The day is the day so that the target is worth mourning. In the book of Serenity, the book of a hundred koans, There's case number 12. It's called Dizongs, Dizong, Planting the Fields. And the introduction to this case goes like this. Scholars plow with the pen, orators plow with the tongue. We patchroad mendicants lazily watch a white ox on open ground. not paying attention to the rootless, auspicious grass.

[01:02]

How to pass the days? And here's the case. Dizang asked Yuishan. How do you... Ziyuishan. Zuyishan. Zuyishan. No. Ziyuishan. Where do you come from? Ziyushan said, from the South. Dizong said, how is Buddhism in the South these days? Ziyushan said, there is extensive discussion. Dizong said, how can that compare with me here planting the fields, growing rice to eat? Ziyushan said, what can you do about the world? Dizang said, what do you call the world?

[02:04]

This case goes off to refer to what is practice. But I think it very much can be applied to our situation as practitioners and what is our field, or what is the world? What is our world? What is the sphere of practice? At the moment, this room, for us, is the whole world. Wherever we step, our environment is the whole world. When we pick up a grain of rice, the grain of rice is the whole world.

[03:17]

There's a saying, the whole universe is the eye of a mendicant. Where will you defecate? So given our discussions, what's popping up for us this week is what is our world and where is our sphere of practice and what do we take care of and what is our responsibility and all these questions. referring to the war, the environment, the responsibilities in our world.

[04:24]

And this is, of course, a huge subject which is currently overwhelming everyone. So, you can't ignore this subject, and I won't ignore this subject today. The question is, one of the questions is, why do we do one thing instead of another? And how does one thing cover everything? How does one activity cover everything? Does one activity just cover that particular activity, or does it cover everything? How do you change the world?

[05:29]

How do you affect the world? What is sadhana? And what is activity? If we think of Zazen practice and activity as separate, then we haven't understood what our practice is. Sometimes the feeling of stretching ourself from or creating a distance between our Zazen activity and our worldly activity stretches our understanding.

[06:33]

How can we affect the world by sitting Zazen for seven days? How can we do something in the world that's effective that's separate from Zazen? What do we mean by the world? What world are we talking about? What world is it that concerns us? you know, there are various fundamental axioms, I think you'd say axioms, that are perennial. Dark and light, good and bad, right and wrong, creation and destruction, peace and war,

[07:47]

love and hate. These are continuously, in this dualistic world, alternating, interacting, fighting for dominance. The pendulum swings. When we've had enough of war, it swings toward peace. When we've had enough of peace, it swings toward war. The dark swings toward the light, the light swings toward the dark, and it just goes on that way perpetually. Every time there's a large conflagration,

[08:50]

It's called the war to end all wars. No, that's not possible. It's not possible. The way the world works is the way each one of us works. If we want to understand how the world works, just look at ourselves. Just understand our own mind. understand our own feelings and emotions and our limited understanding. We only live, you know, at most a hundred years. Most people, men 73, women 80, it keeps getting up a little bit but, you know, basically not very long, it's not long enough to understand And when we see new generations appearing and people who've had experience realize how the traps that each generation finds itself in, it's too late because

[10:14]

each generation has to invent the wheel, unfortunately. Wisdom is there, but it's not always accessed. And when we try to pass it on to people, our experience, people have to have their own experience. Everyone has to have their own experience. So unfortunately, or fortunately, whatever, the cycle just keeps going. So, you know, there's never been a time

[11:17]

in my experience, that there hasn't been a war somewhere. There's a painting, I think it's by Bruegel, of this kind of haunting, you know, this huge tower, or edifice, in the midst of a large, enormous plain with mountains around it. And it's like the Tower of Babel or something. and parts of it are smoking and destructive and other parts are being built and are happy and people are kind of glowing and the whole thing, all of the parts that are present in the world are there and it's an amazing thing. While we're here being able to do this activity, living in the cornucopia of the world, so seemingly safe and secure, and on the cutting edge of society.

[12:35]

Other parts of the world are in hell. So how do we deal with the world, what we call the world? Everyone lives in their own world. Worlds live next door to each other. Constructive worlds, destructive worlds, happy worlds, hellish worlds, all mixed up. I wrote down a whole lot of stuff here. And a list, of course, I ran out of paper, but... One time, Naomi asked me if I would go to Israel and end the conflict.

[13:39]

She did ask me that, and I really thank her for that. But... I thought about that. It's a long time ago. Someone else... I left a whole other question which I don't want to discuss right now. But I thought of... there was someone else who was very much involved in that and I said, well, you know, in that end of the world the only way to have any peaceful settlement is for the Arabs and the Jews to attend each other's places of worship and worship together.

