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. I offer the opportunity for what's called chosan. This morning we had chosan. Cho means, is a Japanese word. Chinese Japanese word which means morning cho and san means meeting so we had a morning meeting today in the abbot's cabin and so if you'd like to come to a morning meeting in the abbot's cabin some morning you could tell Eleanor and she'll take your name and organize some morning meetings we serve tea

[01:00]

and some treats. Today I'd like to talk to you about this word, control. Can you read it?

[02:07]

No. What does it say? Self-control. Self-control. So there's this thing about self-control. And in this huge event called the practice of the Buddhist teaching for the last 2,500 years, The issue of control comes up now and then. Some people think Buddhism is self-control or has something to do with self-control. And I would say, yeah, it does. But I don't think Buddha's teaching is self-control. I think Buddha's teaching is self-study. Control yourself.

[03:22]

Get control of your children. Get control of your spouse. Get control of your friends. Get control of yourself. Get control of your... Sangha. I think the Buddha's teaching... I don't know. Buddhism includes the Buddha's teaching and a bunch of people who have various understandings of what Buddha's teaching is. various understandings. And some people's understanding is that Buddhism is about controlling people, about controlling themselves, about controlling their body and their mind. That's what they think Buddhism is. But they didn't learn that from Buddhism. They had this idea before they got to Buddhism and then they heard some people who they thought were Buddhists who said, yeah, that's what it's about. It's about controlling yourself. But it's also about you not controlling me.

[04:26]

Stop that. It's not about you controlling me. It's about me controlling you. And maybe me controlling me if I want to. Some people think that. I'm not trying to control the people who think that The Buddha way is control. I'm not trying to control them into giving that up. And I'm not trying to control myself into talking to them this way or that way about it. And I'm not into controlling myself into wishing that people would be free of trying to control. I'm not into controlling myself to wish that people would be free of trying to control. Did you get that?

[05:28]

What I'm not trying to do? I'm not trying to get myself to wish that. But guess what? Guess what? Go ahead. I do wish it. I wish people would become free of trying to control their life and other people's lives. I wish they would give it up. but I'm not in control of myself having that wish. That wish, I don't know where that wish came from. I think it came from me having a face-to-face meeting with somebody or many bodies and some of them are Buddhas who are encouraging me to give up trying to control life. I feel that trying to control life is a little bit disrespectful or way, way disrespectful. Murder is an extreme form of control of life.

[06:33]

It's the extreme. I would say, I'll just say it, and I don't know who's in charge here, but I would say life cannot be, oh, we found it. we found he's confessed everything I say he's in control of he's in charge of me and what I'm saying is life cannot be controlled and the extreme form of trying to control life is called murder. That's the most extreme way. But you cannot control it. It doesn't work to murder people.

[07:35]

You still don't get control of them. But that's where it goes. That's where control goes. It goes towards murder. I'm under control of you. You can move your head this way. What do you mean when you go like this, when I say trying to control people is in the direction of murder? What do you mean? What? It's sad. [...] It's sad, yeah. It's sad. So one story is a lot of teenagers commit suicide because their parents are trying to control them. And they just can't stand it. And they fight back. And one way they can fight, they can't stop their parents from trying to, they can't control their parents into stopping that.

[08:36]

They can't control themselves into feeling like they're being suffocated and strangled by people who are trying to control them. So then they say, I'm going to take control. Okay, so... I'm not trying to control the people who are into control to stop it. I don't even wish they would stop it. I wish they would become free of it. Control is pretty much the same thing as anxiety. And the more anxious we are, the more at risk we are of trying to control the situation. I think that. I'm not in control of thinking that, but that's the way I think. The more I give up trying to control, the less afraid I am.

[09:38]

I think Buddhism, I think the Buddha's teaching is about taking care of life. attending to it wholeheartedly. And I would say that when you wholeheartedly attend to something, you don't have anything left over to try to get it to go this way or that way. You're attending to it, you're supporting it, and you're being supported by it. If you're being supported by something, then you can't control it. It makes you who you are who might want to control them, but you can't. Again, I think the Buddha's into caring for life, being respectful of life.

[10:53]

And again, I think if you're respectful of life, you'll notice that it is not under your control. Because respect means look again. Respectus, look again at every life form that's given to you. Look again and again and again and again. Respect every life form and be devoted to its welfare. Don't try to control it into liberation. That isn't appropriate to liberation. Care for it into liberation. Be devoted to it into liberation. Be mindful of it into liberation. that's a lot of work to be respectful and caring of all life it's a big job but when we're scared we might slip into I'm just going to control this thing this thing's in danger so I'm going to control it out of danger

[12:28]

Or I'm in danger, so I'm going to control the situation. I don't have time for this care, caring for things right now. I'm just going to control the prevention of this danger rather than take care of the danger. Be respectful of danger. Danger is a life form. It's a thing that comes with life. But again, it's a confusing situation. I'm sorry, and I can't control it to be not confusing because some Buddhists, people who got membership cards and everything, got the right haircut, got robes, got temples, got places to sit up and talk to people. They use this word control as though it's a good thing. And I'm devoted to those people, right?

[13:30]

I want to take care of them And when I first started practicing Zen, I heard this expression, control your body, control your breath, control your mind. That was like a Zen teaching I heard. I thought somebody said it was a Zen teaching. And then I looked at the Chinese character, well, maybe it doesn't really mean control, maybe it means regulate. Regulate your body. Regulate your breath. regulate your mind. Now there's a way to think about that that's not disrespectful. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're not really like being coercive and murderous when they say control your body. Maybe they don't realize that to say control your body

[14:31]

might, again, lead towards murdering it in extreme form. Maybe they don't get that. So they use the word control. And then when they get scared, they turn up the control thing more and more. And they don't see that it's disrespectful. It's suffocating. It's strangulating. I just looked at Miotin and I thought of this guy's name's Christian McBride, right? He's to play a bass, among other things. He plays, what do you call that big bass, double bass? He plays double bass and he also plays bass guitar, I think. He plays the bass guitar and he plays it like, you know, he hugs it and he goes, my baby.

[15:37]

Have you ever seen him? He's all over it. And, you know, and his bassists have named like Gertrude and Bertha. He loves his bassists and, you know, he takes good care of them. I don't know how they feel about this, but he really loves his basses, and he caresses them, and this music comes out. I don't feel like he's controlling these. I don't think he's controlling these big, fat string instruments, these big mamas. He loves them, and they talk. They sound like they're being loved. They sound happy. Yeah. When you're dancing with somebody, like I used to, when you're dancing, when you're dancing with something, you don't control her.

