The Te Show this evening is on the subject of Not Lying, the Fourth Grave Precept. The Chinese ideographs pronounced mōgō in Sino-Japanese are found in combination in the title of the Fourth Grave Precept, and not commonly elsewhere. The etymological meaning is forgetful or neglectful words. Deriving from this root meaning, the Buddhist and the secular dictionaries offer a lie, a deliberate lie, while to tell a lie.

[01:15]

Nakagawa Soenroshi used to paraphrase Dōgen Zenji, saying, don't use rootless words. Thus, we are cautioned to be loyal to the essence. The emphasis is on coming forth as the Tathāgata, not so much on being true to others. The by-product of such loyalty is that we are true to others, but the inspiration is Buddha-nature. When this is clear, then the various social and psychological virtues of truth-telling are illumined.

[02:20]

Self-deception, deception of others, cheating, gossip, and carelessness with language are all disloyal to the peace in our heart of hearts. Silence, words expressive of that peace, are true. Silence expressive of that peace is true. The peace of the vast and fathomless void, full of possibilities, are set forth clearly in the words of our ancestor. Bodhidharma said, self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the inexplicable dharma, not preaching a single word is called the precept

[03:31]

of not lying. The phrase, not preaching a single word, is open to misunderstanding. But the Buddha himself turned the wheel of the dharma in total silence when a philosopher said to him, I do not ask for words, I do not ask for non-words. The Buddha just sat there and the philosopher's delusions vanished like clouds before a strong wind. It is important to see how silence can be a presentation of the truth. When Yakusan had not given a day show for a long time, his monks persuaded him to appear

[04:40]

in the dharma hall. He sat there silently in the Roshi's seat for a while as the monks waited, but then he returned to his room. The head monk followed him and complained, you consented to give a day show. How is it that you said not a single word? Yakusan said, for citras there are citra specialists, for shastras there are shastra specialists. Why do you wonder at this old monk? Silence presents itself. Words present themselves. Dogen Zenji said, the dharma wheel turns from the beginning.

[05:50]

There is neither surplus nor lack. The whole universe is moistened with nectar and the truth is ready to be harvested. Not only is the truth already there. It is altogether delightful and ready to be accepted. Take me, says the fact. Fuketsu presented such a fact to a monk who was also concerned about words and non-words. Speech is a matter of subject and object. Silence is a matter of subject and object.

[06:53]

How may I be free of subject and object? Fuketsu says, I always think of Conan in March. Partridges chirp among the many fragrant blossoms. Fuketsu and the Buddha used compassionate, expedient means to present the truth incisively. At other times in their lives, their actions and words were truthful, but directed to quite ordinary purposes, such as asking for water or accepting a gift. Our own lives are full of ordinary purposes and also of crises.

[07:56]

How may we be expressive of the truth in dealing with them? The doctor often faces the question of whether or not to tell a patient that an illness is terminal. I recall speaking with someone from Japan who was giving me news of our friends there. He mentioned a person we both knew well and said that he had undergone an operation for cancer. Of course he doesn't know, my friend said. He thinks it is just an ulcer. This reflects a Japanese cultural interpretation of the fourth precept. There it is widely assumed that it is not compassionate to tell sick people the hard

[09:05]

truth about their terminal illness. In our culture, we are starting to believe that it is important to tell patients the objective fact and to help them to become reconciled to it. We are learning from social research that they really know anyway, and we are coming to feel that we should not encourage false games at the very point where sick people and their families can realize the deepest dimension of their relationship. What kind of karma does deception about fatal illness set up for the dying person? I don't know, but I sense it is dreadful.

[10:10]

Perhaps this is how ghosts are born. And if family members are at all sensitive, the effects will be felt as unfinished business which cannot be finished. Now, as I read along here, I realize that I need another couple of paragraphs here to indicate how this example is a kind of metaphor for us in dealing with the hard truth in any circumstances, that there must be some compassionate way to admit to the truth, to speak the truth,

[11:20]

that the truth may make all free. I'll try to word such a paragraph or two in here. At an ordinary level, not lying means right livelihood and right lifestyle, and may involve social activism. Not only must I not work for an ordinary advertising agency, but I must not swallow advertising lies either. Not lying means no complicity with lies. One of my students wrote to me, one of my strongest reasons for not registering for

