Well, it's nice that we have you children here today, and I knew that you were coming, so I'm giving a lecture that's mostly for the children. I'm just going to tell you a story, and stories are good for the children, but not too bad for the rest of us either, I guess, to hear a story. And because I knew the children were coming, I had to think to be clearer and simpler about what I want to say today. So that's a good thing, that children help us to be clearer and simpler. Sometimes I think maybe that's what children are for, to keep us all honest and simple and clear. Grown-ups make a big fuss all the time, have you noticed?

[01:15]

And grown-ups make such big trouble, have you noticed? If there were no grown-ups in the world, maybe there wouldn't be as much trouble. So it's great to have the children here. So are you ready for the story? If it gets too long, we'll take breaks, okay? All right, this is a story that happened during the time of the Buddha, okay? Once upon a time, during the time of the Buddha, there was a horrible, fierce murderer. This person was really fierce, really horrible, and had superpowers. No matter how many of the king's men they sent to capture this murderer, they could never capture him. No matter how many men they sent to attack him, he would always kill all the men.

[02:31]

If the king sent 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 soldiers, no matter how many, he would kill them all, because he had superhuman strength and he was super good with a sword and a club and a shield and a bow and arrow. Plus, he had super speed, yeah, like Superman. If the king's warriors attacked him and then they took off on elephants, he could catch up with the elephants and kill them all. If they were riding on horses and they took off running away from him, he could catch up with the horses and kill them all. If they had chariots with a whole bunch of horses taking off to escape, he would catch up with them and kill them all. That's how fast he was. So this was a guy who was super fast and super strong and super mean, right? He was so mean that he would just wander around the countryside and whenever he saw a person,

[03:38]

he would immediately kill them. Just whenever he saw them, he would just kill them, just like that. And he seemed to be always in the mood for killing someone. He was never taking a break, never feeling like doing anything else. Just whenever he saw somebody, he'd kill them, okay? So this was one mean guy. He would go into towns, you know, in villages and kill everybody in the town, right? Mean guy. His name was Angulimala. And you know the word Angulimala, you know he got that name? Because Angulimala means finger bracelet. Yeah, finger bracelet. Because, listen to this, this is really bad. Whenever he killed someone, he would cut off one of their fingers and string it on a bracelet

[04:45]

around his neck. That's why his name was Finger Bracelet. So this was not somebody that you wanted to see. If you saw this person or even heard about this person, you would run the other way, right? You wouldn't want to see him. Yeah, right. So you can imagine that, you know, people thought about him a lot and people were always worried if he would come to town. Okay, so that's Angulimala. Now one day, the Buddha got up and got dressed, brushed his teeth, put on his robe. Yeah, he brushed his teeth, sure. And he went walking down the road. He picked up his begging bowls and he went down the road to visit with people as he did every day and see if he could find something to eat because he didn't have a refrigerator

[05:48]

or anything with food in it, so he was out looking for something to eat. Nothing. So as Buddha was walking along the road, all kinds of people came running up to him and said, don't go this way down this road because down this road... Is Angulimala. Yes, exactly. Did you hear what he said? Down this road is Angulimala and Angulimala is a really fierce guy and he kills everybody he sees and he's got super speed and he kills everybody, he chases them down. He's got a necklace of fingers around his neck. Don't go down that way. But of course, the Buddha just smiled nicely at the people and kept walking down the road. And as he kept getting closer and closer, more and more people kept coming up to him and saying, don't go that way, Angulimala is there, you know, please be careful.

[06:48]

And the Buddha just smiled nicely and kept walking down that road toward Angulimala. Now, I have to tell you something about the way that the Buddha walked, okay? This is how the Buddha walked. If Angulimala was famous for being a fierce killer, you know, and having a finger bracelet, the Buddha was also famous for having a nice walk. He would have had a really nice walk. Here's how he walked. The Buddha always walked slowly and peacefully and calmly. He never hurried. And he never walked absentmindedly, tripping over things. He just would sort of stroll along in this unhurried and calm and beautiful way. He always took gentle steps and it was like he sort of glided along beautifully. And even though he didn't have super strength or super speed,

[07:53]

still, people liked to see him kind of gliding along in this way that he had walking. So when the Buddha walked by, people were usually very happy to see him sort of gliding along in this gentle way. So that's important for you to know that, because of what happens next. Okay? Now, of course, Angulimala sees the Buddha coming and what do you think he does? Yeah, he figures. First of all, he's surprised, because he says, I hardly even see like groups of ten. Usually it's twenty, thirty, forty, fifty people coming after me. Here's one person walking along, not even seeming to be scared. And then he thought, as usual, Well, why don't I just kill him? You know, that would be a really good thing, I think.

[08:55]

So I think I'll kill him. So he got himself ready. He got his clubs out and his spears and his bows and arrows and everything. And just like he said, with super speed, he started in, Angulimala started in chasing down the Buddha, ready to kill him, so that he could have another finger for his bracelet. And here's where the story gets very strange, because what happened was, even though Angulimala, who could catch elephants and horses and chariots and could even outrun a deer, that's how fast he was, even though he was running at his full speed, and even though Buddha was walking at his usual gentle, slow speed, somehow Angulimala could never catch up to the Buddha. Isn't that strange? Yeah, I mean, really strange. Yeah, the Buddha was not speeding up,

[09:56]

and Angulimala was really speeding up as fast as he could and he could never catch up to him. He would stick his hand out to grab him, but he couldn't reach him. Yeah, and it freaked him right out. He could not understand what was going on, you know. And you can imagine him, you know, speeding up, going faster and faster and faster, and the Buddha is just going along in his usual way, and he can't catch him, and Angulimala is going, finally he just fell down, because he couldn't keep it up anymore. Meantime, the Buddha is just going along in his usual way and Angulimala said, Stop! Stop! to the Buddha. Right? And here's where another really strange thing happens, because the Buddha keeps walking along in the same way, Angulimala is plotzed on the ground, you know, exhausted, and the Buddha says to Angulimala, I have already stopped.

[11:00]

Now, why don't you stop? Now, Angulimala could not figure out what in the world the Buddha was talking about, because, you know, Angulimala stopped, and the Buddha was still going, and yet the Buddha said, I have already stopped, why don't you stop? Now, this is a funny thing. This is a little hard to understand, but sometimes it happens in your life. At a certain time, somebody says something or something happens, and it just tears a big hole right in the middle of your life. All of a sudden, maybe sometimes in an earthquake, or other times. And that's what happened to Angulimala. It was a special moment in his life, and when he heard the Buddha say that, it just tore a big hole right in the middle of his life. And he absolutely did not know what to think.

