Unclarity. Maybe you might want to actually say unclarity. The fundamental situation in one of these opportunities is self-belief, kind of confusion, crowded perception. From that, come this extreme dynamic of desire, hope, and hope. And the first precept that I'm going to do is refers to basically that I meant with rejection and repulsion, that they're trying to destroy you. You can't bow, but push away that which upsets you, with which you can't soar. Okay. And the second precept, which looks like it's about stealing, can seem to be about desire.

[01:06]

But actually, in my thinking about this period, I don't think it is. I think the third precept definitely is about desire, which I can view with textuality and texturality, with maybe the more precise objects of non-harm. It has to do with the unwholesomeness of the dynamic of attraction. The second priest said, I think really it has more to do with our clarity, with confusion, because it has to do with possession, what possession is. And the wording is, precise wording of a disciple of the Buddha does not take what is not given. I think we need to of the difference. That is to say, it's not about stealing. I think in our Christian tradition, we have a well-developed sense of what stealing is.

[02:07]

Stealing is taking something that belongs to a kind of wealth. And the idea of belonging is accepted. Yes, things you belong to, you know, those of you who are sheep, not live sheep, this is not... blanket, not your blanket, and so forth. And that's okay. The idea there is, yes, that's a kind of given of the world, and that we don't take things that belong to other people. So belonging is accepted as adornment. And our perception, the rest has to do with respecting the validity of that. I've had my belonging to do that pretty long. And we respect our respective perception. Now Buddhism, you see, does not really accept this idea of belonging as an ultimate given or as something that's, in a sense, very real.

[03:09]

And several of the other perceptions, let's say ten, have to do with assessment. Assessment. One later on, in the lower five precepts, one translation is that the sight of the world is not assessing. So, the underlying basis of such a precept seems to be that because the fundamental dualism of self and other is not... supportable, although it's as a tentative or workable relationship in some everyday sense, it's all right, because it's not fundamentally real or valid possession, too, of a self. It's not something that, if it's an arrangement, it's not something that actually exists in reality.

[04:17]

And therefore, It's not so much a matter of stealing, because fundamentally, you can't steal. You have to open the lock. But rather, it has to do with how we relate to one another with respect, which it became reduced. So it says, you don't take things from getting to you. it was a relationship which is rather apart from or different than what belongs to you. And of course, I think originally this... This priest, I'm sure, came from the sects of Buddhist monks being vindictive, so to say.

[05:19]

They basically made a point of surviving in the world on the basis of giving. So there was a kind of artificially set up society, who were supported by a large and light community, and they were supposed to live their lives, well, specifically and voluntarily, by borders. This is a very prudent way to keep the monks honest, because if the monks become off, they discover that the lay people are not good enough. their behavior is not good, they don't eat. For the lay people in this kind of arrangement, they eat each meal. The barbers or the, you might say, the judge and jury is often honest. And these precepts, as I mentioned in earlier classes, some of you may have made, if I play it, you may not remember, but in the literature of the precepts, if the lay people call it

[06:27]

who call the transgression, bringing the attention of the Buddha. And they say, they complain, they praise in the formulaic literature, in which the lay people, something like, grumbled and were upset and chagrined by the behavior of the four-eared monk. They bring the attention of the World Honored One. And they say, the World Honored One, this monk is not worthy of our donations. We don't want to support such a person. And so the Buddha investigates. The investigation phase is preceptive. The Buddha calls the person, talks to him about what it has. Then affirms or denies the existence of transgression and denunciates the rule. point, so that the case law is kind of filled up in that kind of event. So I think the wording of this probably originally comes from the very practical sense in which the Sangha was set up, that Buddhist monks were those who took only what was given to them and limited their life to that.

[07:40]

But when you examine, well, why is that so? Why was such a Sangha set up? I think that you would have to say that the Buddha wanted to exemplify by the lives of the monks, those who devoted themselves to the teaching, that this is the way it is, that actually this is the way it is for all of us. That the things that we use in order to live are... some dynamic relationship to giving or not giving. So there's a lot tucked away in the few words of this precept because it implies, first of all, a certain general attitude on the part of the person trying to follow the precept.