[12:30]

the draft and then resisting it publicly was my wish to resist the lies of power. There are, however, niches in our mendacious society for the truth seeker. There is honest business, as you know, here in San Francisco. There are even unusual advertising agencies, even unusual banks. Depending on personal character and a variety of other factors, including the responsibility to help feed a family, one can elect to stay on the corporate bus and try to influence

[13:32]

its direction, or one can get off and walk. Right livelihood is not solely a literal injunction, but also a matter of responding wisely to circumstances. This wisdom arises from original honesty. Ethics is common sense, the sense we have in common. When a parent declares a six-year-old child is only five, in order to avoid paying an extra fare, the child learns dishonesty. If the parent acknowledges the child's correct age and buys the extra ticket, then the inherent

[14:39]

honesty of the child is confirmed. I am six years old. That's the truth. In Japan, the Zen student is exhorted to be sincere. At least that is the way the word gets translated out. Be sincere, the head monk shouts in the dojo. I prefer the word honest, although I don't think I've ever shouted be honest in the dojo. Though your work is focusing on mu, as mu, or whatever your work is there on your cushions, many tempting thoughts await in the wings. With just a moment's inattention, they come pouring forth.

[15:46]

Be honest and stay attentive. Be in touch with your original honesty, and your zazen will be the foundation of an honest life. This honesty is also creative. Manner and content, the two criteria of an appropriate response in the dokusan room, both come from inner integrity. Regarding manner, one thing that strikes us in Chinese Zen dialogues, even in their translated forms, is vividness of language. We say their words are poetry, and what is poetry but faithfulness to language?

[16:51]

Sloppy language is a kind of disloyalty to humanity, a kind of lying. Talent for language is one of the few qualities that distinguishes human beings from other animals. But this talent is often dulled by the abstract discipline of education, and one finds relatively illiterate people who are more closely in touch with language, and therefore with themselves, than professors of philosophy. I recall discussing the roads of eastern Oregon with a woodsman there, who complained that he had to replace his tires much more often, now that his son had a girlfriend. I tell you, he said, dancing is very hard on tires.

[17:57]

In touch with ourselves, we speak faithfully. The content of the response is just as revealing as the manner. Deeper than culture, transcending expedience, beyond morality, the great truth cannot be concealed. At the end of the summer training period, Suigon said to his assembly, all summer I have been preaching to you brothers. Look closely. Do I still have my eyebrows? It is said that when a Zen teacher preaches false dharma, the worst kind of lying, his eyebrows fall off.

[19:03]

But Suigon is revealing everything to the very bottom. Engo, the editor of the Blue Cliff Record, where this case appears, and incidentally this is only a portion of a much longer case, Engo says that of all the ancients, Suigon is one of the greatest, and says, and this is from the Cleary translation, many people misunderstand and say under the bright sun in the blue sky, Suigon spoke aimless talk, producing concern where there was none. At the end of the summer, he spoke of his own faults and examined them himself first to avoid having others criticize him. Fortunately, this has nothing to do with it.

[20:08]

Such views are called the exterminators of the Buddha race, Engo says. Look at the way he talks. Engo challenges us. What is his true meaning? But don't let Engo fool you. There is no meaning here. There is no sword hidden in Suigon's words. Look closely. Do I still have my eyebrows? The truth is ready to harvest. Meaning gets in the way of truth all too often. I remember cringing at the words of Charles Manson and his followers during their trials

[21:16]

for murder. For them, it seems, killing was the way to prove the truth of oneness. Even murder, they seem to say, is no different from making love. The truth is ready to harvest, but we must be ready to harvest it. Shibayama Zen-kei Roshi once said to me, Zen practice is for people in excellent mental health. I think Zen practice can be therapeutic for some people in poor mental health, but the teacher must be able to dispel their pernicious and unwholesome thoughts. Concepts of eternal verities.

[22:17]

When Hyakujo was training under Baso, a monk asked the teacher, apart from the four phrases and the 100 negations, please tell me directly why Bodhidharma came from the West. In other words, without affirming, without denying, without not affirming, without not denying, and without all the other permutations and combinations of affirmation and denial, what is the fundamental truth which Bodhidharma conveyed? At first glance, at all the responses here, it might seem that Baso and his senior disciples could not move their lips or throats in response. Baso said, I am tired today and cannot explain it to you.