[12:04]

Imagine your life is like a big piece of cloth, and a time comes, a special time comes, and the cloth is ripped, just like a cloth, and you can see daylight through it, through the rip. And that's what happened to Angulimala, when the Buddha said that. And sometimes when that happens in your life, you kind of get very quiet and very gentle at that time. He tells a nice story about Angulimala. So that's what happened to Angulimala. All of a sudden, he got very quiet, and very gentle. And he said to the Buddha, I don't understand what you mean when you say, I have stopped, why don't you stop?

[13:08]

And the Buddha answered him and said, Angulimala, I have stopped being mean forever. And you haven't stopped being mean. You're really, really mean. Well, when Angulimala heard the Buddha say this, he started to cry. And he cried and cried and cried. And all of a sudden, he remembered each and every one of the people that he had killed. Now before, when he killed all those people, it was kind of like a cartoon to him. He just smashed them and, you know, they died and he didn't think anything of it. Just like in a cartoon where people die all the time and you don't think anything of it. But this time, when Buddha spoke to him, he thought of each and every one of the people that he had killed. And he realized that each and every one of the people

[14:10]

that he had killed was a real person, not a cartoon person. And each person was just like him. They wanted to be happy. They wanted to have a nice life. They had friends or husbands or wives or children or relatives who cared about them. And he realized what he had done all this time in killing all those people and he cried and he cried and he cried. And he also remembered how he had become a murderer in the first place. He had forgotten what happened when he was little. What happened was he had a mean teacher who accused him of a crime that he didn't actually commit. And this mean teacher said, I will forgive you of this crime if you will give me one thousand human fingers. And so he didn't know any better

[15:12]

and he believed this. And so he started killing people to get those fingers and pretty soon he forgot all about that and he just became Angulimala, the murderer. But now, hearing the Buddha's words, he remembered this and he cried with regret. So he was ashamed and regretful and sad and also very grateful because he realized now that the Buddha didn't just happen to be walking down that road. He realized that the Buddha came down that road on purpose to see him and help him. Now just at that moment, what do you think happened? A big pit opened up right in front of Angulimala. Smokey, full of fire and sparks and everything. Should we take a break? Does somebody want to go? Anybody who wants to go can go out.

[16:16]

Everybody okay? How? Okay, so a big pit opened up in front of Angulimala and he felt so badly about himself that he wanted to jump into that big pit. But he also felt so grateful for what the Buddha had done for him that he didn't feel like jumping into the big pit. So what he did instead was he took off all his weapons and he threw them into the pit and immediately the pit swallowed up all his weapons and disappeared. And there he was standing there in front of the Buddha crying without any of his weapons and then the Buddha said, Now come, Angulimala, and follow the way.

[17:18]

And just when Buddha said that all of Angulimala's hairy hair fell off and his hairy costume fell off and his necklace disappeared and boom, he became looking just like the Buddha wearing the Buddha's robe and everything. Just like that. And then he became a follower of the Buddha and never again did he ever murder anyone or harm anyone. And his name changed from Angulimala to Ahimsa, meaning the harmless one. And that's the story of Angulimala. Now a lot of people wonder about this story and they say, Well, does that mean that you can go around killing everybody and then all you have to do is meet up with the Buddha and then it's going to be okay? No. Because

[18:21]

even though Angulimala stopped becoming a murderer and was harmless after that and actually he didn't go to jail because the king pardoned him so he didn't go to jail and he didn't face the death penalty but he did and he did suffer a lot of sufferings in his life after that because of what he had done. He didn't have it's so easy because of what he had done. On the other hand he didn't have to suffer nearly as much as he would have if he had stayed being a murderer. If he had stayed being a murderer he would have suffered many, many more sufferings. So I'm just telling you this to let you know that it's not a good idea to make a plan to be a murderer so that later on you could meet the Buddha and then give it up. This usually doesn't work out so well. And another thing

[19:23]

about this story is that in the story remember Angulimala became a murderer not because he was a bad person but because somehow he had been influenced to be bad. Do you have a muffin on you? Do you? If you have a muffin on you you can certainly eat it. I don't have any on me. OK. Let's take a little break. Maybe have a little meditation break, shall we? Let's listen to the bell, OK? Would you listen to the bell? The bell.

[20:24]

Thank you, Buddha. The bell. The bell. So the other thing about that story is that you can figure out that all the mean people that you know are like Angulimala. They had things happening to them in their lives that made them become mean.

[21:31]

And that story lets us know that everyone who does anything mean or bad and probably nobody here will ever do anything nearly as bad as Angulimala but whatever anybody has done that is mean or bad can be turned around when you stop doing those mean and bad things. So those are the things to remember. So that's the end of my story. OK. Thank you. Thank you. So long.

[22:45]

Get that muffin. Get that muffin. Sounds like there was a certain amount of bribery going on this morning. Get that muffin.

[24:10]

Get that muffin. Get that muffin.

[25:20]

Get that muffin. Get that muffin. Get that muffin.

[26:27]

Actually I don't have too much more to say. That was about it. But maybe I'll just tell you one more short story. OK. I've been having a great deal of enjoyment giving meditation classes to people who take care of children in Marin City. And sometimes we talk about ways of extending our meditation into our daily life. And one of the women in my class a woman who has lost three sons to drugs

[27:32]

said I think I'm really going to work on not getting upset so much. I know it's bad for me to get upset. I really want to work on that. Get angry. I get angry so often and I want to try to work on not getting angry so much. So when I went to the class last time she said she's been trying for a long time to move from one apartment complex to another, a better one. And she finally managed to get to the top of the list and be able to move. She said, but now there's a woman in the community who is trying to prevent me from doing that. By writing letters and claiming that there's a conflict of interest

[28:36]

or what not. She said, and I've been working really hard at not getting upset and angry at her. Because I know how bad it is for me and how unhappy I feel when I get angry. And she said, you know so far it's going pretty well. I'm really not angry at her. And even when she comes in here, which she apparently has business once in a while in the child care place. She says, I even say hello to her. And she doesn't know what to think when I say hello to her. And of course I was really impressed. Aren't you impressed by this? You know? I was really impressed. And I said, how do you do this? What's your secret? How do you prevent yourself

[29:36]

from getting angry? She said, well, I just talk to myself. I remind myself that whatever is going to happen is going to happen. She can't really stop what's going to happen from happening. And if I get upset, I'm the one who suffers, not her. And it is really bad for me to get upset. And I talk to myself that way. And she said, and you know, I've been doing my homework too. And the homework that I always give them, of course, is to meditate at home, which sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. But she said, I've been doing my homework. And that helps me to be able to slow down enough so that I can talk to myself in this way. So then we were discussing this, and I said, well, you know, and this woman is

