married, supposed to have a family, and the whole thing is built around family, you know... But as we look at new model, I mean, what are the models of Buddhism in the West? And so it may be that that model will you know, modified Buddhist practice in the West, which is built on a monastic model. Yes? I think I was the one who brought it up, and it was specifically before undertaking certain types of mystical studies.

[74:07]

It wasn't necessarily before ordination as a rabbi, but before undertaking certain types of mystical studies, it was expected to be settled in a family and so forth. firmly rooted in that way and kept that all taken care of. We have a very peculiar situation, having a monastic model and putting a family into it. But we'll figure it out. A lot of people will suffer in it. But that's life. That's life. So it's a kind of pioneering aspect of our practice. And that's what also makes it interesting. Somebody said, when you no longer have any work to do, she said, we were working on the Zendo in Berkeley, you know, this guy's, one of the carpenter's fathers came and said, well you should keep this thing going, you know, you should keep the work going, because as soon as everything's finished, then

[75:16]

Everybody will go someplace else. We don't have to worry about that here. Looks nice. And we just got a little wind. We might leave. We can't leave now. If you stay, we can have a class on the 19th. I really don't know what I'm going to do. And I'm not anxious about it. What? You really want it, because you can talk more in the window, right? Yeah. We wouldn't have to wait for a whole day. Or something. Right. We can do whatever we want. Especially you. Stay up for another 30 minutes. Darn it!

[76:24]

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