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A Disciple of the Buddha Does Not Lie

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SF-07546

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Summary: 

4/20/2014, Furyu Schroeder dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.

AI Summary: 

This talk explores the theme of honesty within the context of Zen practice, emphasizing its central role in ethical and moral discipline. It contrasts this with the art of deception portrayed in popular media in the mid-20th century, using figures such as George Burns as cultural references. The discussion transitions into examining the legacy of media figures like Rod Serling and the socio-political changes from the 1950s to the 1960s. It connects these cultural reflections to the Buddhist practice of honesty, detailing the importance of the Bodhisattva precepts, especially the precept against lying, as foundational to one's integrity and conduct.

Referenced Works:

  • Dhammapada:
  • This Buddhist scripture is cited in the talk, specifically a stanza about committing to good actions, sustaining a pure heart, and the teachings of all Buddhas.

  • Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond:

  • Mentioned in relation to human tendencies toward maximizing personal advantage, and its connection to historical and current societal behaviors.

Key Concepts and Teachings:

  • 16 Bodhisattva Precepts:
  • These precepts are described as a moral and ethical framework guiding Buddhists, especially focusing on the precept against lying.

  • Three Categories of Buddhist Teaching:

  • Shila (ethics), Samadhi (concentration), and Prajna (wisdom) are discussed as foundational elements of Zen practice.

  • Three Refuges:

  • The talk references the refuges in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, underscoring their importance in Zen practice.

Cultural References:

  • George Burns and Gracie Allen:
  • Used as examples of the cultural milieu of the 1950s; emphasizes the disjoint between outward comedic appearances and deeper issues of honesty.

  • Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone:

  • Acknowledged for embedding moral messages into popular culture, serving as a turning point in public consciousness regarding social issues.

Practical Applications:

  • Emphasizes the importance of mindfulness in practicing honesty and rectifying one's conduct, highlighting how traditional teachings can guide modern-day ethical dilemmas.

AI Suggested Title: Zen Truths: Honesty in Practice

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Transcript: 

This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Happy Easter. My daughter called me this morning and said... All of my friends want to know why I don't know what Easter is. Said, you've never taken me to church on Easter. And I said, honey, we're Buddhists. She said, so. Anyway, happy Easter. I'm going to begin with a quote by George Burns. To be a truly great actor, you have got to be honest.

[01:05]

And if you can fake that, you've got it made. So what I'd really like to talk about this morning is George Burns. He was a kind of a wonderful man. At least so it seemed. And I'd like to tell more of his jokes, and I'd even like to show you some clips of his TV show. But I think I have to stick with our sponsor, Shakyamuni Buddha, and instead talk about honesty, about telling the truth, about not lying. You know, telling the truth is not so easy. And yet, to tell the truth for a disciple of the Buddha is basically the pivotal element in our effort to practice. The whole structure of our practice depends on our ability to be honest, not only about ourselves, to ourselves, but also with one another.

[02:16]

So even though I really do plan on talking about honesty, about telling the truth, I want to start by saying some more about George Burns. I think you'll see how this goes together. Wow. So I don't know how many of you are children of the 50s and had actually watched George Burns and Gracie Allen on TV back then, but he and she were a very funny couple. In fact, I watched another clip recently, and I still think they were very, very funny in a very good-hearted way. They weren't disparaging or disrespectful. I mean, there was things about women that were sort of funny in the 50s that we wouldn't think were so funny now, but I don't think they were intending to be cruel or mean.

[03:20]

George Burns lived to be almost 100 years old, and he said on his 99th birthday, if I live to be 100, after that it's a piece of cake, because nobody pretty much dies after 100. So unfortunately, he didn't quite make it to immortality. Now, I was born in 1948. And much of what I remember of being a child has to do with TV personalities like George Burns. And, you know, they faithfully came into our living room week after week, year after year. And, you know, my family even knew what day of the week it was by what was on TV. Bonanza, wagon train, gun smoke, have gun will travel. You know, these were my dad's favorites. And then the variety shows, like George Burns, Gracie Allen, Red Skeleton, Lucille Ball, who else?

