This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So yesterday, the topic was the Four Noble Truths, the Four Liberating Insights. which can be seen perhaps as a little bit more the higher teaching of the Buddha. One of the things the Buddha did was to formulate a form of community of practitioners, the monastics and monks and nuns of his time, and that their training together, the practice together, was an important part of the overall scheme of practice. And sometimes when people read Buddhism, some books on Buddhism, early teachings of early Buddha, it's easy to think of the teaching being presented independent of any kind of community life.

[01:04]

It's just, you know, emptiness and Four Noble Truths and meditation. Maybe there's some discussion about ethics, you know, because you treat people nicely. But otherwise, it's kind of pointing towards, you know, inner development of your own life and freedom and all that. But the life of our practice in relationship to other people, is a hugely important part of the training in their earliest tradition here. And I would say it's integrated as part of it. And some of the places to see it, for example, is in the Eightfold Path, considered one of the central teachings of the Buddha. And some of those elements of the Eightfold Path are very much practices that are only relevant if we're living in community with others. Things like right speech. right speech, right action, right livelihood, those more ethical parts of the Eightfold Path, are all to do with how we live our lives with others. And so to speak in ways that are conducive for the path of liberation, conducive for harmony with the people we live with, to act in ways that way as well.

[02:12]

And the second of the Eightfold Path is right intention. And those intentions are very much, most of them are described in ways that have to do with our social life. Right intention is to have loving kindness, thoughts or intentions of loving kindness, compassion, and renunciation. And the first two, mostly, there's a squirrel in there. It's nice. Hey, welcome it. He comes in here often. Yeah. There's a Zen story of the fox that came, right? Good talk. The right intention has to do with having loving kindness, which has a lot to do with our relationship to other people. You can say loving kindness to yourself, but in the early tradition, they didn't really talk much about loving yourself. It took about a thousand years after the Buddha, some Buddhist teacher started talking about

[03:17]

having loving kindness for yourself. And he had to justify it because it's not in the suttas. But mostly it's having goodwill towards others, having compassion towards others. So integrated in the Eightfold Path is caring for our social life and how we relate to other people. And some of the elements of the Eightfold Path can seem to be more personal, developing your mindfulness, developing your concentration, having right to you and such things. One of the central places we see the emphasis on our social life as part of practice is in one of the definitions for wisdom that the Buddha gave. It wasn't for wisdom. It was a definition where he described someone who's wise, a wise person. A wise person is someone who benefits oneself, benefits others, and benefits both self and others. And I think it's a great definition of kind of an ideal way of living with other people.

[04:18]

Sometimes some people are selfish or self-absorbed, and they just try to benefit themselves. Some people are excessively concerned with others. They're only trying to help other people, sometimes at the expense of themselves. But to do it in a balanced way, according to this little formula, you want to care for yourself as much as you care for someone else. And both are all important. And there's kind of emphasis given to one over the other. And then there's this third category of benefiting both self and others. And I don't know what this means in the text, but I like to believe it means that it's the collective. It's the we. There's you, there's me, and there's we. There's you, others, and then the community that's formed as a result of that. And so that also needs care. That needs a different kind of care than the care that an individual might need. And sometimes individual needs needs to be a sacrifice for the welfare of the group or the community as a whole. Though sacrifice maybe is too strong of a word. It's kind of frightening, right?

[05:20]

But sometimes we put our needs aside if the need for the community or the need for someone else is greater than your own need. And so, you know, if your friend breaks her foot, you know, you don't feel concerned anymore about... making sure you get the last cookie on the plate. You're more concerned about your friend than your desire for a cookie. If the community is in some kind of stress, then maybe you care for the community more than take care of your own needs. It's appropriate sometimes. But how to have those in balance is, I think, the art of this. What I wanted to emphasize is this teaching that according to the Buddha, a wise person is someone who cares... who benefits themselves, benefits others, and benefits both self and others, and the mutuality of that. It's a mutual field where as you benefit yourself, you will benefit others.

[06:21]

As you benefit others in this way, the idea is you benefit yourself as well. Scholars have pointed out that Indian religions in general, they don't have the hard category of separation between self and others that exists in kind of Western culture. and they're kind of embedded in kind of much of Indian religious tradition, not just Buddhism, is there's a very clear assumption that if you benefit yourself in a healthy way, spiritually, if you provide yourself with the greatest good that you can do, then that will benefit others. And if you benefit others in the best possible way, you benefit from that as well. So there's a mutuality, it's going back and forth. Here in the West, I think we tend to separate out this much more strictly and, you know, Sometimes we're very critical of people who look selfish. And maybe some of you have gotten criticized for being a Tassahara. I know that there were people who criticized me in the early years of practice that, how could you be so selfish? And going down to Tassahara to practice, how can you be so selfish to meditate?

