December 9th, 2000, Serial No. 04011

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good morning
it's nice to see old friendly faces
and new and how many people have not been here
yet
or maybe are not still here
how many of those are you how many of you are they
not really put your hands i wouldn't i want to know one two three four five six seven eight
that's it
nine
ten k or you're very welcome here and unless i'm going to ask you a few questions
the
by the waitresses and that my name is tear and i am
again
i was gonna say i live here i don't really live here lived next door but it's close enough
i don't mean close enough in that way but where however where you thought i meant it
i met close enough you know that i can actually be considered living here be considered as living here
aids
okay so far say it right so i was going to be asking you questions no no no no i was in serious business serious business
i was going to ask you i am going to ask your question so i think i hope that my little preamble here has made people haven't come
haven't been here a comfortable enough to let me ask you a question into actually respond okay
now how many people have only been here twice
so only one more person to the next
okay well any one of you who weren't to respond to me you can respond to me i would like to know why you've come
and then i'm going to ask people who've been here for a while the same questions her so does anyone you want to make a like he passed by saw the big wreck building and wondering what's inside for why i you come in and it's cold outside is how to be warmer in here than out there
a career range of reasons maybe some of your interested in buddhism what's that you said before and some other country or city and he wanted to join us today or oh thank you so much
does anybody want to tell me
why
no yes
while
you do
k s that's great
anybody else yeah

good
did you want to say to me
now
i'm
okay so now the people who have been here now before i mean yeah
before but after those people are after you don't i mean
maybe i should get serious for seventy
the reason i'm asking is because i actually you know we've just some of us anyway
i want to talk i want i'm going to talk to some of you who live here
or not a signed up for the says shane and you did not come and sit in the morning and i want to know i want to have a meeting with you guys because i don't understand what i didn't understand what you have to explain to me what your understanding is of why it would be that during a session and you wouldn't come and sit
so that's gonna be a question for some people here
did that sound to task task test
well that's how i feel about it i can i take i feel that way i don't understand it they'd have to explain it to me because they don't get it because last week we had a really good session to shaders a an extended period of sitting down and looking at yourself
some people don't want to ever do that which i respect some people want to do a little bit i respect that to some people are fanatic about it
so those of us
when you respect
here and to reason why as cancer paste lot of courage to actually sit down and look at yourself so i would morning the people who just came today actually if you're really interested in so-called buddhism
i see it's dangerous to give a talk after session
so called buddhism you can i was gonna say and i will i won't at it for you okay i'll just take it as it is and if you don't ever come back i'm sorry
when anyway buddhism throw buddhism buddhism shamanism okay or and religion sort that out to you know sometimes religion really gets us into trouble
people who were fanatic about religion you know it's causes will do a dualistic and people hang onto their right ideas about things and we get into trouble that way says our religion throughout san
throughout in if you want to if you're coming here what we offer is as a place i almost was gonna say a safe place but sometimes it's not necessarily say should be maybe a little bit safer sometimes and it is but we're just human beings we make mistakes you know
so we hurt each other a little bit sometimes too but we try anyway our effort is till mostly look here and to take responsibility for julio and what we do on this side of the relationship
so if you're coming here he might consider are you might think about this is this is actually what we offer we offer a place for you to come and to stop you're busy for i don't know what kind of life you have actually but to stop and to sit down for a while and looked see
the nature
i was going say i will say the nature of reality but you're looking at we look at the nature of reality as ourself so-called
which is sometimes quite difficult you have to make a little bit of a commitment you have to want to not suffer anymore you have to want to not cause other people suffering anymore
you have to want to actually stop the round of birth and death that has created the kind of world that we have now
that is a threat to human beings because ah ah
time to talk about him because so so fundamentally the earth is so threatened and i also feel now that i'm going to done talking about my
points of view about things i feel like zen center does not enough hold up our end of the are under the peace and i would like the residents to have a meeting in a resident meeting and think about how better we can use the building in a way that's more earth to santa
well i don't think we do it well enough and i don't think that since in her has good enough policies addressing
things that affect the earth
so
lauren
yes
you can them put your suggestions on a piece of paper with your donations and put it in this
the
nothing but in the suggestion rash
i can it you
we have a group here called the said in his tonga and it's very good group for those of you who have a meditation practice at home and would lie to get a little bit more involved in the to advance and i feel closer to zen center we get together
either they get together actually from nine and kind of participate do we run the saturday program yet
sort of we do we can do and then we made it twelve o'clock and we talk and
some we study still waster we've been studying hard search for some time now but we're almost finished
okay
i'm almost here