[04:34]

Jack Benny, Milton Burrow, you know. Jackie Gleason. Jackie Gleason. Oh, that's right. Jerry, thank you. More and more. My people. Yeah. And then the new shows, Edward R. Murrow. Walter Cronkite. They were telling it like it is. They told the truth, at least as far as they knew. I think they tried to tell the truth. It was the idea, and I think we believed it, what they said. They were honorable men, so we believed, so I thought. So these people, their style of dress and the way they behaved, in front of a camera anyway, and the way they spoke English became kind of the standard or the style that formed what I thought was the ethical and moral foundation of our society. And I have to say that pretty much what was on TV those days wasn't all that different from what was happening in my living room.

[05:41]

My dad went to work, my mom stayed home, they were dressed in 50s clothing, as were we. We were all white, and so were most of the people on TV. And nothing very serious was talked about. At least not by the comedians. News people talked about serious things, but usually about people and places that were far, far away. Not in my home, not in my town. I had no idea what was going on in my town. Kind of a secret. And in my home, it was kind of a secret, too, because we didn't talk about my sister who was blind. We didn't talk about my brother who had learning difficulties. We didn't talk about the fact that my father's birth certificate was stamped in red letters with the word illegitimate, which I was never supposed to see.

[06:42]

We didn't talk about that. And we didn't talk about me or... You know, why I was so terrified of the dark. It may have had something to do with my sister, but, you know, we didn't talk about it. So what we did, though, is just tried to live together as best we could. And one of the ways we lived together and got along was by watching TV. So what we did most every evening, in fact, every evening, We ate our meals in front of the TV after a while. Little trays. And so, all in all, what I remember of those years was really kind of pleasant. I don't remember so much about what was underneath it all that I didn't know. No one told me. So it was a pretty big shock.

[07:48]

as I think it is for most children when you begin to find out otherwise, when you begin to find out that people lie. Big people. Not just children. I mean, we knew that we lied. But we didn't know that adults lied, you know. Husbands to their wives, wives to their husbands, parents to their children, teachers, priests, presidents. They didn't know. And we also didn't know that they steal and slander and brag about themselves and in some cases they kill. And another thing they do is that they revise history so that whatever we did know turned out to look as though they had really done something good. And parents always do that for their children. They make it look like they and their society is good.

[08:52]

What they did was right. So by the time I was 10, many of those illusions started to peel off. There were some cracks in the story. Deception. And then in 1959, along came Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone. You can hear that little tune now. Now, Rod Serling, as it turns out, was a very moral man. He'd been a soldier during the Second World War, and it killed a lot of people, and he'd seen a lot of people killed, and he was pretty sick of it. And he was very disillusioned. He was also a very good writer. And so he wrote some serious plays and pieces which he couldn't get taken. They wouldn't show them on TV.

[09:53]

The censors and the admin said, no way, this might offend people. Won't buy our products. It's too depressing. So he created the Twilight Zone. And in this format of science fiction, he was able to put on these morality plays that had incredibly important messages about inequality, racial inequality, inequality between the genders and anti-war sentiments. And if you go back and look at Twilight Zone episodes, you can see how clever he was and how he embedded these stories into these various episodes. Wonderful, brilliant. How he got into our homes and into the eyes and minds of the children, like me. I think Rod Sterling was kind of a harbinger that the 50s were coming to an end, and a new era was about to begin, just as my own childhood was dissolving into kind of a rabid adolescence.

[10:56]

And then on November 22nd of 1963, something very big happened to me. I was a sophomore in high school. It happened to me personally, but I know it wasn't just to me. It was a crack of a rifle. Changed my entire worldview forever. And I think since then I've both watched and participated in what is a cultural war for the conscience of not just this country but the entire world. And that war is, I don't think, will ever end. Though the sides are pretty equally balanced. And both convinced they're right. So we're just tugging away. I got home that afternoon. We were all sent home. And my mom was standing at the ironing board. Ironing, which is something she never did. And crying, which is also something I rarely saw her do.