[08:45]

That is to say, you are impelled to examine. What does it mean when something is given? Obviously, of course, we know how this is, but it doesn't directly happen for those cases. So other than that, what does it mean? And that if there is something given, then there must be some kind of giver. of the intention of the gift in the background that produces the relationship of the gift. So, the fundamental idea of the gift is very important here. You know, there's a big article in the Three Months' Co-Evolution Quarterly about the American Indian culture and the tremendous importance of the gift in that culture. In fact, the title of the cover of the magazine there is The gift must always be the idea in American Indian culture that you rule with the gift all the time.

[09:50]

It's hard to get something to you that you can give away. Your status in that society is what's known by how generous you are in it. Interesting, in our society, it seems to be pretty much the opposite. The status in society is pretty much determined by how much money you have. Even the most disreputable or even money somehow in practical terms overshadowed in our society by, well, basically your thing. Your thing, as long as you haven't been caught. And no one reminds you too often where your money came from. You're given the season at the best restaurant. You're looked up to as an important person. So, again, for art, our particular historical circumstances with the Cogsden Reformation and the whole doctrinal basis of the Godly Wars, those who worked hard and so forth, the Kalmans, and the Catholic, which created a kind of society that was very hard for us to reach the back of all of that and look much more fundamentally at a world view, the British world view,

[11:10]

in which the fundamental reality is that no one intersects with any. That shouldn't feel like a tentative, practical arrangement that has no fundamental or actual validity. And it's based on, for the most part, the state inner wrong view of self. So what's being looked at here is the difference between the operation, the dynamic operation in the world, between someone who investigates or investigates in themselves a fixed conception of a soul, a self, a being, or a person, which comes with possession, and someone who is not operating on it. Not that a person liberated from a sense of self would necessarily have to be some sort of naked ascetic wandering around in the snow without even wearing shoes.

[12:26]

This actually was, you know, many of the, if I could just interject here, many of the spiritual experiments which hundred lives and conclusions to Buddhism were performed quite a long time ago, which haven't been performed recently. So, you know, it's as though we were studying science, we were studying physics, you know, but we haven't had a lab in 300 years. And so all we had to go on was, you know, Francis David had done experiment, he had a lot of trouble to use them. You know, so in India there was a very kind of almost naive openness to every possibility of human life. And there were extraordinary numbers of different possibilities that were tried out. And even today, you can find that people won't literally wander around nature. No possessions. Not even clothes. And the climate lends itself to that. And they're kind of respected in a certain oddball way.

[13:29]

But, you know, these experiments were all tried, maybe for several centuries prior to the explosion of spiritual life which occurred throughout Asia and the Middle East and Greece. So experimenting with what does it mean to possess something, towards an experiment that was actually performed and people observed the result, or somebody living their whole life literally possessing nothing. And, you know, the result of the experiment was that, well, you needn't be so literal. That's exactly the point. The point is not whether you actually have the deep mental contentment, but rather what is the underlying subject of the relationship to the world of people and things. And this was, you know, the Buddha's idea of the middle way, that what you should...

[14:33]

live in some extreme literal adherence to these ideas, but rather they should become an inner spiritual reality in which their life expresses. And the other extreme in Buddhism that this was taken to is the, which I've mentioned a few times before, is the rather legendary or made-up figure of Nimalakirti, who was an investment banker, basically, in India. The British merchant was factually wealthy and he lived like a Maharaja. He had, you know, a harem and thousands of service and palaces and so on and so forth. Yet he was a great, wise Bodhisattva because he did not have any attention or sense of possession. His only idea was to use them for the benefit of all beings. So the point comes full circle in Wegerberg is that, in fact, whether or not you possess something is not the point at all, but it's the underlying basis of your relationship to it that's what counts.

[15:44]

I always have to say, or I've come to say recently, that I have to warn people that there's only one Vimalakirti that we've found. The problem with such examples, or such points being made, is that you can always read it and then on as a rationalization of your own weakness. So, another thing that I've discovered in the study of the Vimalakirti is that the Vimalakirti have no disciples. I don't decide. Meemaw Kirti was a great figure to have out there to make the point, but Meemaw Kirti was not able to somehow pass on this particularly unusual way of life that was portrayed. Meemaw Kirti is the basic fairytale figure that probably was branded in China to make this particular point. But nevertheless, I think there should be a dialogue about the issue of procession and how you should live with regard to procession.