[16:45]

Get over here. Get over here. You don't control your partner. You invite your partner. And maybe she comes. But if she doesn't, if she doesn't, I accept it. You know? And then you invite her to go backwards. And you invite her to come forward. And you invite her to go backwards. You know, I'm not controlling you, am I? No. Am I? Huh? Am I? Am you controlling? I don't know. What do you think? Are you controlling you? I don't know. I don't know. We don't know. Anyway, I'm saying you're not controlling you, but you might be trying. Are you trying? I don't know. Yeah. Maybe we are always. Maybe we are always. It's possible. I'm not in control of you. You can think that. But I am saying we're always not in control. We may be trying a lot, but we're not in control.

[17:48]

So it isn't that you give up control. You give up trying to control. And some people do dance tango and they actually do try to control their partner. And most of those people have, a lot of those people, people don't want to dance with because they're not being invited and offered. They're being told what to do. And it's kind of a disrespectful dance. But I fortunately met tango teachers who taught Respect your partner. Help your partner dance well. Give your partner good opportunities. And learn how to communicate that clearly. Which is difficult. To learn how, you know, like just now, for Babada to feel whether I was, what I was inviting her to do, the opportunities I was offering to her, maybe not that clear.

[18:53]

Because she said, I don't know. somebody told me recently that she's studying the Satipatthana Sutra which could be translated as the scripture on the foundations of mindfulness or another translation would be scripture on the frames of mindfulness so one of the frames of mindfulness is mindfulness of body and under that heading is mindfulness of posture and mindfulness of breathing But before I go on to that, I want to say that this regulate your body and regulate your breath and regulate your mind, you could understand regulate could be understood as give your body a regula, give it a regula, which is Latin for rule.

[20:06]

which has the root of straight give it a straight a ruler something straight give your body something straight to work with and then in being upright I use the image of you can understand regula or rules as a trellis so we have a trellis up in the garden right next to the library do we still have a trellis there? There's a trellis up there. It's the structure next to the library. It's also called an arbor sometimes. It's a structure often with vertical and horizontal wood or other kinds of vertical and horizontal supports for a plant to grow on. Okay? But the plant does not grow...

[21:09]

in straight lines it grows horizontally and vertically but it grows according to its life it grows according to gravity and water and carbon dioxide and sun and the trellis it connects to the trellis and uses the trellis to climb up into the light but the way it climbs is not in straight lines like the trellis, but the trellis is put in straight lines so it can support this luxuriant, creative growth, which touches the points of support and then uses that point of support to go off into the air and space. And then at a certain point, feels I need some support and it wraps around and grabs another support and so it grows in a way that it wouldn't be able to without that support so regular rules can help can promote the life of your body for example sit upright it could be a regular that you use to

[22:36]

Give your body something to work with so that it can grow and be alive. And the same with your breath and your mind. You can give it structures that it can play with, that it can dance with, that it can care for. So regulate your mind could be understood as Use a form to be creative and playful or playful and relaxed or relaxed and playful and creative and wise. In that order, relax, play, create and wise. Use the structure in relationship to your vitality to wake up to your vitality.

[23:38]

Use the structure in relationship to yourself to study yourself and wake up to yourself. Use the structure to discover that when you're anxious you try to control your life in relationship to the structure. Like when you're anxious you maybe don't go too far from the From the trellis. Stay real close to the trellis. You know, when it's windy. I'm not going to lose contact with this trellis. Who thinks that's funny? But then maybe the wind stops and the sun comes out and you feel like it's really... awfully tight here, holding on so tight to this trellis.

[24:44]

Maybe I could, like, loosen up a little bit here and lay back into empty space. Oh, yeah. Wow. And I can look back when I used to be holding on so tight when I was scared and how holding on tight just made me more scared. And now I'm... not holding on so tight and I'm not so scared. Now, if it gets windy again, I might get scared again and want to go back and get a sport. But I might not. Maybe I've got enough grounding so when the wind comes, I can just let myself be blown in the air. Maybe. It must be deportment beyond hearing and seeing. Don't. be suspicious of the true dragon. What is this true dragon?

[25:52]

It is deportment beyond hearing and seeing. How are we going to, what's that? You can't control beyond hearing and seeing. So forget for beyond hearing and seeing because I have no chance of controlling it. I'm not interested in it. Okay. Buddha's not in control of you. Buddha can't make you be interested in this. What is it again? The true dragon that's beyond, it's a deportment that's beyond hearing. It's an invisible, inaudible deportment. It's sort of the way you walk. or the way you conduct your life. Like this is my physical deportment right now. This is my verbal deportment. But this one you can see. But this is the carved dragon.

[26:56]

This is a carved dragon. The dragons you can see are carved dragons, the dragons you can hear. And again, the double bass is a carved dragon. But when you get into this intimate, uncontrolling relationship with the double bass, that is invisible and inaudible, the relationship. The music's nice, you can hear that, but the music's coming from deportment beyond hearing and seeing. The music's coming from letting go of trying to control the double bass letting go of trying to control your fingers and your arms and your legs it's using your arms and legs and fingers and instrument to let go of and in the letting go you get some sounds you can also make sounds while trying to hold on

[28:01]

The important beyond hearing is what the Buddha way is about. And it's going on all the time, but you can't hear it or see it. It's our actual life, which manifests in various visible ways, but if we try to control the visible and the audible, we close the door on the invisible and ineffable and inaudible true dragon so regulate could be understood as give yourself a structure to relate to give yourself a structure to see if you can take care of it without trying to control it There used to be one of these in the room and there still is one like that.

[29:22]

I can write but not by my own power. The whole universe supports my writing. I'm not in control of what I'm going to write and you aren't either. But through the support of all of you, I can do this writing thing. I didn't control that to happen. I'm responsible for it, but so are you. And I can use a form. And so I just wrote this character with your support. And because of your support, I didn't write it the way I wasn't imagining it was going to be written. I got this surprising thing came up. Because all you were messing with my arm. Bear down a little bit more there.

[30:37]

But I wasn't in control of wanting to do that. I did, though. I did want to. And I did do it, and I'm responsible, but with the support of all of you. And now this thought came up, and now I'll show you what it was. To draw a circle around that. I didn't make that come up. My body and my unconscious process popped that little thought up. Make a circle around it. I'm not in control of that coming up. I'm not in control of acting it or not acting on it, but I did act on it in relationship to it. And the circle I drew was not the circle I imagined that was going to be drawn. When I look closely at what I do, like just now I wanted to write here, but somehow I just didn't seem like a good place to write. So maybe I'll write some, well, I can write here. No, no, yeah, okay. Anyway, you know, I can scroll down here, but I can also come over here. I'm not in control of all my possibilities.