[12:05]

So we sat once again watching TV as the news from Dallas came into our house that the young... Hanson President, had been shot and killed. And it wasn't too long after that, it seemed like, I think back now, a few days later, that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and then Bobby Kenney was assassinated, and it seemed like it was never going to end. And that's what I started to believe. This will never end. And just then, the fires in Vietnam began. And I think our innocence, our childhood innocence for my generation, burned along with it. That was over. The outcome of that emotional assault on me as a child, as a young child, was basically a kind of sequence, you know. And I think it had a lot to do with the layers and layers of lies that I had been told for decades, you know, by well-meaning people, you know, my teachers.

[13:12]

about history, world history, American history. I didn't know, not exactly intentional lies, but not the truth. Maybe they didn't think we could stand it, you know. Can't stand the truth. So it eventually was sort of the case that I didn't really think anything was true. I thought everything was lies, you know. I didn't believe it. what I was hearing. And I kind of solidified into this kind of cynicism and sarcasm and disrespect for my culture, my citizenship. I stopped pledging allegiance to the flag and all sorts of things like that. Anything I could think of to show how much I was hurt. And then I hid away. I said, nah, okay. I just won't care.

[14:13]

That's what I'll do. And that was a lie. I didn't care. I cared a great deal. But it was a good enough lie that I moved myself to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where I decided I'd learn how to ski. It would be my revenge. I'm just out of here. I'm gonna go ski. Unfortunately, I couldn't really ski very well. So I came home to California. I always wondered if I had been able to learn how to ski if I'd still be in the mountains. Probably. It's a beautiful place, Tetons. But fortunately for me, and I think for many of us, George Burns had done his work, and I couldn't forget the promise that his generation had made to my own. Even though it was an act. It was a good one. That you could be good-hearted and kind and generous and dignified and polite and nicely dressed and all that kind of stuff.

[15:16]

It was okay to live a kind of elegant way. Simple. Didn't have to be complicated or expensive. Just with some style. They had style. Anyway. But I think what our generation learned on top of that was that having style, being good people, good-hearted, good-humored people would take a lot of work. It wasn't so simple. It wasn't just in a half hour on TV. It was all day long. We had to work for it. We had to work to be kind and honest, to tell the truth. To be a great actor, you have got to be honest. And if you can fake that, you've got it made.

[16:17]

So I think it may be that for a while we have to fake it. We have to be an as-if kind of person. As-if, you know, I don't know better about some of the things I think, the ideas I have about other people. One of the teachings that my teacher gave us recently was, if you notice yourself thinking something bad about somebody else, just say, I do not believe what I'm thinking about you. I don't believe it. That's a good start. You've got to get the crowbar in there somehow. In between you and your impulses, anger, your distrust, your judgmental mind. But then I wonder, so how do you know whether you're faking it or not? How can you tell? Am I a good person? Am I pretending to be a good person?

[17:17]

Can people tell? I hope not. So in the Buddha's teaching, we are invited to study this question by studying ourselves very closely, very intimately. And we're invited to study one another, to study how we think, what we think, and the consequences of our actions. This is basically the curriculum of Zen practice. And to do this honestly and continuously with no time off for either good or bad behavior. And the reason for that is because how could you take time off from your own awareness, from your conscience? You know what you just did, even if no one else in the room noticed, or if there is no one else in the room. Still you know. You're always there with yourself. And you know how it feels. You have your own little barometer of behavior to tell you, that wasn't so good.

