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.

[01:14]

Nakagawa Soenyo-shi used to paraphrase Dōgen Zenji, saying, Don't use ruthless 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.

[02:18]

Self-deception, deception of others, cheating, gossip, and carelessness with language are all disloyal to the peace in our heart of hearts. 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 of not lying.

[03:30]

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 Yagasan had not given a teisho for a long time, his monks persuaded him to appear in the Dharma hall. He sat there silently in the roshi seat for a while as the monks waited, but then he returned to his room.

[04:52]

The head monk followed him and complained, You consented to give a teisho. How is it that you said not a single word? Yagasan said, For sutras, there are sutra specialists. For shastras, there are shastra specialists. Why do you wonder at this old monk? Silence presents itself. Words present themselves. Dogenzenji said, The Dharma wheel turns from the beginning. There is neither surplus nor lack. The whole universe is moistened with nectar, and the truth is ready to be harvested.

[06:02]

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. 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.

[07:06]

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. 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.

[08:18]

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 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.

[09:25]

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. 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.

[10:45]

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, 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.

[11:55]

Not lying means no complicity with lies. One of my students wrote to me, one of my strongest reasons for not registering for 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 its direction or one can get off and walk.

[13:19]

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 honesty of the child is confirmed. I'm six years old. That's the truth.

[14:26]

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. Be honest and stay attentive. Be in touch with your original honesty, and your Zazen will be the foundation of an honest life.

[15:38]

This honesty is also creative. Manner and content, the two criteria of an appropriate response in the Doksan 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? 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.

[16:44]

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. 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.

[17:56]

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. 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.

[19:16]

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. 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.

[20:28]

I remember cringing at the words of Charles Manson and his followers during their trials for murder. For them, it seems, killing was the way to prove the truth of oneness. Even murder, they seemed to say, is no different from making love. The truth is ready to harvest, but we must be ready to harvest it. Shibayama Zenkei 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 concepts of eternal verities.

[21:35]

When Hyakujo was training under Baso, a monk asked the teacher, apart from the four phrases and the one hundred 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.

[22:44]

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, which needs a little explanation here, just as an aside. Whitehead and blackhead were two thieves who tried to get the better of each other.

[23:59]

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 he said, don't worry, ma'am. I'll go down the bucket rope and find that earring for you. 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.

[25:01]

He 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. 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, he is being very affectionate and complimentary. 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.

[26:10]

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 Suigan confronting his brothers, no less... And this is a reference to our experiences at Kokoron, 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.

[27:21]

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 successes, 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, 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, and I must be careful about this one too.

[28:28]

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. The truth expressed with love is the Sangha treasure, moistened with nectar. Our intention will be to treat every being and place with the truth of love's way.

[29:36]

Shakyamuni Buddha said, Namo Shakyamuni Buddha [...] Shakyamuni Buddha, today is unsurpassable, I bow to Thee.

[31:07]

Tomorrow evening I will go to Green Gulch with Anne, and speak there on the fifth great 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 clearly. I'd like to try again in the context of not telling falsehoods. We have in the Lotus Sutra, the father offering various imaginary cards for his children outside the burning house, to try to get them to leave the burning house.

[32:28]

The truth is, the house is burning, that's the truth. So, by magic, what I mean is, something to get us to feel good about what we're doing, leaving the house. Oh, I see, I see. Now, I think one of the problems, so my question is what the proper use of magic in that sense is, and how is it abused? Yes, go ahead. One way that I think we can see a type of abuse is if there's some ulterior motive.

[33:37]

If the father is trying to get the children to leave the house, or if the father wants to get something else from one of the rooms before he goes out himself, or whatever. But aside from that type of abuse, there's perhaps also some dependency that's set up on various cards that are offered. And for a community of any size, there's some vision that is being generated that acts as a glue that binds the community. And that glue, I think, or the vision, is like these cards.

[34:49]

So, in part, to me, the fourth precept involves not being dependent on the cards. Yes, like not being dependent on advertising lies. Yes, yes. Yes. Now, we're speaking quite metaphorically here, you know. I like the example of working with children, which is fundamentally what the Lotus Sutra is using as a metaphor, the father working with the children. So, given the fact that there are many things that children don't understand, you can still tell the truth to the children in a broad, crude, general way.