[31:41]

I'm going to be kind of like gone soon and I'm not in control of when I'm going to be gone. And I'm not in control of wishing that when it comes time to go I'm going to be like ready for it. I'm not in control of being ready for it. and I'm not in control of wanting to be ready for it, but I do want to be ready for it. I might say, whoopee. And you might say, cool. He said, whoopee, and then he was gone. Or I might say, bless you all. Or I might say, thank you very much. I have no complaint whatsoever. I might say that and I might really mean it and be very joyful that I really have no complaint dying and maybe before that I have no complaint having Alzheimer's I want to be that way and I kind of implied this before but I am not trying to control

[33:10]

you Zen people. I'm not trying to control you. Like this morning, I said something like, I can hear the tap, tap, tapping of the sepsu tips. Now, people have little pads on their sepsu, so they think, well, I can just tap away here because it's not going to make a lot of noise. But to me, I can still hear you across the zendo. You're like 40 feet away, and I can hear tap, tap, tap. Now, if I was next to you, it would probably be like deafening. So I say, hey, please, try to be more quiet with your setsus when they tap, tap, tap. I might even suggest, I'm requesting that you're more quiet, but this is more like a suggestion, this next part. You might do more like sweep the ball rather than tap the ball. Sweep around in there.

[34:11]

It's quieter. Makes a little noise, but not as noisy as a direct lamp. Like basically perpendicular approach. Do the side slide. That's a suggestion. But if you can go straight on, quietly, fine. Anyway, if I go up there at lunch and I hear that tap, tap, tapping, I'll want to be happy about that. Not happy that you're tap, tap, tapping, but happy that I am not trying to control you into stopping that racket. I'm not trying to stop you. I'm just giving you another trellis, which is, please be more quiet. What are you going to do with that? How are you going to relate to that request?

[35:12]

How are you going to work with that double bass? Are you going to like put your arms around, please be more quiet and like groove with it? Like I'm going to make the most beautiful setsu movements. I'm going to like do this setsu thing like a great musician. It's going to be like really transcendent. and transcendence. You don't get there by controlling yourself into transcendence. Now you might spend many years trying to control your setsu into transcendence or control your double base into transcendence. You might. But then finally you say, okay, I had enough of this. It's now time to give up trying to control this baby. I'm going to let this instrument go and I'm going to go with her into infinity.

[36:15]

I'm going to use her and me in relationship to meet the true dragon. But I had to practice with that Setsu for many years before I dared to like really be intimate with it rather than I'm going to use this tattoo to, you know, clean my bowl. Rather than, hello. You want to clean a bowl with me? Do you? Let's do it. You don't want to? Oh, my God. Oh, and tomorrow, the Shisella, where is she? She's going to talk about audioki. She's going to, right? Or did she change? Without talking to me. She's going to talk about orioke practice. So she's going to talk about, maybe she'll talk about satsus, I don't know. Or maybe not.

[37:17]

Maybe just chopsticks. Or maybe she's going to talk about that black folding thing. Maybe she'll talk about the cloth. All these things are the instruments of Zen monks. These are our instruments. This is what we use to make various sounds that aren't too loud, usually. We make various patterns, which you can see, right? Oh, a nice fold there on that cloth there, a very nice fold. Oh, you put the stick in, you put the chopsticks down really nicely. I saw that. I saw that that was like really beautiful. Oh, you picked up that wiping cloth really beautifully. These are deportment hearing and seeing. We use these to realize deportment beyond hearing and seeing. To use these things and do them so wholeheartedly that we meet the true dragon.

[38:26]

So I'm actually saying, for me to try to control my Orioki stuff is not respectful of my Oryoki stuff, and is not respectful of Dogen Zenji, and is not respectful of Zen, but to use them and care for them with my whole heart, without trying to control them, and let them say to me, surprise, surprise, surprise, you didn't think we were going to go that way, did you? Look, yeah. I'm here. You hear your fingers coming. And you touched me. You didn't know I was going to be here. Well, I am. So that shows you it's good that you moved not too fast because otherwise you would have whacked me off into this space. And the ball would have bounced across the sandal floor. But it was good that you were careful because you didn't see me in relationship to your baby finger.

[39:38]

And now that I'm meeting you, unexpectedly you're kind of like, okay with that. You weren't trying to control me being out of your way. You weren't trying to control your baby finger to not be sticking out and bumping into anything. Get back there. Total devotion to life, giving up trying to control it. Giving up trying to control it doesn't necessarily go with total devotion though. Like you can know some people and say, I'm giving up trying to control you. See you later, Milo. See you later, Baba. I'm out of here. I'm not going to try to control you anymore. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about being devoted to something. And in that context, give up trying to control.

[40:44]

That's not so easy. It's easy to give up control. It's easy to give up control and realize department beyond hearing and seeing when you can't hear or see anything. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about when you can hear and see. Treat what you can hear and see. in a way that realizes deportment beyond hearing and seeing. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And then in the process of considering the possibility of giving up, trying to control yourself and other people in that process where it still actually helps you give up control to tell them what you want. and see if you can tell somebody what you want without trying to control them into giving it to you. But as a gift, I want you to, yeah, I want you to be more quiet with your Setsu.

[41:53]

And I'm not trying to get that. I'm just giving you a gift of telling you something I want. And I'm doing that for something that's really important. that's freedom from suffering through dealing with forms and making requests of each other and giving as gifts giving each other gifts with the forms and then that's how we realized the emptiness of the three wheels is by giving gifts without trying to control and receiving gifts giving up trying to control And we realize we don't know who's giving and receiving or what the gift is. It's realizing the emptiness of the process of generosity. That's the true dragon. But you have to work with stuff to discover the way of doing it where you're not using the gift to control people.

[43:07]

using the gift to control yourself. And you can discover occasionally, if not constantly, that you are using things to control yourself and others. That's not the end of the story. You can be kind to that controlling impulse, respect the controlling impulse, and let go of trying to control your controlling impulses, which is the same as let go of trying to control in order to avoid suffering, which means... Be devoted to your suffering. Don't try to control it. But again, this is complicated because there's a lot of nice people who are telling you to control your suffering, to control the causes of suffering. And maybe some people like that in this room, so I welcome those who want to kind of talk about the virtues of trying to control

[44:07]

Speak up. See if you can get me under control. Which, you know, you're not going to be successful at. But, you know, nobody can control me and nobody can control you. The universe even isn't controlling you. You just are the universe. It's not controlling you. You are the whole universe in the form of you. Even the whole universe can't control you, but the whole universe, although it doesn't control you, it is you. It makes you. It doesn't control you. It gives you life. So say thank you very much. I have no complaints. So that's what I wanted to say a little bit about. Since I'm not under control, I said a lot.

[45:09]

Okay, I think it's like, I don't know, Mikael and Laura and Greg and Sam and Helena. Okay, and Jikido and Shusov. Shusov! And Edward. Okay, that's... That's enough. I didn't know that was coming, but it did. And Michel. Would you say something about the relationship of louder please? Louder please. We're not trying to control you or anything. We're just asking you, would you speak louder? Would you sing it out, boy? Can you talk to me about control and, um, I forgot.

