and is presently one of the main practice leaders there. All of the publications that come out of Zen Center is under Michael's control as editor, including the wind bow. He's married, a little boy, and it's a pleasure having him. Thank you very much, and good morning. It's nice to see you all. I must say that I also practiced at Berkeley a little bit when I first came in 1972. That was when we were on Dwight Way. Well, I thought I'd talk about something I knew a little bit about today, which is patience. Patience is one of the six paramitas, or six ways of true living. Six ways of dividing up how we live our life.

[01:16]

And of course they all include each other, but we also talk about them in six ways. So the six paramitas are dhana, or giving, to see everything as a gift. Whatever happens to you as a gift, whatever you do is a gift. The second paramita is conduct. How you lead your life, how you walk in the street, how you drive your car, how you wear your clothes. Each act expresses our understanding or our life. And so we have precepts that describe or hints at ways of not dividing your conduct, not noticing how you divide yourself from others, when you think you can kill something and still live, when you think you can deceive, when you know a lie, those kinds of things.

[02:19]

And the third paramita which I'll come back to and talk about mostly is kshanti or patience. Sometimes it's translated as endurance, endurance or patience, but just being present with things, not jumping ahead, not turning away, just being patient, just meeting each moment, each thing that happens. Fourth way is energy. or virya, which is energy or sometimes it's called strength or sometimes it's called, anyhow, those kinds of things. And that once again is meeting each thing with energy, not blocking, not turning away or not going past. I think it's a common experience many of you may have had that you either underdo or overdo, but just meeting things just right, energy.

[03:22]

And then meditation, seeing things clearly, each thing as it comes. And wisdom, having the insight to know all these things. and to see everything as different manifestations. So, for instance, just to talk about the first one, giving. If you see everything as a gift, and everything you do is a gift, then your conduct follows the precepts. You're not dividing yourself from others. You're not practicing selfishness. You're not harming others. Everything is a gift. And if you see everything as a gift, then naturally you're quite patient. You're not expecting anything and then disappointed. It's just everything comes. And if you see everything as a gift, then your meditation also is.

[04:32]

You're not You're not trying for some expectation. And seeing everything as a gift is also wisdom. Because in fact, there is no control. Everything is a gift. So that's how they work. And I could take each one of them and see how they all fit with each other. But mostly I want to talk today, as I say, about one I feel I've practiced a lot with, which is called patience. Patience, which is not just endurance. Endurance is part of it. Whatever happens, you stay with it. But endurance has a thing kind of like gritting your teeth and getting by to the good stuff or something. Enduring the bad stuff, so then the good stuff will come. Patience is... And of course, when we think of patience, we think of when we don't get something that we want often.

[05:34]

Oh, that didn't happen. I'm impatient. How come it hasn't happened sooner? And then I think when we practice for quite a while, too, we may become impatient. We may, through our practice, we may notice more, perhaps, good behavior or the way we'd like ourselves to be or others to be, and we may notice that it's not quite We're not quite the shining Buddhists we'd like to be. We notice the same old flaws coming up in ourselves over and over again. Uh-oh, here it comes again. The same pattern. Or with somebody else, we say, oh, why don't they change? They're always that way. The character for patience in Chinese, you know the characters are kind of pictures, and the Chinese character for patience is a sword over the heart.

[06:45]

Sword over the heart. I think with patience our heart is revealed, but not always the way we'd wish. of what we'd want. Soar it over the heart. You know, in Buddhism we often emphasize two aspects instead of six, and the two aspects we often talk about are compassion and wisdom. And sometimes we can think of the heart as compassion. And we don't have a manjushri here. But, see how Manjushri has a sword. Manjushri represents discriminating wisdom. So in this image, a sword over the heart, we have both compassion and wisdom.

[07:50]

It's been my experience also with people I've practiced with for five or ten years or so that this, that for us, for Zen students, patience is something we become quite familiar with. Whether we sit sashin and want to move or want to go somewhere else, or whether our insight increases and we wish we were there, or the more we are present, the more we notice how much we may want to run away, or the more we may wish we were somewhere else. Suzuki Roshi once said that you may be enlightened and may not like it. Or he also said, each one of you will have your enlightenment, But will you move on from there?

[09:13]

Something like that. He didn't. So I think we do all have our enlightenment experiences. We all have our insights. We notice. We touch the way things are. But too often we may want to move from it. And it's always not It's not always joy. And particularly when you put so much time and energy into your practice, you may notice yourself from time to time being a little discouraged, that you're not, that you don't notice so much improvement in your practice or that you wish you were better and you may feel a little discouraged.