[36:08]

But I rather deplore the way some parents do of giving up trying 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 a cabbage leaf or something like that. Maybe that's a good example. When my little boy was, how old, two and a half, I think, he was fascinated by the house spiders, which are also called cane spiders, which live comfortably in homes in Hawaii. They're about this big around, and they eat cockroaches and mosquitoes.

[37:15]

They don't spin any web except on their tummies, see? And the web is a kind of exterior womb in which the young are nurtured. The eggs are laid in this exterior womb, and then they grow there, and then they hatch out of this white covering and crawl all over the mother's body and crawl around with her for a while before 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 that white capsule, you know, or something like it, is inside. And he said, really? I said, yeah. Really? Yes. Okay. That was the end of the conversation.

[38:19]

I didn't try to explicate any further, you know, at that point. But I think that, in other words, such kind of crude or general truth is possible, you know, to convey to a child when the child is certainly not ready for the mechanics of reproduction. And it would only be appalled if you tried to go into them. I think that the teachers of sex education now say to respond to the questions as they arise naturally, you know, providing that you have a relationship of trust with the child, and the child is naturally going to ask questions. Anyway, it seems to me that in a relationship of teacher and student in, say, a Zen community, the introductory lectures don't contain the material that the student is going to get later.

[39:40]

But they're going to be true in themselves. So the incentives, so to speak, must themselves be true. If we're going to use means to accomplish ends, then we must keep in mind that the means themselves are ends, and that the essential stuff that 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 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.

[40:52]

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. Perhaps a slightly different line to it is that often, maybe another way of saying what I'm talking about is encouragement. Yes. Encouragement is... A Zen community is a voluntary community. Yes. And so we generate, each one of us, many of us, and a teacher, four of us, generates some encouragement.

[42:05]

Mm-hmm. That's right. That's right. Go ahead. Okay. So you need to... as a teacher, you need to show the student that what he or she is saying or doing is right on, you see. I had fun with this when I was teaching 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 in the English class, I encouraged these students to write poetry.

[43:15]

And these were juniors, people who were between their junior and senior year in high school. Most of them had never read a book. They were from areas that were disadvantaged. And so when a kid would come to class with a poem, and I could do it, I would read a poem from literature that had the same kind of meaning. The kind of idea that he brought forth in his poem, or she brought forth in her poem. And I kind of put them side by side. The one example I remember was a poem that the boy wrote.

[44:17]

He was riding in on the bus from Y&I, and this creaky old gaseous 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. 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 larger fish underneath that was frightening him. And his poem was about this incident, and the last few lines were to the effect that this made his day. And I remembered something of Frost, and I can't remember the poem 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 wrote. I had regretted it.

[45:18]

So I was able to put these two poems side by 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 the teacher must seek out. It's absolutely true that he had the same idea as Robert Frost. 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. Yes? During dinner this evening, I had a talk with someone, and we were discussing various teachers, and I guess this person is from another group that's visiting us. And we were talking about the true Dharma.

[46:24]

And this person was saying that some of the teachings of the Dharma, it seems like some teachers have the true Dharma and some teachers don't have the true Dharma. And the person was quite clear about who did and who didn't. Which I was very happy for. Because it wasn't that easy for me to tell. So what do you think about that? And is it possible to tell what the truth is? Well, maybe two things. Is it possible to tell that a person really understands the whole truth? And also, is it possible to tell that among many people, various people in Japan, Tibet, and so on, in America, who one's true teacher is?

[47:32]

Difficult question, but an important one. Remember, first of all, what the Buddha said, that all beings are the Tathagata. 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 attribute. Now, about the various traditions, you know, I read Tartang Tukun.

[48:47]

Tartang Tukun? Is that his name, the Tibetan teacher? Yeah, with real pleasure and excitement sometimes. I certainly read large parts of Eckhart in this way. And there was a time when I was reading nothing but, what is his name, the Sufi teacher of 80 years ago? I've just forgotten his name now. But anyway, he was the one who established 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 Vivekananda with a good deal of pleasure, and so on.

[49:50]

The truth comes out in many forms, is what I'm trying to say. Do you think most teachers have their blind spots? Well, yes, 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, 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. So I think that at any given time, in any given teacher's life, there will be blind spots.

[51:01]

Yes, yes. Whether these blind spots will be actually handicaps in conveying the Dharma, you know, that's something else. But I think there's no teacher without a blind spot. All right, thank you. Could you please say something on mental clarity, too? Mental clarity. Yes. It seems to me that we've been talking about this all along. That... 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.