[14:41]

So, the Jews should worship in the mosques and the Muslims should worship in the synagogues, because actually it's the same, but different of course. But religion is one of the problems of the world, but it's also the problem in the world It's one of the most destructive, but also because it's so powerful and destructive, it can also be the one that resurrects the world. So the transformation of religion is really important. Religion has gotten itself, it has a lump, I'm putting it all together, gotten itself to a place where each religion sees its own exclusivity and is over and against each other.

[15:48]

So instead of creating unity, it creates diversity. Of course, diversity within unity and unity within diversity is the solution, but there's no unity. And the problem with unity is that what you hold dear in the unity. So that somehow has to happen, otherwise, you know, Raoul said yesterday that there's a to conquer the world for Allah, but there's also a movement, a Christian movement, to conquer the world for prosperity, for greed and delusion, and these two forces are just getting bigger and

[17:02]

more than most people realize. Christianity is proselytizing all over the world and becoming really strong all over the world, and the Muslim movement is counteractive, so there's going to be a big conflagration between those two. It's inevitable, unless it's diffused. What are we going to do about this world? Those are just two things. There's also the government problem in itself. A perpetual war. Perpetual war is the ideal, because through perpetual war the military-industrial complex becomes stronger and more wealthy and more powerful.

[18:08]

So, they don't want to end war, they want to just keep it going, you know, keep it going, keep it going, and it's distracting and it creates fear, so we just keep creating more fear so that we can create more defense. We used to have what was called the War Department, and then it was changed to the Defense Department. But actually, the War Department was about defense, and the Defense Department was about war. So, everything's doublespeak, you know, doublespeak. There's this huge edifice, you know. The other thing about the government is that one of the main ambitions is to change all the laws, which is happening.

[19:22]

All the laws are being changed as long as the administration is there. That's one of their purposes so that they can do whatever they want with impunity and those people who are against what they're doing will be in jail. That's what the laws are being changed to do. And one of the main people who's doing that is right here at UC Berkeley. There's all this stuff going on. This is where the fear should be. We talk about people invading us, to be fearful of that, but actually the real fear is right here.

[20:27]

People only knew that, but They don't know that. The nuclear problem is way down the line somewhere. It used to be right up there in front. It still is, of course, but it's not there, really. It's just another passing thing. But what's really being designed now is weapons for outer space. so that we have the high ground to control the world from space. That's where all the energy is going to invent that, I mean to make that a possibility. That's what's going on. So, we're kind of trapped in this machine and the machine is getting more and more like this, so that we're just trapped in that circle without realizing it.

[21:40]

So, you know, one of the major paradigms of society is master-slave. In the old days, they captured people and made them slaves in shackles, and they built this and that. But the master slave is still here in a different dress. Society is the slaves, are the slaves. People, you're enslaved by your television, by your credit cards. people can't move and do what they really want to do because they'll lose their incomes, they'll lose their homes, they'll lose their automobiles, they'll lose their security. So you can't revolt. You can't do anything to change.

[22:52]

I mean, it's very difficult. Everything about you is known. Or you use a credit card, or a telephone, and everything about you is known. I mean, pretty much. And you go into a building, and there's a camera. You go on the bar, there's a camera. There are more cameras than you really know about. controlling, so controlling society. When we look at China, we say, oh, people in China are really controlled, but that's also happening here. Every society is going to have to start controlling its populace for protection. So we're dividing the world in order to conquer it.

[23:56]

And provocative activity is of course what we want in order to create an enemy. We don't want to create friends, we only want to create enemies. Divide and conquer. And then we have some friends to help us do something, but they don't really want to. The coalition. What coalition? There's no coalition. 200 people from this country, 100 people from that country. The coalition wants us to conquer Iraq. They don't. They're just there because they're scared. Anyway. One of the problems we have is that our government is so distant, and they want to keep it distant.

[25:02]

Secrecy is what it's about. Dick Cheney is this fleeting person, you know, with heart attacks. They keep it propped up. And George Bush is out there, you know, and Charlie McCarthy, you know. mouthing it, and you don't know. And there's no discussion. There's no discussion. No discussion. It's been eight years and there's no discussion about anything. So there's no draft and there's no sacrifice. You can, you know, shop till you drop. That's the message.

[26:03]

And make yourself happy, you know, while we do this stuff. With your money. With your taxes. Draining the treasury. And poor people? Make them poorer. Because then they become better slaves. What happened in New Orleans? Nothing. Just make them poorer. I mean, it's beyond your imagination to understand it, but we have to understand it. So, The question is, what do you do? We all want to do something.