[07:27]

What, you're spending two hours a day meditating? Boy, that's selfish. But they didn't, of course, notice that they were spending two hours a day watching TV. There's something about doing religion that somehow doing this inner work kind of threatens people. It calls up this idea that you're not supposed to be selfish or self-absorbed. But I think that people who do this practice well, take care of themselves well, they get changed in a way that supports their community, supports people around them. I think that the selfish practice you do at Tassajara, it is that. I don't think it is. But here, this little valley, has ripples and benefits the world outside of here in tremendous ways. And if you give yourself fully to the practice here, I don't think of a selfish thing. After 9-11, right after 9-11, a couple of friends of mine went off to do a three-month Buddhist retreat. And I went and searched them out because it was kind of a traumatic time in America at that time, in the week after 9-11.

[08:30]

And I went to them to reassure them and said, you might think that now when the whole country is traumatized, that going off on a retreat, silent retreat, three-month silent retreat, is going to be a selfish thing to do and should be here, take care of our society. And I told them, one of the best responses we can do to this 9-11 is for you to go on retreat. Because we need some people who get to the root of greed, hate, and delusion. We need some people who really can understand some of the depth of what goes on in our psyche. It frees ourselves from some of the very forces that lead to the kind of violence that 9-11 represents. So, you know, it's not necessarily selfish. It can be selfish to kind of go in to do this practice yourself. But if we do it well, we benefit the world. But it's not just a matter of doing it this, it's also practicing to benefit others. And so in the early tradition, I think it was understood these things are all mutual and you can't really tease them apart completely. But the emphasis is to do both. And some of you probably are familiar with that there is a Buddhist critique of the so-called Hinayana Buddhism, that they're the selfish ones.

[09:43]

In fact, I'm teaching mostly in the selfish tradition. So I remember once we had a college student just taking a college class in Buddhism or world religions. And he learned that there were different kinds of Buddhism. And there was the selfish people, the Hinayana. And then there was the people who were mostly altruistic and wanted to help others. And they were going to sacrifice their own enlightenment for the welfare of others. You probably heard such ideas, right? But the other people are just self-absorbed, right? So he came to see us at my center because he couldn't believe that there were people so selfish. He wanted to see who these people were. I thought that was fun. But anyway, so it might be some truth to it that there are such people who do practice selfishly. And sometimes it's hard to tell because sometimes in Buddhist practice people will seemingly sincerely talk about their practice in personal terms.

[10:47]

And so they're talking about me, my practice, my pain, my issues, this, I'm doing this and that. And you listen to it after a while and so much of it I wonder, is this person really narcissistic? They're completely self-absorbed. But it's kind of hidden a little bit because the currency sometimes of talking is about being myself and my practice, right? Maybe not here at Tassajara? Anyway, so you can be overly self-absorbed. But what's great about Tassajara, I think, is that it's a community practice. And that's reinforced in so many different ways. And hopefully, you know, there's a kind of balance shifts and changes over time, depending on your job, and the time of year, and the day, and the hour, when maybe the practice has a more personal aspect to it for yourself, and when the practice is more communal, when it's more you're there to support other people in a clear way, and that's your practice. And other times, when it's the whole community as a whole, the we, that's going on.

[11:49]

And I think it's a very rich part of Tassajara, is that the morphing and changing and kind of negotiating these different realms, these three different realms, finding your way and being informed and learning about them and learning the benefit of both and learning how it all works, mutuality, that you benefit from the whole community and the community benefits from you as you pursue your practice and all that. Make some sense? Okay, that's the introduction. Okay. What I wanted to do was to tell you about... In this translation, Zika Bodhi calls it six principles of cordiality. I hardly know what cordiality means, but six principles of being friendly. And the Buddha gives it in this text at a time when there was a famous quarrel in the monastic community called the Quarrel at Kosambi.