[46:19]

I definitely can talk to you about control and I forgot. Responsibility was. Oh, thank you so much. So, people, what is it? Some people say a man is made out of mud. A poor man's made out of muscle and blood. Muscle and blood and skin and bones. A mind that's weak and a back that's strong. You load 16 tons. What do you get? Another day older and deeper in depth. Said, Peter, don't you call me because I can't go. I owe my soul to the company's toll. Some people say that if you're not in control, that means you is not responsible.

[47:22]

Some people say that if you're not in control, well, that means that you have no responsibility. I'm not one of those people. I ain't one of them people. I'm the people who says, you're not in control and you is responsible. When it rains, I ain't in control of the rain. but I'm responsible, which means I contributed to the rain. It wouldn't be here without me. And also, I'm responsible that way. Whenever it rains, I contributed to the rain process. When it doesn't rain, I am responsible, but I didn't make the no rain camping. responsible for you people and I ain't in control of you no matter how you practice which just happens to be to my liking I'm good with the way you're practicing you're not sleeping all the time in the zendo and actually you're in the zendo now and then I love it it's great I'm so happy I tell people they're doing great down there

[48:51]

Eno says 97% attendance. Unprecedentedly high. They say Eno, how come it's so high? Eno points at me. I don't agree with him. But it's good here. You people is not in my control. Therefore, therefore, you're getting ready to meet the true dragon because you ain't under my control and you're considering the possibility of not trying to control yourself or the other people, right? Some of you are considering the possibility of not trying to control these people, right? Right. Yeah. But even though you cannot control, you're still responsible. So what does the responsibility consist of? Two things. One is you contribute to everything that happened. You contribute to the rain.

[49:52]

You contribute to the drought. And the other is you have the ability to respond. Responsibility. You always respond to whatever happens. Get with the program. Accept your responsibility. Pay attention to that. You're responding all the time. Take care of your responsibility because you're into it. All you are is giving and responding. Receiving and responding. That's our life. Universe gives to me, I give to the universe. I'm not in control of the universe, but I'm responsible for it. All the suffering in the universe, I'm responsible for. Am I in control of the people who are suffering? No. Do I try to control them? Sometimes when I get scared. But some people say, if you're not in control, that means that you don't have to pay your bills.

[51:00]

But I say, even though we're not in control, we are responsible. I'm not in control of my granddaughter. but I'm responsible. I'm not in control of me, but I'm responsible. If I spill water on the floor, I'm responsible. I kinda did it, and I kinda can respond. And the more I give up trying to control, the more I'm ready, not necessarily to have less spilling of water, but to have more deportment beyond hearing and seeing. I'm ready to have this really groovy relationship with the universe where I'm not trying to control it. I'm trying to be with it and dance with it and make music with it by not holding to my position about what should be happening. And if I do have some position about what's supposed to happen, I have the opportunity to let go of that and not try to make you come along with what I...

[52:17]

would like you to do but I would like you to do some things which fortunately are somewhere in the neighborhood of what you're doing but you might get way out someday you might get like really way out there way way far away from what I would like you to do like you might start being really mean to yourself if that would happen that would be like way far away from what I want but I I might say would you please stop that but not to control you, but just to give you a gift, which is, I'd like you to stop doing that. I'm uncomfortable when you stick pins in your knee. You say, well, it's actually, it's acupuncture. Oh, okay, fine. That's number one. Number two is Laura. Laura. summer students who came here and would express some difficulty with the amount of instruction that they received.

[53:25]

As we're adjusting to Zen Center that there's always a sense of in every activity there's some aspect that you shouldn't consider and someone very kindly offers a suggestion to see that. And maybe even the ceiling rises of being very controlled. So I was wondering It doesn't seem like that's necessarily the case of what's actually happening, but... It's not the case. They're not under control, but they do feel like somebody's trying to. They might even feel like, actually, I'm not under control. I'm not being controlled, but this person would like to control me. They might feel that way. I know there's some people who would like to control me, for example. They'll even admit to it. They'll sign affidavits. Yes, I was trying to control him. but nobody has ever been in control of me but I might think somebody wants to be and I also might think that somebody is in control of me so if you tell me you want to control me I would say I believe you that you want to you mean are you asking if someone is trying to control me and they would admit it

[54:40]

How do I respond to that? Well, okay. Take scenario one. I think they're trying to control me. I ask them if they are, and they say, yes, I am. That's scenario number one. Scenario number two. I think they're trying to control me, and they say, and I ask them, are you? And they say, no. Cool. You mean, it was just a request that you made? They say, yeah. I say, oh, wow. Thank you. Thank you for caring about me and asking me to do that and not trying to get me to do it. Wonderful. But let's say they do admit it. In either case, I have the chance of taking care of the situation without trying to control them into stopping to try to control me. Because again, I'm not in control of the people in this valley or the sparrows or the squirrels.

[55:41]

I'm not in control. Yeah, I'm not. But I can be devoted to all those beings. I'm not in control of the deer. I've never been so impressed by how not in control I am of the deer. In the past, I wasn't in control of the deer either, but they weren't like in my face all the time. Now they're kind of like, hello. You're not in control of us, are you? And I'm like, no, I'm not the only one. It's amazing. But still, what's your problem? You got a problem? Okay. What? I was just wondering, could you say a little bit more about what the positions of, like, instruction and receiving instruction, what that looks like in this... it looks a variety of ways but the way it is which is beyond how it looks is that it really is instruction can be given and it can be given without trying to control I can ask someone to please lift their feet half an inch higher than they usually do and

[57:02]

that particular one I was like wow you're definitely not going to get that that's a very difficult instruction to follow like usually I go first of all how high do I lift my feet when I walk and then do a half inch higher wow that's really a difficult request that would be too advanced for most people so I might just say would you please continue to walk I can do that for like I can say to you right now would you please be a good girl today I can say that to you And I actually would like you to be. Yeah, right. And then you can say, what does it mean? Say, well, what I mean is be a good woman. And you say, what does that mean? Yeah. And I wasn't trying to get you to say, what does that mean, even though I gave you that cue. You could have done something different. I might have been really fine with that. But anyway, be a good woman means... Care for all the beings at Tosahara without trying to give up trying to control them.

[58:07]

That's the way I'd like you to be today. That's my request. And I'm not trying to get you to do that. I'm not. Really, I'm not. Even though I wish you would. I wish you would be healthy. I'm not trying to get you to be healthy. So if you're not healthy later today, I'm not like... Didn't you hear me say I wanted you to be healthy? And you're not. You don't care about me. I'm going to... Now we're heading towards murder. But I ain't doing that. I'm asking you to be healthy. I'm asking you to be kind. And I'm not trying to control you into being what I want. I'm not. But if I was, I might notice it. And I might say, oops, sorry. I didn't just ask you to do that. I was actually trying to get you to do it.