[27:07]

What do we do? What do you do? You can panic. You can rant and rave. But what do you do? I think that it's important to really educate, keep ourselves educated, to know as much as we can, to know what's going on. The more you know what's going on, you can see how it's all connected. So, being informed. By being informed all the time, it gives you a way to actually deal with the problem. And then you hear and absorb all the stuff that's going on, and how do you contain it?

[28:10]

Just how do you contain it without flipping out? I think our practice helps us to do that. our practice gives us the ground, Zazen gives us the ground for containing everything. Just being aware of what's going on in the world without going crazy is Zazen. A lot of people just tune out. Most people actually just tune out. because it's too overwhelming. I'm just thinking about Africa is overwhelming. My rant. We keep giving the dictators in Africa money, but it never gets down to the people, of course.

[29:21]

It's just a ring of It just goes around the world, holding hands around the world. The thieves. It's a thieves' club, actually, stealing money from the public and giving it to your friends so that you can have power around the world. So, this is the way the world works, unfortunately, heaven and hell. In Buddhism, it's the six worlds.

[30:23]

In the middle, the center, the hub, it's called greed, hate, and delusion. the chicken, the pig and the snake, and that's the hub around which the six worlds revolve, and the world rolls along on that hub. There's also generosity and compassion and so forth, right? The world also goes along, that's the other wheel, maybe. wisdom, compassion, and generosity. That's the other wheel, but these are the two wheels. And then there's the heavenly realm where, you know, California, my wife, family,

[31:32]

We have some of her relatives here, and her aunt and her cousins, and we're going up to around Petaluma, or someplace around there, where there's this restaurant that's considered by the world one of the world-class restaurants. It's the only one in America that's considered a world-class restaurant, and from their point of view. And it cost $250 for dinner. And they were going to go up there. She said, I'd like to go myself. She said, but I get $250 for dinner. I said, go. Just do it. Don't think, but is it worth it? I said, of course it's not worth it. But just go and enjoy yourself, you know, don't think about whether it's worth it or not, just, you know, have a good time.

[32:39]

That was Tuesday night. Well, I was eating this wonderful dinner here, I have to tell you. So, we live in that world here, you know. And then that's like, in a way, the heavenly realm, you know, where every day you're optimistic. You know, kind of like, you're not going to get bombed today, you know, you're not going to end up in the hospital, you might, but basically it's stable and epicurean. And then there's the fighting demon world, where the warriors exist, where greed, hate and delusion reign, and people get off by conquering.

[33:43]

And it's always happened throughout history, because this is the dualistic world. This is the dualistic world, and we live in it. But the question is, how do we live in the dualistic world with unity? How do we wed the dualities together? I think that's our optimism. Then there's the human world. That's where we live, the human world. Then there's the hell realm. I had this idea that I was God and when George Bush, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld finally kick the bucket, I'm going to send them to heaven where they will be set out in the field

[34:57]

listening to the cries of the wounded forever. Except that every now and then it'll stop so they don't get too used to it. It's called revenge. Yes. Yeah. Vengeful Buddha. Sorry. It's just karma. It's really not revenge. It's their karma. They haven't felt it yet. It has nothing to do with what anybody wants. It's simply what goes around comes around. And then there's the hungry ghost world, you know, we're all starving in the midst of plenty. and the annual world, where we just take care of our needs, physical needs, without thinking about anything else.

[36:06]

We don't go any further. But in each world is a bodhisattva. That's our practice, to be a bodhisattva in the transmigration through these worlds. So every day we are transmigrating through these worlds. Sometimes we're an angry demon, sometimes we're in heaven, sometimes we're in hell, sometimes we're just acting like an animal. And every once in a while we act like a human being, whatever that is. but the purpose of practice is just to be a human being. We have all these ideas about it, but really how do you be a complete human? I was reminded of Michael May today.

[37:15]

Michael May has been one of our practitioners, starting in Dwight Way, and when he started he was the director of the Lawrence Livermore lab. At that time we were all protesting atomic problems, making rings around the lab and marches and so forth, and he was sitting zazen with us and someone said, directly to the lab, and so there was this kind of hostility building, and I said, wait a minute, if we want to deal with Michael May, everybody here is welcome. We want to create a space where there's no picking and choosing of who your friends are, but simply and trying to understand each other.

[38:23]

So if we wanted to talk to him, we set up a way to do that. So we set that up. He said, yeah, I'd like to do that. And so there was wonderful discussion that came out of that. And it was people created understanding between each other. And it really worked, really worked. And people can see, well this is just a normal human being, he's not trying to create a power structure or bomb the world with an atom bomb or something like that. And so many people who are caught up in this are just caught in it. I went to Texas. Houston.