[52:04]

But there is a floor under that, and under that floor there's heaven knows what. In the same way, it is possible to have a genuine kind of kensho, a genuine kind of realization experience, and to move along in koan practice, but to feel incomplete. There's something deeper yet. So, it is important that we not be simplistic in assuming that that Zazen is going to give us complete clarity in one lifetime, you know. We have the advantage of a number of different kinds of therapies that can be of help.

[53:17]

And when I sense, in working with a student, that there is something incomplete there, and I feel sure enough of our relationship that I know that there'll be no offense taken, I don't hesitate to suggest seeing a good counselor. To go along, double track counseling and Zazen, or to give up Zazen for a while and just do counseling. It's important to be as whole as possible. So, from Shibuyama Yoshi's point of view, you see, in a culture where there was no, or practically no, counseling in our Western sense of the word, at least in his time,

[54:20]

he felt that the best students were the ones who came to him already pretty clear. You see. But we're fortunate that we don't have to be that discriminating. Let's see, go ahead. It seems like sometimes life presents situations where you are forced to choose between which precept you're going to break, rather than trying to... I guess the distinction gets to be, 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, one of the things I... One of the things I cut out of my teisho on lying, because my student readers thought it was sort of trivial,

[55:25]

was the example that I used to use back in the old New Age days, you know, the old New Age days, when we had a sort of a swirling population on Maui, and we didn't know, really, who we had among our members, because they were not there yesterday, and they wouldn't be there tomorrow. But police often came to the door, see? 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 give the name. So the cop comes to the door and says, I'm looking for Susie, Susie so-and-so. And in such a case, what do I do? You see?

[56:28]

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 if she's here, then I go call her. But suppose he said, I've got a summons here, see? What do I do? Well, I'm tempted to 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 a 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

[57:39]

and find that the so-called precepts that we're breaking are not really precepts to be broken, but the precepts are 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 Killick, who criticizes Eastern mysticism generally, because he says it doesn't answer the main problem of our times, which is the question of meaning in our lives that many of us find life-long 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,

[58:39]

is that meaning sometimes hides truth. Does truth give meaning, in the sense that you were talking about? You know, D.T. Suzuki and Killick and Hisamatsu had many dialogues, and they went by each other like trains in the night, using the same words differently, really. When Killick says that Eastern religions dodge the issue because they say that everything is an illusion anyway, he's only saying half of it.

[59:40]

Because he's only showing the form is emptiness side. There's also the emptiness is form side. Solid as a rock. Very clear. I see you, you see me. So, realization itself is a sense experience. If you go around saying it's all empty, you know, there's no realization at all. Because there's nothing to prompt the realization, and nothing to which to prompt. There's nothing here to be prompted. So it's only half the story, and therefore not true. About meaning, Yamadoroshi is always saying,

[60:45]

he has this in his book, to tell the truth, mu has no meaning. But mu is meaningful. And I tell students that I work with, it's like surfing or swimming. 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. But does eating have meaning? Does sleeping have meaning? See? Meaning is what Paltelic thrived on, what was happening in his head.

[61:46]

That is the table itself. And for some person, I can imagine, it's the trigger of an enlightenment experience. But if you ask the person, what was your experience? Nothing. 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 Buddhists with those dialogues between De Martino and Suzuki

[62:54]

and Shinichi, and so on. Yes? Could you comment on how the force of reset might be applied to humor, particularly humor without any identical purpose, or just for enjoyment and entertainment? Yes. That's an interesting matter. Where there is no humor, you know, I'm tempted to say no truth. Yes? I'm suspicious of humorless discourse. Maybe suspicious of last night's discourse, for example. No humor, at least from my side. Yes.

[64:00]

This is what we sense in the Zen dialogues, isn't it? Rightness. Who was it? Issan and Kyozan, I think. The founders of the Igyo school. Kyozan asked Issan, Issan asked Kyozan, What if someone says to you, everything 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.