[12:52]

And there were a whole bunch of monks living in a town called Kosambi. And one of the monks violated one of the, well, seemingly violated one of the monastic rules. And he was an expert of the monastic rules. But someone else said, you broke that rule. And he said, no, I didn't. Yes, you did. No, you didn't. You have to go and confess. We have to have a trial. And someone ruled that he broke the rule. And so they had a big quarrel. It was a horrible time. And I don't know if it's a true story, but it's almost mythic because the, and maybe it's kind of like symbolic of how easy it is to get caught in the ethics of really petty things. Because what happened was back then in the outhouses, They had little water ladles that they used in that toilet paper. And the rule is you have to empty the water ladle when you're finished.

[13:58]

And he left some water in. And that's what they had this big fight about. Anyway, so they had this big fight. And so the Buddha gathered the monks together. And he said this. There are six memorable qualities that create love and respect and conduce to helpfulness, not to dispute, to concord, and to unity. What are the six? So I think it's a lovely list. I mean, there's the introduction to it. These are the six things you can do that create love and respect. That's nice. That conduce to helpfulness, to non-dispute, to concord and to unity. Communal unity is considered very important in Buddhism down through the ages. So how do you have the unity? So everyone comes together and feels connected and mutually supportive.

[15:01]

So I'm going to go through and read slowly each one of these six. But what I thought I would do is, after I've read one, if maybe some of you can propose ways in which these can be lived at Tassara. What are some examples of how that could be practiced here? So the first one, here, a practitioner maintains bodily acts of loving-kindness, both in public and in private, towards his or her companions in the holy life. This is a memorable quality that creates love and respect and conduces to helpfulness, to non-dispute, to concord and to unity. So maintain bodily acts of loving-kindness. These are physical acts of goodwill towards others. If you do that, that's conducive to concord, to create love and respect. Does that make sense? So what are some ways that can be done in Tassana? Yes?

[16:02]

Bowing at each other. Bowing at each other. Any kind of bow? I've wondered about people's bow at me here at Tasahara. That person who served me, the way they bowed, I don't think they like me. Was that really a bow? That's your story, Gil. That's my story. Yes? Bowing and smiling. Bowing and smiling. Okay. Scraping plates and bowls at the dish shack. Ah, yes. Scraping the bowls at the shack. So they're clean before the dishwashers have to do them. Yeah. I went to a camp once where people had a table where you would only feed each other and not yourself. Wow. And what was that like? It was fun and kind and... Very loving and very messy. Baby, you know the story about the difference between heaven and hell?

[17:11]

So there was a little bit of heaven there? Yeah. So you're proposing me for Tosara? Unloading the township. Unloading the township. Unloading the township. Nice. Any other ideas? Busing. What? Busing. Busing. Helping with the busing. Taking a bath. Taking a bath. It's tremendously compassionate if you can beg before you... Everybody, yes. Weeping at the same time and going to bed at the same time. How is that a bodily act of goodwill, of loving kindness? But that we're not doing things separately, I guess. That we're physically doing things at the same time.

[18:13]

Is it beautiful? So by our example, we're supporting others. So it's easier for others to get up. If one person stays in bed, then it's easier for the next person to say, oh, you know, maybe I don't have to go. Like that. Yeah. Great. Yes. Washing each other's feet. Washing each other's feet. Yeah. Like maybe every once in a while when entering the zendo, You could have five people set up and they'll wash each other's feet. There's a long Buddhist tradition in Asia of washing the monks and nuns' feet. I was a monk in Burma. Once I went to someone's home and they were offering a meal and they washed our feet before we went and sat down. They had a basin and did it. But it made some sense in Burma because we had to walk barefoot in the dusty roads. So we came into their house all dirty. So it's probably they wanted to take care of their house as much as they take care of us. Yes? Walking softly in the communal housing areas.

[19:15]

Walking softly in the communal housing areas. Yes. So it takes to preserve people's rest. Yes? Possibly sitting up at no snoring. And also a snoring sleep requirement. I'd be very compassionate. Let's get on that. Okay, thank you. So here's the next quality. A practitioner maintains verbal acts of loving kindness, both in public and in private, towards his or her companions in the holy life. So verbal acts. So what would be verbal acts of loving kindness? Yes? I only worked at the dish shack once, but I always appreciated when someone said thank you. So saying thank you, appreciating people. Having gratitude. Yeah, gratitude and appreciation is really great.

