The original title of this precept is No Unrighteous Lewdness, a kind of pathology, which in Chinese and in older English is simply a strong expression. Lewdness has rather a quaint ring in modern English. but its derivation is very instructive. It comes from an oil of English word meaning unlearned, implying bearish. What did our then Buddhist ancestors say about tricks? In my directory of some 5,500 colons, I find no entry for this subject in the elaborate index.

[01:11]

I do know of one person with a colon, however, and although it is hinted by stereotyped views toward women, It also reduks the puritanical attitudes commonly associated with religion, both East and West. In ancient days, an old woman made offerings to a hermit over a period of 20 years. One day, she sent her 16-year-old niece to take food to the hermit, telling her to make advances to him to see what he would do. The girl laid her head on the hermit's lot and said, How's this? The hermit said, The withered tree was rooted in an ancient rock in bitter cold. During winter meant there's no warmth, no life.

[02:14]

The girl reported this to her aunt. The old woman said, That Bulgarian to think that I had made offerings to him for proper wear, to drag away the hammock and to burn down his coffin. While we may question the use of the niece as doubt to test the monk's realization, it is clear by the final response of the aunt that fundamentally he disapproved of the misuse of sex. The hermit was not responding to the human being who laid her head in his lap. He was giving her to express his ascetic vision. Every aunt calls him a vulgarian, a boor,

[03:18]

Ludmus is boorish. Athleticism can be and often is boorish. Boorishness is just thinking of oneself. He drives him off and burns down his cottage. Fire is a dream symbol for sex. You don't belong here. Sex belongs here. or at least acknowledgment of it. This case is listed under offerings to monks in my directory of koan, and the lack of any classification for sects is in keeping with a curtain that is drawn over the subject in Zen practice. After a careful search of the literature, you can find cautions by Durga and Zenji to avoid sexual gossip.

[04:29]

But that is about all, except, of course, for this precept and its brief commentary. In the Zen monastery, food, sleep, zazen, work, and even going to the toilet are organized and scheduled but it is as though sex did not exist. I am not so naive to suppose that this could be so, but I must say that the mildest kind of homosexual fooling around among young monks was all the sex I ever observed in several months of residence in a Zen monastery. The case of the ant and the hermit was not included in the anthologies of Koan studied in the run, as established by Harada Dai Onyoshi.

[05:40]

But it was generally part of the Rinzai curriculum. Even so, one wonders how students can apply its teachings. In Japanese and monasteries today, women are admitted for sexing only, as a general rule. They sit in a separate room and only join the men for meals, such as and , and even then they are grouped together. At time, the laymen sit with the monks, and the women sit on the other side of the room, with guests who come in from outside, especially to hear the talk. So if we were having such an arrangement here, the women would be sitting upstairs, and during post-work time, they would come and sit in the alcove with the guests.

[06:46]

The message is clearly, Garvin is for men. Japanese generally place the onus of sexual distraction upon women. At least until very recently, Japanese boys and girls mixed their nipple in their teenage years. and the monk who set off at 18 to train in a monastery would simply not be able to handle the presence of a woman in the dojo. Her appearance would prompt long-repressed sexual urges to take over his zazen. Mul would disappear, and the result would be failure in the doksong-rum and disruption of the monastic routine. Harozu, sitting at the heart of the Zen training program, is not likely to be interested in trying to make over the society which presents him with this problem.

[07:58]

Without within his arm manure, he solves it in the only way that seems to him to be possible, by excluding or segregating the immediate cause. This is a meditative model for us in Western Zen, and as such, it can be very instructive. Sendaku Nobun Sensei loved the story of the nun Fushun, who, it seems, did practice with the Sangha of monks. Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Fushun, were practicing meditation under a certain Zen master, Aishun was very pretty, even though her head was shirred and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her, and one of them wrote her a love letter, insisting on a private meeting. Aishun did not reply.

