Morning. I was gone last week to Los Angeles where we have an annual meeting of the American priests who are transmitted priests who are registered with what we call the shumucho, the Japanese side of our practice, the administrative arm of the Japanese Soto-shu, which I've been dealing with for the last 25 years. And I thought, well, maybe I should talk about that, but it's so difficult for me to talk about. and so complex that, as I was driving over on the radio, they were talking about 9-11.

[01:01]

And I thought, oh, here's a gift talk. A gift talk about karma. Why do we talk about 9-11? We talk about it in a Buddhist context. It's all about karma. We had our Bodhisattva ceremony a few minutes ago, which we said, all my ancient tangled karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, I now fully avow. Problem is, we never fully avowed it. We have never fully avowed it, our ancient tangled karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion. So we're still stuck with it because we don't understand how things happen.

[02:01]

We do not understand how things happen. In 9-11, 2001, I gave a talk. I often give a talk called My State of the Union. I haven't done that for a while. But I said, we invented Osama Bin Laden. This is a heretical talk, you know. And I got criticized, you know. You're un-American, blah, blah, blah. This is a knee-jerk reaction. There's been nothing but knee-jerk reactions to 9-11. Is there some problem? It's so quiet. So I want to be careful not to be critical, but simply to be real.

[03:18]

We need to be real about when we hear about 9-11 talk about 9-11 and hear the music and get the rhetoric it's all about it's too bad that that happened and all those people that died and were so and and they hate us that's like the surface of understanding because of our grief that's played up so much that it's all accounts it's our grief so self-examination never happens. And because self-examination never happens, the exploitation becomes paramount. It's a great opportunity. 9-11 was a great opportunity, and still is. But which side of opportunity do we take?

[04:22]

Do we take the side of opportunity which exploits 9-11 to somebody's advantage? Or do we take the side that leads to self-examination as to why something really happens? Why did this happen? Why do people hate us? Well, because they don't like our way of life. Yeah, that's true. But which way of life? There are so many ways of life in America. Which way of life are we talking about? Are we talking about the ugly American? Remember that? Many of you don't, because we're more ugly. But we used to talk about, one time, the ugly American who goes to a foreign country and just, you know, acts like an ass. Why do they hate me?

[05:26]

I'm doing nothing, but actually, I can ask, why do they hate me? This is the lack of self-examination. My great example is, it's not so great, but it's an example. When you have a beehive, you want the honey. You want what the bees have. You steal their honey. You do that. And then, if you hit the hive with a stick, or a hornet's nest with a stick, the hornets come out and sting you. And you go, why do that? Why not do it to them? We know that. I mean, that's pretty obvious, that if you hit the hornet's nest with a stick, that the hornets are going to come out and sting you. And when the bees come out and sting you, they lose their life. So we created a situation where the bees are coming out and giving their life because we're killing them anyway.

[06:40]

We're devastating a whole area of the world for nothing because Why? Why? Why? Because they hate us. The more we hit them, the more they hate us. So because they hate us, we'll hit them. And then we'll hit them some more because they hate us. And so forth. So... There's a difference between reaction and response. Reaction means, when you hit me, I'll hit you. Response means, okay, you hit me, but I'll think about how to deal with you. Maybe there's a different way than continuing to go back and forth, hitting each other.

[07:41]

And why did you hit me? Do you think it was a surprise that 9-11 happened? I get to be a surprise. So there are many conflicting emotions here. Of course we feel grief, you know. It's a terrible tragedy. Just like, really terrible tragedy. But if we stop there and simply use to build up our military, to build up our war machine, to divert all of our fortune into a country or a couple of countries where all the money comes back to us and nothing ever happens over there.

[08:51]

Iran, not Iran, but Iraq and Afghanistan, nothing was ever built there of a significance and yet billions of dollars were poured into the country. At one time, the past 10 years, contractors were given credit cards to drive without question about where the money was going. People don't remember these things. Our memory is so short. Our dishonesty is so vast. Corruption. We talk about the corruption in Iraq. I like corruption in Iraq. Duh! So the way to deflect your own Our dishonesty is to make the other side look dishonest.

[09:57]

And if you make the other side look dishonest, then it doesn't make you look honest. Paul? Mostly it sounds like you're talking about what happened after 9-11. But I think I've heard you also sort of intimate that we did something which caused 9-11, that somehow the policies of this government are at fault. And that's why 9-11 happened. Is that true? Well, that's one reason. I think there are many reasons. It's very complex. Very complex. And I'm not clear on what was done by the United States to the Islamic fundamentalists that caused them to want to do this to us. That caused us to perhaps, you might say, deserve it. Would anybody like to answer that? Perhaps putting military bases on their holy lands, could that possibly be a cause for upset in the Islamic world?

