I am a piece of truth about to fight others' words. This afternoon, there's this circle of concern around the Berkeley campus, and it's a protest against nuclear armament. It's also the first day of the fast for life.

[01:12]

Six people are going to fast for an indeterminate period of time. And there's a service for those people at St. Mark's Church And I've been asked to lead a meditation, a short meditation period, shortly after 12 o'clock. So my talk is going to be rather short this morning. so that I can get there on time, so that whoever wants to can get there on time. I want to express something that I feel about a fast for life and

[02:28]

I support people that are doing that practice, but I don't feel 100% good about it. And I don't want to discourage anyone in their feeling. I just wanted to express that. I can't even say that I know exactly why, but I want to support that, but I don't feel complete in it. I feel that in our daily life we should really make our effort in our day-to-day, moment-to-moment life.

[04:01]

And to do something extraordinary and extreme may be okay. But when we do something extraordinary and extreme, I always wonder, well, what is that person's daily life like? What is the support for that extreme position in a person's daily life? What kind of message is a person's daily life? giving us through that activity. And I'm reminded of a story that I read a long time ago. Do you know the Desert Fathers? The Christians in about the 4th century, in about the 4th century there were

[05:17]

Christian ascetics who went to the desert. And they did a lot of penance, and they lived in their cells, separate cells. And they were hermits. And they did a lot of austere practices. And among them, of course, was fasting. And they had great fasters, people who would fast 40 days, 90 days, really long periods of time and it was, they were, it was their way of life. And the story goes a lot of novices would come to the desert not quite understanding what the practice was about.

[06:26]

And they would want to do these long fasts and long penances and difficult practices. And the story goes that there was a young novice who was very ardent to start long fast after he had just arrived in the desert. And his abbot was an old, tough old man who was famous for his long fasts and austere practices. And the abbot could see right into this fellow's heart. And the novice said that he wanted to go out into the desert in his cell and do long fasts.

[07:34]

And the abbot said, I don't think that you should do that. And he said, why not? The novice said, why not? And the abbot said, you don't know how to fast yet. And the novice was rather dejected. He finally got his courage up to ask. He said, well, how do you fast? What is fasting? The abbot said, real fasting is when you take a meal, you don't eat quite as much as you want to. Every time you take a meal, you don't eat, you eat a little less than you'd like to.

[08:39]

He said, this is real fasting. Every day you pay attention to what you're doing. Every day you just take a little less. Why I like this story so much, you know, is because it's so in tune with our own practice. How we actually practice day by day and how we influence ourself, how we practice ourself and influence other people just in our daily life. If you get angry, you hold back from expressing it too much. If you want to clobber somebody, you know, you do a little fasting.

[09:45]

You don't say, I will never get angry. I won't get angry for two months. But yet, you get angry. And you have to clobber someone. So, how we actually take care of ourselves, day by day, moment by moment, when something comes up, and how we restrain ourselves. Fasting is a kind of restraint. We have to know how to do something. We have to know how to crawl. And then we learn how to walk. And then when we start to run, we should know how to crawl and how to walk.

[10:50]

We can do big things, great things, but We should be able to do great things, make small things into great things. We should know how to turn small things into great things. I myself am just learning how to practice, just beginning to learn. So I can't myself take on great things. But I'm still learning how to do small things. And all of you are teaching me. If I allow you to teach me,

[11:56]

that will be a great thing. And if I can just take care of myself through one day, do everything well through one day, that's quite an accomplishment We want to have some spiritual satisfaction, but spiritual satisfaction comes through very hard work.

[12:59]

I admire very much people who went to the desert and worked very, very hard. But I also admire people who stay at home and work very, very hard, who are just taking care of, moment to moment, as it comes up, not neglecting their luck. So sometimes we learn through our own difficulty.

[14:53]

We should learn through our own difficulty. And sometimes we learn through the difficulty of other people. Sometimes we learn through something from a teacher who is very good. Sometimes we learn something through teachers who is very bad. And everyone whether they're good or bad, has a good side and a bad side. We're all of us, good and bad, together. And we should be able to learn from everyone and everything. If we One side is to be a good teacher, and the other side is to be a good student. So a good student is one who learns from the teacher's good side and the teacher's bad side.

[16:07]

My teacher is not so good, but that's also teaching. but I learned something from my teacher's bad side and I learned something from my teacher's good side. That's a good student. In a way it's like being married, you know. You're married and you enjoy the good side of your partner and You learn something from the good side of your partner and you learn something from the not so good side. The main thing about being a student is that we learn from everything. Learn something from everything. And a teacher is also a student.

[17:22]

A teacher should also be a student and should learn in the same way. So then students can become teachers. So I want to support what people are doing. I very much want to support what people are doing. And whatever people do to encourage us, I want to support.

[18:32]

So today, I'm going to the Circle of Concern and to hold a meditation session at St. Mark's and I want to encourage everyone to support that activity. Do you have anything you'd like to say? A small correction, there are nine

[19:40]

There are also people who are fasting for one day today in order to give some support to those people. to me that in some ways these are extraordinary times, and that in extraordinary times extraordinary actions are called for. Did you comment on that? I think you're right. I agree with that. The most extraordinary thing would be for everyone to really pay attention to their daily life in that way.

[20:53]

That would be the most extraordinary thing. But that's too much to hope for. So we have other extraordinary things. Yes? Would you say that the Muslim mosque There were people who had learned to crawl and walk before they took such a great action. Knowing something about them, a little bit, I would say so. But even so, you know, there are two feelings about someone who does that. One is that it's an extraordinary thing in some way is very startling and everyone appreciates it.

[21:53]

And on the other side it's not something that you would recommend people to do. So if everyone started burying themselves it would be a very bad example. So You know, on the one hand you have this tremendous empathy, the overwhelming empathy and sympathy. And on the other hand, it's not something that you condone. I've given this a lot of thought. area, I feel that what's happening in this world is a lot of destructive energy with the nuclear armament.

[23:00]

And that what we have to do is something creative and not, I just see this as self-destructive to the people involved. And when I think of what I want to do and what I want people around me to do, is to Encourage the creation of something positive in our own health and create gardens or create children or create something and not starve ourselves. Because that's what's being done to us all around us. Anyway, I appreciate what everybody said.

[24:18]

And I would just like to say that if we want peace, we should be peace. And we need to start with ourself. And that's our practice. So there's no need to wonder what we're doing or what our practice is. Thank you.

[25:03]

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