[23:29]

Go and ask Chizo. The monk asked Chizo about it. Chizo said, why don't you ask his reverence? The monk said, his reverence said to ask you. Chizo said, I have a headache today and cannot explain it to you. Go and ask Brother Kai. Brother Kai is Hyakujo. The monk asked Brother Kai, who said, I don't know at all. About that matter. The monk returned to Baso and told him about this. Baso said, Chizo's head is white. Kai's head is black. Aren't they? This is a reference, the white and black head is a reference to Chinese folklore,

[24:35]

which needs a little explanation here, just as an aside. White head and black head were two thieves who tried to get the better of each other. And they were kind of like spy versus spy in old Mad Magazine. There's a story of a woman looking down into a well and sobbing. And Whitehead comes along and says, why are you weeping? And she says, I lost my precious, valuable earring down the well. And I don't know how I can face my father now that I've lost it. And she said, don't worry, ma'am. I'll go down the bucket rope and find that that earring for you.

[25:39]

So he removed his clothes and let himself down the bucket rope and looked all around and was thinking, you see, that I will find the earring and say I didn't find it. Couldn't find it, really. So he climbed back up and everything had disappeared, including his clothes. It was, of course, Blackhead disguised as the woman. So that's one of the many, many stories about Blackhead and Whitehead. Thieves, you know, are thieves of your delusions and your attachments in Zen literature. So when a monk calls the teacher, you old robber, you see, he is being very affectionate and complimentary.

[26:44]

And in this story, please don't suppose that Baso and Chizo and Hyakujo are putting everything back on the monk so that the monk could figure it out. That isn't the point. It also might seem that the helpless monk was just getting the runaround, you know, like a recruit being sent from one supply sergeant to another, up and down the battalion street looking for a tent stretcher. But really, Baso, Chizo, and Hyakujo were flashing the truth free of all concepts directly in the face of the inquiring monk, no less than Suigon confronting his brothers, no less, and this is a reference to our experiences at Koko-an,

[27:57]

no less than the doves that sing to us each early morning. A student said to me, I feel as though I have learned the language, but I have not yet visited the country. I think I made reference to this the other night. I feel as though I have learned the language, but I have not yet visited the country. This is an important insight. You can appreciate Bodhidharma, Baso, and all their great successors, but appreciation is not enough. You can resonate to the authenticity of the doves, the integrity of the stones in the garden, the honesty of the sun, the moon, and the stars,

[28:58]

but what about your own ground of truth? That is none other than daigo, great enlightenment, the daily activity of the Buddhas, as Dogen Zenji says, but they never think about it. Don't be carried away by your own smooth talk. I must be careful about this one too. The fourth precept, like all the others, finds its home in zazen, in the vast and fathomless void that can only be likened to outer space. It also finds its home in family discussions, in business meetings, and dealing privately with personal inadequacies.

[30:01]

The truth expressed with love is the sangha treasure moistened with nectar. May you be free and free in that place where the true path of love is made. NIRDHO NGON NGON NGEN SE NGAN DUG NGON [...] NGEN SE NGAN DUG

[31:06]

OM NIRDHO NGON NGON NGEN SE NGAN DUG DUSHA NIRDHO NGON NGON NGEN SE NGAN DUG DUSHA NIRDHO NGON NGEN SE NGAN DUG DUSHA NIRDHO NGON NGEN SE NGAN DUG DUSHA NIRDHO NGON NGEN SE NGAN DUG

[32:27]

DUSHA NIRDHO NGON NGEN SE NGAN DUG Tomorrow evening I will go to Green Gulch with Anne and speaks there on the fifth grade precept not taking drink or drugs please come do any of you have questions or comments yes the question I asked last night about magic I didn't feel I was able to present so early

[33:27]

I'd like to try again in the context of not telling falsehoods okay we have in the Lotus Sutra the father offering various cards for his imaginary cards for his children they're outside the burning house try to get them to leave the burning house the truth is the house is burning that's the truth yeah um so by magic what I mean is uh something to get us to feel good about what we're doing leaving the house oh I see I see