i'm i kidding i guess but actually
and more more inside i'm not kidding
i'm
i feel like
what we've done this last week is enormously helpful
to the world and to ourselves and ah
and it's effective and this is what i mean by that
some people so here we did we said seven days
which means sit walk sit walk said
service chanting a break for so j breakfast break said
little interval said listen to a talk
sit interval sit service lunch break said
why said t walk stretch
work
said
ah work no interval work
service
eight formerly
break said
walk said gotta sleep
seven days but what happens and seven sipo
it's very interesting for some people it's the first time that they've actually stopped and watched their mind and it's a revelation because for most people work goes up what goes on upstairs in the mind is just this ah
basically uncontrolled
i'm yammering about themselves about other people about what they do yak yak yak ame ame am a blah blah blah blah blah
endlessly on and on ad nauseum on and on and on and on you think when people sit that everything is you quiet and peaceful
au contraire
i have often imagined going down into the zendo which is really quiet and having screens and top of each person
and have on those screens you know the projection of what their prey course the person themselves would be hidden from view
the the screens would be available you know and you'd walk in there and there would be here
test your she is happening everything from you know sexual fantasies to killings of people to you know feeding themselves up and bliss states you know and turns out where everything is all going on in this enda
hi
and meanwhile each person
more and more settling settling settling understanding that all of that stuff's it is going on is not personal
it's not personal
it's just conditioned events arising and passing away and as we sit more and more and more slowly slowly slowly we begin removing our identity with all of those emotion thoughts and settle deeply in the
in the awareness and space like the sky
around where church through which or whatever all these clouds are passing

if my talk i'll make it quick
so the buddha when he spoke and buddha i don't like actually calling in the boot in italia che as i would much rather we say i'm sidharth or gotama because he was a human being so when we did the enlightenment ceremony and yeah that it we we did a great celebration of his awakening the other day
is really such a good cinema and and at the end near the end of it we say homage to shock him mooney buddha homage shagging me but i would have much rather said homage to siddhartha gautama
you know because i i keep that was the person who did that just like all of us
anyway
he taught basically about the nature of suffering
and how to be free of it basically that's what he taught
so today i just wanted to remind you of three points that he made of the nature of our existence the nature of our existence is characterized by three
marks
the first one is that there is suffering there is suffering in this life
we can't deny it
and why should we
the second one is is that everything changes
know if you stop and look you can't deny that we either
and the third one is that there is no
separate inherent self
in any of it
three marks three characteristics of existence
the first ones suffering
i want to be clear about that one
it's like when you get up in the morning
and you think yeah let's say you have a day off you do have a day or day off sometimes is the most difficult day for people but it's really an interesting day because it's on a day off that you can really clearly see the hysterical ness by which mostly we live
what am i going to do with this amount of time i'm going to fill it up and when to do this and that this net net and that's what we call a day off at the end of the day off for exhausted
you get up in the morning and the first thing okay just today i'm just going to lie in bed i can do anything or then there's you have to go to the bathroom uncomfortable so you get up you go the bathroom okay it's little cold when you get up gonna go back to bed get warm fine line there for a while no problem
of a sudden it's like hunger
i'm comfortable again problem get up
yeah to eat he ate great that's good but now their dishes all over the place okay i'll do the dishes correct a bed
and so on and so on and so on basically being driven from one activity to the next activity to the next activity through
trying to be comfortable now i just said that it on a gross physical level but the same thing is to psychologically because when we stop and actually look and sink down
underneath the physical and emotional restlessness there is this sense of
this is
some people can call it anxiety or fear
based on separation wanting to be united
some people would say reunited with the beloved stephen levine and that
so underneath it we have this kind of thirst
of dissatisfaction
that drives us drives us drives as drives us this is suffering this is what the buddha cause suffering
wanting constant wanting
the next mark is impermanence
clear clear isabel everything actually changes all the time
and most of our practice actually
most of the practice that we do is about letting go
in suzuki said suzuki roshi said that real deep understanding of impermanence
no the other way around he said non attachment
is a really a deep understanding that you can't hold on to anything anyway