[09:01]

A following day, the master gave a techo to the group. And when it was over, Christian stood and faced the monk who had written her and said, If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now. One of my students remarked that Christian's action was so righteous. I am not so sure. In her context, perhaps it was quite appropriate. In modern circumstances, we seek to be open in such matters and can appreciate her intention. In any case, if we were the men, how would you reply to her challenge? In discussing this matter with students, I said that I would go over to her and make a bow. All in our society offered to shake her hand. No? Well done.

[10:01]

No. No. One student said, the fire of a monk out there, they're an ambassador. This is a Zen-like response, and also very modern and Western. So far as I know, all the Zen centers in the United States today accommodate both men and women. This arrangement, like ordinary life away from the center, brings a theme of crazy that hinge on sex. In the Dexan room, you may be asked about the ant and the hermit. The question is, in that situation, how would you respond as the hermit to the mint? Like all good corn, only one sort of response is possible. However, the acid test of the mind and the wind

[11:04]

is the act of self thereafter. Here you are in your friend's apartment. The circumstances are thus and so. How do you respond in such a time and place with this person? No dithering allowed. The answer test is also found in the Western Zen Buddhist Training Center. where men and women not only sit side by side in the dojo, but also eat together, work together, sometimes live together. How do such arrangements affect their Zen training? How is their Zen training applied in these circumstances? Where there are many problems, I think the overall effect of such proximity is beneficial to the facts. There is an experience of wholeness in having the other sex in close association throughout the day.

[12:13]

Fantasies about sex are still present, but surely they are less worse than they might be if there were no chance to experience the humanity of the other. and the give-and-take of cooking, gardening, and re-roofing together. At such a level, one is better able to accept the thoughts as normal and natural and permit them to pass. There are tensions in the co-ed community, but so are there tensions in surrogate communities. Two people in combination produce tension. Tensions can be used creatively, or one can be used by them. In the broader community, we in the Western Hemisphere have gone through many changes in sexual behavior in the past 65 years, particularly in the decades of the 1920s and the 1960s.

[13:23]

Young people today may go through a period of sleeping with partners that might otherwise have been steady dates in an earlier time. I know the feeling that these new mores are healthier than the courting games of my youth. People emerge from these years of playing at six with a better sense of bedroom filter than we of an earlier generation could possibly attain with our preoccupation about making the grade or walking down the aisle. There are deeper implications in this change. The sexual drive is part of the human path of self-realization.

[14:26]

When our mores are relatively permissive, we have increased opportunity to explore our human nature through sexual relationships. At the same time, of course, there is more opportunity for self-centered people to use sex as a means for personal power. The path you choose arises from your fundamental purpose. Why are you here? A person in charge of a monastery who avoids difficulty simply by dividing humanity in half has this counterpart in Western Victorian authority or society, where in some areas Exclusion and segregation were used as a means for control.

[15:32]

With the help of our evolving Western cultural attitudes, we in the Zen movement can use sex in our practice rather than trying to exclude it. I don't mean that we should be experimenting with Panto, but simply that we must acknowledge sexual energy as part of the Sangha treasure. Certainly, we cannot justify rejecting sex and accepting the other human drives and emotions such as anger, fear, hunger, and the need for sleep. All we have learned on our cushions proves that physical and mental conditions, the will and emotions are human elements to be integrated into our daily life practice and our zazen practice. For all its aquatic nature, for all its power, sex is just another human drive.

[16:44]

If we are voted just because it is more difficult to integrate than anger or fear, then we are simply saying that when the chips are down, we cannot follow our own practice. This is dishonest and unhealthy. According to the Gnostic Gospel of Parnas, Jesus said, If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. In the past 20 years, in the West, homosexuals have taken this truth to heart. On this subject, again, we are on our own. Israel teachers were relatively quiet They were altogether silent about the unconventional.