[34:33]

um now I think one of the problems so my question is what the proper use of magic is that in that sense is and how is it uh abused yes yes go ahead uh one way that I think we can see a type of abuse is um if if there's some ulterior motive if the father is trying to get the children to leave the house because the father wants to get something else from one of the rooms before he goes out himself whatever um but aside from that type of

[35:37]

um abuse there's perhaps also some dependency that's set up on various cards that are offered um and for a community of any size there's some vision that is being generated that acts as a glue that binds the community uh and that glue I think is or their vision is like these cards so

[36:40]

uh in part the to me the fourth precept uh involves not being dependent on the cards yes like not being dependent on advertising lies oh yes yes yes um now we're speaking quite metaphorically here uh you know um I like the example of um of working with children which is fundamentally what the uh what the lotus sutra is using as a the father working with with the children given the fact that there are many things that children don't understand

[37:41]

you can still tell the truth uh to the children in a broad crude general way um I rather deplore the the way um some parents do of giving up trying to to tell the truth because it's too complex or too intimate or something to the children but rather telling them something else like you know you're born under cabbage leaf or something like that uh maybe that's a good example when my little boy was uh how old two and a half I think he was fascinated by the house spiders

[38:44]

which are also called cane spiders which live comfortably in homes in Hawaii they're about this this big around and they eat cockroaches and mosquitoes um they don't spin any web except on their tummies see and they the the web is a kind of exterior womb in which the young are nurtured the eggs are laid in this in this exterior womb and then they grow there and then they they hatch out of this this uh white uh covering and crawl all over the mother's body and crawl around with her for a while before they're they're big enough to go on their own he was fascinated by this and I said to him you know that's like babies are born except that the the the that white uh capsule you know

[39:57]

or something like it is inside and he said really I said yeah really yes okay that was the end of the conversation I didn't try to explicate any further you know at that point uh but I think that in other words such kind of crude or general truth is possible you know to convey uh to uh a child um with with when the child is certainly not ready for the for the mechanics of of reproduction and only would only be appalled if you tried to go into them um the I think that the that the that the teachers of teachers of sex education now say to respond to the questions as they arise naturally you know providing that you have a

[41:02]

relationship of trust with a child and a child is naturally going to ask questions um anyway uh it seems to me that uh in uh in a relationship of of teacher and student in say a zen community um the the introductory lectures are uh don't can't contain the material that the student is going to get later but they're going to be true in themselves so the um incentives so to speak must themselves be true uh if we're going to use means to accomplish ends then we must keep in mind that the means

[42:04]

themselves are ends and that the essential stuff that um we're teaching is naturally interesting and we don't need to add anything to it we don't need to jazz it up or sugar it up at all so the the glue that can hold the sangha together you see is this essential truth which we understand in our own way whether we're beginners or old timers the old timers will understand it in a little more detailed and perhaps a more deep deep way but it'll be the same truth that the beginners understand this is my ideal anyway does this speak to your question yes um

[43:09]

um across a slightly different side to it um is that often maybe another way of saying what i'm talking about is encouragement yes uh encouragement is a zen community is a voluntary community yes and so we generate each one of us uh uh many of us and uh the teacher for us generates some encouragement that's right that's right uh go ahead you much okay um so you need to to

[44:20]

you as a teacher you need to show the student that what he or she is saying or doing is right on you see um i had fun with this when i was teaching uh um a class in the upward bound program many many years ago in the 60s well there still are upward bound programs really but it was part of the old office of economic opportunity the war on poverty in the 60s it was a program for disadvantaged high school students who had the ability to go on to college with scholarships and with a little coaching academic coaching and so i was part of this program for a couple of years and uh uh in the uh english class i encouraged these students to write poetry and these were

[45:22]

uh juniors of people who are between their junior and senior year in high school most of them had never read a book they were from areas that were disadvantaged um and so um when a kid would come to class with a poem uh and i could do it most of them had never read a book they were from areas that were disadvantaged um and so um when a kid would come to class with a poem uh and i could do it i would read a poem from from literature that had the same kind of idea that he brought forth in his poem or she brought forth in her point