[10:22]

But that mostly is growth. When you notice that you're a little dissatisfied, that may be growth. Staying with it, that's the point where you have to stay with it the most and not move. That's patience. Staying with things, whatever comes up. Sometimes patience is also thought of as faith. Actually, these six paramitas are from earlier five cardinal virtues, and patience takes the place of faith. In a sense, there is something that's akin in patience. That whatever's here now is good enough. Whatever's here now, that's what's there.

[11:27]

Not to jump somewhere else. And it's only through your presence in each moment that the parmitas are reached or completed. Parmita means other shore. The six parmitas, the other shore. Zen is part of a bigger school in Buddhism which is called Mahayana Buddhism, or the big vehicle. And in fact, when the lecture is over, we'll chant the four vows. And the vows are such like beings are innumerable. I vow to awaken with them. This is not a short, this is not an easy task. Oh, I can, I vow to go across the street. Well, that's sometimes not so easy either, but I vow to awaken with everyone.

[12:33]

It's a big vow. And it needs to be done in each moment. It's not something we can get it over with. You know, when I notice I'm impatient, okay, let's get it over with. I want to do it and get it over with. But the vows, you cannot do that. Or if you're having a hard time, you say, all right, let's get through it, as if there's this beginning and there's this end and now it's over. or I'm having a good time, I don't want it to end. I want to hold on to it. But it's big. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. If you have a big task, you can't go too fast, nor can you, you always have to work at it. An analogy was, I think, is when I worked at the Greens restaurant when we first opened. You know it was this huge restaurant and many people would be waiting and there'd be a lot of pressure and none of us had worked in a restaurant before.

[13:45]

Food arises a lot of emotions and the customers would be waiting for an hour before they'd be seated and then they wanted their food right away naturally enough. So we who waited on tables would do either two things. There'd be people who would rush around And that would be good, rush back and forth in the kitchen bringing the food. But then also when you were at the table taking an order, you'd say, all right, what do you want? Have you had waiters like that? Well, I understand that sometimes that was a waiter like that. Or there was another type of waiter who was very good at talking to the customer. You know, oh, and are you having a nice day? And then they would amble back to the kitchen. And then occasionally they'd see if the food was ready and they'd amble back. Of course, what works best, what took care of the situation best, which took care of the customers best, is if you spend time when you're at the table.

[14:49]

And when you're not at the table, you move fast. And that's patience. Patience isn't just going slowly back. Patience is, this is what's happening now. Now I'm with a person, a person who wants me to serve them, not just to go in and out, just serve them. And then, oh, I'm not with a person. Now I should get the food. And of course, at a restaurant like Green's, at certain points, it would be mayhem. And you couldn't go fast enough. to serve all your people adequately. You couldn't. You would keep going faster and faster, and that was very good. But at a certain point, if you went any faster, you would start dropping things and running into people and start getting irritable with customers, etc. So that's also patience. Finding your right pace. That's also faith.

[15:50]

Finding your pace, which isn't just anything is okay. Patience isn't just endurance. It has a component of energy, meeting with what's coming, with the right energy. Today I thought I was maybe going to be late because my wife was going to come with me and Nathan, our son. But somehow the time got later and later. Nathan had to be changed or we had to catch up with him or he was undressing when we wanted him to dress. And still, of course, I didn't want to be late.

[16:55]

But it worked out. There wasn't too much traffic. We got here early. But too often, and I noticed this particularly when I drive, but also when other people drive, how impatient you are when you drive. It's, nobody is ever in their car. Are you ever in your car? Are you always either before you're in your car or already at the place and why aren't you there sooner? And people get so angry at each other if you make a wrong turn or right turn or if you don't make a turn that the other person expected whether or not are you going at a slightly different pace than somebody else? Or if they're going at a slightly different pace than you are? You want to be there. You want to be at the Blue Mountains, or you want to be home, or you want to be in the Zendo talking.

[18:02]

But that's not where you are. You're in the car. So much of our life is like that. We're somewhere else. and how nice it is to actually be in the car sometimes. Even if we turn out, we're a little bit late. Actually, I was just thinking, one of the... I finally, I moved out to California in 1972, and at that time, I was spending a lot of time in Berkeley. I was mostly staying with friends in Berkeley, sometimes going to the Zendo and Dwight Way, and sometimes hitchhiking to Page Street. And at some point I decided, well, I think I'm going to spend some time at Page Street. But I hadn't yet found a place there, so I was commuting back and forth. And I noticed one afternoon, I don't know, I can't remember the times, but to hitch from here to Page Street and to be there in time for the 5.30 sitting, I had to figure out when to leave.