[17:49]

A Japanese young monk of my acquaintance became an orgy, and a few months later, looking back on the counseling sessions he had been holding informally with his students, both laypeople and monk, he remarked to me, I had no idea that homosexuality was so widespread. I thought it was just a very occasional problem. All sexuality becomes a problem if society and the individual involved view it as a problem. Naturally, it is that with the encouragement of teacher and founder, the individual nonetheless has a chance for personal maturity and realization through Zen practice. Whatever his or her sexual orientation may do, Buddha-mature is not heterosexual or homosexual.

[18:51]

Buddha-mature is, in fact, the essence and quality of energy, including the human energy of sex. Vedadhyama said, Self-mature is subtle and mysterious, In the realm of the unguarded dharma, not creating a veneer of attachment is called the precept of not misusing sex. But dharma were celibate, of course, and his words were directed to his celibate followers. Celibacy is an appropriate path for some Zen students today. but celibate or not, we can always find guidance in Bodhidharma's words. The non-attachment of suchness is the Tao of all the Buddhas. Sasaki Jeshu Roshi has said, when you are completely one with your lover, you don't know whether you are doing something good or bad, or attached or non-attached.

[20:07]

There, Vanzanji said, the true kriyas are pure and clear. When you have nothing to desire, you follow the way of all Buddhas. The true kriyas are the actor, the thing acted upon, and the action. We understood and are eating our vacant. The lovers and their act of love are intrinsically pure and clear. There is no attainment at all. The celibate, too, fully realized, finds that Buddha nature pervades the whole universe. Buddhadharma and the billions in ji shine light on our path. And if little is said about sex in any direct way in the rest of Zambudda's teaching, we can nonetheless use the general doctrine of personal acceptance and compassion as our guide.

[21:18]

When there is an easy driving together, a new love relationship can be conducive to group of practice for the partners and for the sangha. A difficult relationship can also be a field for practice. However, practice can be disrupted by actions that the Sangha members perceive as boorish sects. If there is a war among the land, the practice may be overwhelmed throughout the dojo, as though someone had left the television going during such a time. And what if the teacher is the wolf? The words of Bhedaldana and Bhedalindzongji are simply profound expressions of common morality. It is up to the Zen teacher and his or her senior followers to build a solid road of example and sardine that will link the wisdom of our ancestors to the exigencies of ordinary living.

[22:28]

I am especially concerned about the effect of inappropriate sexual affairs in the Buddha Sangha. There have been grave upsets in American Zen Buddhist centers recently which powered upon affairs of teachers with their students. These places seem to reveal blind spots in the minds of the teachers and indeed to reflect blind spots in Zen Buddhism itself. The teacher of religious practice occupies an occupable place in the psyches of the students. He or she continues to teach in their dreams. This is a factor that must be worked with in teacher-student relations. On the one hand, it is important for the teacher to be responsible for this power and to encourage the students to use its influence and to speak out when they think they are being used.

[23:33]

On the other hand, it is important for students to avoid blind allegiance. For example, I once challenged a student about sexist and anti-Semitic treatments made by his teacher. He replied, it is true, he is sexist and anti-Semitic, but he is the guru. That won't do, I think. The function of the teacher is to teach, just as the function of the mother or father is to be a parent, or the function of the psychologist is to counsel. All of those rails set up like a type of responses, and at best such responses are positive and productive. When the teacher in the role of teacher contracts a student sexually, the archetype is violated and the student is deeply confused and disturbed.

[24:37]

This is a law as irrevocable as the law of gravity, proved in the suffering of earnest Zen students and their sanghas today. In the everyday world, too, sexual laws operate at an archetypal level. The carapace must be removed in safety. The distinguished husband takes off his hairpiece. The beautiful wife takes off her fond padding. Each trusts a vulnerable self to the other for the infinite ancient dance. Mutually taking refuge in this way brings liberation that is fully protected. But the couple cannot create this protection by themselves. Dante relates how Paolo and Francesca persuaded each other that mutual attraction alone could justify their affair, and they carried this conviction into the inferno.