[20:16]

Yes? Not gossiping. Not gossiping. So I agree with you completely. But how would you do a verbal act of loving kindness? Because that's the absence of any communication, right? What would be the opposite? Praising people. Great. Appreciating them, praising them. Thank you. Yes? Whether it's the kitchen or the garden or the dish shop or anywhere, people put a lot of personal energy, charisma, and character into each thing. So to tell them personally, like, wow, that was just amazing. Cool. Now you feel a lot better when someone's tasted some food that I've made and spending it correctly. Great. So appreciating people. That's an important thing. Other ideas? Yes.

[21:17]

Dharma talks. What? Dharma talks. Dharma talks. Yes. On your part? So one of the nice things here also, if you've noticed, it said both publicly and privately. And what I understand by privately means kind of like no one knows. And if you talk, someone should know if you're talking, but you do it more privately, or maybe you appreciate someone to a third person. Like that's a gossip. You're often talking about someone behind their back, right? But what about praising someone behind their back? You know, it's one thing to say thank you for the great work they've done. But how about saying that to someone else? Wow, that person did a great job. That was really nice what they did. So can you think of other kind of private ways? Yes. Speaking one's truth. And how is that an act of loving kindness? When is it an act of loving kindness? I guess it's...

[22:17]

Just life-affirming, I guess. It can be life-affirming. It could also be a huge weapon. A weapon? To say the truth? Let me tell you my truth. I can't help you, but I need to tell you the truth here. But, you know, wearing flip-flops is, you know, is not a good thing. I don't know. I wouldn't consider that speaking one's truth. What do you mean? I guess all we have to speak about is our own experience. So just being honest about each of our own experiences. That's great. So if we can be really honest about our own experience and not use a judgment of someone else and call it the truth. But this is what's happening to me. I think it doesn't have to be motivated by loving kindness. But it certainly can do a lot of good in the community and everywhere.

[23:20]

It's a great example. When people trust you, it helps them be honest as well. I like to think of that... Yeah, I think of honesty and mindfulness are the same thing. Honesty is mindfulness, pop loud. Yes? Noticing when people maybe are struggling without trying to fix it... Like acknowledging that you see it. Ah, so recognizing people are struggling so they don't feel alone in it and feel seen and recognized. You don't necessarily fix it, but they know they're not alone in it, for example. Great, that's nice. Yes? Apologizing when you hurt someone. Oh, apologizing when you hurt someone. Yeah. I think that's really good. So the interesting thing about apology is... Here this principle of cordiality is to do it as an act of loving kindness. Sometimes people apologize.

[24:22]

Occasionally they're not so concerned about the other person. They're trying to relieve the pressure in themselves. But here the motivation would be to apologize for the sake of the other person to help them out. Okay. One more yet. you just to do something and just say sorry, even though like you kind of knew before and that wasn't right. I guess it was a little bit louder. Oh, I think like before saying something that could hurt someone and then saying sorry, which is kind of, it's kind of like a backup for saying something like that would hurt someone, but before even saying that would hurt someone, just like I think we talk, like we talk out loud, like we think out, we speak our thoughts out loud even though we don't really need to. And so I think just really like before we say something, trying to like refrain from saying something that we regret later, but trying to say that, oh, do I need to say this?

[25:35]

Is it, is it hot hot this time? Is this the right time? So to do this reflection before you speak, Perfect. Okay, that leads up to the next one. So the next principle of cordiality. A practitioner maintains mental acts of loving kindness, both in public and in private, towards his or her companions in the holy life. So that would be a mental act. It's generous towards others if before you speak you consider whether what you're saying is worth saying and appropriate. So would you have in mind? So what are some other ways of having mental goodwill and loving kindness for me are kind of synonyms for the word metta, maitri. So what are some ways of having mental goodwill towards others? Yes? Not taking anything personally.

[26:36]

Great. Yes? Allowing yourself and other people to change, not holding on to some idea of they're this way or I'm this way. Ah, to be willing to see people fresh and open without the preconceived ideas that you might have. I think it's one of the great things about, it can be around, you know, Tassara with all the Zazen. But Zazen sometimes helps you to kind of see fresh and new so you don't carry with you preconceived ideas. I think it's a very generous thing. Yes? Suspend expectations. suspend expectations so again being able to see people fresh in a new way it's an act of goodwill yes recognizing that other beings are suffering recognizing others are suffering so then there's more compassion goodwill for them yes well maybe that's not just on the mental level but reminding myself of of this feeling of of actually loving people loving and kind i mean it's a mental yeah it's a mental exercise

[27:40]

So, you know, you're kind of self-absorbed in some kind of grumpy state, and then you know you're going into the dining area, you know, maybe having a little bit of appreciation and goodwill for the people there, maybe it's better than, can I find that in me, can I open to it? And sometimes goodwill is not something you have to artificially make, but it's more thinking about and recognizing it. Yeah, well, yeah, it's a good idea. It's there, too. Let me connect to it, rather than continue to connect to the grumpiness. Something like that? Yeah. Yes? In the morning or evening, especially when waking or before sleeping, to think of all the people that you appreciate being in your life. Ooh, nice. So actually spend some time thinking about the people you appreciate. And to cultivate gratitude in that moment. And what's the consequence of doing that exercise? You probably would begin to feel more and more cultivation of gratitude, and that would lead to more and more genuine expressions of loving kindness.