[46:29]

of view and i kind of put them side by side uh well the one example i remember was um um a poem that the boy wrote he was riding in on the bus from y and i and this creaky old gaseous uh bus you know that had faulty floorboards and a faulty muffler and he was inhaling these awful fumes all the way in and he was half asleep from a late night i think and but he happened to look up and look out at the ocean where they were going by and he saw a school of fish jumping apparently there was a the larger fish underneath it was frightening him and his poem was about this incident and um the the last few lines were to the effect that this made his day this and i i remembered something a frost and i can't remember

[47:34]

the point now i'd have to go back and look it up but the last line is and it saved a part of the day i had rude i had regretted so i was able to put these two points side to side well this is maybe the first poem that he ever wrote you see but somehow i was able to show him that he was already writing literature so it's this kind of encouragement that that the teacher must seek out it's absolutely true that he had the same idea as robert frost see so i'm not bluffing a bit i'm not faking it i'm not summoning up some kind of false encouragement or anything i'm giving him genuine encouragement that he can do it he's already done it yeah okay yes during dinner this evening i had a talk with someone and we were discussing

[48:38]

various teachers i guess this person's from another group who's visiting us and we were talking about the true dharma and this person was saying that it seems like some teachers have the true dharma and some teachers don't have the true dharma uh-huh and the person was quite clear about who did and who didn't um which i was very um i was very happy for her because i couldn't you know i it wasn't that easy for me to tell so um what do you think about what do you think about that and uh is it possible to tell what the truth is and well maybe two things is it possible to tell that a person really understands the whole truth and also is it possible to tell

[49:48]

that among maybe many people who are various people are in japan and tibet and so on in america uh who one's true teacher is a difficult question but uh but an important one remember first of all what the buddha said that all beings are the tathagata you know it's their delusions and attachments that keep them from realizing that fact so the question is not how true a person is but how successful he or she has been in clearing up those delusions and attachments that's the important thing a keen nose for bullshit is an excellent excellent attribute um

[50:59]

now about um the various traditions you know uh i read uh tartan toku tartan toku is that his name the tibetan teacher yeah with real pleasure uh and excitement sometimes i certainly read large parts of ekhart in this way and uh there was a time when i was reading uh nothing but um what is this name the uh sufi teacher of uh 80 years ago i've just forgotten his name now but anyway he he

[52:06]

was the one who established the the sufi center in switzerland and is regarded as one of the early founders of the movement in the west i read him with a good deal of pleasure i read viva conanda with a good deal of pleasure pleasure and so on the truth comes out in many forms that's what i'm trying to say do you think those teachers had their blind spot well uh yes uh the buddha made a generalization about that too didn't he yes yes when we look at shakyamuni buddha himself we can see a progression in his teaching from his first sermon on the four noble truths and the eightfold path

[53:10]

to his much more sophisticated and profound sermons toward the end of his life we can see changes in his social attitude his attitude toward women for example changed during that time uh so that i think that at any given time in any given teacher's life there will be blind spots yes yes um whether these blind spots will be actually handicaps in in conveying the dharma you know that's something else but i think there's no teacher without a blind spot um mental clarity yes it seems to me that we've been talking about this all along

[54:15]

um that um i think i said the first night that it is possible for a person to be superficially clear if you're doing shikantaza to have a quiet peaceful mind and but there is a floor under that and under that floor there's heaven knows what see in the same way it is possible to have a genuine kind of kensho a genuine kind of of realization experience and to move along in koan practice but to feel incomplete there is something deeper yet so uh

[55:17]

it is important that we not be simplistic in assuming that uh zazen is going to uh give us a complete clarity in one lifetime you know we have the advantage of a number of different kinds of of therapies that can be of help and when when i sense in working with a student that there is something incomplete there uh and i feel sure enough of our relationship that i that i i know that uh there'll be no offense taken i don't hesitate to suggest uh seeing a good

[56:22]

counselor to go along uh double track counseling and zazen or to give up zazen for a while and just do counseling um it's important to be as whole as possible so from shibayama yoshi's point of view you see in a culture where there was no or practically no uh counseling in the in our western sense of the word at least in his time uh he felt that the best students were the ones who came to him already pretty clear you see but uh we're fortunate that we don't have to be that discriminating let's see go ahead yes it seems like sometimes life