[30:36]

a very devout Christian, I said, you know, you know yourself that when you deliberately do something mean to someone else, you're unhappy. She said, yes, I know, because I do that sometimes. And it does make me unhappy about myself. So then I said, well, probably deep down this woman feels the same way when she's doing this to you. She probably, in her deepest self, feels unhappy about herself. So isn't that sad that she has to go through that and do that? And my friend said, yes, it is. I never thought of it that way, but that's true. And I said, you could imagine then, if you really saw it that

[31:37]

way, that not only could you not be upset about someone like that, but you could even feel sorry for them and see how they're suffering. And she said, yeah, I could imagine that. And I said, maybe you could even imagine how, feeling sorry for that person, you could even feel affection and love for them, even though they were doing something bad to you. She said, yes, I could imagine that. I said, maybe that's what Jesus meant when he said you should love everyone, even those who harm you. And she said, oh, yes. I could imagine how you could actually feel that way. She said, I'm not ready

[32:40]

to do it yet. But I could see where I could work on that. So whatever happens to us, whether it's a person who is the agent of whatever positive and negative happens to us, or whether it's just the world at large, it always happens because of influences and causes and conditions to which we are all subject equally. So we're all in this together. And there are no enemies. And there are no

[33:41]

independently created mean people. Circumstances create the present moment. When we see things in terms of self and other, it's hard to appreciate this. But when we slow down and abandon self and abandon others, and just try to appreciate the present moment meticulously and carefully and persistently, we can see how it really is. And we can forgive ourselves and others.

[34:41]

And we can begin to behave in a different way. And when we behave in a different way, the rest of the world responds to us in a different way. So this very simple meditation practice is a great thing. If we were to brainstorm, not knowing about this practice, if we were to brainstorm all the possible ways that we could help ourselves and help the world, we would probably never in a million years come up with this one. You know? Who would ever suspect that the most powerful thing to change our lives and change the world is to simply sit down in the present moment and be present. And that's all. It's so absurd. Who would have ever suspected?

[35:44]

And yet, that's it. So when you think of your life and the lives of those dear to you, and when you think of our world and all its troubles, and you feel overwhelmed, and you feel as if how could you, one person, possibly, do anything at all of value, just remember that that whole train of thought is from the standpoint of self and others. And just sit down in the present moment and know that at any time, at any time, this is a possibility. So, that's all I have to say today.

[36:50]

It was nice having the children here, wasn't it? They're a little squirmy. But then so aren't we all. Yeah, now we can eat our muffins. Thank you. May our intention be a discussion part of the morning. When we have a chance to share our views about whatever the lecture may have brought up in your mind or anything else about the Dharma that you're thinking about or concerned about. And I will try my best to tell you what I think and other people also, they think I'm sure about whatever you bring up.

[37:52]

And today I just in advance want to tell you I think I want to leave a little bit early. So maybe one hour or so. A question and answer. I have to leave a few minutes early today. So I'll leave maybe around 12.30. Give you a little break before lunch. Yes, hi. I'd like to hear more about your work in New York City and also do you have... Yes. Well, it's funny. It's very interesting to me and I think for me personally very important work. So I'd like to talk about it. But on the other hand I hasten to say that maybe I make it sound like more than I did. It's a very simple thing that I'm doing. Just a few people in my class and so it's not a big deal. But someday I have this idea, you know, that it's like

[38:55]

we live in this county where we have tremendous ability to encounter all sorts of healing arts and disciplines including coming to Gringo. Acupuncture, massage, therapy. And my guess is that many, many of the people who come here on Sundays do those things. You know, have various skills. Then there's Marin City. People in Marin City, do you know that the distance between Gringo to Marin City is around four or five thousand miles? Did you know that? About how far it is. So people in Marin City have very stressful lives and they don't have a chance to have acupuncture or any of that. So my idea is someday to have some room in the community center in Marin City where people in Marin City can have free acupuncture, therapy, etc. That people who come

[39:59]

here would volunteer, you know, for a period of time, six months on every Wednesday night or whatever. Whoever comes, you know, take on and help them. This would be so easy to do. So I'm working on that. And if and when that comes about, I'll let you know. The other thing, the next thing I'm going to do, I think, is work with the children. And I think I need, I think that, you know that little bell meditation that we did this morning? That's a great meditation for children. Did you notice how that was the one time in the morning that the children were actually quiet? So I'm going to go into and work with the children and do this bell meditation and what I'd like to do is give every child care worker in Marin City who wants one one of those bells. So that's one thing that you can help with. Get me about five of those bells to give away. Actually they're

[40:59]

kind of expensive. You can get them but they cost about maybe $30 each. So anybody who wants to buy or go in as a group and buy those bells, give me your name and I'll tell the people in Marin City it's from you. I need about five of them or so. You can buy them there are probably many places but the one place I know in the county here, there's a Tibet shop in San Rafael on the main street there. 3rd? 4th? Have you been to that shop? And they have a whole bunch of them. And they have that beautiful sound. A clunky bell won't make it. You know what I mean? You've got to have a good bell. Yeah and there's one in Albany too I think. That shop in Albany that sells on Solano right? Polk Street in San Francisco. So you can get them in a number of places in the area. Yes? Here's the second part of my Buddhist name

[41:59]

which means Keeper of the Dharma. And I was thinking about that lately. How do you accomplish this task to be a Keeper of the Dharma? Well of course the first thing is to practice ourself. To practice wholeheartedly. So I mean I think we start out with our own suffering right? We practice because we need to. Because it's really important for us personally. And then that sort of evolves into commitment to the Dharma itself and to helping others to practice. So then you just practice yourself and just look for ways of helping others to practice. Supporting other people's practice in whatever way that you can appropriately. And that's how we keep the Dharma alive. One by one. Helping others. So I'm sure that you can find ways of doing that in your life whatever your circumstances are to keep practicing and make sure that practice is a high priority

[43:01]

in your life and that other things that you do don't preclude that you practice. And that you're always thinking, you know, how can I help others practice as well? What can I do? What can I be doing that would be supportive of others practice? So that's all we do I think. Keep the Dharma that way. I have a question related to the talk this morning. A lot of times when I talk to people about the idea that people that do bad things in the world, murderers and all that have had something, some damage done to them. People come back with this idea that there are some children that you know, kill insects and enjoy it. And there are some people that are just born bad. And I don't really know how to respond to that. So I was hoping maybe you could comment on that a little bit. Well from the standpoint of classical Buddhism maybe that's true. There are some people who are born bad, but in a past life, in the