[59:08]

And that, I'm sorry, that was slipping into an old pattern of disrespect. And so, I'm not blaming anybody. But when I was here in the summer as a student, and there was a teacher here named Suzuki, he gave me instruction, and I did not feel like this guy was trying to control me. I did not feel that. So if we had summer program and we had guest students coming and we had one guest student come, let's say, and everybody else in the Tassajara besides that one guest student was basically little Suzuki Roshis, or big Suzuki Roshis, actually. If everybody else was like Suzuki Roshi and coming over to the guest student and offering them instructions, the guest student might go, no, thank you. Thank you, wow, thank you, wow, thank you, wow, thank you. You might feel this generosity, but not feel like, I never felt like Suzuki Rishi was trying to control me.

[60:12]

So, but if we had all advanced practitioners down here, then they would ask the new students, and the new students would feel like, wow, I came here for this. It's just what I came for, for this kind of compassion. Oh, wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Wow. But if any of the people who live here are giving instruction trying to control people, then those people who have little antenna to pick up on anybody trying to control them, they go, looks like maybe these people are trying to control me. Disrespect. But maybe they say, are you trying to control me? And the person says, no, I'm not. And then they say, well, then can I just not do what you said? And they say, no, you can, but I'm still going to ask you not to do it, but I'm not trying to control you. And they believe it, and it's true. It sometimes is true. It's wonderful that we can actually ask for things without trying to get them.

[61:18]

Yes? Well, I'm going to ask you something. Can you talk a little bit more about self-control and the forms, like the way we move in the Zen mode, the way we hit bells, things like that? Yeah, I can. But it's like this, you know. Here I am. I'm going to make a form, okay? I'm going to... I'm going to bring this striker down on the mukugyo. Here I go. And then I'll lift it up. And then bonk. And then bonk. And I'm not trying to get... In control of this activity here, I'm just giving my whole heart to... I'm just doing this. I'm working this striker and this strikey. I'm doing this thing with this wooden fish.

[62:20]

And I'm doing it wholeheartedly, and I'm not trying to control the sound. I'm trying to make a sound with it. We're trying to do this thing together. And I, yeah. And maybe I hear some ugly sounds. Like maybe I hear a slapping sound. And I go, ooh, let's try that again. But I'm not trying to control. I'm exploring my relationship wholeheartedly. And maybe it sounds pretty good sometimes. Boom, boom. That's nice. And the people are joining. Also, I'm not trying to get the people to join me. I'm not trying to control them into appreciating the tempo and coming along with it. But I would like them to come along with it. But also, I'd like to offer a tempo that they can come along with. And they would like to come along with. So here we go. Actually, maybe I'll wait for them to start chanting. Okay, one, two, three. So when they say na-mu,

[63:25]

I'm going to go bonk when they say no. You say no. Bonk. [...] I'm going to get with you guys. I'm not trying to control you. I'm trying to get with you. And then once we're together, then maybe I'll speed up a little bit, see if they come with me. Okay, ready? Bonk. Bonk. Bonk. Boong, boong, boong. Would help if you knew it. Ready, here we go again. Boong, boong, [...] boong. Bunk.

[64:26]

Bunk. [...] Okay, it's like that. And then it's like, there's the doshi. Bunk. There's the doshi. Ding. Here comes the doshi. Clunk. It's like that. It's like we're doing this and I'm going to try to be... But I'm not trying to control. I'm doing this thing. It can be like that. Rather than, I'm going to get this thing right there and it's going to be under my control. Doesn't have to be like that. It can be a wonderful dance. Why does it feel so crappy when you lose control? When you're doing the Mugugyo and you derail and you can't get back and you start sweating and you feel terrible. I guess it feels crappy when you lose control because you think you had control. Because you're in the control anxiety mode, And you think freedom from anxiety means in control.

[65:28]

So you're anxious and you're trying to hope, you're desperately thinking that control, control, control. This anxiety won't take over. And then you lose control. And then it's like, oh, now the anxiety is really going to get me. But if you're already kind of like in a different mode of the freedom from anxiety comes from giving up control. Well, then you give up control and you verify. that you're more free of the anxiety without trying to get the anxiety to go away. And let's see. Yeah. Oh, the feedback. Hello, how's this? Is it okay? I'll stay still for you. try to control myself. Stay here, boy. Whoa, down, boy.

[66:29]

Down, down, down. Stay down, stay. Okay, who's next? Sam. Excuse me for not running at you. Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay, all right. Will you be my set suit? This is a nice sister tip right here. Bring him off the floors with that, baby. Yes. Can you help? Can you give me some instruction on caring for Gashow? Yeah. I thought you'd never ask. I did. You sure did. I didn't really think you'd never have such a joke. Okay, what do you want? How much should I be pressing?

[67:30]

You know, it actually says in the translations, in the early Buddhist teachings, it says, press the hands, the palms together. Press them together. Okay, so actually try to press them together, the palms, not just the fingertips, the palms, try to press them together. But you know, in a relaxed and playful way. Next question? Fingertips, Soto Zen, Suzuki Roshi, fingertips even with the bottom of the nose. Bottom of the nose. Not trying to control him, no way. Just giving him some gifts. And then he'll probably feel this on his nose for eons. The Zen priest touched my nose. I can still feel that touch and those fingertips out there and lined up with that touch. Can you do it one more time? The nose.

[68:32]

And then, yeah, very nice. And then, yeah, this is like basically it. This is something to work with and give up trying to control. And then this comes back here like that a little bit. When I adjust your posture, I'm not trying to control you. I'm just giving you a gift. You're welcome. How's my gusho? Spectacular. Thank you. Number five. Who's next? Who's the next person? Helena? Yes, hello. Oops, get back there. I want to comment on something you just said today about controlling kids in suicide. Yeah. Connected to something that you previously said about controlling or taking care of something and feeling ownership. And that thought actually made me think about parents.

[69:34]

Yes. And how a parent takes care. And sometimes parents think they own you. Yes. Which is... You know, it's hard. I don't want to say my granddaughter. She's not mine. And one of the advantages of being a grandfather relative to father's grandfather, a little bit more has an understanding that it's not my granddaughter. It's more like her father owns her. If anybody owns her, her father owns her more than me. He's got legal rights, but he doesn't own her either. he's just more tempted to think he owns her. And therefore, he's more stressed. I don't own you. I don't own my granddaughter. But I can be devoted to both of you. But there is this thing about, if I just say granddaughter, people say, who are you talking about? Well, it's the granddaughter that calls me granddaddy. That one. Not all granddaughters.