[57:29]

presents situations where you are forced to choose between which precept you're going to break um rather than trying to then so i guess the distinction gets to be make it make the clarity very unclear you turn to your left you're going to break one precept you look ahead you're going to break another you turn to your right you're going to break another is it possible to lie out of a higher good or out of compassion out of a higher love sure you know um one of the things i can one of the things i cut out of my my taisho on lying because uh my my student readers uh thought it was a sort of trivial was the example that i used to use um back in the old new age days you know the old new age days when when we had a sort of swirling population on maui and we didn't know really who we had among our members because they were not there

[58:34]

yesterday and they wouldn't be there tomorrow but police often came to the door see um because these were young people some of them very young people whose parents were worried about them you know and susie might be sick and they want to let the child know and they don't know how to get in touch with the child so they call the police and say i'm pretty sure my child is on maui and uh give the name so the cop comes to the door and then says i'm looking for susie susie so and so and in such a case what do i do you see all kinds of conflicting loyalties come to my mind you know i want to protect the temple i want to protect susie what's he up to so i kind of hesitate and he says well you know her folks are trying to get in touch with her so she's here then i go call her but suppose he said i've got a

[59:34]

summons here you see what do i do well uh i'm tempted to to uh tell a lie but probably i won't probably i'll say just a minute and i'll go and look up the person and say hey there's a guy with the summons at the door i think you better take care of it but suppose somebody comes to the door with a knife in his hand and wants to find susie see i'm sure enough going to say that susie just left for pocatello so i think one can find one's way through these dilemmas and find that that the so-called precepts that we're breaking are not really precepts to be broken but the precepts

[60:37]

are descriptive descriptions of enlightened behavior you see they're not laws or rules okay i'm having difficulty phrasing this question but i've been reading paul tilley yes who criticizes eastern mysticism generally because she says it doesn't answer the main problem of times which is the question of meaning in our lives and many of us find life rather meaningless and that eastern religions tend to skirt around the problem by saying everything is an illusion anyway so perhaps mysticism doesn't deal with that question i suppose one way of rephrasing that using something from what you were saying is that meaning sometimes hides truth does truth give meaning in the sense that he was talking about

[61:40]

um you know um tillich and uh and d.t. suzuki and tillich and uh hisamatsu had many dialogues and they they went by each other like trains in the night using the same words differently really um when when tillix if tillix when tillix says uh that the that eastern religions dodge the issue because they say that everything is an illusion anyway see he's only saying half of it because he's only showing the form is emptiness side okay there's also the emptiness is form side solid as a rock very clear i see you you see me

[62:50]

so the realization itself is a sense experience if you go around saying it's all empty you know there's no there's no realization at all because there's nothing to prompt the realization and nothing upon to which to prompt say there's nothing here to be prompted so it's only half the story and therefore not true um about meaning yamadoroshi is always saying to tell the truth he has this in his book to tell the truth mu has no meaning but mu is meaningful um and i i tell the students that i work with it's like surfing or swimming

[64:03]

surfing swimming they have no meaning but you can say what surfing is you can say what swimming is you can show what it is okay but does eating have meaning does sleeping have meaning see uh meaning is is what uh what uh paltelic uh uh thrived on see what was happening in his head but there's that is the table itself and uh for some person i can imagine that very touch is the trigger of an enlightenment experience

[65:10]

but if you ask the person what was your experience um only that in the whole universe only that with the whole universe it might be interesting for you to go back and look at some of those early issues of the eastern buddhist with those dialogues between dimartino and suzuki and and uh shinichi and so on yes could you comment on how the force preset might be applied to humor particularly uh yes that's an interesting matter where there is no humor

[66:26]

you know i'm tempted to say no truth yeah i'm suspicious of of humorless discourse maybe suspicious of last night's discourse for example no humor at least from my side but this is what we sense in the in the zen dialogues isn't it lightness who was it issan and kyozan i think founders of the igeo school uh kyozan asked issan oh issan asked kyozan what if someone says to you everything

[67:29]

is in a disorderly karmic consciousness and there is no base to rely upon so issan said if a person asks me that question i'll call to him and when he turns his head i'll say there is only a disorderly karmic consciousness and no base to rely upon so issan said oh yeah issan said oh good but the whole base the whole truth itself is completely empty so that's that's the greatest joke of all there is no absolute and that is the absolute so heavy-handed expressions of the truth are suspect