[25:49]

Far-crossed lovers have only themselves and their poor preparation for falling in love to blame. With world cancer offered little by little in childhood and adolescent years can come a cruel eye and a firm voice to say, it is not to be, and all systems shut down. This is a painful experience, but far preferable to the agony of a mistaken marriage. And with this in preparation, a green light may flash clearly. Then all systems are go, and the ecstasy of living over with a new lover can establish the dial of a lifetime partnership. True partnership is freedom within a publicly expressed commitment. And at such expression, marriage provides the safest environment.

[26:52]

Without marriage, there can still be an agreement to establish a relationship and to work on it. Many people have been harmed by ill-advised marriages. or know others who have been harmed, and so shy away from the ultimate kind of commitment that has a religious foundation and would be hard to break. They form relationships, often successfully, but the lack of ultimate commitment is always a factor, and may cause the duty happening that permits a decision to separate when the relationship becomes difficult. Commitment in a relationship is the requirement to establish a practice together. The couple reaches a mutual understanding. It is not so much that we agree to love and honor each other, though that is an important part of it, but that we agree to love and honor our practice. We are two people involved in creating a work of art together.

[27:58]

In marriage, man and woman cultivate a harmony with their vastly different psyches, each conflating the other, each finding the other in the self, the self in the other, the yin and yang of the universe at play in a single household. Consenting to any sexual affair will involve this dynamism of male and female to some degree. If the intention is directed toward establishing a practice, then the game can move toward liberation. But if other spouses and children are left behind, then the reformer can be the source of acute misery. And if deception is involved, then the lives of those concerned are poisoned and the Zen practice, if any, is out the window. Depending on character and circumstances, all this suffering either cannot be healed or can be the hot stone for bringing new life.

[29:08]

I am familiar with the argument that sex is only for fearing when it breaks the established pattern, that human doings are not essentially monogamous. This is the view of people who cultivate power to attract others, very different from the compassionate spirit of reaching out to them. Saving all beings is our practice. And in the home, this can be just the simple act of brewing the dishes or helping with homework. Or it can be having a party when the kids find that The dance of sex, the dance of love in all circumstances, requires forgetting the self and giving over to the dance. Sexual intercourse is the dancing nucleus of our home, generating all beings at climax, bringing rest and renewal.

[30:11]

We reveal to ourselves the vanity of fulfillment as we grow old when we do dream about sex. How much time have you wasted in the arms of your lover, perhaps a true lover of the past, perhaps a lover that never was, while you sit there on your cushions, your back bent slightly forward at your waistline, your eyelids two-thirds lowered, immobile as a stone Buddha in Mok Zazen? How much time have you wasted as a window resident, throwing around the insecto-ding. The three hurrahs are pure. Can you realize this? As the Buddha said, we cannot testify to such fact because of our delusions and attachment. It is time to see through those empty clouds and into the source, once and for all.

[31:19]

There is no misuse of sex at the source, no need to prove anything, no boorish self-centeredness at all. I would hope that we could think along these lines rather than just holding everything in limbo and waiting to see what would happen, and then having to decide what to visualize various possibilities and think about various contingency points. I can't suggest anything more exact than that. Yeah.

[32:24]

I think I should mention that for a fact, I hope not too far. It's an embassy that can't deduct the power of some type of magic or provision that holds the community together. I want to know what your view is of the proper use of such magical power. I think the use of the term magical power is very interesting because the power of community cannot be explained. And so the use of such a term is valid, I think, if we can use it dispassionately and not in any superstitious way.

[33:26]

We all sense the power of community. I sense this power in this community. And I know from talking with you individually listening to your questions, that you feel this also. It is the power of sangha, the sense that we reflect each other, that we interpenetrate each other, that we intercontain each other, if I may use that expression. This realization is expressed philosophically in the Hawaiian, in the Net of Indra, where all beings, not only human beings but all beings, not only animate beings but the so-called inanimate too, are jewels in a multidimensional net.