[11:06]

Not to mention the fact that we've had 40 warnings, we've built the Taliban, but some of them weren't for the CIA. Peter? What you're talking about is the unexamined exercise of power. Exactly. And that's been going on for a long time. And there's a price to pay for that. That's the price to pay for that. The question is, we're talking about examining. So why don't we want to know? What does it mean for us? Because if we know, we'd have to... What would we give up? We'd give up our false sense of security. Security. Security. And it's just like human relations.

[12:10]

It's just like two people. You know, one person. Like an argument between a husband and a wife. You know, it's like if you... acknowledge that you did something wrong, you feel defeated. You might lose. You might lose. You might give up something of tremendous importance to you. That's the story we tell ourselves. Yeah. So there is something that matters. But how we're responding to that is taking us to a place we don't like to be. Right. Yes. Yeah, I guess I just want to say that the people killed, you know, pilots, airline stewardesses, waiters, waitresses, secretaries, they weren't doing unexamined exercise of power, they were just trying to live their lives. Yes. And they were, you know, not to say that, I mean, they were essentially innocent civilians, you know, I guess I just, I'm not.

[13:11]

The problem is, this is the innocents that pay the price. It's always the innocents that pay the price. Most of the people killed in Iraq are just simply innocent people. That's the problem. That's one of the problems. The innocents pay the price, always. And now, in this country, the innocents are paying the price by all their wealth is being taken from them. The US, I want to go back to that question of what the US did. It prompted dictatorial regimes in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, giving money because it wanted the oil. And people were oppressed in Libya to by these crazy dictators who survived thanks to the US.

[14:13]

Yeah. And that's now falling apart. Yes. It's all... Great intrigue. Great international intrigue. And so it's a power play. Who's going to be top dog in the world? You can see it in Africa, because it's very plain. In Africa, things are very clear. It's king in the mountains. King of the Mountain. One dictator replaces another, and then each one replaces another. And you can see that happening. Government means almost nothing. Yeah. And when the people in power referred to the killing of the innocents, They call it collateral damage. And when the people in power on the streets talk about the innocents killed, they call them mushrooms.

[15:14]

No, that's right. You know, we were not allowed to see the soldiers that came back from Iraq, the dead ones. That was off limits. And that was a big controversy. I don't know if you remember that. Our army was not a real army. It was not a national army. It was a paid army, which worked for the government. Very interesting. So if we talk about the law of cause and effect, and we talk about karma, and we talk about causation, how then should we live? Where does examination help to clear karma, and how do we untangle this chain? Yes. There is personal karma, and then as an extension, there is national karma, group karma.

[16:20]

Karma simply means volitional action. period, then there is the result of your volitional action, which is called falla, or fallout, I call it. The result. What happens when you do something? Every time we do something there is a result. That's karma. Every action has a result. When you do things in a certain manner, let's say good things, then good karma follows. If you do evil things, then evil karma follows. But in both cases, especially in evil karma, it's hard to get off the wheel. Because when you do things, my definition of what creates habit You do something once, you see that something happened, and you have a chance to say, OK, I won't do that again.

[17:31]

You do it twice, and you say, well, let's see what happens if I do it a third time. You do it a third time, and then karma really gets stronger. And it's very hard to remove yourself, to get out of it. So the way to get out of karma is through confession. Catholic Church, but it's okay to acknowledge what you've done and what the consequences are so that you don't do that again. The more you do it, the stronger it gets. The more we maintain a habit, the stronger it gets. So if we can curtail a habit before it gets really strong, then we can change our karma. So karma can be changed. That's the most important part of Buddhism. Buddhist understanding is that karma is not fate. Karma is the result of our actions, and we can turn away from that.

[18:39]

This is like in Buddhism, if you become ordained, that's your birthday. And you have a new life. which is not, even though we have residual karma, which follows you like a cart and a horse, the way the cart follows the horse, but you can change the direction. You don't have to be ordained to do that. We can all change the direction of our life, if we want to. But it's hard when you're, you know, When wealth and power are so strong within you, it's hard to change. Power is the most difficult thing to deal with.