[28:59]

In life, when you actually see those people. Yep. Great. Yes? Doing traditional metta practice, reciting the phrases. So that's a mental act of... of loving kindnesses who do the practice of loving kindness. Yes? Develop an awareness that actually is able to see a grumpy thought and not get too bent out of shape and still act in a loving way. Great, great. So I have that overview and wisdom to not take it personally and caught by it, but be able to connect to the loving kindness. In the back there? Yes, I see a hand. I don't see a person. Say it again. Practice kind thoughts on oneself. How nice. Yes, that's also a mental thing. To have kindness towards oneself, be generous towards oneself, compassion. It's very important. Yes? Recognizing when you're thinking dogmatically about our practice here and making sure you're keeping that in check.

[29:59]

I see. So recognize how we get hung up maybe in teachings and a little bit too tight on it. We start to judge others through that. And so it's a compassionate thing to loosen up on that when we're having our conversations. One more on this topic? Yeah. I think if someone is fogging you to purposely think of all their good traits. Great. To sort of shift it. So over here I talked about recognizing they might be suffering. That sometimes helps. It softens our relationship to them. But then it's spending some time thinking about their good traits because of it. There is a way sometimes we single out the bad traits. But that might be just a one compared to a hundred good traits. So to kind of fill out the picture. Nice. Okay. So here's the fourth one. A practitioner uses things in common with his or her virtuous companions in the holy life.

[31:03]

Without making reservations... he or she shares with them any gain of a kind that accords with the Dhamma and has been obtained in a way that accords with the Dhamma, including even the contents of his or her bowl. So basically it means whatever you've acquired in an ethical way, that you share it with others. Contents of his or her what? Bowl. Oh. Begging bowl. They go around, you know. So what are some of the ways of sharing here at Tasahara, sharing that is conducive towards love, respect, unity, concord? Yes? Oriyoki. Oriyoki. And how does that work? We're all eating from the same pots. So we're clearly feeling the shared communal aspect of that. Yes? When you find something that tastes really good or when you enjoy something a lot, there was an older Greek guy who used to do this all the time.

[32:17]

He would get a chicken for dinner and he would love it so much that he would only eat half and he would send the other half to his friend. So whenever you find something that you enjoy a lot, to not to hoard all that joy, but then to also... share that beautiful so this is there's a lot to do with the practice of generosity and uh generosity is considered one of the entry points into buddhist practice which also is a very is a social aspect right you don't you're not generally you know you spend too much time being generous to yourself people wonder if you're really generous you know the generosity is usually about you do towards others so this is in that practice of generosity so what are some examples of how generosity can be practiced here Let us offer. Offering us time to spend with other people as presence. Great. Offer your time, the presence. Yes? Yes?

[33:19]

Through the practice that we hold around the goodwill, we include each other and offer each other our books and our brellas. We offer... You can utilize a lot of resources. Beautiful. So you share in common many of the things that you have. You put it in the goodwill if you don't need it, or if you have something extra. If you have a second umbrella, you give it to someone who needs it. Some of you who are here have borrowed robes, or anybody gave you your robes that you have? Not too uncommon. Also... the combined generosity of people who would like to learn about, say, gardening when they work in the kitchen. The gardeners allow them to join and offer explanations.

[34:21]

And the generosity of the person who is doing work to benefit the community. And this happens. It's got a bit less to do with generosity, but it's an idea of non-ownership. I know a lot of people have this idea where they're used to walking up their things, so they do not have the blocks. It's very much like you have to have a certain attachment to the thing. I think for some people who grew up in certain dangerous environments where everything's always locked up, to come to a place like Tassahara and experience no locks can be frightening at first, kind of disorienting. But I think it heals something or helps something relax. It's quite deep. Yes. But louder. I don't know people and then I notice I gravitate towards some people and then it's easier for me to talk to someone than others.