[44:01]

past, somewhere in everyone's past there are causes and conditions for the present. So there are people who are deeply disturbed and hurt. I mean I'm not kidding anybody. I mean the story of Angulimala is a wonderful story, right? The Buddha speaks to Angulimala and then boom, you know, his whole life changes. Well usually it's not that simple. Usually it doesn't work that easily. And there are people for whom we can say you know, maybe this whole life through they will never be able to turn their lives around and see the light in their lives. They may never be able to. So then it makes sense that people like that, you know, you would like to remove them from harm so that they don't it's not good for them to create harm. So you want to get them in a situation where their ability to create harm is minimized. But even if they were born for the first moment, you know, creating bad karma, there's always a reason for that in the past. Always a reason for that in the past. And you know, you don't have to

[45:02]

I mean, you know, this whole business about past lives is very complicated for us because it goes so counter to our own way of looking at the world. But without, you know, creating a whole mythology of past lives I think any of us know that when you see a child born, that the child is born not as a blank slate. That there's already tremendous amount of energy there in that child. Something already heredity and not only, but heredity is not only physical, you know. Heredity is also behavioral. And it's already there. You see that. I mean so somewhere along the line, someone created actions that produced this child which has already got something going for it before it even takes its first breath. I mean, this is simply understood in the case of like so many kids like in Marin City and elsewhere you know, are drug babies. They're born already with already having inherited by the virtue of the past actions of their

[46:03]

parents and many, many. And us right, a whole complicated concatenation of events have created a situation in which a child is born with this kind of problem. And that child has a big problem, you know, and takes energy and effort. But what good would it do to point to that child and say, you are a problem. Let's you know, get rid of you. You can't, this is not a workable situation. I mean, this is what we're trying to do. This is exactly what our theory, right, how to solve our problems is to identify those bad individuals who have done these things and get rid of them. Or somehow segregate them or, you know, push them under the rug. Simply it simply doesn't work out, you know. It would be nice if that's the way it was, but actually it isn't that way. It just, it means when you see some, when you when we see Angulimala, we look at ourselves and we say, we have to change our lives. That's what it is. When you see

[47:03]

these things in the newspaper and so on, that should be a signal. We have to change our lives. I have to change my life. You have to change your life. Together we have to change the life of all of us, which is a huge proposition. But ultimately going in that direction is the only way that we will improve things. So we have to support each other and have a cheerful thought and know that we have a long road to hoe and get started. Like they say in Zen, you know, 95% of practice is rolling up your sleeves. So we have to roll up our sleeves and go ahead. But one thing that's important is to recognize that and I know this so much, you know, from trying to convey the Dharma to people, that people will understand what they will understand. No amount of reason and persuasive arguments is going to turn someone's heart. If someone

[48:05]

believes in their heart of hearts that there are some bad people and that's the way it is, I would say that you should just smile pleasantly and maybe say that, well, I don't feel that way. And by your peacefulness and your goodness, soften their heart so that they can see that this is not true. But if you give them intelligent Buddhist reasons why it's not so, they won't believe you. They just won't believe you. So forget about it. Yes. The story you told about how Angola Mala's character flaws were miraculously removed, of course that's a story, but in our everyday life, what are some of the steps that we can take to recognize some of our character flaws and solve the steps

[49:05]

that we can take in helping people? Well, one way of looking at that story of Angola Mala is that Angola Mala had what you could call an enlightenment experience or you could call it a conversion experience. He suddenly saw, and this happens sometimes, he suddenly saw the path of his life and the way that he had created harm in himself and others. Suddenly he saw it, and the Buddha helped him to see it, but he actually saw it himself. Suddenly the Buddha was just a catalyst or an agent. And you know, this happens. I mean, this happens a lot, actually. It happens like in prisons and stuff, people suddenly see. And some people who, I've read a lot about people who work on death row, like different clergy people and therapists who work on death row, and sometimes it happens that someone sees this who's been a murderer or, you know, really done horrible things. And on a less dramatic scale,

[50:05]

this happens to us as well in our lives. I had a meeting with someone today for whom this had happened. It was quite moving. After many, many, many, many years of going along in a certain way, this person finally saw I have to do this differently in my life. And quite often it helps, as in the case of Angola Mala, to be completely undone. The psychological truth of that story is that Angola Mala wasn't just walking along and suddenly, boom, this hit him. But actually he had come to the end of his rope. He had encountered something that did not work in his life in the usual way that he worked things out. The Buddha sort of turned his life in on him and he saw that it didn't work. And that's what happens to us a lot. So a lot of times when our life falls apart, that's when we see. You know, even if it falls apart through no fault of our own, maybe something completely out of the blue. We get sick or, you know, we get fired or whatever it is. Maybe it doesn't have to do with what we've done.

[51:06]

But the circumstance of our lives makes us gentle. When we're suffering, we're very gentle. And then sometimes we can see clearly and then we say, Oh, you know, this makes me realize what I have to do. I really have to change my life. I really have to reorient my life. And then, of course, in the story of Angulimala, it's a wonderful fairy tale where instantly on having that thought, boom, you know, he's actually enlightened and perfect after that. In real life, in a sense, that's true also for us. But actually what's also true is that there's a lot of hard work. The hard work begins at that point. And the work is the spiritual path, right? The spiritual path is joyful and hard work. Hard work with a happy, you know, in other words, the satisfaction of knowing that we're working on what's truthful in our lives, even though it may be quite difficult at times. So you begin. You begin to practice. You begin to meditate. You begin to turn your life, everything in your life, actually, you know,

[52:08]

in the direction of practice. How you handle everything, how you handle your relationships, how you handle money, how you handle how do you work with your mind, moment after moment, all that, you reorient. And it takes a while and it's a slow process and you just keep sitting and you keep... My theory has always been, sometimes to my great peril, to always take the next step that's there, whatever it is. You just keep taking steps to intensify and open up your practice more. Whatever it is for you, you know, wherever you are, you try to do the next thing at your own pace and your own way. But your spirit is I will just keep going here and whatever comes along, that's natural for me to intensify my practice more, I'll do that. And then when I've done that, then I'll do the next thing. I'll keep doing like that, life after life after life after life until the world is a perfect Buddha field. And then maybe I'll take a break. So that's the kind of spirit, you know, that you have to have. And, you know, you're recognizing that when you lose that spirit to keep going,

[53:09]

very quickly all habits reassert themselves and you become discouraged and things happen and so on like that. So this happens, I mean, you know, I don't think any of you would be here if you didn't. We have a certain, I guess, some people come out of some curiosity but I don't really believe that anybody ever comes here out of curiosity. It's always been our theory that even somebody who comes here to do a conference, you know, or a business meeting comes here also for the Dharma. So even though we don't wave any Dharma flags in their face, we try to, our hope is that we serve them tea and we speak to them in a way that offers in those circumstances a good teaching. Because I think everybody who finds their way to this place and any Dharma place is actually seeking the path. And we're all on our own pace. The murderer who is murdered himself at San Quentin is going at a slower pace. And he may have to wait till later.