[39:28]

Houston is the oil capital. And all the people in the Zen Center, not all of them, but most of them work for the oil companies in that one-man industry. One man was the nicest guy in the world. He's the president of a company that leases out oil exploration explorations. They're always looking for oil all over the world. So, I think that although people are caught in this bind, they're looking for something. They really are looking for something.

[40:29]

And to have that many people in that industry practicing Zazen, I think it's the best thing they could possibly be doing. Because they're reflecting on themselves, they're reflecting on what they're doing, they're grounding themselves. allowing for some insight to appear and question how to go about doing things. I think that, you know, although there's all this oppressive stuff, at the same time there's the reaction of people trying to see that there's a big problem here and trying to deal with it. And I think the value of our practice is giving people some way to do that, that there's actually some transformative way of dealing with the world.

[41:43]

And going to hearings in the legislature always amazed me. Nobody would ever ask, is this law going to do any good? Is it going to work? Well, when you don't know what to do about something, you either throw money at it or you throw a law at it. But you know, this is another thing that the Buddhists, the Zen Buddhists mostly, but other Buddhists also, are going into the prisons and having an effect in

[43:17]

though it may not be obvious, but some effect in reforming the prison system, which is such a big system that it's its own monster. The prison system is a criminal system in itself. Well, the dark side of what you're talking about struck me when I was looking at a, I don't know what magazine it was, but there was an ad for, um, and pictures of this five million dollar home in Malibu, Florida somewhere. Yes. Which you could buy, and it came equipped with its own abandoned library. Yes. You know, home. And, you know, the millionaires in Houston can go and buy that house and sit on their cushion and feel at one with whatever.

[44:27]

And somehow that doesn't give me much... Well, it's hard to tell. Right, yes. That's another side. But, at the same time, we don't know. So, I am reluctant to pass judgment on whether, you know, we may think that's hypocritical, at the same time, we have to wait for the other shoe to drop. No, it reminds me, you know, there was a controversy about the 40th anniversary party and people were saying, you know, well, why are we doing something so fancy and it doesn't include everybody and so on. Which was, there was a valid point there, but I was really struck that night seeing all these people there that would never

[45:35]

And on our part, it was an offer to them to make an offering in return. It was a Donna event for them. And so, you know, some of them probably could be characterized. Yeah, well you know there's this story about this somebody, I can't remember exactly who this person was, it's in Buddhist time, put on an okesa, a Buddhist robe, an okesa, in fun, you know, and maybe she was a prostitute or something like that. And she was so affected by it that she became Buzna.

[46:56]

Who should we vote for? I don't like Hillary Clinton. Are you presenting a koan? Vote for me. Well, you had your hand up first, I think. I just want to say that I thought it was interesting that you brought up the point of these people in Houston working for oil companies and going out to do exploration, but he was a really nice guy. And I think that I don't see that as an evil thing to do. I mean, you know, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Actually, oil exploration is not an evil thing to do. It's actually, you know, all of us are actually working for the oil companies, whether we know it or not. We're all addicted to oil. And actually, oil is, you know, I think the undercurrent, the underside

[48:05]

And that's going to start changing in the years coming. And so the good news is that we won't have the oil to fly bombers. The military will not have the power that they have now because they won't have that energy. But the downside is that all of our systems, food and everything else, depends on, and water and pumping it and all those things, depends on oil at this point. So we're in for some really hard times. But very exciting, and he used to be a logger.

[49:55]

He used to work, you know, cutting down over a forest. And so because of that experience, he had some kind of awakening, but I don't know how that happened. But he had some kind of change, because he could see what he was really doing was very damaging. And it changed his whole life. A log fell on his head. May we know how our food comes to us, and really, may we know how everything comes to us. So if we practice in that way, that's the way that we change our world and change our habits. We don't need rules, we just become aware of what's going on. So that's what gives me hope. of this balance of forces and so forth.

[51:18]

And there's also lots of wonderful things that are happening in terms of people becoming aware of food safety, becoming aware of energy conservation. And it's really a huge movement. And if you look at the opinion polls, you can see that the younger generation has a whole different set. They're not on the poll, but they have different ideas. as we interact with young people, or as we interact with anybody. That's what's actually going on. And that well of energy is building. And reaching, giving them encouragement. And just by... in lots of different ways. The other thing I wanted to say is that there is kind of scientific evidence that prayer makes people get better. There is really evidence now that energy of different kinds in the past. What we know, we know we're interdependent, we know that everything we do reverberates in the world, but there's actually scientific evidence that supports that.

[52:20]

So by our generating compassion and open-heartedness and whatever, good energy, that energy So I think that the general view is going up. Go with the last question. Okay.

[53:49]

Maybe Jesus would buy your car.

[53:53]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