[18:26]

Then what do you do? Forget about it? Or maybe you kind of feel it for a while first. That's our teacher. That feeling we get is our teacher. That's our main teacher, always. So the main direction of our study as Buddhists is, to ourselves, our own behavior. Always about our own behavior. How are we acting? And even though I just said that, I want to tell you a story about somebody else. It actually took place in this room, and it's such a good story that I can't resist. I was standing there in front of the altar, and I had this idea that it would be maybe a good thing to move the big bell, which used to sit over there next to the altar, over about eight inches, so that there would be less of a log jam on the other side of the bell, which is kind of esoteric, I know, but this was important to me.

[19:34]

LAUGHTER You know, I'm the new abbess, so I get to say things like that. This is important. 20 years I've been wanting to move this bell. So I said to my student, I will not name her, although she said it was okay to tell this story. Why don't we move the bell? And she said, no, that won't work. And I said, well, why not? Because I won't be able to see you. So the person hitting the bell has to see the person standing at the mat. I said, well, really? She said, no, really, I won't be able to see you. I said, are you sure? I'm sure. Really sure? Yeah, I'm really sure. I said, okay, can we try it? Okay, we can try it. That went on for quite a while. So then finally, I had her sit at the bell, moved, and I stood at the map, and I said, can you see me? And she said, no. And I said, that's so funny, because I can see you. And she said, no. I can't see you. And I said, really? No, I can't see you. Really you can't? I can't see you. I said, but I can see your eyes. I see your eyes. I'm not kidding. I'm like, I can see your eyes.

[20:36]

You know. How many fingers am I? Anyway, finally she said, I hate change. This is amazing. This is so good. This is an excellent example of what we do. I mean, my poor student had to go blind so they didn't have to lie. No, I can't. I said, I believed her. You can't see me. I believe you. And we will go any lengths to defend our propositions, don't you think? Any lengths. We'll do PowerPoint presentations. We'll get lawyers. We'll do anything, you know, even when we're wrong. just to make sure that we're not wrong. This was a great example because it was kind of benign. We laughed. It was really pretty funny. So this is the sort of thing we want to study. These delicate little movements of our minds in trying to be right about our preferences.

[21:37]

Well, what lengths will we go to to get what we want? Lying is one of them. of the things that we do. I like this word that Stephen Colbert came up with called truthiness. It sounds like the truth. I have truth. So not lying, telling the truth is a very tough kind of mastery. And I can assure you, if you were to take this honest practice, even just for today, you would run into how often it's more convenient or natural or habitual just to not quite tell the truth. Oh, I'll be late. There's terrible traffic. No traffic. Or whatever. Whatever you do to not have to actually say, I didn't leave in enough time to get there. I'm sorry. Just tell the truth.

[22:40]

It's so much easier to remember. You can get caught in lies, you know. I've done that many times. I've lied, and then, you know, a person finds out, and it's worse. So much worse. So, not lying, telling the truth is one of the 16 bodhisattva precepts, which in many ways define our identities as students of the Buddhist teaching. In fact, it says... disciple of the Buddha does not lie. Very simple. Disciple of the Buddha does not lie. That's easy. So I thought for those of you who are new to Zen or aren't so familiar with the precepts that I would start by giving you a little summary of the precepts, the Bodhisattva precepts, and then mention for just a little bit the ceremonial aspect in which we give and receive the precepts We also receive a Buddha's robe, Buddha's name, as we take Buddha's vow.

[23:45]

So we dress like Buddha. We intend to act like Buddha and we tend to speak like Buddha. And that's our practice. That's who we try to be. And I think it's probably always best to talk about oneself when you talk about the precepts because they are in the category of is made up of ethical and moral discipline. It's called shila. So there are three big categories of the Buddhist teaching. This is the first one, shila, ethics. And under ethics, you have manners, deportment, integrity, virtue, all of those kind of old-fashioned ideals that we've all heard from when we were children. George Burns and Gracie Allen version of But as I think you all witnessed, it's so much easier to find and be honest about the faults of others than it is about our own.