[54:12]

The energy of his life can be turned around. But it will be. It will be. So that's the vision of the Buddha. And it's very useful vision, a very comforting vision, and also very true. I mean, you verify that vision by your own actions in your own life. You know that this is true. Not because somebody told you, not because you believe it, not because you want to believe it, but because it's true for you. You actually experience that this has been the shape of your life. You feel, yes, it's true. Yes, somebody had a hand in the back. Yes. I wanted to say that part of the story that you're questioning is the moment when Buddha Mahārāja realizes that he's killed really people. And not just his projections. Yes, yes. And I was thinking about my relationships with the people that I live with and how when I

[55:12]

just make them into the other, it's a little act of killing. Yeah, that's right. Absolutely. It's really hard to wake up from that. That's right. It's really hard to let them real people, let go of that desire to make them wrong or bad or killable. Absolutely true. And before I respond further, I want to make a small confession, which is that the story of Angulimala is a story from the sutras, which I somewhat improved slightly in the places, hoping that it would be more engaging for the children and more instructive. And that's one of the places where I improved it a little bit. If the sutra doesn't say, I mean, of course, I think the sutra means, but it doesn't say that that happened. That he saw all the people he had murdered and understood

[56:15]

that they weren't like cartoons, they were real people. I kind of added that part. So I don't want to fool you, I want to be clear about that. But I agree, you're absolutely right. In fact, in our understanding of the first precept, the first clear-mind precept about not killing, this is one of the aspects of it. In objectifying others as other, we kill, we take away the life of others, and therefore diminish ourselves. And it's an awesome thing. It's awesome and nearly impossible to recognize that another person is a vastness, a vast unknown. We think we know other people, right? We sort of blithely characterize other people, oh, he's that way, oh, she's that way. You know what I mean? As if this was the measure of that person. You know, everybody is a measureless, bottomless, unknown to us, and even to themselves. And this has to be respected.

[57:16]

And when we respect that, then of course we also respect ourselves. And it really changes our life. But it is very hard to remember that. Very true. And of course, it's hard to remember, but it's also pretty easy to tell when you're not doing, when you're not recognizing that. You can tell just by what you think. Oh, I'm thinking that? Oh, I see what I'm doing. I understand now. By my thoughts, I'm getting good, you know, practitioners understand what arises in the mind as good information. So, we don't ignore what arises in the mind, but we don't take it on face value. We look a little deeper. So, when I'm thinking, oh, she's no good. I don't believe. Oh, she's no good. I believe. Oh, here I am, failing to see reality. That thought tells me that. Maybe I better pay attention a little bit more. So, we work with ourselves that way. Yes? You brought to mind a question when you were talking about improving on the story. I partly finished reading a book

[58:21]

called The History of God. I read that book. It's an interesting book. It's a kind hearted book attempting to inject the history of the major atheistic religions. My question is how much certainty do you have that something as simple as the Four Noble Truths passed down through so many generations could probably arrive here 2,500 years later undistorted, but something as complex as a sutra that's been transcribed and interpreted, translated, and so on could be subject to improvements over what the Buddha actually said in his time. Do you think much about the accuracy of the liturgy that we have in the present day versus what was originally taught? No, I don't think so much about it, really. But, I mean, you're right, of course. And scholars show this. I mean, it's obvious that...

[59:21]

I mean, two things, two opposite things, I think, are true. Number one, it's astonishing how close... I'm sort of echoing now the scholarly work that's been done on some of these early sutras. The one point is that it's astonishing, scholars think, how close the sutras probably are to what the Buddha said. That's really astonishing, considering how many sutras there are and the vastness of literature. And it's also clear that there have been many changes and alterations and misrememberings and so on over the years. That's also true. Because don't forget, the Buddha word wasn't written down for hundreds of years after the Buddha lived, because for hundreds of years they memorized the sutras. So it was a long time before... between the time the Buddha died and the sutras were actually written on palm leaves. Not to mention how many times they were copied and recopied and there are always scribal mistakes between that time and today. So there's no doubt that

[60:23]

this is not exactly the words of the Buddha. That's why I can do this, take liberty. Because I figured, well, you know, I don't want to like be a cowboy about it, but on the other hand probably somebody did it before too. And I was just saying, this was my story, I wasn't saying, this is the sutra, I'm telling you the story. So yeah, there have been changes. But you know, any tradition is a living thing. So it's not as if we're trying to, like, it's all about figuring out exactly what the Buddha said and that's it. What the Buddha said is what we think, right? If we understand the Dharma and what we think and the way that we will translate the Dharma and understand the Dharma in the light of our own time is also the word of the Buddha, really. So one has to, you know, very carefully consider this. On the one hand, you don't, like I said, be a cowboy and make it up. Oh, Buddhism is whatever I say it is. I got here yesterday and I'm as smart as anybody and whatever I say it is, it is.

[61:25]

That's one extreme. The other extreme is unless, you know, I can exhaustively prove that this word was actually spoken by the Buddha, it can't be true. So somewhere in between that, we have a living, breathing spiritual tradition that we are all participating in and this is the wonderful thing. For thousands of years, you know, thousands of years, 2,500 years, people who have appreciated what the Buddha spoke have been trying to understand it and expand on it and show it in its many, many aspects all this time, involved in one conversation, using virtually the same text and the same terminologies. So it's very rich and has many, many aspects and facets to it and people are always with their own hearts and lives, you know, augmenting it and making it bigger and more beautiful. So that's true, I think. So I, like I said, I take these liberties once in a while and I think to myself, well, the Buddha probably would be happy

[62:26]

that I did that. Yeah. A few windows open. Would somebody mind opening a window? Yeah. I was thinking a lot about how you ended your talk with basically the forgiveness of enemies and not carrying a lot of negativity towards people who they obviously deserve it. Oh my gosh. I've recently been going through a lot of personal and business problems where I feel a lot of injustices I'm carrying around, a lot of anger because I feel injustice has been done. Yeah, yeah. And on the one hand, I see the importance of trying to not carry that thing because I'm torturing myself. So if I can sort of not exactly, I can't get around quite to loving my enemy, but you know, just to letting go of the anger a little bit

[63:27]

so that I can just sit back and think about now what do I do? I guess the question I have is, how do you cope with, how do you mitigate the idea of letting go, forgiving the enemy, or maybe not forgiving him but not having anger towards the enemy and still saying, hey, I don't want to wait around until karma takes its effect. You know, I mean, I I've got some injustices going on here, I need to rectify them right now, you know. I don't know, you know, in other words, in the real world of today's business or life, which is a spiritual... Well, that's a great question, you know, because these are the kind of questions that come up in actual life, you know, when you have complicated things going on, you know, things are not black and white, right? So that's a great question. And, well, there's a lot to it, you know, I mean, one thing is, first of all, like, why would anybody start a business in the first place? Why did you start a business? Anybody who starts a business because they want to earn a living, right?