[19:44]

Going back to Peter's question, for me I feel like in addition to habit energy, or maybe it's like a meta-habit, I feel like if when I, and if I can't, in the microcosm of myself as an individual, own my aggression and my hate and what we might call the shadowy stuff, I think that's so painful to self-concept. I mean, even if I'm not particularly focused on having institutional power and wealth, I still have all of this horrible splitting off and doing the good-bad thing, as long as I'm doing that and not holding everything, I'm going to reinscribe it. I'm going to keep doing it. I'm going to keep manifesting it. And then in the larger context, I think that's how the things you're talking about happen. But it's painful, I think, for all of us to own it. Well, that's it. It's painful to own it. That's the point. It's painful. It's painful to own it. That's why it's so hard.

[20:45]

And that's why we hide it. Not hide, but There's a word called avoidance. Yeah. And people do, volitionally do evil things, but people also do stupid things. A lot of them. And deluded things. And I'm thinking about the idea that millions of American families have spent themselves into horrible debt. crippling debt. And I don't mean just the people who were ill-advised about mortgages and so forth, but people have just been buying and buying and are stuck now with crippling, crippling debts. Yeah. First of all, the slave trade has never stopped. It just takes different forms in different cultures.

[21:46]

The end of the Civil War was supposed to be the end of slavery, but it just takes different forms, because now we pay the slaves a little bit. Okay, here, you know, here's your pittance, and television sets, a new car. We think this is prosperity, but it's really a kind of slavery, because we're indebted to it, and everybody is in debt, and because everybody is in debt, there's no way that we can revolt. I mean, that's what makes it our change, actually, because we're chained to our debts. But that's what makes prosperity. So it's a catch-22. One thing with 9-11 is that it's hard enough to deal with karma on an individual level, but once you have rather easy karmic analyses of why it happened, then on either side of it, to me it just kind of reeks a little bit.

[23:00]

I don't care if it's like, you know, some professor that said, oh, anybody who would bomb the Pentagon gets fired on, said that just glibly in class after it happened, hard, hard, hard, you know. You had that on both sides. you had people that were giving their own easy, facile, karmic analysis, or their analysis of why it happened, and why there is some sense of justice in what happened, or whatever they called it. It bothered me, either side, you know. Well, yes, it bothers you. Either side bothers you. I just wanted to say that I'm aware that what's difficult for me is I can kind of understand the concept of confession and how that makes some internal shift and actually shifts relationships in the area of so-called personal karma.

[24:03]

But then there's the larger sphere of karma, which I participate in. But I can't take full responsibility for it because I share that responsibility with everyone. So I'm struggling. How do I take responsibility for my participation in a larger sphere? This is why we had in the 60s the counterculture. Because people did not want to feel that they were participating in the culture of dishonesty. I am concerned sometimes that we equate all karmas, that is, I do have a shallow self, but do we equate our shallow self with the deeds of SS in its constitution camps as it's the same thing?

[25:11]

Should we think it's all equal? You know, if we don't do something, then we participate. If we don't actively do something, then we're actually participating in what we don't want. But, you know, I can drive a car. And I know that eating... Sometimes I look... I was in Los Angeles on the freeway, you know, and I was looking at all these cars that were just... All that gasoline is driving all of these cars, you know, and I'm doing it too. But I can't not do it. by it. Of course, it's not only the 60s that we had a counterculture. We have countercultures today, too, and we have people engaging with these problems that we're talking about in so many ways, including many of us.

[26:12]

And I was thinking since there's so much discussion of 9-11 on every radio, television, newspaper, that to engage at the general level of why did it happen, or whose fault was it, or sort of common political analysis wouldn't be helpful to us here. But we've already gotten into something that's more helpful. I was thinking maybe each of us might say, or anybody who feels like it might say, in what way we might be currently struggling with the meaning of these matters. For example, the militarism of our country and the world is so overwhelmingly powerful that I usually feel helpless to stop, to do anything. One thing that I'm doing is studying the effects of trauma on soldiers as well as victims.

[27:18]

And unlike those days when we couldn't see the body bags coming from Iraq, there's a tremendous amount of expression coming from the soldiers who have been fighting. Incredible amount of literature and expression. So one thing I'm doing, and other people could say, or we could look at that, how we can engage in what Peter said was we're participating in and yet seems out of our control, is to try to raise my consciousness not only of my own karma, which we all are practicing at here, but of the karma that we're generating together by participating in these massive forms of violence. Well, I think we have to start here. by listening to others. The stuff that's coming from soldiers is quite incredible nowadays. Someone has a rope back there.

[28:25]

Oh, I think it's... It actually is. Oh, OK. It's kind of old now. I guess what I... I was kind of thinking more about this group identity and blue karma. Right. And some of the worst atrocities in humanity have come from societies turning their head, people not looking at genocide happening. And that has to do with the dark side of us as a group. Well, a whole section of society rationalizing violence and making a rationalization for why it's OK, that's a big problem. That's good karma. And that brings it down in everybody's head. Well, and whether or not you can be brave enough to speak. That's it. In the face of overwhelming denial by everybody else.