[24:52]

But unfortunately, this is also another of the precepts, not to speak of the faults of others, not to praise oneself at the expense of others. So when you do that, then you say you're sorry. So I say I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Even in jest, I'm sorry. In fact, there aren't too many things that human beings might imagine doing to one another, particularly if no one else were around, that hasn't been prescribed for over 2,000 years by the Buddha's enlightened vision of how we really ought to take care of each other. That's what the precepts are. They're telling us very directly how to take care of each other. This is the extraction from the loving-kindness meditation. Let no one deceive another nor despise any being in any state. Let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another.

[25:53]

Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things. Suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around, without limit. You know, it's really lovely to say things like that. I always feel really moved by the language of the sutras, the loving, wise, you know, intelligence of these teachings. And, you know, I think it's even deeper and more meaningful to believe these words. But what about doing them? You know, what would that be like if we could actually do them? If we could be the way that we believe and the way that we feel. I think that's the effort of our practice. To watch over and protect the whole world as if she were our only child, which of course she is.

[26:55]

And we are her mother and she is our child and works in all directions. Our only mother, her only child. It's the matrix. It's like the animal chorus and the Lion King singing, you know, that song. Oh, the circle of life. Simba, they call me Simba. It's so moving, you know, I cry. We all cry at the beautiful sentiments. The one world and the one life. And I think we cry because we know we're going the wrong way. And we can't stop it. We don't know what to do. You know, like a snowball. Running downhill, picking up steam, and it's going faster and faster. We all know. We've heard the news. And where's the change?

[27:56]

How are we going to change it? So I want to name the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. Yeah. We recite these as part of the full moon ceremony every month. We just had the full moon ceremony a few days ago when the moon was full. Did any of you go outside at night and see the blood moon? Yeah? Could you see it? You could? It was kind of foggy here. The blood moon is when the earth comes between the light of the sun and the moon, when the moon is full, and then the moon looks red. So our full moon ceremony, it's very rare, I think six years ago was the last time. So our full moon ceremony this month was the blood moon ceremony. Oh, I forgot to mention the other two categories I wanted to tell you. So the first category, as I mentioned of the Buddhist teaching, is this precepts or morality, ethics.

[29:03]

The second category, major category, is called samadhi or concentration. Attention, awareness, focus. Awake. That you are awake. You know what you're doing. You see what you're doing. You know where you are. You're paying attention. I could tell kids often, pay attention. Are you listening? Eyes on you? So we're trying to learn and teach how to do that. How do you do that? Pay attention. So that's a very important element. what the Buddha taught. And a lot of our meditation practice and our mindfulness practice is about learning to pay attention to ourselves in the present with what you're doing right now. Where are your hands? Where are your feet? Your body is always in the present. You can find the present by finding your body. It's right there. The third category is wisdom or prajna. And wisdom is what results from taking care of others, ethics, with mindful awareness.

[30:06]

Samadhi. Concentrated awareness, taking care of others, that's wisdom. And that's basically the definition of a bodhisattva, Buddha to be. So the 16 precepts begin with the three refuges. The three refuges are simply, I take refuge in Buddha, meaning enlightened nature of reality. I take refuge in Dharma, the teaching about the enlightened nature of reality, and I take refuge in Sangha, all of those who revere the teaching and endeavor to awaken to this enlightened nature that we are, that we truly are. And the Buddha said, what good is it for you to revere me and my teaching if all the while you are violating the precepts? This is not new. This is old. Humans have been breaking the precepts for a very long time.

[31:12]

And yet he went on to explain the precepts are not moral imperatives that you are being given by somebody else who then judges you on how well you're doing them. That's not precepts. I don't know what that is. That's the highway patrollers. The precepts are features of a map that can help us to navigate through the human world. And while we do that, to come to realize that this is actually the Buddha's world. This is Buddha's world, where we are. And it says so right on the map. This is Buddha's world. Buddha's mind showing us where we are. Right here. This is it. Right now. The only thing is, we have to prove that to each other, to each other's satisfaction. You have to prove it to me and I have to prove it to you. That's the only way we can make this Buddha's world.