[68:36]

uh one of the stories i told further along in the book is when i was in the internment camp and very late in the war the head guard told somebody and it immediately spread throughout the camp that if japan lost the war we'd all be lined up and shot and we were sitting around you know pretty feeling pretty sorry for ourselves uh and one of the um um well the the camp clown you know came into the room and he said hey guys did you hear the news the head monk the head guard says that head guard said that if japan lost the war we'd all be lined up and shot

[69:44]

and you know what we felt when he said that we wished that he would shut up and he says i'll tell you fellas a hundred years from now it won't make any difference okay well i guess i was thinking more foreign operas now just further this evening uh-huh i worked for Yes. I think there's a kind of banter that is responsible and there's a kind of banter

[71:00]

that's just jive, you know. A Zen Center student, an old friend, sent me a book called Impro. I don't know if you know this book. It's a... Impro stands for improvisation. And it's a book by a drama teacher who uses improvisation in his drama classes. It was published by Theatre Arts Books. It's a book I can recommend to all of you. It's a kind of non-Buddhist everyday mondo, really. A way of keeping the ball in the air, so to speak. So let's see. Use an example here. If I say to you, did you bring the stuff? What do you think? See? It dies

[72:02]

there. You drop the ball. You ask me that question. I left it at the jail. I was there to see Uncle George. Well, I found out they executed him last week. See? That kind of... That's the kind of thing, see? That is improvisation. It's a kind of play, in the best sense of the word. Drama and play, all together. And it's good fun. And kids do it. And the book Impro is full of this stuff. And it keeps you alive and alert and, you know, striking

[73:26]

sparks all the time. It's a true kind of everyday dharma combat. This kind of light banter is actually, actually sharpens the mind. You don't know what you're going to... what somebody is going to say to you, you see? You have no idea. Whereas jive tends to fall into grooves. And it's really basically kind of dull. I think. Yes? So the fourth precept doesn't mean relating the language as always speaking in a kind of a prosaic flash of literalness about everything?

[74:34]

No, that's why I used the example of my friend the Wedsman. I was on the Continental Walk in 1976, in the counter-bicentennial. And I was just on part of it, we walked across the Texas Panhandle and into Oklahoma, that was my section of it. And, you know, I'm from out on the periphery, out in the state of Hawaii. And I really, I grew up there from the age of five, and I really don't know that much about the United States, particularly the Central Park. So it was a revelation to me to hear the Texas Panhandle people and the Oklahoma people talk. Because they are marvelously articulate. And they use marvelous figures of speech. And they never repeat them.

[75:46]

You know, I suppose after you know the guy a year or so, well you'll begin to hear the repetitions, but really they are very inventive. And they knew a couple of fellows, drinking beer and tossing their beer cans in the back of their pickup, were fascinated by this little band of people that were walking along the freeway with their banners and their drummers, you know. And so they followed us in their pickup, you know, and talked to us when we stopped to rest and when we had our meals. And then we camped out and the next morning there they were. So as we were breaking camp, I got to talking with this one chap about gun control. Because he would always turn the question of peace around to gun control, which he was opposed to, because he was a hunter. He talked so fascinatingly on this subject, which I couldn't have ever related to under any other circumstances, that I actually taped his words and he consented to this. Because here was a person who was almost Neanderthal in the best sense of the word.

[77:12]

Neanderthal thinking about hunting, you see, because he really worshipped the animals that he killed and he was very respectful to them and grateful to them. And he could say all this in this marvelous country way, with these vivid images. Convinced me. So it doesn't have to be, in fact it's better if it isn't so scholarly and academic. And my peers, you know, I'm mostly judgmental of my peers, they don't sit and reconcile me. I have a lot of friends that way. And this is the last one. Boy, that's a good lesson, you know. And it's a lesson that I am very much aware of in my own heart.

[78:40]

There's a dark side for doing anything, you know, a dark reason. You might say impure reason. And it's hard to look at those things. But why did I write a book about the precepts? Maybe I tend to be rather moralistic and judgmental, you see. This is probably a blind spot. Probably kind of a blind spot that I need to polish up. But as Thich Nhat Hanh says, you know, awareness is like the sun. When you are aware of something, then it changes. So you are aware of your judgmental attitudes and that can help you to change.