[65:00]

So Issan said, Oh, good. The whole base, the whole truth itself, is completely empty. 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. One of the stories I tell 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,

[66:06]

feeling pretty sorry for ourselves. And one of the, well, the camp clown, you know, came into the room and he said, Hey, guys, did you hear the news? The head guard says that the head guard said that if Japan lost the war, we'd all be lined up and shot. 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 of the rest

[67:12]

about just frivolous humor. I worked for a set bakery. And yet, a lot of our days spent in a lot of banter. And I wonder if my mind was engaged in the banter. Well, in the student movies, you speak kind of responsibly to the language. Yes. I think there's a kind of banter that is responsible. And there's a kind of banter that's just jive. You know. Zen Center student, an old friend, sent me a book called Impro. I don't know if you know this book. It's a, the Impro stands for improvisation. And it's a book by a drama teacher

[68:15]

who uses improvisation in his drama classes. It's published by Theater Arts Books. It's a book I can recommend to all of you. It's a kind of non-Buddhist everyday mundo. Really. A way of keeping the ball in the air, so to speak. So, let's see. Here's an example here. If I say to you, did you bring the stuff? What do you say? What stuff? See, it dies there. You drop the ball. You ask me that question. Did you bring the stuff? I left it at the jail. What do you think of death? I was there to see Uncle George. Uncle George didn't do that.

[69:17]

Well, I found out they executed him last week. Did you see him? See? That kind of, that kind of thing. See? That is, it's 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 sparks all the time. It's true,

[70:22]

kind of everyday drama combat. This kind of light banter is is is actually actually sharpens the mind. Because you don't know what you're going to what 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 I think. Yes. No, that's why I used

[71:22]

the example of my my friend the witsman. I I was on the Continental Walk in 1976 in the in the Counter Bicentennial. And I was just on with part and part of it. We walked across the Texas Panhandle and and into Oklahoma. That was my section of it. And you know, I'm I'm from out on the periphery out in 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 part. So it was a revelation to me to hear the Texas Panhandle people and the Oklahoma people talk because they are marvelously

[72:23]

articulate and they use marvelous figures of speech. And they never repeat them. You know, I suppose after you know the guy the year 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 and their drummers you know Namo Myoho Renge Kyo as we were walking along and 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

[73:23]

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 almost with almost Neanderthal in the best sense of the words laughter Neanderthal thinking about hunting you see because he was really he really worshipped the animals that he killed and he was very respectful to them and and grateful to them and he could say all this in this marvelous in this marvelous country way with these vivid images convinced me laughter

[74:24]

yes so it doesn't have to be in fact it's better if it isn't so scholarly and academic and yeah my peers you know and mostly because when my peers they were going to stay to American study and a lot of friends that way and and he was good at it yeah that's a good lesson you know and it's a lesson that that I am very much aware of in my in my own heart there is a doctrine for doing anything you know

[75:26]

a dark reason you might say impure reason and it's hard to look at those things but why why did I write a book about the precepts see maybe I tend to be rather moralistic and judgmental you see this is probably a a blind spot where was it oh there yeah probably kind of a blind spot that that I need to 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

[76:26]

to change I hope I can be aware of my own judgmental ways yes but sometimes at least in my life it seems more honest to behave that way and I wonder about being honest in my behavior if you make my feels where are you trying to be pious and live a more externally mindful life a cultivated mindfulness maybe I mean, if it does help, I'll be mindful of it. Or if you go with perhaps more shifts of the moment, then at least be mindful of that.

[77:27]

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.

[78:34]

And we're in the 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. 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, you know. 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.

[79:46]

But it's not intended that way, fundamentally, not intended that way. So does the enjoyment of this be refined, despite the environmental consequences and behaviors, even though it might not be real? It might be an act of violence that's legitimate, right? 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. Time. Oh, yeah. During your first lecture, you made a statement, I was wondering if that's the case, that something to be compared to a sauna or a booth or a monastery shouldn't be an island. Uh-huh. I was wondering if you could comment on that.

[80:50]

Well, this is one of the things that you should hear with your ecumenical acousticon. 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.

[81:54]

At Diamond Sangha, it flows out to, what, our journals, Kahawai and so on. Do members of the community necessarily have a comfort relationship beyond the clinic? 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 outflow. But certainly, each person, in his or her own way,

[82:57]

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. It is my thought that several years ago, when you were doing social commentary, you said something about 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. Yes. Of course it will be like that for some people, you know. Inevitably, who will want to come and do retreat here

[84:03]

or become members or become monks. So, for them, at least for a while, it will be a sanctuary. 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 the new within the shell of the old, somehow.

[85:03]

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. 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. Please bear with me in that way. I know my own way of blind spot perhaps of blurting out what I think.

[86:13]

And I know this is painful. But I have some faith, or maybe it's justification, I don't know, 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.

[87:14]

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