[32:17]

Because we say so, we see that it's so, and we make it so. It's all up to us. And it starts with such simple little things like, you know, wanting to move the bell eight inches. Right there. That's why it takes a while. We have to work through each one of these things that we are so attached to. Like, I hate change. Me too. I hate change. But I can't stop it. So, what are we going to do? So the map of the Buddha's world also has some pretty basic features that are very easy to read and to understand that even a child could not if you said, okay, here's what you need to do to live in Buddha's world. Okay? Just three things. Avoid all evil, do all good, and save all beings.

[33:21]

That's it. Okay? And kids go, okay. I can do that. And off they go. And they're pretty good, actually, mostly. I'm amazed at kids. They're kind of naturals. They share. They don't bite too hard. Some of them don't bite at all. It's kind of amazing. There was a master named Birdnest Roshi who lived up in a tree. When a famous governor poet came to see him, he asked, Isn't it dangerous up in a tree? Bird Ness said, No, it's more dangerous down there where you are. And the governor said, But I'm the governor of this province. I don't see what danger there is down here for me. I mean, he had a lot of power, he had talent, and he had wealth. Bird Ness said, Then, sir, you don't know yourself very well. When passions burn and the mind is unsteady, this is the greatest danger of them all.

[34:25]

The governor then asked, well, what is the teaching of Buddhism? Bird Ness replied with a stanza from the Dhammapada, not to commit wrong actions, but to do all good ones and to keep the heart pure. This is the teaching of all the Buddhas. The governor said, well, any child of three knows that. Bird Ness replied, a child of three may know it, but even a person of 80 years will find it difficult to practice. So because this practice, this simple practice of the three pure precepts is so difficult for us, you know, because it's in the details. Always in the details. Buddha went on to elaborate the map and the navigational system for getting through the various obstacles that appear as we try to make our way to a truer sense of who we are and how we want to live. You know, things like if I only had more money or if I...

[35:28]

Only we're young again. Stuff like that. Or if only these people would get out of my way. Things would be so much better. So those are the kind of obstacles that we all face. So the Buddha gave us some additional instructions which are called the ten prohibitory or grave precepts. And these are the elements of practice where as the saying goes, the rubber meets the rope. or I think in the modern business jargon, it's where you put your skin in the game. A disciple of Buddha does not kill. Well, that may sound kind of easy, unless you reflect on what you had for breakfast this morning, and I include vegetables. We eat living things. It's how we live. There was a time in the history of when living things did not eat living things.

[36:29]

It was called the Eden Period. There was no predation. It was about, I don't know, three and a half billion years of life. And then they found evidence of the first predators, you know, little drill holes into other creatures. And then the paleontologist said, from then on it's been an arms race between the predators and the prey. You know, we're still in it. We're in the arms race to protect our life by taking the life of another. So a disciple of Buddha does not kill, and then we have a problem. So the problem is the heart of the precepts, that we don't forget and that we're grateful. In order to live, we have to take life. And we don't want to. That's the key. I wish I didn't do this. I wish there was another way, you know. A disciple of the Buddha does not steal, does not misuse sexuality, does not lie, does not intoxicate the mind or the body of self or others, does not slander, does not praise oneself at the expense of others, is not possessive of anything, does not harbor ill will, does not disparage the triple treasure, the Buddha Dharma Sangha.

[37:58]

Buddha Dharma Sangha is the name that the sitting group over at St. Quentin gave to their group, the Buddha Dharma Sangha. Wonderful. Wonderful to sit with them. If any of you are interested in sitting with the St. Quentin Sangha, I think it could be arranged. You could talk to me later about that. So the precepts are basically not intended to trap us in terrible feelings of wrongdoing, you know? Easy to see how you might fall into that. I can't do any of them. They're all beyond my reach. But actually they're intended to illuminate the imaginary boundary that we think exists between ourselves and the other. You know, as if there were a dotted line around the contour of my body and you could cut me up and put me somewhere else. But that somewhere else would be really hard to imagine. You know, without color and light and sound and warmth and friends and pets and, you know, and vacations, I don't know what I would be without the world, without all of this to make me, to make me what I am, what I believe I am.