[34:35]

perfectly reflecting and containing each other, each jewel containing all others. And this doctrine is indeed being developed on an intellectual level in the field of physics. we become especially conscious of this, doing zazen together and going through the same experiences together, particularly the deeply troubling experiences somehow can help to bring a sangha together. It seems like one of the tasks of Buddha-sang has to do with installing some of the magic On the other hand, to keep the community together requires generating magic.

[35:42]

Well, there you're using magic in two different ways, I think. Good magic and bad magic, or something like that. But Certainly, it is possible that some kind of false euphoria might develop in a community that wasn't real or that would not be appropriate or productive. And I think that it is important at all times to... to keep a cool head and not be carried away by what one writer has called the madness of crowds. where some kind of organism, an irrational kind of organism seems to occur in which all the individual human beings are mindless elements.

[36:56]

I think that we should keep an eye out for that, but I'm not hearing much risk of that here. at this time. I think it's important to do what we can to encourage unity. And then the client will and that client won. It will be determined by the detail of I tell you a secret, it's tiring, but it isn't even there, or it's, you know, a character of whoever you're involving.

[38:05]

Maybe. Maybe it is. I don't know what to say. Maybe. It's certainly true that the duksan, the relationship that is developed in duksan is an intimate bond. In the sense that all human relations have sexual implications, then I would agree that there is sexual overtone or quality. What I mean is that the world we live in is so real that it... If a person is not getting along with somebody, if you've betrayed them, you shouldn't want to get in love with somebody who's in love with somebody who doesn't agree.

[39:15]

Honestly. Whatever somebody does, the plot is very real. Mm-hmm. What you're saying. Yes. Yes. Yes. I think so. I think that this community will always feel a bond with Pekaroshi. Yes. Yes. But, you know, I have been concerned on this subject since 1964. You know, that's nineteen and a half years. It has preyed on my mind. The monk who became a dharosi fell into the trap of using his natural charisma in a sexual way.

[40:31]

two of the women in our sangha had nervous breakdowns. And this was the way, kind of accidentally finding out through medical records of the hospital cases, that I learned of his behavior. And he left Hawaii under a cloud this cloud and went to New York. And I was not able to persuade people in New York that this was not a true teacher. because he had already made good context there. And I was not able to persuade the people who were then my teachers in Japan that this guy was a Brahmin. I've watched his career with a lot of concern over the years, and it was with him in mind that I said some of the critical things I did in the original draft of this te-show.

[42:00]

I want really to open my heart to you on this subject. I have felt very responsible for the suffering of many, many people by the fact that I was Edo Roshi's original sponsor in this country. And so, I don't know. I can hear your resentment and anger, and I want to give it space. And I appreciate very much your loyalty. You know. Pardon? I beg your pardon? Grief. Your grief. Yes. Yes.

[43:05]

What is your sense of the hope of this community introducing teachers from Lubbock's community? I think that is a matter of time. A matter of time. Yes. Yes. A matter of growth and maturity. Do you think it's essential that we all stay together here? Well, I certainly wouldn't want to make a judgment on that. I think that people should be responsive to their own deepest motives. And what I'm hearing from a lot of people is, I want to stay here and support the Sangha.

[44:10]

I'm hearing this from many, many people. But that never produced a strong thought or a strong teacher. Sure. But you know, I think that our vision should be very long. like ten thousand years. And it may be that in the interim other teachers will be brought in. I don't know. It's very difficult for me as a guest teacher to try to second guess what might be decided here. But certainly in time leaders can emerge from this sangha. First of all, I think our translation of precepts do not misuse the senses.

[45:30]

Do not misuse the senses? Boy, it says sex plain and clear in the original Chinese. Do not be ignorant. also take R.H.I. in a sentence and brings up another preceptional self and say, do not self-toxic. My translation of that is, do not give or take drugs. And drugs being a kind of general term that would include liquor. Well, something I've I feel formulated. There's some relationship with this heart type idea and people's projection onto this image. Ah. Formulation of the...