[35:27]

So I know there's some discrimination going on in my mind why I want to talk to someone else besides someone else. when I notice myself saying, like, oh, I don't feel like talking to them, I don't know their name, I try to, it takes a lot of effort, but I just say, I should, like, just give them the benefit of the doubt, because I know I'm having these negative thoughts about them, but, so I just try to be friendly, and be open, and just say, oh, I have to thank you, and just, try to have a blank slate about that person. Another thing is when I see something that's like something tasty and there's only a little bit left, like I saw chocolate and I could have finished it, but I just took, I just broke off a little piece. I almost took all of it, but I just broke off a little piece and I just gave it so someone else could get it.

[36:36]

Beautiful. All these are acts of generosity that supports the community and everyone else. Okay. The next one is a practitioner dwells both in public and in private, possessing in common with his or her companions in the holy life those virtues that are unbroken, untorn, unblotched, unmodeled, liberating, commended by the wise, and conducive to concentration. So here it's practicing virtue, the precepts and other virtues, that this is another way of producing love and respect and concord and unity in the community. But one of the things that's interesting about this is that the practice of virtue is both a practice that supports the community, creates love and respect and concord, but it's also the very same thing that is conducive to concentration and to liberation.

[37:38]

And here we begin seeing how explicitly that benefiting others, doing something, that here we're doing something that benefits others and benefits you, the person. If you live a virtuous life, this benefits you and your practice and it's supportive of the people around you. Isn't that nice? You know, you get two for the price of one. Yes. I also want to point out that that's really prominent with generosity, too, because generosity is considered a direct antidote to grasping. Great, yes. That's the second noble truth. What an amazing way to learn how to let go. Yes, and I would say actually it's true for all of these, that the practice of loving kindness in body, speech, and mind supports others, but it also supports you to do it. So what are some ways that... you could be more virtuous. A virtuous life here at Tassajara supports the community here. Follow the rules of the monasteries.

[38:40]

Yes? Don't take what's not freely given. So that could include not violating people's personal space. Or not taking anything that's not offered at the back door, food-wise. Yes, sir. Not taking what is not given, freely given. Yes? Take responsibility for the grounds. If you see a rock in the middle of the road and somebody might trip over, you can move it. Or you can shut a light off if there's no one in the room after you leave. shut the water off when you're washing your hands and the rinse off or in the shower and take care of the place. Great, thank you. Take care of all of our, not only the place, we take care of ourselves as a community that way too. Yes? To practice zazen. Practicing zazen, is that a virtuous thing to do? I would say so.

[39:49]

How so? It helps, in my brief experience, to clear the mind and to make yourself feel well and to concentrate and improve the capacity of your mind. And when you do this, you make yourself more capable of a variety of communicating factors and thereby improve yourself. And then when other people are simply nearby you, are speaking with you, they can probably pick that up. Nice. Any other ideas of practices of virtue? Practices of virtue that help the community, yeah. Kindness to animals and the environment around so smart. Very good. Yes? My thoughts, this goes back to the argument between the two monks, but...

[40:54]

encourage others to be virtuous and if you see somebody doing a non-virtuous thing to um correct them in a kind way okay and sometimes it's hard because it'll be your friend and like you don't want to see like uh-huh so i think that's what you said is very nice i'd like to hear some some specificity so what are some virtuous things that your friends could do Virtuous or non-virtuous? Well, here the idea is to live a virtuous life. So what ways could they be more virtuous? I guess what I was citing is specific cases of non-virtuous actions. So what would they be? I don't know if you were specific to that. Show up on time.

[41:55]

Show up on time? That's good. If somebody is speaking harshly towards another one, and maybe it doesn't directly involve you, but you can still voice your opinion and tell them that you don't appreciate their harshness, their tone. That's one way of saying it, or you can go sit down next to them and say, wow, it's kind of hard to listen to you as you speak kind of harshly. Mm-hmm. Because then you're not making a judgment about them. You're letting them know the impact. And then they say, oh, I didn't know I had that impact. Yes? So recognizing their suffering. So just ask them, how are you? Yeah. Nice. Yes? I think a really good virtuous thing to cultivate at Lost in Heart is really taking care of the guests.