[19:19]

And I'd always try to leave fairly early. But I would notice that I was starting to bully myself. You know, at 4 o'clock, I was tired. At 3.30, I was starting to get ready. And I really, I wanted to be at the Zen Dojo, but I was pushing myself too much. I was abusing myself. And then, at that point, I just stopped. And I just, well, I may be late, but I need to close my eyes for 20 minutes or lie horizontal, and then I'll go. Of course, every time I did it, it worked out, but I still, I was willing to be with where I was at the same time to try to make it. I noticed this when I was in graduate school. At test time, study time, or paper time, you know, I put a lot of pressure on myself. to, oh, I have to study.

[20:21]

And at the same time, there's another part of myself that said, oh my gosh, do I got to do this? I want to do something else. But finding a way to bring those two together, honoring the fact that I wanted to study, needed to study, wanted to get this paper done. And also, I didn't want to beat up on myself. That actually, I also had to take care of myself as well as taking care of the situation. Sword over the heart. We need to take care of things. We need to take care of ourselves. We have to be with each situation. It's not always what looks easy or what looks simplest. It's only when we notice the sword over the heart that we can truly be with things and not be jumping to the next.

[21:53]

not be jumping to the next idea, however beautiful. However beautiful your idea of practice is, or however beautiful what you think of enlightenment is, or however beautiful the place you're going to go to next after this lecture, sword over the heart. With patience and with the next paramita, which is energy or strength, those two together are the middle of the paramita, the heart of the paramita, gives us courage. Being with things and meeting it with energy. That's true courage.

[22:57]

It's not trying to get past it. Oh, I've got a problem, how can I get rid of it? It's not trying to run away from it. Oh, there's a problem, where can I go? How do I meet it? How do I meet each situation? Or as Suzuki Roshi would say, if you have a problem, then you have a way to go. Well, maybe that's enough of that. Do you have any questions or anything else that might be on your mind that we could talk about? The picture of a sword over a heart, I guess I don't understand how that works.

[24:08]

I can see the sword punching into the heart. That is all happening when there is no patience. It's the pain of the suffering that goes on when there is no patience. I think of the sword being that kind of a tool, punching into the heart. Can you talk more about that dimension? Well, I guess it's more the threat. Isn't it more the threat than the plunge? Patience is more... I mean, so much of the time we jump from things before they touch us. Isn't that... I mean, we jump to conclusions when somebody says something to us, or we fear something so we go somewhere else. It doesn't even touch us. Hang out with it.

[25:12]

Hang out with whatever is coming to you. Not saying, this part is okay, this part I can experience, everything else is not okay, or if I can do my best to get away from it, I will. It's okay to talk about birds, but if there's a sword, I, you know. And that's true peace, you know. True peace is being able to live with knowing how we cut each other up all the time. But we don't get hurt in a certain way. If you have the strength and patience. We don't actually get hurt so much. You know, the, I guess I've There's another, Buddhism has lots of sixes and four, anyhow, there's also the four unlimited, the four Brahma-viharas.

[26:14]

And one of the Brahma-viharas is compassion. And each of them has an enemy and a near enemy. So the enemy of compassion, of course, is hatred or wanting to do harm to others. And there are several near enemies. Near enemies are things that look the same as compassion, but are actually its opposite. And two near enemies of compassion are feeling sorry for somebody. There is, you know, superiority kind of thing. Oh, too bad for them. You know, that kind of thing. Or the other near enemy of compassion is if somebody is depressed, then you get depressed. So now there are two depressed people. Compassion is seeing somebody suffering, understanding it, but also with the power of equanimity of, oh, that's the way it is.

[27:20]

Not indifference. Equanimity is another one of the four brahma haris, and its opposite is one-sidedness. But its near enemy is not caring or indifference. Equanimity doesn't mean indifference. You care, but this is the way it is. Even though, you know, in our lives we have to experience many difficult things. My father has died. A lot of my friends have gone away. Some of them have died. Some of them have, for some reason, we're now sort of enemies, or it appears like we're enemies. My son, every time he cuts himself or hurts himself, or maybe even worse, though, is all the concepts about ourselves die in front of us.

[28:24]

When we grew up we wanted to be a fireman or whatever, or even to this day we wish we could think of ourselves in a certain way and we're not always that way. We have to face some really terrible things. That's human life. It's not just that, but that's some of the stuff that's not easy. And whether the sword plunges in or is just hanging out there, it's there, you know? And at the same time, you know, there's some intimacy in this. There's some, as Suzuki Roshi said, if there's a problem, you have a way to go. There's some entrance here. When you're just hiding yourself from difficulty or problems, you know, there's a wall. The wall either breaks or it keeps things out. There isn't commerce.