[46:32]

of the community around specific archetype. That this Buddha always set up so that there's somebody in the center of the Buddha. The Sando set up so that there's somebody facing out, opted in the center of the Sando, facing the Buddha. Keshavas are given for somebody facing the Buddha. How is someone prepared to deal with the power of the focus of the community on them, because they are the center of this period. And this seems to be about all the precepts, but particularly this idea of not misusing instances, exacting data, managing holding a certain saga or community together and so on. It seems to me that the roshi must be completely settled in that place where there is no coming or going, where there is no birth and no death,

[47:55]

Where there is no good and no bad, if you will. Completely settled there. At ease there. And... No, not yet. And then... Because... he or she is freed from the kind of personal suffering and delusions and attachments and all those things, then is open and can hear the sounds of suffering of the world. and can come forth in a discriminating way and say, I will do this and I will not do that, very clearly.

[49:10]

In the Diamond Sutra it says, dwell nowhere and bring forth that mind. Dwelling nowhere, you are speaking from the place of true peace. And you bring forth that mind. When you bring forth that mind, then you are bringing forth the mind of harmony in the world of samsara. Now, good point, you see. I'm not there. My teacher has a hot temper. The teacher must be at a place where he or she is harmonious enough within so that there is a willingness to listen from outside. I say in another place in the book here that the teacher must be ready to hear that he is a male chauvinist.

[50:17]

which I've been told by my own students. You know, we're all in process. And there's a saying, and then, that Shakyamuni is only halfway there. Yes. So, but nonetheless, there is a certain milestone. Yeah, go ahead. I don't know what you mean at all. I don't know either. But the whole situation that, like, if you wake up in the morning and go to a job, which is same group, and you come to a lecture, and you only dwell along the circle, I think you can become very . You're so dependent on that structure with that character. It's like he's saying. No, I see your point, yes. When you were saying about You know, he has to be perfect.

[51:47]

I never thought that I had to be perfect. That's why I don't feel so bad. I mean, it's not that I'm working it, but I'm not going to be perfect. Yeah, well, I wasn't really thinking so much of Baker Oshie there in response to your question. But I think there is, without reference to anybody, I think that there is a certain milestone that one passes after which one is really ready to listen and is relatively harmonious inside. And the value of these archetypes, such as Buddha, such as kanjizai or kanzeon and so on, is that they shine light on our path And as to the archetype of a teacher, as I said, you know, that's a heavy responsibility on the teacher.

[53:00]

Now, we've gone around a little bit since your question. How are we doing? I think we'll take one. I'd like to take it. Let's take it. Okay. I came to Zantrag. Yes, you did. Other than teaching, in the sense that I was interested in religion, but all religious system I saw functioned in such a way that, you know, the power was always situated in some center place. Yes. I became attracted to Zen because it seemed more like a plastic. And I can see the value of a number of the ceremonial practices you can do here, the mandala structure of the community, unless you can do all the monastery and so on, in developing energy and maintain, contain, and allow energy to develop and being able to experience it and express it and use the structure in that way.

[54:20]

At the same time, it has incredible potential for that structure and people within that structure to get energy in the center and never recycle it back out. And then, in fact, people who are on the periphery or just sort of extras in the room who are not capping any of this, and are not finding personal, specific, individuating participation in the sound. And I find that that's what I call religion. And how does one use the system and develop the system and not allow the system to kill people? How do we know when it's happening and when not? Well, we need Hanshan or Basho or somebody equivalent to appear in the back of the hall, you know, and call it.

[56:01]

and then leave. Or we need to look at the Diamond Sutra once in a while. It says the Buddha is not the Buddha. Tathagata is not the Tathagata. The Buddha does not have 32 characteristic marks. Therefore, he's called the Buddha or Shiva. We need to recognize, as I think you're saying, that our idealism is conceptual and that we really must wipe away our concepts, really, really, once and for all. the beautiful thing about the Koan Lu, because it has no meaning. I don't know.