[70:35]

Because all girls are granddaughters. Right? Not all granddaughters call me granddaddy. But there's one, there's two granddaughters that do call me granddaddy. I can say that. But it's easier to say my granddaughter. But she's not mine. And I'm not hers. However, I am a servant of her. She doesn't own me, but I serve her. And I'm happy to do so. And she's not under my control. And... Again, when I come to the street now, you know, I say, let's hold hands. She's with her, you know, but how can I, like, say, let's hold hands without trying to control her? And she slapped me in the face all of a sudden for, you know, apparently no reason, just to see what it feels like to hit somebody in the face because there's not that many people she can just hit. She knows she can't hit the other kids at school. I think I probably hit this guy and it'll be okay.

[71:38]

And I've always wondered what it was like to really whack somebody. There it is. And then I go, wow, that was really hard. I don't say bad girl. I say, but you know, you're not going to hit the kids at school like that, are you? She's not under my control. She's just a constant, constant wonderful surprise. Is it safe to say that control is an illusion? It's safe to say that control is an illusion. Well, I don't know if it's safe. Anyway, I'm saying it, and if you say it, I'm with you there. But I'm not in control. Some people will attack me if they hear me talking like that. But also, people will attack me if I don't talk like that. So I can get attacked, period. And it's probably going to continue to happen for the rest of my life. So I want to be ready to receive the attack.

[72:43]

And I want to be able to, at least in my heart, feel like, thank you very much. I have no complaint whatsoever. And I'm so happy that I didn't slip into trying to control you and not attacking me. But also because I'm free of trying to control you, I can say to you, would you please stop attacking me? That would be so cool if you just knocked that off. And I'm so happy I could tell you that, and I wasn't the least bit trying to control you. It's totally awesome. Not that I was uncomfortable, but that I could actually ask something of you without trying to get it. I could ask something of you as a gift. Hey, you got a person in your life who's got a request of you. You want to hear it? Yes. Please do X. And I totally... So we're going to have a Bodhisattva precepts. I'm going to give Bodhisattva precepts night after tomorrow night.

[73:46]

And I'm going to give them to somebody and I'm going to say, will you continue to practice these precepts? Even after you're a Buddha. And she's going to probably say yes. And I'm going to ask her again. She's probably going to say yes. I'm going to ask her again. She's probably going to say yes. Do I think I got her under control? No. Do I think she's going to... Never slip up? No. And therefore, if she does, I wasn't trying to control her. I'm not giving up on her. It's really good not to try to control bodhisattvas. And bodhisattvas are really good at giving up trying to control bodhisattvas, even though they want the world for the bodhisattvas. They want the best for bodhisattvas. But they don't try to control them. They play with them. Bodhisattvas teaches how to play with each other. And in that play, we're going to wake up. And with my granddaughter, playing with my granddaughter, she and I are going to wake up together.

[74:52]

We're in the process now. And she's still trying to control me, though. If you'd ask her, are you trying to control your granddaddy? She basically said, is there anything else besides trying to control him? That's what he's here for, is to control. You get him to do what you want. He does it. Pretty much. Not very well, but he tries. Who's next? Who's next? She's so maybe. Maybe not, though. Whenever you say the word dropping body and mind, I still don't have a clue to it. But today, when I was listening to your lecture, I made a summary. Yeah, guess. So number one, dropping body and mind is something like making conscious choice of trying to give up controlling life. Number two, dropping body and mind is something like making a conscious choice, which is to be devoted and respectful and care for the liberation of all beings.

[75:59]

That is something like dropping body and mind. And those are the conscious choice. But again, you're not in control of making the choice. So it's not a conscious choice. You can consciously, you can say, for example, I could, I don't know. I don't know if I have a choice to wish you well. I don't know if I have a choice to wish you well. Right now, I'm just saying, I don't know if I have a choice to wish you well. But now, here it is now, and we have the opportunity for me to wish you well. And... I wish you well. Did I decide to do that? It seems like it just came up in our conversation that you say conscious choice and then I say, I'm not sure about conscious choice. But I do know that maybe I say, I wish you well. Did I consciously choose that? Somehow our conversation gave rise to it. Before the conversation, did I wish you well before?

[77:03]

Did I consciously wish you well before we started talking about this? Yes, I did. Before you asked me, can you make a conscious choice to wish someone well? I would say, I'm not sure. But before you asked me the question, I had already wished you well. But did I consciously choose that? Or am I just a well-wishing machine? Is the universe controlling me into wishing you well? I'm not making myself wish you well. Are you making me wish you well? Well, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't wish you well. So you're part of the reason why I wish you well. But you're not the only reason. This whole situation. Now, would I wish you well if all these people weren't here? I still might. But with all them witnessing me, you know I'm going to wish you well. If you're wanting...

[78:05]

Interacting. Interacting. Interacting somebody. Yes. And say, I heard something insulting. I thought it was an insulting word. And instead of, like, say something bad, like, consciously, okay, I don't want to make, like, I don't want to insult this person, so, like, do something else. That's a dropping volume of mind or different things. Well, here's another, so let's use that example. Here I am. Being insulted! And I just, and I said, maybe I stop, and maybe I say, can I just ask a question? Did you intend to insult me just now? And the person said, definitely. How could I not? You are like totally insult material. You're so despicable, I just love to insult you and tell you how terrible you are. Okay, just one check, thank you. And then I kind of like... accept that and then this thought comes up in me this comes up in me I love this person wow I didn't make that thought come up but in the process of like accepting that they're insulting me this thing comes over me wow I love her amazing and yeah and she's honest with me

[79:35]

She's honest with me. But even if she wasn't, I still might have been. Now that she's, even if she lies to me, now I have this insight that I, so I didn't consciously decide that. And I also told you that story. One day I was, this is kind of long, but I'll try to say it quickly. One day I took a long walk with somebody. It was a very nice walk. And after the walk was over, I was going to say thank you for the walk and goodbye. And he started talking to me, and he wouldn't stop talking, and I couldn't even get my word in. Well, thank you very much, goodbye. He just kept talking, and I think he felt the more I was trying to conclude the conversation, to talk faster, so I wouldn't be able to say goodbye. I don't know what, but anyway, I was like dying. I was like being suffocated, because he was talking faster and faster, and I was like standing there like, oh. And I couldn't, he's a nice guy.

[80:39]

You know, I couldn't say, I'm dying here. Would you please shut up and let me go? You're trapping me. You won't let me. It was so nice. And then you just added on this extra half an hour of nonstop pleasant talk. And I can't get away. And you got me. That's the situation I was in. And inside me, the words came up, I love you, Rebbe. I didn't consciously make that come up. My smart unconscious says, we better send him a message. What can we say? We already told him, get out of here. That didn't work. We already told him, ditch this dude. That didn't work because he's a nice guy. He couldn't get away. We sent him these simple messages like, the conversation's over.

