Okay, how is that? It's a nice example how we can't do anything just simply by ourselves. Many faces I know, many faces I don't know, many faces I may have forgotten. Very nice to be here. This is one of my homes, my very, very ancient homes. I just returned a few days, not a week ago, from my biographical home, Switzerland. Coming into this building, it's really coming home to the home where we all reside, which is beyond Buddhism, beyond Christianity, beyond any denomination or any definition.

[01:35]

And for me, this path and this community has made it possible to touch that and You know, I can't feel it, but over and over I feel it deeply inside me that that's where we are all home together. And it's really being home together. It's not my home. Even though I am completely at home in that home. I don't know how it was for you, but, you know, I'm not a citizen of the United States. I have a permanent residency now, since a year, soon, on Thanksgiving.

[02:40]

Isn't that amazing? But last Tuesday, I felt I was here to do practice discussion with people, which always keep inspiring me. No end, the people that come to see me and share their practice with me. It's always such a gift and such a support to go beyond, to not give up, to remember that home we all share, whether or not at that particular moment I or we can touch it. It's always there. And so last Tuesday from seeing people for practice discussion, I went to an election party.

[03:46]

And I felt engaged like... been engaged when I was 18 and 20 and we were going on the streets in 68 but also engaged in what I think touched a lot of people's heart that went to vote and that had you know you could say it was an expression the whole since it started it was again and again an expression of Buddhist tenets Buddhist teachings even though Buddhism doesn't own those they're just realities that are there whether or not we recognize them whether or not we give them a name but that we can feel when they get

[04:50]

or when they get embodied or when they get expressed. And that is all inclusiveness. Appreciation and recognition of what in Buddhism is called dependent co-arising, which you could also say is impermanence, is that every moment we are, each of us, is created by myriads of conditions and circumstances that we have no control over, but we can become aware of what it is that arises in a given moment, and then we have a choice of how do we respond to that. And that's what of practice is teaching us that we can learn to become more and more aware and that we can practice responses that support life and don't harm life.

[06:09]

So there is a recognition I felt in this campaign over and over in different ways about this dependent co-arising which also is impermanence because every moment it changes. And also it's an expression of that we actually are participating in every moment. We are participating in our response to what is arising and in our response to in ourselves and in the response of what we see arising seemingly outside, like you all sitting here. I see you as distinct beings. I don't see you as one glob of one being. But how do I treat these distinct beings?

[07:15]

I'm conditioned I have You know, I have likes and dislikes and a judgmental mind. And so that gets kicked up immediately. Oh, I like this dress. Or why would somebody choose this to wear? Or, you know, petty, really unimportant things. But they just pop up. You know, if I am aware, they will not make me... I have a choice whether they will influence me or whether I can just put them on a shelf and say, well, not so important. Who is actually there? So it's going beyond. And I felt something about that was also in that process, that colony in the election. it was also right speech, a lot of right speech.

[08:22]

And for me, it was, for example, very moving to hear McCain speak in his concession speech. And I don't know what you experienced, but there was like, oh, there was like, why didn't he speak like this before? You know, like, oh, that's who he is too. I didn't get to see that. Maybe some people did, but I, and it was like, oh, you know, it was just such a relief. And, you know, right speech is one of the three, is the third tenet or the third aspect of the Eightfold Path. So Buddhism says there is There's a lot of suffering in the world in living. We all experience loss. We all experience sickness. We all experience old age and death.

[09:27]

And like somebody said, old age is not for sissies. It is true. You know, you look in the mirror and you go, wow. I always knew it, but now I see it's happening to me, you know, and it's different when it's happening. You know, everything is going south. So how do you, you know, it's a slap in the face of the image you have of yourself, which is kind of always, you know, kind of undying, which also is true, but not in the way we often look at it. So right speech is one of those factors that Buddhism presents in that way that can lead to the end of suffering. And right speech, Thich Nhat Hanh says it in a really nice way, so I'm going to bring him up here because I'm not giving this talk by myself.

[10:38]

Thich Nhat Hanh writes some place about the five mindfulness trainings and the fourth training is he phrases aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others and I think that is so important we often forget that speech The capacity of speaking in a supportive way cannot be separated from the capacity to deeply and thoroughly and unconditionally listening. Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering.