[79:51]

I hope I can be aware of my own judgmental ways. Yes? I had a question somewhat related to the idea of bantering. It's been on my mind for a long time. St. Paul advised the Christians not to act in a quotient, not to be jealous of each other in that matter. But sometimes, at least in my life, it seems more honest to behave that way. And I wonder about being honest in one's behavior. You might want to deal with the person trying to be pious and live a more externally mindful life. Cultivate mindfulness, maybe. If it does help, cultivate mindfulness. Or if you go with perhaps more shift of the moment, then at least be mindful of that.

[80:53]

Well, as I said tonight, you know, there's a time to stay on the bus and try to steer it, to try to guide it, and there's a time to get off and walk. When I am with certain of my relatives, I wish I weren't, you know, because their talk not only bores me, but it eats away at my gut. So, there is certainly a time. I wouldn't get close to that if they weren't my relatives. I would stay away completely. At the present time, Ann and I don't even own a TV. And we're in process of moving. We may get one, but you can be sure it will be dark most of the time, because I personally can't stand it.

[82:17]

Someone spoke of St. Paul. I don't want to be all things to all people. All my instincts turn me away from that. Even though, if I'm with such people and it is my responsibility to be with them, then I try my best to be with them. But if it's not going to hurt anybody's feelings, I turn off the TV. And if it's not going to hurt anybody's feelings, I'll say, excuse me, but I've got to go home. And perhaps that is an act of teaching. I don't know. But it's not intended that way. Fundamentally, not intended that way. So, it's best to try to just be refined, despite the environment that you want to live in now.

[83:30]

Even though it might not be real, it might be an act of fighting rather than general fighting. If I'm with my relatives, I try to join in that banter. I'm quieter than they are, I think, but I don't want to stand out and make them feel bad or make them feel that I'm holier than they are. Question from the audience During your first lecture, you made a statement, I don't remember if it was your first lecture, that something to be said to a son-in-law or a group of community or a monastery shouldn't be violent. I was wondering if you could comment on that. Well, this is one of the things that you should hear with your ecumenical acousticon.

[84:32]

In my view, the true Buddhist center or monastery or zendo is a center of peace, which by its nature, at the deepest level, is also a center of power. A power for harmony, which then flows out naturally to the wider community. It flows out across the street to the grocery store, for example. At CCLA, it flows out to the medical clinic. At the time of sangha, it flows out to our journals, Kahawai and so on. Does that mean that members of the community necessarily have some sort of relationship beyond the community?

[85:50]

No, not necessarily, because there are all kinds of people. And there is a kind of person who functions best at the very center of that activity. And then there are others who function best in the outreach. But I was speaking generally of this amorphous thing called a Zen center, in which we can see an outflowing. But certainly, each person, in his or her own way, will flow out if the center is one of peace. Whether it's just within an immediate group, or whether it is in the whole world. Okay.

[86:51]

Hi. I can't hear you. The reason I thought of it several years ago, I saw a video of you giving a social commentary, and you said something about how the world is going to get crazier and crazier, and Zen centers will become more like these islands of peace that people can go to. I can't think of anything. Yes. Of course, it will be like that for some people, you know, inevitably, who will want to come and do retreat here, or become members, or become monks. So, for them, at least for a while, it will be a sanctuary.

[87:56]

And I agree that the world is getting crazier and crazier. I do think, however, and it seems to me with his own outreach, he is showing, you know, that he is concerned about bringing the message of peace to the world. That our function is like the old wobbly's function, you know, to create a growth of new within the shell of the old, somehow. That's opening a bag of worms. We're getting close to time to call it a night. I want to thank you all for coming to these talks.

[89:03]

They have been very instructive to me, and the people who have come to see me individually have taught me a lot. I am very grateful for this. I have perhaps not been sensitive enough in my role here of a guest speaker. However, please bear with me in that way. I know my own way of blind spot, perhaps, of blurting out what I think. And I know this is painful. But I have some faith, or maybe it's justification, I don't know,

[90:15]

that a fresh point of view can add some understanding of the problems that the community is going through. And I hope that none of my ideas will be taken literally, but that they will be added to the soup, and that you will have a good meal. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[90:59]

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