[64:29]

They want to do something righteous, just earn a living, put bread on the table, have a family, a household, and so on, and have a happy life. That's why you do it. Don't forget that that's what you're doing. Whatever it is that your business or your livelihood is, don't forget that that's the point of it. Because what happens to us very often is we subtly move off at that point, and we get into all kinds of, actually, you know, people think that America, Americans are materialists, but we're not really materialists, we're ideologues. Because our business becomes an idea after a while. It becomes a self-identified idea. I'm not saying you, but in many cases, that's what happens. And that's what irks us. In other words, you could lose a lot of money. You still have a home, maybe, and maybe you still have bread on the table, and maybe you still have what you actually are doing this for. But you're going to get caught up in the idea of the business, and the idea of whatever you're doing. So you have to remember that the important thing is that you only want to, you know, feed

[65:29]

yourself and your family and have a home. And that's what this is all about. And don't get swept away in ideas about right and wrong, ideas about fairness, ideas about this business should blah, blah, blah. You know, just remember the basics. Then the next thing is, remember that taking care of your mind and heart is part of being happy, and that's more important than the business. It's actually more important. You really have to, in other words, you have to over and over again return to the present moment and to what's really, really important. Over and over again. Now, we all get into situations in which, in addition to returning to the present moment, we have to do something. You know, I mean, if somebody sues you, or you have to sue somebody or whatever, you can return to the present moment, but then you also have to do other things. So, by returning to the present moment, by remembering what's really important, by being clear about what you're doing and what your goals are and where your heart is, you look at the situation and you see what the possible options

[66:31]

are for things that you could be doing. And whatever it is you have to do, and sometimes you do have to do things that are unpleasant, you do it without hatred. So, without hatred. And it is possible, just as it's possible to hit somebody over the head and knock them down without hatred, if necessary. I mean, if you see someone going to beat somebody else up, it may be possible to grab that person and knock them down. You can grab that person and knock them down without hatred. You can do that because it's your only choice to prevent harm. You're in a situation where this kind of action has been forced on you and is necessary. So, you can take that action without hatred. And the same in this case. If you have to defend your business or you have to be involved in legal battles with people and so on and so forth, first of all, you do what's minimum that's necessary, you try not to be vindictive and hateful, and you work constantly. As much as you work on whatever it is, legal strategy or business strategy, just that much you work on your heart.

[67:32]

And if you see something like, well, I could do this such and such and so and so, and I could win this business situation, but when I look at my heart, I see that the cost of my heart would be so great that I'd rather give up the whole business than give up the whole business, have the courage to give up the whole business. Because it's not about right or wrong, it's about kindness and it's about wholeness. And that's why we have any livelihood. That's why we have a livelihood. So, don't forget what we're trying to do with our lives, and what our real principles are, and then be willing to think. We get into, like I say, these ideological loops, where we get, you know, our mind just starts going obsessively, oh, I've got to do this, I've got to, you know, just return to the present moment, look at it again. And it is possible. I'm convinced that one can be a true Dharma student and also live in this world in a practical way. I don't think these two things are necessarily at odds with each other. I think you have to take risks to be a true Dharma student. You know, I mean, it's a risk,

[68:34]

actually. I mean, the world is all based on being for yourself and not the other person. And so, if you're a person who doesn't live that way, it's possible that you might lose something, sometime. But that's the risk we take for our inner happiness. I think you have to be willing to take that risk. But I don't think that if you practice with your whole heart, you're going to end up giving away everything. Not until you're ready, anyway. Giving away everything and losing out. I think that you can still have a livelihood and still have a life, a reasonable life, and practice the Dharma. And then, you know, several lives from now, you'll give away everything. Someday, when you're a Buddha, you know, hey, somebody says, do you want my business? Hey, here it is. Take the business. It's great. You know, you do better with it than me. I'll start another one so I can give it to somebody else. That's maybe the Buddha like that. But, you know, that's not us yet. So in the meantime, we do our best. Does that help at all? Thanks. Yes. Wait a second. Let me take her question.

[69:35]

Have you determined a date when you're going to give this business and Buddhism class? Yes. Yes, it's in the summer. It's in July. Third week. We've been doing some retreats for people in business to exactly tackle this question. How can there be business practices that are that come from the heart and are really about helping people and come from the precepts of Buddhism we're having? We had one retreat and we vowed that we would continue a series of retreats on this topic, working through the Bodhisattva precepts and dialoguing and sitting together and trying to create a sense of Sangha within the business community. And we're having our next retreat is going to be in July. We're going to do a weekend, a full weekend in July on this topic. And then we'll continue. We'll do it every so often. Hopefully, my hope is that we'll have two or three of these retreats a year and then people will meet each other and then they'll get together and the groups will form and people will begin

[70:36]

to see that this is not only desirable but absolutely necessary. Absolutely necessary. It's not until people start seeing that we have to do things this way that people are going to be a little bit more circumspect and a little bit more courageous in the way they do things. Because we all feel victimized by this steamroller of an economic system that we feel victimized by. And it's not until we begin empowering ourselves and being willing to take some risks and being willing to talk to each other about how we feel about this that things are going to change. It's us that are going to change these things, not somebody in the sky. People often complain about Zen Center. To me, I'll say, who would Zen Center be? It must be you and me, right? It couldn't be somebody else. They say, I don't mean him, I don't mean her, who do you mean? I guess it's us. So I guess it's us as far as this crazy world that we live in. It's us. We're going to have to keep practicing

[71:38]

and little by little it's going to change. Little by little means we've got to have big patience, right? I mean, maybe two or three generations from now when people sit in this room they'll say, boy, our poor grandparents had to suffer so much with that crazy world the way it was then. But I'm glad that they did and helped us to find a way. Maybe. Let's hope. Yes, you. I've been thinking about the law of karma and cause and effect and I was trying to explain this to my parents. They're Catholic and they live in Chile. And I was telling them that I got into the situation whereby you have to think of three lives, the previous life, the present and the future life. And then I went to, I resorted to say, well, we are the way that our grandparents did things

[72:39]

that educate our parents and then their parents educate us. And whatever they did had an effect on us. And whatever we do it will have an effect on our descendants. And it crossed my mind that my grandfather he used to make a party every year for St. George. His name was George to make a party and invite all the family. He's dead now and about 15 years ago and the family, which is now 120 people, gather every day of St. George, every year. And that had an effect in the family because right there we see slides of my grandfather and then all our parents that are small, etc. And we can see that effect in all this family that is going to have an effect on who knows how many people. So I was thinking that if we sort of forgot a little bit of ourself we can explain the law of cause and effect

[73:40]

in this life. And I was wondering if I'm... I think that's good. Sometimes I explain like that too. Because in this Buddhist description of past lives, you have to remember that there is no substantial self. So it's not like reincarnation. It isn't reincarnation where this little person somewhere inside of this body slips out through the ear or something at the time of death and then sort of slips into another body. No, there's no such thing. So the Buddhist way of talking about rebirth is not so far from that in many ways because there is no one who is reborn. This is clear within Buddhist thought. There is no one who is reborn. There is rebirth. There is the energy of a life spilling over into another life. That's like what you said. The energy of your grandfather's life spilling over into other lives down the line.