[57:14]

I haven't figured that one out. I can tell you the problems of the lay center. You know, the lack of continuity, the lack of a core group, the fact that at our last session we didn't even have a canto, a full time, that is. Three people came in and sat in that seat one time or another. And sometimes that seat was empty. There is a kind of person who is a monk. You know? I think this is a valid calling.

[58:31]

And I wish a couple would show up. They don't have to be ordained or anything. But we talked the first night I spoke about what can be seen as the laicization of Buddhism from pre-Mahayana times through the Mahayana to the Kamakura Reformation. And down through the Tokugawa period to the time when Zen monks were getting married in the late 19th century, to the movement of Zen to America, where the line between monk and layperson is quite fuzzy.

[59:40]

And all we need to do is to get an idea of how this contrast with the old ways is to look at the Sino-American Buddhist Association. I was speaking this afternoon in the discussion group about this. They recently published the first issue of their journal, True Dharma Seal, with a big article entitled, The Laity is Not the Sangha. And for them, a monk is one who has taken the 250 classical precepts and the and the ten big precepts and the forty-eight little precepts, and the nun lives in a community with three other monks, and the nun is one who has gone through a similar path, only taken three hundred and forty-eight vows, and so on.

[60:50]

A big contrast. They represent a stream that hasn't changed. And this community represents a stream that has changed to a big degree. And Diamond Sangha represents a stream that has changed to a radical degree. But I think there is a general movement away from monastic Buddhism. The monastery walls are down, and we have to feel our way to find out. It's as though we're in the middle of the French Revolution. There's a lot of chaos, and we can't really see exactly what the terms of that chaos are. It's only when we distance ourselves a little in time that we'll be able to understand just what we have been going through during this period. But I think there is a process of rapid change.

[61:55]

Thank you, Roshi. I suppose I could have said what I'm going to say as we walk back to your place, but I wanted to say it publicly. I was, you know, I've been, one of the things that I think is happening at Jen Center now is an awareness about speech that we haven't had before. And we have a lot of seminars and, you know, a lot of energy and expense put into teaching us, teaching ourselves how to communicate with each other. So, while I'm sorry that maybe, you know, I don't disagree with what John said, I do I want to make a public statement of gratitude for a demonstration of direct speech, because I don't think it's easy to talk about precepts. I mean, in history, as you point out, nobody's done it, or people haven't done it very often. And I think specifically to come into a situation where there's apparently been breaches of precepts, it's not as if it's a secret from us.

[63:01]

is that I wanted to thank you for a demonstration of that kind of speech. Thank you. Thank you. He created a place for us. When I was testing, in some ways, it worked very well. But also to be able to participate, creating a solid understanding. At least two of the others, I experienced a lot of input from myself. I see a lot of learning. People who are trained for the role of set would go soon to be a fellow concept. I was in Singapore for more than 10 years, and one of the thoughts that came to me was, what perhaps I should say, comfortable.

[64:09]

And we are a support group. We are administrative to some degree. And that's a very excruciating situation, but it's very fertile. For me, the interior is much more that area. The question of elasticity as a model, the fact that things, in my experience, can save people a bitterly helpful contact, still a little bit, a little bit, and with that, well, I think we all see that. I didn't say it's a problem, but what I tried to observe is that down through the centuries we can see a movement away from the very strict concept of the Buddha Sangha consisting entirely of monks, with a very problematic place for nuns.

[65:33]

that there is a certain elitist spirit in the old way of regarding the Buddha Sangha as the entire support, really, of the Buddha Dharma. with the laity contributing to that main stream of expression in the hope that in some future time they might themselves be a part of that elite group. We're getting away from that old-fashioned idea of the priesthood as an elite group. and I wasn't thinking in terms specifically of any particular center, but just over the centuries we can see these changes.