[81:39]

Leave. We have other things to do. Let's go. But my conscious said, no, there's no chance to speak. So there I was. But then the unconscious thought, oh, he's in trouble. Let's tell him that we love him. I love you, Rabbi. And then that message came in, and I said to him, thank you so much see you later and I walked away lovingly so I didn't consciously make that come up somebody said I love you every once in my life and that got planted so that can come up and save me when I'm being suffocated Hoitze was choking to death one time at Rinsohen you know he used to smoke did you hear that story? Yeah, so he's choking to death with asthma. And there's one tiny little thin stream of air still coming in.

[82:40]

And then he hears basically, his name is Hoitsu. His name used to be Hoichi. I think what he heard was something like, Hojan, Hojan. And it was his mother's voice calling to him. Avalokiteshvar is saying, I love you. and then he's able to continue breathing so we do make conscious choices we think but a lot of stuff just comes into our consciousness and the consciousness doesn't make it come in however if you chant the kanan go a lot it might promote the thought of compassion coming up into your consciousness because when you consciously chant these compassion texts that transforms your unconscious, and then your unconscious puts up the decision, be kind to this person. This person is lovable, even when they're attacking you.

[83:41]

That's what we really wanted. When they're attacking you, I love this person, and I'm going to listen to them. When your unconscious sends a message, ditch this person, that is not dropping body and mind, but the unconsciousness sends a message, I love you, Red. That's the message. I think dropping off body and mind will allow both of these messages to come up. Get rid of this person or I love you. Both of them can come up in that case. I'm just saying that if you can let yourself be, you're available for... all kinds of new possibilities, not just, get out of here, get out of here, get out of here, but also, I love you, Rebbe, can come up too. But I had to be there to receive that message. If I wasn't able to receive my desperate situation and accept it, I wouldn't have been able to hear that voice.

[84:47]

So there's some acceptance there that makes it possible to be willing to let body and mind drop off. And if I'm not willing to accept being trapped, then I won't be able to accept body and mind dropping away. So it doesn't matter next moment you are doing skillful action or not. That has nothing to do with dropping body and mind. If you were doing unskillful action and you could completely accept it, you'd be ready for body and mind to drop off. If you're doing skillful action, you completely accept it. It might be okay with you for body and mind to drop off. Many people have told me that when we bring this up, they're afraid of what would happen if they would allow body and mind to drop off. What would happen to them? Would they be all right? And you can warm up to being ready for it to drop off by accepting your current difficulties.

[85:52]

If you can really accept being strangled, then you might be able to accept body and mind dropping off. And then body and mind drops off, and you may continue to feel strangled, but while you're being strangled, you can say, thank you very much, I have no complaint whatsoever. And the person says, what? And maybe they let go of your neck. But maybe they keep choking you, and you die wishing the world well, loving while you die. But oftentimes, Maybe the world wants you to keep living and gives you something interesting to say like, thank you very much, and it wakes everything up that can happen too. The point is meeting the true dragon, not controlling whether you get out of the conversation or not. I did get out of the conversation, but that was the important thing, the important thing. Every conversation in my life I've gotten out of.

[86:57]

But this is one that I got out of by a message of love coming to me to show me how to say goodbye. I couldn't see how to say goodbye. I was trapped. The conversation would have eventually ended no matter what. But it ended with a loving message to me which I then shared with him. That's what's important about that story is that I allowed that message to come, which is like allowing body and mind to drop off. My body, my strangled condition was no longer being pushed away to such an extent I couldn't even hear the solution to my problems. So it came. And maybe I got some bad advice before that. or not bad, but just didn't work. It didn't apply. Maybe the suggestions I got before just couldn't be worked into the situation.

[88:00]

But the first one that was really cool was this, I love you, Rabbi. The other ones were kind of like, get out of here. They were more like trying to get away from body and mind. This, I love you, Rabbi, is more like, that's more like letting go of body and mind. And then it turns out that I did get released from the conversation. But it might have gone differently. I might have heard that and started dancing with him. And we might have danced into the gardens for hours. Who knows? But I think dropping off body and mind was in that story. But I didn't decide. You don't decide to drop off body and mind. You open to it. It's already here. But opening to it means... what do you call it, stepping off the 100-foot pole. It's like leaping into like, well, how about the life of like saying thank you to whatever?

[89:02]

How about that one? How about not trying to get away from being suffocated? Well, I love you, Rebbe, is not trying to get away. It's loving the suffocated person. And then the suffocated person, empowered by this acceptance of the suffocated person and loving the suffocated person, the suffocated person can say, goodbye. Bye-bye. This is about dropping your body and mind. Yes. Yes. And Jiki Do... Teacher. Yes. I have a question for you. All right. About... Another one of those uncontrolled people. About continuity. continuity. We have an invitation to practice continuously. Yes. And I think of that as a railroad track with a locomotive that jumps the track.

[90:09]

I don't know. I think I'm missing something. Well, that's possible. I think I think being open to the possibility of missing something with that image would open you to the potential of that image. Namely, you're on the locomotive and maybe it hasn't jumped the track yet, but you're on the locomotive and it's sitting still. Maybe you didn't think of that before. Yeah, I'm on a locomotive, but it's not going anyplace. It's just right here. It's jumped the track and I'm like, I'm accepting that. The continuity is, what is it continuous with? It's continuity in this relationship. If you can achieve continuity, this is the host within the host. Continuity in what? In face-to-face transmission is what's being talked about.

[91:14]

So you can have the image of a locomotive on a track as face-to-face transmission, that's fine. We can do face-to-face transmission with any image. So right now you're bringing that image. I don't know where it came from, but here it is. You're giving it to me, and I'm having a face-to-face meeting with you around the image of a locomotive on a track or off a track. And what are you up to over there? Separation is separation. Okay. Thank you. And I think separation is not separation. Just to compliment your thinking.

[92:19]

And who's next? Is that it? Oh, Edward. I heard from... This teacher once that I respect, he said, if you remember one thing from this retreat, please remember that everything you do matters. Yeah. And I guess I was curious if you could distinguish between these different verbs like deployment and practice and play and training and all of these ways that we describe engaging with the practice. for example, like the paramitas or something, in terms of, like, yeah, to a degree they're synonymous and to a degree of control, that's another one, if you could distinguish control from the more positive ones that you've been using. Yeah, so, I agree, everything we do matters.

[93:22]

Dash, everything we do has consequence. Everything we do contributes to the world. Now, you want something about playfulness in the Paramitas? Paramita number one, what is it? Generosity is the first practice of playfulness. Let things be themselves as an act as a generous gift. This sets the stage of being able to play with them. You can't play with people or things if you don't let them be. You don't let your dance partner be if you give the dance partner to the dance partner and don't try to get something from the dance partner. You can't dance if you're trying to get something from your partner. You can't dance playfully. You can dance coercively to try to get something from your partner.