[42:59]

Taking care of the guests. It's easy to forget because we're here doing our student thing. But we're also here for everyone. And what better... to take care of our guests. Nice. Yes. Rather than scolding something, I'm going to listen to it as well. Just leading by example. So avoiding scolding and leading by example. Yeah, rather than scolding. I assume it's that. I don't know. Just scold yourself. Okay, good. Yes? I just want to really say I agree with her. I can't believe I'm disagreeing with Brandon with something, because usually we see eye on eye, but I don't think we're here to please each other and tell each other what virtue is, and it's a very slippery thing, virtue.

[44:04]

I'm not being philosophical, but I do think the righteous, in a way, are the thieves of virtue. Nice. Good. So, no one said anything about the precepts. They're not particularly relevant down here to Sahara? They're like, when you leave here, right? Not farming and not taking what's not being given. Yeah, you mentioned not giving. You mentioned the second precept. Someone mentioned not being harsh. And then there's right speech related things. Yeah, yeah. What are the ten precepts? You can list them for me. Hmm? I'll try. Okay, please, yes. Not killing. Not lying. Not misusing sexuality. Not harboring ill... Not going to be in order. Not harboring ill will.

[45:04]

Not disparaging with friendships. Can we help you? Yes, please help me. The fourth is speak the truth. Don't lie. The fourth is straining from intoxicants. What's the sixth? What's the sixth? Not taking it easy. Yeah, someone knows your stuff. There you go. Yeah. Not knowing. That's the first. No, he's not praising self. Not creating a separation in Sangha. I don't think it's one of the ten. Not being possessive. Not being possessive. Not harboring ill will. Not being every effort to live in enlightenment. What? Isn't there one that's making it? every effort to live in enlightenment. Maybe that's part of another list. That's another list. I think we got it. So anyway... It's not disparaging the triple pleasure. Yeah, it was said already. So anyway, these ten precepts are gems.

[46:09]

And so living by them, knowing them, and knowing how to live by them and being inspired by them, is one of the ways to create love, respect, concord, and unity. And you might want to memorize the list and know what they are. So then the last one. Again, I think I want to emphasize this part about one of the benefits of these virtues is that they are conducive towards concentration. So if you want to get concentrated when you're practicing, really settled and calm and living a virtuous life, a life that's not agitating, is really helpful. So it both supports the community and supports yourself. Then the last one. A practitioner dwells both in public and in private, possessing in common with his or her companions in the holy life that view that is noble and emancipating

[47:12]

and leads one who practices in accordance with it to the complete destruction of suffering. So here it is maintaining a particular view, a particular perspective or orientation, perspective I like, insight, that is liberating and freeing. And it doesn't say here what that is, but in the context of other teachings of this text, it's what I talked about yesterday, the four liberating insights. to be able to pay careful attention to suffering, to stop for suffering, be interested in suffering, to notice it. There's something very powerful. Suffering is one of the great features. If you tolerate suffering, you just kind of overlook it because you have other more important things to do. It'll fester. It'll kind of build up. It stays in unfortunate ways. And so part of right view in this early tradition is the perspective that actually takes into account when you're suffering. Not so you can suffer better. And that's not the point of Buddhism. But to somehow not suffer at all, not be caught in the grip and the vice of our suffering.

[48:18]

And so you have to tune in. You have to have the perspective that takes suffering into account to become, in this language of this translation, to be emancipated, to be liberated from it. And what's peculiar about this last principle of cordiality, there's nothing in here about other people. It's all about you yourself becoming free. You yourself not being caught by fixed views, caught by attachments, taught by forces of greed and hate, all the things that are conducive towards suffering. So it says, this is a memorable quality that creates love and respect, conduces to helpfulness, to non-dispute, to concord, and to unity. If you have this view, this orientation, this perspective, in your practice, to freeze you from suffering. This supports the community. In fact, so much so, it says, of these qualities, the highest, the most comprehensive, the most conclusive is this view that is noble and emancipating and leaves one who practices it in accordance with it to the complete destruction of suffering.

[49:29]

Just as the highest, the most comprehensive and the most conclusive part of a pinnacled building is the pinnacle itself, so too of these six memorable qualities, the highest is this view that is noble and emancipating. So living here at Tassahara, living with the Zen teachings here, the Zen practice that you have here, what is the understanding or the view or the perspective or the approach in your practice that is, if it's okay to use the language of liberating, that's helpful for your community as a whole, supports Tausahara. Yes? Contentment. Sorry? Contentment. Contentment. Practice contentment. Nice. Because if you don't practice contentment, what happens? Discontent. But what happens to the community if you're discontented? Create divisiveness.