[29:25]

Denial, yeah. That's what's happening. It's just denial. Raúl? Yeah. I think one of the maybe pivotal things is how we transform the power of domination for the power of pronunciation. And so what's behind this is sort of the power to dominate, to be number one, to be the top dog. And that happens at many different ways, many different levels. It's happening all the time. There's a 9-11 in Chile also. 9-11 was the coup against Allende, which was a socially, democratically elected socialist government. And what really angered the United States and the CIA, which helped organize the military coup, was that the

[30:36]

Because there were two big American corporations who were exploiting the conference and making tons of money in the process and not leaving much of that money in the country to benefit the country and the workers. And the disparity between what the executives of the corporations were making and what the workers who were in the mines slavery, modern day slavery. But I feel that there was some repentance or some undoing of that with this example of the miners that were trapped in the Eritrean mine. And it was American space technology that helped get the miners out. And that went totally, it was totally was secret.

[31:45]

It wasn't advertised or anything, but that was really the effective cause that helped bring the minds out. And to me, that was a wonderful example of an appropriate use of American technology. How do we turn power around so that it works for everybody instead of dominates everybody? That's the big question. Part of where I get stuck with the karmic question is that I feel so, actually, honestly, feeling hopeful or imagining real change feels so impossible to me that I feel like I settle for a countercultural identity. And I'm like, OK, I'm doing something that is my part of challenging empire, challenging the necessity of the state. But then that sort of is like, my path to not have to deal with responsibility or deal with, like, hopelessness, you know?

[32:47]

Well, despair becomes, you know, when you don't see a way out. But there's always a way out. And it starts with you. This is why self-examination is the beginning of cultural examination. And there's no need to feel despair because You might as well work for what you believe in. You know, you're going to die anyway. While you're here, work for what you believe in. All the way to the end. Just go all the way to the end in what you believe in. Because that's all you can do. I mean, not only that's all you can do, but that's the basis of what you can do. Well, it's been a lot since. It's hard to know exactly where to jump into the conversation. But what this exchange reminded me of as a starter was a story that a lot of people here know about Maile Scott. Maile Scott, who was a senior teacher here.

[33:52]

And the story is she used to be very active with the peace movements and used to sit at the tracks to block nuclear waste. And with the first Iraq bombing, There was a protest that was being held, and there was a sign up at our bulletin board inviting people to go to it. And someone approached her and said, do you really think it's going to make any difference that we go and do that? And her response was, I don't know, but it's most important that I do it. So in my mind, that's the spirit with which I want to be in the world, and also just to touch on Christy's question in relationship to that. I think sometimes it gets hard to look at ourselves and deal with our stuff because we pile on shame or hopelessness or despair. We add things to it because we can't be good enough or we're too afraid. I think fear underlies a lot of what goes on, even more than power and greed.

[34:57]

But that's just something added on. If you see that it's just something added on and take it as that, it's much easier to go to a deeper place. And finally, I want to say, I think the more you do that, the more you see how related you are to everyone else and everything else, and it's out of that inner connection that there's an impetus to act and also a kind of humility that makes it okay to be who you are. Thank you. Yeah, what came up in response to what you said too... Speak up so people can hear you. Okay, I'll try. So what came up in response to the question about despair for me is kind of reminded of Joanna Macy's work and how important it is or how it may be useful. There may be a skillful way of

[35:59]

of actually experiencing the despair, facing it, and walking through it in a way, and sort of having it be part of our experience while we engage the world. I think that's good, yes. Also, you know, you just do something for the sake of doing it, without worrying about the result. If you worry about the result, you become very discouraged. Then you just work for something, and what you do also helps other people to do it. And if you worry about the result, you can't do that. You just do it for the sake of what you believe. One thing is that we all feel alone in confronting the vast power. But the way things change is that people get together. And I mean, slavery, there was one man, John Woolman, in the Quaker community.

[37:08]

It took him decades to persuade the Quakers to give up slavery. But as we have to get together. Yeah. Free trade, you know, the free trade agreements and all that. It's just another form of slavery for the world instead of just in your own community. The civil war is not really over. The civil war is over, but the impetuses are still, the foundations are still there. And instead of enslaving our own people, we enslave the people in other countries. And that's why people don't have jobs now here. That's because we have all this cheap slave labor elsewhere. No manufacturing.