[94:24]

No, we're talking about dancing playfully Generosity is the first traditional practice of leading to playful, relaxed, creative, and insightful dancing. So just with the first paramita, you can do all of them. But let's just go now and check out the next one. Ethical training. Am I dancing with you before you actually said you wanted to? Like in Tango, the women stand on the other side of the room and they kind of look across the room and then if a man looks at them, they can look away. And he's not supposed to cross the room when she looks away. But if he looks at her and she looks back, it's kind of like, well, maybe I could go ask her. But you still walk over and she might say, no, thank you.

[95:26]

This is like precepts. Did you actually offer me this opportunity of having this dance? No, I'm sorry. Okay, thank you. And also, precepts, ethical precepts, don't try to control your partner. Don't try to control the person you're playing with. Relax with them, but also watch out for how you're relaxing with them. So if you're relaxing with them, you don't necessarily sit on their lap without asking them. I'm feeling so relaxed, but maybe I should check to see if my relaxation is getting too relaxed for you. And you might say, you're getting a little too relaxed. Oh, okay. So I'm going to relax with that. And maybe that relaxing with it, I got too relaxed, is going to make me not exactly tighten up, but maybe move away a little bit. How's that? And you say, that's good. And then also, I don't hate you. for giving me feedback on my playfulness.

[96:29]

Because somebody might say, you're getting a little too playful, I think. But I'm a bodhisattva, I'm supposed to play, how could you possibly question me? Well, that's part of what? Part of what? Part of play is to be called into question. Ethical life means that other people call us into question. Playfulness doesn't mean you're immune from people saying, what are you doing? Playfulness is like, hey, you got questions for me? I'm ready. What are you doing? What's got into your body and mind there, man? I want to play means I'm up for ethical interrogation. If you're not up for people to... call you into question, you're missing an important part of ethical training, and ethical training is necessary in order to relax with people.

[97:31]

If you don't watch what you're doing, then you're going to get like a burn back, like you should be more careful, which doesn't make you relax. But then if you'd be more careful, you feel like can I relax now? And people say, mm-hmm, you can relax. They say that to you because they know that you're open to feedback and if you get out of line from what they can tolerate, they can say, I have a question for you. They feel confidence they can ask you. So let you move a little bit. Can I move a little bit? Yeah. Well, you're moving too much. Okay, thank you. Can I move a little bit? Yeah, you can, but not that much. Okay. so ethics is part of being playful those paramitas are summarized by bodhisattvas in summary are teaching people how to be playful but in order to be playful you have to be generous and ethical and patient and so on I have a long story to tell you and here it is there's this guy named Bill Bradley he was actually a presidential candidate for a while

[98:50]

and he was also a basketball player. And he was a good student, so he went to Princeton, one of the Ivy League colleges, and he was a very good student, and he was also a very good basketball player. And I don't know if he's 6'6 or 6'9, but anyway, he's a big guy, but not a gifted athlete, but he trained hard, and by his training, he could put the basketball in the basketball hoop very well. And he played for Princeton, But he always played according to the rules of what's best for the team. And because of that, his teammates loved him. And they actually got into the national championships. Ivy League college, little college, getting into national championship. And they actually got to the semifinals and played Michigan. And Michigan had on their team a guy named Oscar Robertson, one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Anyway, they played for the semifinals. in the National Championship of Little Princeton, partly because they had this guy named Bill Bradley, who always did what's best for the team.

[99:58]

In other words, ethical training. He could make baskets better than anybody else on his team. But if he didn't take care of his team, his team would never win any games, because his teammates would just say, we're not just here to... help you make points. He didn't play that way. He did what's best for the team. And they got to the national championship. But then they lost to Michigan. They weren't that good. And Michigan won the national championship. But even though you lose semifinals, you still get to play the other team that lost to semifinals. So they played, I think, Wichita State or something. Another basketball giant. Wichita State. Michigan. Florida. Not Princeton. But Princeton's playing.

[101:00]

And in the first half, they're doing quite well. This is the last game that Mr. Bradley's going to play basketball in college. And his teammates say to him, go for it. you don't have to be a team player anymore the second half. They let him go. You don't have to follow the precepts anymore. But that was the ethical thing they worked out. He was working with them and they were playing together ethically and they were very good ethically. So they could play basketball really well. And they had high spirits and high morale because of ethics in play. They were a happy team. So the second half, he had freedom from the usual ethics of basketball.

[102:04]

So when he got the ball, he shot. Instead of passing to somebody else could have a shot. He just shot. And every time he shot, it was a bucket. Every time he shot, the whole second half. Every time he got the ball, he shot, and it went in the basket. He scored 58 points. So we can play, but we need others to help us and say, you can play, you can relax, you can freak out. And we know that we can call you into question if we get worried. So when they know he calls the question, we can fly out there and say, come back, we come back. You're getting too far out for us, please come back. They're not trying to control us, they're just saying, please come back. We say, okay, here I come. So, yeah, okay, we could go on.

[103:07]

All these practices are details about being relaxed and playful. These are generosity, ethics... patience, diligence, they're about how to give up trying to control. They're about how to take care of without trying to control. Yeah? Do you think it's not a helpful way to think about it, a helpful way to think about the farm eat as cultivating virtue? No, it's fine. It's a fine way to think about it. Cultivating virtue... leading up to transcending, leading up to all these virtues being transcendent, leading up to all these virtues leaping free of themselves. It's practicing virtue, but for a while you're a little bit abiding in the virtue. Agricultural control?

[104:14]

Yeah, like a... Well, the word cultivate has to do with tilling, right? Like working the soil. You can work the soil without trying to control the soil. It's possible. But when you first start doing it, maybe you don't notice you're controlling impulses. But as you work it more and more, you start to notice, actually, yeah. I was trying, you start to see you have anxiety about how you're moving and you work with that and you see, do you respond by trying to be more controlling when you feel the anxiety or rather do you like, look for a way that's not feeding from or back into your anxiety but as another way and you don't know what that way is and you go for the way you don't know what it is. So you can find your way to transcending virtue by practicing virtue. And the paramitas are called paramitas, but when you first start doing it, they're not paramitas.

[105:15]

They haven't gone beyond at the beginning, usually. They get their name paramita, the generosity paramita, transcending generosity, they get it from the last one, which is transcendent wisdom. That's what makes the giving leap beyond giver-receiver-realization. and gift. When you first start practicing giving, maybe you're a little bit dwelling and giver receiving gift or giver receiver gift. Maybe you're a little into that at the beginning and perfect wisdom is waiting out there to come and save you from that dwelling. But you're also moving towards and getting ready for perfect wisdom by noticing, I think I was dwelling a little bit there. And I've heard that perfect wisdom is not to dwell even in virtue practices. But we practice virtue to detect if there's any clinging.

[106:19]

And if you find it, then we're generous towards the clinging. And then being generous towards the clinging to generosity gets us ready to practice generosity without clinging to generosity. Does that make perfect sense? Okay. I think so too. I just wanted to say that. Thank you so much for listening. 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.

[107:04]

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