[11:49]

Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to learn to speak truthfully with words that inspire self-confidence, joy and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain, and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small. So, what I kept hearing over and over was that that was part of what Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, which I just drove no end, who is black and white, and is

[13:05]

does seem to understand deeply that this is not about him. I mean, when his body language, for example, from the beginning to the very end, to me, had a relaxness and sameness and equanimity was there, which has something to do that it's more about the cause and... and where we're all moving towards and not about personal gain. He says in his election night speech, he said, it's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled, and not disabled.

[14:17]

Americans who send a message to the world that we have never been a collection of red states and blue states, we are and always will be the United States of America. So, it's the practice of all inclusiveness. It's the understanding that we can't do it, we can't do anything alone. That we all are co-responsible for President Bush, for John McCain, for who Barack Obama will become as a president, for who The United States of Blanche, of Donna, of Christina, of Greg are moving forward. It's not just as a country. It's also how are we all inclusive to all the states within one being?

[15:24]

I have red states and gays and straights and Latinos and black people in me and some I like and some I don't like. and some I'm fearful of, and some, you know, I want to have more of. So can I be as all-inclusive, as appreciative, as saying, where is it? And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president too. This is what practice tells us we have to say, we have to be to ourselves also.

[16:30]

And I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. So it's also an understanding that, you know, in Buddhism we say, you know, there is no goal. Or the goal is the path. So every step is just the opening of engagement. into what's coming forward. We never arrive and it's done, period. And then we can lay back and kind of, you know, just eat and drink and poop and sleep. I mean, you know, not do anything anymore and be happy forever. That's not how it is. It's like every, if you want to say, every success is already opening into a new beginning. And you start all over. And I found that was also in this speech where he says, this is, the road ahead will be long.

[17:54]

It will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term. So it's not, oh, we want and we've got it. It's really actually, we are on an endless path. And what helps us on that endless path? And it's honesty. And Pema Churgeon says, it is necessary, I'm paraphrasing, but it's necessary to be kind to ourselves and to be interested in ourselves because and to be honest to ourselves because in doing so and keeping an open heart we will discover what is sweet and what is bitter in ourselves what is fulfilled and what is needy it's not met yet what is light and what is dark and by doing so we do not only discover

[19:06]

who we are beyond all those definitions, but we will discover the whole universe. So we are intricately linked to the destiny of this whole planet. There is no way we can opt out. Reb Anderson used to say, you are 100% responsible to everything that's happening in this whole universe. And we go, No, I don't want to be, you know. And then he turns to the next person and says, and you are 100% responsible. And you are 100% responsible. And in Buddhism it says, if you save this being, your own being, you save everybody. It's the same way of saying, we all are... 100% responsible. And the nice thing is, if we miss it one moment, the next moment is here.

[20:08]

We can try again. It's not, we missed it, so the next moment comes, well, I'm not coming by at your house because you didn't respect me last time. No more moments for you. Which we do to friends. You know, if they don't, sometimes if they don't meet our expectations. We said, well, goodbye, you're not my friend anymore. We maybe not even say that. We just turn away and they wonder what happened. So that's when Thich Nhat Hanh says, I will do my best to solve every conflict, even the very small ones. Because no conflict happens without our participation. Even though we might think so. No conflict in ourselves will happen with our participation. And we start having choices in how do we participate or how do we go back and replay it.

[21:16]

So with my friend, partner, and love, we sometimes, you know, get caught by our habits. And then we fight. And then one of us maybe... catches it and says oh this is not going the way i you know i wanted it can we replay it and we do we we say okay let's start over and we go physically back to where the whole thing started and the person that started it starts you know starts again and we can actually Because the intention wasn't to get in a fight. The intention was to express something, but it was expressed in a habitual way or the other one just put up the defenses and then we have a fight. So it's very funny because it has a lightness. You can replay things. You can do it over. You can say, oops, this is not where I wanted this to go. Can we do it again?

[22:18]

And if the other person doesn't say, well, no, you know you hurt my feelings and now you have to pay for it then you can play again and you can see that there's also playfulness this whole event of life and the possibility of playfulness you know at one time Baker Roshi appointed someone to be Eno at Green Gulch way back and everybody was going oh my god this is going to be the worst time ever with having that Eno. You know, how could he ever appoint this person? I mean, this is just totally, you know, stupid, terrible, whatever you want to have it. And they went and complained to Baker Roshi. This is what I heard. And he said, it's your responsibility to help

[23:22]

this person become the eno this community needs. We are dependently co-arising. We are creating each other moment by moment. And there we are 100% co-responsible for whatever is happening in this universe. So I was so inspired by this election event that I said, I want to participate. I want to know how I can make this, help this happen. I felt so engaged in a way that I was just, which led me to wonder what is it exactly? So it's also listening. So when Barack Obama says, I am willing to sit down with anybody with no preconditions, which doesn't mean I condone anything or you're empowered to make the conditions.