[29:26]

When we notice how we fail, or when we notice things very closely without blocking them off in just the way we want them to be, there's a certain intimacy. We see things as they are. We merge with things. We see things as a gift, not just as, oh, we deserve it or we didn't deserve it. Ah, it's a gift. This talk, it's a gift. I hope it's helpful, but, you know, it's not. It's a gift. Do with it what you want. You will do with it what you want. Your conduct, how you do things. Are you separating yourself from others or are you making believe, oh I can kill something, or oh I'm much better than other people, or they're much better than me, or that person, anyhow.

[30:34]

Or I can lie to somebody, but I know I'm lying, it's a lie. Or patience. Can you actually go somewhere else? Are you actually not in the car? Well, yeah, we can say we're not in the car, but basically you're in the car. Right now we're in Nisendo. You may be hoping for the tea and cookies soon, and I share that hope too, but this is where we are. Yeah. I want to say it's a little bit jumbled, because it's kind of jumping along, but this week I'm thinking about depression, sort of, when I get depressed, what I do is tell myself how rich I am. Yes, yes. And what a miserable screw-up. And recently I heard, I came up talking about the practice of not letting unwholesome thoughts arise, or when they arise, substituting the wholesome thought.

[31:43]

And I realized that, you know, you create whatever hell you walk around in, in your head, right? And you can see things in another way. And so what I guess I'm kind of wondering about how it relates to what you're saying is the balance between shoving away what's happening and falling headlong into it. And it seems to me that Yes. Yes. Well, part of the reason that images are so good is they actually work better than words. That image, if you just remember that image, I think it'll be better than the rest of the lecture, even though I may not explain it so well. But, yeah. being able to notice what's coming up and then notice, oh, I'm depressed.

[32:51]

I say, oh, I'm really enjoying being depressed. I'm enhancing the causes that led to my depression. Another way to do it, of course, is, oh, I'm not depressed. The world is sunshiny, et cetera. And that's OK. And sometimes that's a good antidote. Antidote. Thank you. You know, it's like a medicine. Oh, well, I'm one of the dark moods, so I should go to the movies and watch, and go to a comedy. That's good. But some people, at some point, sometimes they can get so merged that you're either living in the, oh, it's all sunshine or it's all dark, when in fact, yeah, that was a pretty difficult thing that happened to me. I wanted that person to love me and they didn't. I wanted that job and I didn't get it, or that person who I cared for just did a terrible thing to me. Those things, oh, yeah, that's some difficult, but that's what it is.

[33:54]

Now let's move on to the next thing. It's not that the world is dark forever. That's the part where faith comes in, in the sword over the heart, because it actually takes faith to be present with the sword over the heart. The thing that you said has struck me the most is that faith has to do with whatever is in front of you is sufficient. And yet, you have to keep moving forward. Yes. It's this paradox, only when you stand still can you move, you know? You know, we talk about stillness all the time, but you know, nothing is still. Nothing! everything's swirling around. It's only when you're as still as you can be that you can notice the movement. You know like, I grew up in Brooklyn and there are subway trains, there are two trains all the time. And you're in the subway and one of the trains is moving and you're not sure if it's the train you're on or the train next to you.

[34:55]

Or it sometimes happens with a car, if you're in a parked car and it starts to roll, you're not sure if you're rolling backwards or the other is. It's only when you're as still as you can be that you know what's moving, that you can notice. It's very hard when you're on the train, you don't know what's moving. So when we sit still every day, we let everything else happen. We can't control anything, but we sit still. As much as possible, we allow that frame, and then everything can happen. We can let anything happen. Swords come, dancing girls, dancing men, anything. Yeah, I don't know anything about Chinese characters, so I'm just responding to your language. But just from the language, my concept was what we've been talking about, sort of turned inside out, that the sword is a protection for the heart, not a threat to the heart.

[35:56]

And so the combination of the two, having an open heart and having something to protect that openness, that's the concept that came up in my mind, which is not completely different than what we've been talking about at all. It's like the other side. Yeah. We have both strength and receptivity. We have activity. Whether you think that the sword is in somebody else's arm or in your own, Whether you think it's your heart or somebody else's heart. Who's holding the sword and who's holding the heart? Patience is this function of sword and heart. I was wondering if I talked too much. Is there anything else? Thank you all. And please take care of yourself. That's also ensured over the heart. Please take care of yourself.

[37:10]

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