yeah i'm talking about of general things but they're actually specific to our daily life specifically to our daily life
can we really let go of the ideas we think we are
when people sit for seven days in the zendo
about the third or fourth day depending depending there if usually people are just
kind of beaten into submission a must
you just get he just finally begin to see these things over and over and over and over and over again and the reality of your experience is the dominant reality is not these things anymore the dominant reality
he is simply that you're alive that you breathe you have life you're living and you finally settle into that truth
and begin to allow these emotion states to arise and lead go

and when that happens
when way surrender in that way
and when we meet our suffering and anxiety head on
this kind of spaciousness opens up around it and true people who are who usually holding onto their stuff really tight this experience of letting go brings up kind of a bubble anus and energy that's the at the end of session sometimes hysterical little bit
but when you sit says shane after says shane after says shane i'm sorry to say
this kind of you know joy this this it's not really joy it's kind of like this energetic sort of relief that you're not holding on so much anymore doesn't really happen it so much more even experienced because you're not holding on during your normal life very much
then the third
mark is no self
and if we really pay close attention
to the second one
that everything changes it's real clear that there isn't a one single abiding
unconnected separate
self in there
i know this is an odd thing to tell people because how can that be i mean that's not a that's so much not our experience but if you sit and look if you really sit and look and keep letting go
and letting go and letting go and letting go and letting go
there is no colonel there's no is just an idea of me it's a thought and that thought runs the world and it's because of that mistake
it's because of the holding to that belief that were in the trouble that we're in for some of us both personally as well as the world
so as in a way our responsibility especially the responsibility for those of you particularly who live here that's why i think we should need to have a talk
but also anyone who comes and kind of sniffs around what him in buddhism might be be careful
because once she began looking once you wake up and see what goes on up there you can't go back to sleep
so if you begin
you might as well go all the way
and that takes a lot of courage
and patience
and for those people who have not had like a taste of this little bit of no self or whatever although most of us already have we just don't know that we don't have a cavalier for it
it for a while until we say that the teachings actually do relate to something
patience courage determination kindness
a real gentleness for t yourself when you're facing things that you don't really want to say or admit

some people never get past their karma
and this is a tragedy because it isn't their fault it's nobody's fault however people want to live it's perfectly acceptable everybody exactly the way they are perfectly acceptable
but for those people who are who have kind of heard little bit a teaching and it speaks to you
to the amount that you've heard we must practice
it's our responsibility and as our responsibility to be free of the karma that has been passed to us so that the suffering that we have received stops with us
that's our job
and again really i'm not kidding it takes a lot of courage lot of courage a lot of patience tremendous amount of kindness and n facing our own suffering that is where kindness arise
as from because when we know our own pain and when we made it truly face to face really made it
out of that meeting comes tremendous tenderness
for ourselves and for other people because we now know how much it really hurts
that must be eleven