[24:38]

It's more like if we can sit down and put aside our conditions, we will never find the ground from which shared creativity can come forward. So if I have a conflict and I sit down and tell the other person I have a problem and this is the problem and this is the solution, I have already in some ways not invited the other person into finding a solution. I have already manipulated them and managed them into the position where I think they should be so that my solution is going to work. And if everybody would comply, actually, we would have a wonderful world. We wouldn't have a problem. And that, of course, makes the other person not invited, not needed, not participatory in finding a solution that may be something different than each of us on our own could have come up with.

[25:47]

asking for help like he said i need your help i need the help of what other people would say are my enemies you know so if i have to encounter sides in myself that i do not cherish that i do not like like for example when i'm getting in old patterns which i did big time when i was back in switzerland You know, and you never know what's going to arise. I felt like I was going back with very new, open, clear up relationship with my father and everything. You know, that's how I left here. And I arrived there and boom, I was back in, you know, like no practice, no ever anything, you know, childhood feeling. on the fringe, feeling not heard, feeling not seen, and what was extremely painful was to some degree I felt completely trapped, and at the same time I could feel what arose in response, and I could also have a feeling of what it did to the others, how when I was trapped, they were trapped too.

[27:15]

It wasn't just me, they were the perpetrators and I was the whole victim. It was actually where, if this being is trapped, this being is trapped with me. And there is a way out, but if, and not always, sometimes it's just sitting there and feeling it. So I could feel revengefulness arise, meanness arise. pretty bad and I you know and so and of course I want to get away from it I don't want to listen to it I don't want to include it I you know I don't I mean my instinct my immediate response get away from this this is bad this is and not sitting down and listening

[28:18]

And what is really amazing, what comes to my mind, a few, two months ago maybe, I can't remember exactly, we had a diversity awareness training with Erin Angeles. And one thing that keeps coming back to me is what she said. She said, in nature, things move at the slow to medium speed. Very slow. medium could say almost imperceptibly slow to medium speed it only moves in the fast lane when it's in danger of life and then only for about 15 to 20 minutes and then it reverts to medium somewhere to medium to slow and she applied this to if there is conflict or different views Our minds can be very fast in coming up with solutions.

[29:24]

But really, truly shared solutions come about with time. And they need to be given space and time. They will not come fast. They will come very slow to medium speed. They won't come fast. Fast are only survival solutions which are not going to help us live. They only help us survive, which is not the same thing. They may be necessary for us to survive so we can come back to slow and very slow or medium to live. And that's one part that we are practicing in this practice is patience and patience and more patience. And more patience. And not giving up. And looking again, which is also another word for respect. It means look again or look back at.

[30:29]

Bring a visit. Don't say, well, this I've seen enough. I don't want to see it anymore. And that's also in there that there is a time factor and a patience factor. And so this all-inclusiveness, or that we can only do it together, really, truly, and always, is he also put in his speech in, when he said, our stories are singular.

[31:38]

So each of our stories are unique and singular, and no one else has exactly the same story. But our destiny is shared. true strength of our nation comes not from our might or our arms or the scale of our wealth but from the enduring power of our commitment of our intentions and I think that is true too for each being if we are at war with ourselves or that war will spread out if we can be at peace with ourselves and find ways of including all the aspects, all those different beings that reside within one person.

[32:47]

How can we get them, how can we be patient enough till they're all on board and inform the next step instead of kind of forcing them either out or in. So I am deeply grateful that you're all sitting here because it helps me remember actually no, you make me feel my home.

[34:11]

Your presence opens that connection to where I'm truly at home, which has nothing to do with geography, or it has to do with this life, this incredible, mysterious, unfathomable life we all share. the way I'm put together right now has something to do with each of your presence. This is a unique moment and you are unique in this moment because we're all, you know, we all came with our singular stories but right now we're sitting in this space and we're sharing in this event and it affects you, you're all

[35:16]

With me, each of you is affected by sitting in this space right now. So I just want to express my deep appreciation for you all being here and coming here with the intention to listen. which I think is, if we keep listening, we will always, the answers will come to us. We don't have to figure them out ourselves. So, wish you a happy rest of the day. And this is all I have to say today. Thank you. Thank you.

[36:17]

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