[66:45]

It would be unheard of even to this day of a Theravada monk getting married. Unheard of. But it's commonplace for us that a priest or a monk marries. So I was just trying to look at the kind of historical overview. But there definitely are changes. And just as the Sino-American Buddhist Association shows one element, I mean, they could say, well, look at us, things have never changed. So there are things that you can say generally about this historical, specifically about this historical movement. But I think generally you can see an overall laicization of the Dhamma.

[67:48]

Yes. Well, when you were talking about being healthier, perhaps, to have many women put it together a little bit. We don't like to correct or correct the . . . Make it easier to have. Yeah. . [...] Oh, no, I don't. Oh, no, I don't.

[68:50]

No. No, I think that's unreal. Yes. So I think, as I said, that inevitably there will be an easy drawing together of a couple in training circumstances. And when this is easy and natural, then their practice is enhanced and the practice of the Sangha is enhanced. You know, all the world loves a lover. Celibacy is a special trip. And it can take place in a co-ed community or a celibate community. Certainly, as I said earlier, there is a sexual component to our give and take right now. So let's use it openly and frankly.

[69:58]

to be aware of that energy is very good. Remember what Thich Nhat Hanh said about awareness. You know, it's like the sun. When it shines on things, then everything changes. when they are aware of the quality of sex in our human energy, then our relationship becomes somehow open and, in a sense, purified. Yes? uh... that's it that The community is a kind of .

[71:04]

Our community is a great . At the same time, it seems to me that there is a sense that there is also a long band of . Which are the You have it, but if some desire to have something else, both might fall in love. Yes, yes, yes. And there is the... I've been feeling very deep and very humanly related to make the ways all these victims change it, you know, to now really think of it as narrative, to see things like there's something real to getting out there.

[72:05]

It's also going on here since now. I think part of the reason that this summit is so powerful and kind of reason that we're all here and that there's so many people who actually have so deeply with us and that... It's that there was somehow passed in by this, I don't know what it's an archetype, but the fact that it's this exhaustion or this feeling that somebody else can bleed us or die if they're troubled. You understand what I mean? I really like to have different things going on. They're both kind of abstracted. Yeah. I think it's very important, again, that we be conscious of this pull that we all of us have for passive dependency, to have some figure tell us what's what.

[73:15]

And this is why I appreciated the first question, that's the kind of action that we want, you know, a challenge. And what makes for real community health, and not a kind of sticky cohesion, but real community health is the feeling that he's the teacher all right, or she's the teacher all right, but it's my responsibility to keep that person the teacher. In other words, to check that person. See? That what you said right there made me really mad. You know? To call him and to try to work it out.

[74:17]

Because in that kind of mondo, in that kind of dialogue, emerges a synthesis that neither could achieve alone. Neither the teacher nor the sangha could achieve alone. So there must be challenge. The students must be ready to use the teaching and, again, not be used by it. Great Joshu, a monk asked him, how may I use the twenty-four hours? He said, you are used by the twenty-four hours. I use. the twenty-four hours. There's a big difference there. How do you hear my words?

[75:22]

Do you use my words or are you used by them? So, when we catch ourselves falling into this kind of passive dependency, then it's important to sort of summon up the essential gumption and speak up. The person who said to me, yes, This was not a Buddhist teacher, by the way. Yes, my teacher is sexist and anti-Semitic, but he's the guru. See? I really am appalled by that kind of attitude. I think it's very harmful and dangerous. And you see it in the worst examples, you know, in the monies and people like that.

[76:26]

Pardon? Can we please just Well, I can see that it would be awkward to speak out in a group unless you're really kind of worked up. But it's certainly possible to corner the teacher afterwards and say, hey, you know, when you said that in lecture, I didn't really understand, or whatever you want to say about it. You know, I thought it was a mistake, or whatever you want to say. I don't speak on one of these at the Diamond Sangha. I sit in a chair. But the reason for that is so I can see everybody and everybody can see me.

[77:35]

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