[38:10]

That's what that's what built our country with manufacturing. Now I have entrepreneurship. Yes. I think we probably all, I know I do, suffer from bouts of despair, the tragedy of the world, beautiful world, which is a tragic world. And I don't know if other people do this, but this sounds snappy. Maybe it's not. But I feel that there's a lot of strength in my refuge in Buddha, dharma, and the more time I spend here in Sangha, too. I'm very grateful to have a refuge. Yeah, me too. Anybody else?

[39:14]

I told you, Roshi, you said earlier that we can change our karma. That's the teaching of Buddhism. And then you spoke about driving in L.A. in the cars, and you were participating in that, and you said, but I have to do this. And I wonder about what do you really have to do? And for me, the closest thing in my heart is the life of animals and the livestock industry and the suffering that we all perpetuate with that industry. And because we don't see it happening, or this little clip on the TV once in a while we look away from it, it's not part of our existence. So we continue eating animals and perpetuate that suffering. We continue driving cars. And we feel we have to do that for whatever reasons. And so what is it that brings it back to turning to karma and not doing it? Saying, no, I don't have to be in LA. No, I don't have to eat particular food.

[40:17]

That's personal. choice, and many people make that choice, are making that choice. Many people are making that choice. So they feel they have to not do that. They don't have to do that, but we're talking about local transportation. Well, in local transportation, you can ride your bike and walk, and that's great. Well, in a certain sense, if the event down in L.A., if there was carpooling opportunities, or if you had to really have to had to be there, but we make these choices and I'm wondering about how we can further the teaching of Buddhism and changing karma while we're suffering ourselves and perpetuating suffering. So my response to that is just keep asking that question. That's also what Ross just said, brings up for me something I've thought about a lot,

[41:18]

when you're part of this bigger system that relies on these things. For example, if we lived in a culture where there weren't cars, things would be more dense, there would be other options, but being part of this system, you can choose not to participate, but it's different than if we were in a system that valued those things, and so I guess I have questions about How? How? That seems like attention to me, like you can remove yourself from that, but it doesn't change the larger system or the reality for people who maybe can't opt out of that. But if you can go one person at a time, I think if you think further than one person at a time, then it gets harder and harder.

[42:19]

So, it's like, if each person takes care of their world, their environment, their place, that's how it happens. To try to make everybody do something, I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, if you try to catch the tail of a comet, people will pity you. If you try to catch the tail of a comet, people will pity you. In other words, you can only do what you can do. Don't do something that you're failing because you're not turning the world around. You can turn your world around. Each one of us can turn our world around. That's a lot. That's a lot. Just to take care of our own. let alone the difficulties of the world.

[43:22]

I have a question about that. We say beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Yes. And I always think that's a pretty delusional idea. It is, yes. And so that's why we're, you know, Buddhism is delusion. But our delusion is also our treasure, because we take a vow to do something impossible. If it was possible, it wouldn't mean much. We're talking about big stuff here. You know, the sixth ancestor, Huy Nguyen says, the vow to save all sentient beings doesn't mean that I, Huy Nguyen, am going to go out beings of my own mind, the delusive mind, the greedy mind, the angry mind.

[44:26]

So it means, save yourself, doctor. You know, cure yourself, doctor. You know. Doctor. Okay. I just have a question. So if it's impossible to avail one's own karma fully, if that's impossible, then isn't it even more impossible to have some kind of attempt to avow a collecting karma? Avow? Oh, you mean to... Yeah, that was kind of the question I was going to lead up to. Well, we're talking about ourself. My karma. My personal karma. That's what that's about. Avow means to recognize. To let it, to see it. to be aware of that as karma, as evil karma. All my tangled or evil karma, I avow.

[45:33]

In other words, okay, it's not like I did this and that. It's simply realizing that that happens, that I participate in that. So I participate in in our collective karma, because here we are. We can't not do it. We get caught up in it. We're all caught up in it. So this is our problem. We can ignore it. We can deny it. But it's there, and it causes everybody suffering. So how do we get rid of it? How do we let go of suffering? stop creating suffering. That's what dealing with karma is about. About how we stop creating suffering. So when we say we can stop, we can turn our karma around, it means we can stop the actions which create suffering for ourselves and others.

[46:36]

One more and that's it. No, I don't know. Yeah. Okay. When you say, I vow, in the chant, who is I? Well, it's your Self. You can analyze your Self to where there is none. But if you say there is no Self, that's not right. And if you say there is one, that's not right. So, um, I-vow is okay, whether you believe in it or not. Who's speaking? Who's asking the question? Because there's a question there, I can address it, and it comes from you. If there was no you, there'd be no question.

[47:38]

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