[74:40]

And what we do is creates energy that spills on to other lives. And other ascension beings are born by virtue of that energy. So that's why whatever we do is important. Whatever we do counts. Whatever we do conditions the future. Now did you want to bring up something? I wanted to just sort of... I had a quick question about what the gentleman over there said. And your response to him was that I heard you say you stand up for yourself and you fight back. Was that? Well, I didn't use that word fight back, but yes, of course. Sometimes like Gandhi fought back. Gandhi was a real fighter, right? But he didn't harm anybody and he didn't hate anybody. But Gandhi was no pushover. There were times when Gandhi for the benefit of people that he loved seeing injustice did things that were extremely courageous and forthright.

[75:42]

Although he, as far as I know, did nothing out of hatred. It was a new term coined actually by Satyagraha. Yeah, Satyagraha. Way of truth or something like that. So, this, of course, is advanced practice. And one of the things that's nice about the center and I hope, you know, one of the things I'm really interested in is making it clear to everybody that for anyone, sometime in your life you should know that you're welcome and hopefully someday you will be able to be a resident in a Dharma center for some period of time, even if it's just one week or two weeks. Because what that's about is removing yourself from all these complicated situations. And there's always been a place like that in spiritual traditions where you take a break from this kind of problems, where you're called forth all the time, whatever your spiritual state is, to have to defend yourself and have to do things. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just completely practice the way and make your life

[76:44]

so simple that there was food on the table and all you had to do was meditate and sweep the floor and, you know, make your bed and so on. Like, that's what we do. We offer that opportunity. A few of us have to run around like crazy and, you know, make sure that the bills are paid and so on. But that's for the benefit of the others who can just be here in a simple way. And all of you can do that someday. And then, that helps you, you see, to learn more about yourself so that you're trained more so that you can meet these more complicated situations. It's very difficult. I mean, what Tony's talking about is not an easy thing. And, you know, if my words to Tony may have been helpful to him to some extent, still, it's not easy. You know, you really have many, and we all have, very complicated things to deal with. And as we understand more in practice and are settled more in our practice, it becomes more and more possible to deal with these things without fighting and without, you know, hatred and so on. But this is not easy. I'm not kidding you. I mean, you know, I know it's not easy. But someday you have the chance to practice more and do retreats and be in residence for a while, whatever way

[77:46]

that you can to practice more and take a break from that situation. Then you can really learn and nurture yourself. Even if you just come and do a one-day sitting, this is a break. During that one day, you don't have to make any decisions, you don't have to make any, no negotiations, nothing. Just shut up and do the schedule. That's all you have to do. And then you can see a lot and learn a lot. And these times when you can do that, and maybe you can do that and come and do it once and then maybe two or three years you do it again or whatever, these times really nurture you spiritually and you grow spiritually and your community of practitioners grows. And like I say, when we get to the point where there's enough of us around, then, you know, this will be a great thing and we won't have such a hard time anymore. When you, when the lawyer and the judge are practicing and your opponent in your business is also practicing, we will work out our differences with a different feeling, I think. And someday I have hopes that this will happen. I don't mean that I want to convert the world to Buddhism because I'm not that interested in Buddhism.

[78:47]

But I am really interested in peace. And I do want to convert everybody to peace, peacefulness and being in touch with themselves, whatever their spiritual way is, even if their spiritual way is non-spiritual. You know, just like some people say, well, I like tennis as my practice. Good. Be a peaceful tennis person. Don't harm others, you know. Yes. Hi, Norman. When you were telling the story of a woman in Marin City and got to the point where you were telling her about you think this other woman is probably suffering a great deal, I know my first thought was good. Yeah, yeah, right. Rather than I'm sorry for her. And that's really a wall I'm hitting. I don't feel... I think I look at my own very large frustrations I have in my life and how to hold the truth of you know, what I feel

[79:48]

and experience has happened to me. You know, lies and betrayals and really cruel behavior. And how not to have... where to find my seat in that. And that part of maybe to try to calm me is a sense, well, I don't have to punish. The punishment's already happened or happening. And I know there has to be something bigger than that than that kind of thinking. And the other part of the whole thing that's connected for me is also with my family. I feel I have come from some pretty dreadful behavior that is continuing. So it isn't just about forgiving what's happened to me. It's happening to five-year-old I go visit. And it's just awful. And in terms of my own taking my next steps forward, I still have a place where I need to remove myself. Coming in attacking, coming in saying this is going on has worked. You know, it hasn't stopped it.

[80:49]

there's that. And it makes me want to completely cut myself from my family, which also doesn't work. I mean, I suffer from that. It's not what I want either. And then the last part that comes in there is when you talked about being able just to sit there and smile pleasantly and say, I feel differently about it. I don't feel I know how to do that without being condescending. You know, where is it I come in and say, this is what's happening. It's harmful. Where it's not condescending. It's not, you know, what some... So it's that combination of how do I receive help where I don't feel I'm being condescended to or how do I offer help that is really respectful and not about, that just more of the same labeling. Well, thank you for bringing up this also deep and complicated question and issue. And I would like to maybe say a few general things about it that may or may not be relevant because sometime maybe we can talk about it in all its detail. Maybe it's just not the time

[81:54]

or place for that. And so, you know, a lot of these kind of situations are about the details and the particularities of it. So I don't know exactly what you're referring to or what is happening in your life. But in general, maybe a few general things that would maybe be relevant generally. One thing is the most important thing always, I think, in practice always is to be honest about what's actually going on with us. This is the most important thing. It doesn't work out to say, I'm not supposed to be thinking that way. I'm not supposed to be feeling that way. They said I shouldn't feel this. They said, I'm not really feeling this, you know, and so on and so on. This will never really work, you know. It will never work. This is what's radical about the way of the Buddha, I think. This is what's really radical about the way of the Buddha. The Buddha says that if you are aware of what is actually happening in all its detail and you just stay with that awareness, it has a kind of miraculous healing power that will eventually take place.