[50:32]

Create divisiveness. I'd like to reinforce that being easily contented in our life. My practice here, I think it's hugely supportive to one another's well-being to receive food or tasks or our housing or all of that, the bathroom that we share. And to actually decide that it's perfect for you in that moment. Just like, this is actually really good, and I'm totally happy with this. Right, so not to be caught up in your desires and wishes and expectations that should be different, that you want it different, but totally accept that this is perfect, this moment, this experience you have.

[51:41]

I don't need it to be any different. And if you can do that, embody that internally, and express it, just like, you know, we open it, then it helps everyone else feel that way. And the opposite is also true, that if you are, like, this, like, it's, like, the world that you're in, there's a problem for you, right? Great. People are leaving, but we have four more minutes. Thank you. Yes? Practicing the view that we all have the Buddha nature. So how does that work? but I think it's a very unifying thought if you really get into the idea that we all have the same single one nature that's the kind of the foundation of our being it creates a kind of feeling maybe for some unity and also for some kind of

[52:44]

maybe relate it to the idea or to remind us everyone is suffering because we usually don't see our gooder nature to be aware of that. It allows us to have a deep appreciation for the value of each person. Yes? There's a compassionate respect that always feels sacred in all of the exchanges. Compassionate respect. So a view, a way of understanding who we are and who we are in relation to others, it's compassion and respect. Nice. Yes? Do you repeat again? Is that what we're speaking to right now? Do you read it again? A practitioner dwells both in public and in private, possessing in common...

[53:45]

with his or her companions in the holy life, that view that is noble and emancipated and leads one who practices it to the complete destruction of suffering. Yes? Well, to me, when I hear that, it means not just practicing it all the time and Also, if you have questions about what you're doing and present out to the teacher about it and try to really embody what's being taught. So whatever zazen is, zazen is not just about meditation. It's a certain orientation about how to be and to have that orientation or that way of practicing in all aspects of life. And then if you're unsure about it, then talk to a teacher and try to get that clear and really understand it. Okay.

[54:49]

So maybe we should stop and make up for yesterday when we went over. We'll stop a little bit early. And so six principles of cordiality, or six principles of friendliness. Yeah? Which sutta was that? It's sutta 48 in the middle neck discourses. And I hope that it helps you here in your community life. Community life is a very important part of the practice. And... And as I started off emphasizing, the mutuality of personal practice and community practice goes hand in hand. You can't really separate them. And even the last one, which is that which helps you to become liberated, is there also to support the community as a whole. And that's a difficult thing to describe, it seems. Exactly how to... the practical way in which to bring about that need or the ways of embodying that need. To me, It seems like something, when you read that again, I didn't think of any examples, I guess.

[55:53]

I think that if you are freed from suffering, freed from your attachments and your clinging, your hate and your greed, you're a person who only will do good in the world. You're not going to cause any more harm. But in order to bring that state about, it's more about that solitary practice, perhaps. I think it has something to do with solitary practice, but in the end, the actual work of liberation is you have to do for yourself in a sense. You can't ask some of your companions of holy life to pee for you. Some things you can only do for yourself. So the inner work of purification, you have to really take a certain kind of responsibility to create conditions for it. But it's hard, you know, the idea of separating self and other in an absolute way doesn't really work either. And that's what I was trying to say at the beginning, that there is a very strong mutuality, codependent, or not codependent, dependent or arising relationship between self and other community that practice unfolds in.

[57:02]

And that I think that it's a rare person who would practice all alone to become liberated. Most people find that it works together in community support. So perhaps using your environment as a site for your own practice to become stronger in each interaction with others. As a way of learning about yourself and learning where you're caught. Not a few practitioners have gone off solitary and done long practice alone. They thought, wow, I'm now enlightened. This is great. And then gone back to the city to find out they weren't. So we have the community to be a mirror for ourselves and to see ourselves more clearly. It's very helpful to be polished and seen and practiced together in community. So you have that here at Tassajara. Last one. One practice I found here at Tassajara helpful is to play bocce and have no judgment or care who wins or loses to be accepting

[58:09]

of the outcome. Great. With equanimity. That's nice. I don't want to say what I'm going to say. There's another practice with Baci and that is to take delight when the other person wins. Take delight that the other person's winning. Take delight that the other person's good shots. Wow, that was great. You kicked my ball? I've actually found that that's growing within me. Great. It's truly delightful when the other... Thank you. Okay. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[58:59]

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