[39:18]

I need you to exist. We don't exist without other. Other is self, right? I mean, we can think about that and we actually know it. But somehow we imagine ourselves as separate. And we treat ourselves as separate. And we protect ourselves as if we're separate. So being cut out, we think, well, maybe that would be what it's like to be dead. And we're afraid of that. It's just something we imagine, being dead, right? And it's something living beings imagine. We don't know what dead beings imagine. Maybe they imagine us. I have no idea. But it's something we imagine. And we imagine it, and it's scary. It frightens us terrible. It's like an enemy is coming to get us. So out of this great fear, we try to make deals with the universe to protect us.

[40:22]

And to protect our families and a few of our friends, maybe, and our possessions. We cut all these deals. The problem is there are 8 billion of us cutting deals. And it seems like we're going to run out of resources pretty soon. Because we're all trying to maximize our own amount of cargo. I don't know how many of you read Jared Diamond's book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. But, you know, the basic thrust of his his wonderful research, is that we will always maximize our advantage, if we can, over others. If we can get more stuff, we will. And we will hold it, and we will defend it. And we know that. We can see that's what world history is all about. It's like bread mold. It grows as far as it can. And then what happens when you run out of bread? Well, that's kind of where we're headed, I'm not afraid.

[41:26]

I'm going to run out of bread. So I don't want to make this too depressing because I know you all know this story, but I did want to make it clear that it's not my fault. Because I'm only one of eight billion. So it couldn't be my fault. And also, I don't know what I could do about it anyway. Just by myself. So I think this is the challenge for us in our parental roles as stewards of Mother Earth is to figure out how we're going to cooperate together to make a change. How are we going to work together? And this is exactly what the Buddha came up with as a solution 2,000 years ago. Because this stuff isn't new that's going on. There was gender inequality and violence and hoarding and all of the killing. I mean, that's where the precepts came from because that's what was happening. Slandering, stealing, violence, hatred, rape, and you name it.

[42:32]

Always humans have behaved in very bad ways towards each other. And the accumulation of great wealth by privileged few. I mean, the Buddha's parents were the king and the queen. He knew about that. So he recommended a kind of opposite world. Where each one of us, rather than being devoted to ourselves and our own welfare, are devoted to someone else. To someone else's benefit. And maybe everyone else's benefit. That we turn the flow of our ambition toward the welfare of the world. Not so easy. But how do we do that? Well, same thing. We do it by not killing, stealing. sexualizing, lying, spilling toxins on the soil and the air and in the water, by not bragging, hoarding, hating or disrespecting any living being in any state.

[43:33]

It's very simple. It's just not so easy. So this is our primary vow as Buddhists. This is the primary vow to live for the benefit of all beings. to wish well for all beings ahead of ourselves, ahead of myself. I wish the well-being of all of you. I say that, but can I really mean it? Can I really do that? I don't know. So a few weeks ago, we held the ceremony of receiving these precepts here in this room for two people. And just for a moment, you know, I think, I thought, I imagine during the ceremony, you know, that our hearts all kind of open and we can see very clearly all the way to the very bottom of creation itself. And there she is smiling back at us. It's like this great mirror of wisdom where all of us are reflecting each and every one, the other, back and forth.

[44:39]

Prajnaparamita, the mother of all the Buddhas. The great mirror wisdom. Never apart from one right where one is. Right here, right now. We've got it. And we should take care of it. The best we can. So another thing that George Burns said was, the secret to a good sermon was to have a good beginning, a good ending, and that the two should be as close together as possible. Thank you. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[45:39]

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