but i don't mean to discourage you i mean to discourage a little bit because because it does take you know a real effort so people shouldn't start unless they really want to do this but on the other side of that on the other side of that the kind of a leaf
i mean it's a relief to put down the burden of self
as much as we do right every time you do that it's relief and concentration guns being present more present every time you give up a little bit of self more presence and more relief because the self is a burden

i was gonna read you some poems i don't know i ended up being so serious
but

we've got maybe five more minutes or so ten really but i was like to stop early
i wanted to read em
is wendy here
wendy
and i won't read this book
this the kind of sexy bomb and she likes it so
okay
that's it
oh here's one is it just like henry caitlin mirror was a mere be nearby mirabai was a she is an indian she's a an indian woman and it was very difficult for indian and in not native american indians but am

y mira can't go back to her old house anyway she was a poet and she wrote actually was a sub songstress she would sing all over india she just saying in her poems and songs or even to this day sun as folk lots of lots of her palms or son i don't know if this was a poem
we're not been anyway this is when i went to to read
the colors of the dark one have penetrated mirrors body all the other colors washed out
making love with the dark one and eating little those are my pearls and my carnelian beads meditation beads and the forehead strict streak i guess this those are my scarves and my rings that's enough feminine wiles for me my teacher taught me this
above me now approve me or disapprove me i praise the mountain energy night and day
i take the path that ecstatic human beings if taken for centuries i don't steal money i don't hit anyone what will you charge me with
i have felt the swaying of the elephants shoulders and now you want me to climb on a jack ass
please try to be serious
she was wild it
these are palms of people woken up people here's here's a psalm

lord my mind is not noisy with desires and my heart has satisfied it's longing
i'm sorry after to that again flashing lights and pointers lord my mind is not noisy with desires and my heart has satisfied it's longing i do not care about religion or anything that is not you i have soothed
and quieted my soul like a child at its mother's breast my soul is as peaceful as a child sleeping in it's mother's arms
or fathers
richards gonna be a tad
be careful
we're gonna lose here and shoot i'm afraid we're going to lose you as okay we'll lose you for little while but then you have to come back okay
right let's see the great way has no gate there are a thousand paths to it if you pass through the barrier you walk the universe alone
because everything is you don't get scared

praise to the emptiness that blanks or existence existence this place made from our love for that emptiness he had somehow comes emptiness this existence goes
praise to that happening over and over
for years i pulled my own existence out of emptiness then one swoop one swing of the arm that work is over
free of who i was free of presents free of dangerous fear or hope free of mountainous wanting
the here and now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness
these words i'm saying so much begin to lose meaning these words i'm saying so much began to lose meaning existence emptiness mountain strong words and what they try to say swept out the window down the slant of the roof
that's cute that's roomy
maybe a net
you want hear the sexy when
not enough for you are a specific
it's great you know when we are who we are because it's so tasty everybody so different
let's see i have to okay let me look it up
it's by some of you know this because you re abuse to really really a lot
it's called love and it's by am
what's his name and george yeah is for george herbert any for
the patient
okay
love is call love
it's like a metaphor
the

love bade me welcome get my soul drew back guilty of dust and sin
but quick i'd love observing me grow slack from my first entrance in drew nearer to me sweetly questioning if i lacked anything
a guest i answered worthy to be here
love said you shall be he
i the unkind ungrateful oh my dear i cannot look on the
love took my hand and smiling did reply who made the eyes but i
truth lord but i have marred them let my shame go where it does deserve
and know you not says love who bore the blame
my dear then i will serve you must sit down says love and taste my meat so i did sit and eat
it's good point
here's another one boone and die while you're alive and be absolutely dead then do whatever you want
see there's a thing if it isn't based on self likely more likely than not it's wholesome activity based on self more likely than not
it's a partner in suffering
so that's our job
you know we do it better or worse we make mistakes but at least we do our best
so hey i am
hope i didn't scare you away

and though be questions and answers afterwards so if anybody if i did make mistake in my time today please come and clarify asked me so i can clarify