[82:56]

You have to trust that. Don't deny what you're feeling. So if you hear, you know, someone say, be kind and you say, well, I heard that, but the truth is, I hate my enemies. I can't stand my co-workers. I can't stand my spouse. I really don't like them. They're this, they're that. You have to really see that that's what you feel. You have to be with that. So the meditation practice is about making a space big enough within yourself to simply feel and see what you feel and see. When I say simply, I mean not to pick up the ball and run with it. Because what happens is, we immediately see and feel something, and before we even really and truly know what it is that we see and feel, we're already picking that up and smashing people with it. You know, fear and resentment and violence and so on and so on, which we all have, you know, at some time or another, to some degree. Then, and you receive teachings and go into lectures and so on, and you hear about kindness, then you say, okay, so I appreciate how I'm really feeling. I understand that. And I see

[83:58]

that kindness, I'm hearing that kindness is a virtue and is good for you. Let me go in that direction, but let me not deny what I'm really feeling. And let me stay with what I'm really feeling until I have the space to move in the direction of kindness. And if you will stay with what you're really feeling, with the support of meditation practice and of teaching and Sangha, because we can't do any of this on our own. Nobody can do any of this on their own. You need the practice, you need support of Sangha members, you need teaching, all that. Then, little by little, you can see your way into it. So that's where you always, always, always have to start. And, you know, if we're concerned for others, which is another part of what you're saying, if we're concerned for others and we see harm being done to others, or for that matter to ourselves, we try our best to prevent that harm from happening. And we have to think, what's realistic? What can I do? Unfortunately, there are times when you absolutely can't do anything.

[85:01]

You really can't do anything. There are times when there's nothing that you can do. And at that time, you have to hold the harm in your heart and let sincerely wishing that the harm will end, be what you do. When there's nothing else that absolutely can be done. Knowing that, well, if I can't help harm that's being done to you, perhaps if I help someone else, there'll be that in the world. But if there's anything that you can do, you look at the situation and you say, is there anything that I can do? And that I can do, not that somebody else can do. Not that the Buddha would have been able to do. But that I myself, from where I am, given the way my heart is now, what could I do? And then sometimes, you know, there's a risk involved or difficulty involved and you take the risk. You do it. You try your best. And if it fails, you pick yourself up and you say, well, I tried that and that failed. Maybe later on, the same thing will work or maybe something else will work. And I'll keep trying. I'll keep making effort. I'll never forget about this hurt and this harm. And I'll always do whatever I can realistically do to change it and end it. And this could be...

[86:03]

I mean, I can imagine situations, and there are many in this world, in which this is a person's entire life. Right? It could be somebody's entire life of trying to ameliorate a harm and failing. Whole life through, at great personal cost. This is entirely possible. And it happens. And, well, we have to practice with that. We have to face that. We have to go forward and just keep doing our best. There are... Not everything is, you know, joy and dancing. There's problems. And we have to... If our practice does not give us the courage and the support to face those problems, then what good is it? We have to... So, anyway, this is some general things that I can say in response to what you say. And I'm sorry that it sounds like there's great difficulties. I'm very sorry. But also, I think you're very tough and that you'll be able to... I feel that, you know, to do something there. Yes?

[87:06]

Could you tell me again what Angulimala's name changed to and what it means? Harmless. Actually, in the story, his name was that in the beginning. That was his name. And then when he became a murderer, he was given the name Angulimala. And then when he became a monk, he returned to his original name, the harmless one. Ahimsa. Ahimsa, which means harmless. Yes? Behind DJ, yeah. And then DJ will be next. Yes. Yes. Yes, that's the interesting thing about that story. Is that he did become an arhat at that moment. In the days of the... The Buddha must have been a very extraordinary character if you believe in the sutras, literally. Because things like that would happen around the Buddha. You know, people would become enlightened like that, you know, by encountering the Buddha.

[88:07]

Nowadays, it's harder. In those days, those things could happen, I guess. But yes, he did become enlightened. And yes, he had to suffer. However, the suffering that he underwent, he was able to bear nicely. So it wasn't... I mean, there's suffering and there's suffering, right? Suffering that comes to us that we bear courageously and without flinching and moving into is technically not called suffering. It's called pain or grief or whatever, you know. But suffering technically means when we resist and are blind to what happens to us. This is what suffering is. So Angulimala was not resisting and blind to what happened to him. So technically, according to, you know, he didn't suffer in that sense. But there were unpleasant things that happened. As to the Buddha, the Buddha had unpleasant things that happened to him in his lifetime, too. You think the Buddha, you know, why would he ever have a bellyache? Well, the Buddha had bellyaches, he had a backache, he was in a bad mood sometimes. The sutra says, you know,

[89:09]

the Buddha got fed up with everybody and left. I like that sort of thing. It sort of makes me feel better. One of my favorite parts is when the Buddha, the people were fighting, you know, and the Buddha would go around and explain to them, you know, stop this. And they paid no attention to him. Can you imagine? They paid no attention to him. It's odd, right? Even though somebody sees him and they get enlightened immediately, but the monks, you know, pay no attention to him when he says... So finally he got fed up and he said, well, I'm out of here. And he left and he went to a tree and he sat by a tree and then the story goes there was a big elephant king that had the same problem with the elephant herd. So he went also and he and the Buddha sort of spent some time commiserating walking around this tree. So the Buddha also had suffering in his life. Like in the Parinirvana Sutra, when the Buddha passed away he had a terrific stomach ache. I get stomach aches, so I like it that the Buddha has stomach aches. Stomach aches and, you know,

[90:12]

diarrhea. It says in the sutra, you know. Diarrhea, it says. So, yes. But he bore those things with dignity and without just saying, this is unpleasant sensation arising in me and it's alright. I understand that if I have a body these things will happen. And similarly with Angulimala, he didn't escape the karma. I think this story is to teach us that you don't escape the karma of your actions and yet there is a real transformation that ameliorates that karma by a lot. That's the idea. DJ, last question. I had a situation that came up where someone was in tremendous pain and out of that pain fear caused harm to me. And what I wanted to do was just to let that go. And now that harm has increased and is affecting everything including

[91:15]

life. And on one side I want to see that this person is in pain and I don't want to add to their pain. And on the other side I need to do what I have to do to protect myself. And I've got everything from the sheriff's department to attorneys saying you have to take this action. But knowing full well that this action will possibly push this person over the edge or cause harm. Not physically but emotionally. And it's a real struggle. When do you... When is that boundary crossed? At what point would a person have to actually make that choice to do something that they know will actually cause some form of harm to another person? As opposed to just letting it go and then continue to take in whether it be the suffering or the pain and the consequences of that. Well, like over here

[92:18]

this is a very particular kind of situation that you know, the way to practice with it is all in the details of it and I don't exactly know what's...

[92:28]

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