[16:58]

It's something that, again, Buddhism did experiments on at all levels. I think everywhere in the negative aesthetic of the New York Beauty was tried out. The conclusions of this long millennia of experimentation is, I would say, in summary, that ultimately no one possesses anything, so therefore it's not what you possess, it's how you possess it. That's point A. And point B is, but that in fact, if you examine closely and rigorously through monastic practice, meditation, what you actually need in your life that this precept actually turns out to be an expectation to live in a fairly simple way. You don't have a vast excess over what you actually need. And I think that that's actually, although it's never written down anywhere, I would say that that's a kind of summation precept at first light.

[18:07]

In fact, one of our old seniors, he used to say that that was his summary of all precepts, was don't harm anything and live a simple life. And I think that the ideal for Layman Ingram, a kind of moderate lifestyle in which you take care of yourself, but you don't accumulate things out of a sense of insecurity or greed, is part of what it boils down to when we say, don't take what is not given. In that sense, we're using the word given to mean you're given allotment as a human being, what you as a human being deserve to have to build your life. And, of course, you might say the fundamental problem of the whole planet is that there's enormous inequity.

[19:09]

Some folks have a good deal, some don't have enough. And it turns out that in studies I've read, in the analysis of the resources of the world, we've thought, well, if there actually is enough to go around, then so. But that it's very inequitably used and inequitably distributed and so forth, and there's no... There's no, you know, overall planetary agreement about how to make oil work very well. There's all these outrageous things about, you know, what percent of the world's population in the United States is of 45% age and so forth. I think that that presents your... You know, to try to ascertain what I need, for example, becomes a very difficult question. Because... At first, if you were to ask me what I need, I could probably lift off many, many things. So to pare that list down and be able to ascertain what you really need becomes a very difficult task.

[20:12]

Well, that's why we should send you to a monastery. That's the purpose of asking whether you're a monk or a layperson. It makes it much simpler to find out what it is that you do because you actually allow yourself to be in a situation where your needs get much simpler. But they become different, too. Because I have spent quite a bit of time in the moment there. My needs become different. They just shift. They shift from the more overt... material thing to very subtle sort of psychological thing so that in a sense you sort of scale back in one way but you veer off in another because all of a sudden you become psychological so I haven't spent probably enough time to get myself rid of those things but I found it sort of an interesting dynamic that the material sheds fairly quickly But then there's a need for attention and recognition and protection, which can become sort of a need in itself.

[21:15]

Well, but those are the fundamental ones, not the material ones. And those are the ones you work on in practice. Those are the basis of what the material needs really are, are corollaries or footnotes to those, of course. And it's the recognition of that that has produced the emphasis throughout movies upon a scrutiny of one's inner life as the basis of life, rather than some outward adjustment which doesn't really reach those things. And that's what you say is very true. The monastic life, quite characteristically, I'm sure this is true whether it's Christian or Buddhist, magnifies tremendously the little irritable details of your life, you know. Some would say you can toss a heart If someone looks at you cross-eyed, it's a topic to discuss. Or the coffee's too strong. The kitchen's making the coffee too strong.

[22:16]

It's a big deal. Or the town, they forgot to give them your hand lotion on a town trip. The details become immensely important in a situation where you don't have very many distractions. Of course, that kind of life reveals to you the extent to which the ordinary distractions and details of everyday life are masking the progressions of these subtle needs which we don't ordinarily confront. So monastic life... In this day and age, most people are kind of bizarre and somewhat masochistic. But those who do it, you know, come to understand what it's about. Of course, it doesn't make any sense to do it at all unless you're in a mode of change, a mode of growth. You know, you might say, unless you're the kind of car driver who's interested in what's inside a carburetor.

[23:20]

Most drivers aren't interested. They just want it to work. But some people really don't want to drive a car unless they know a collaborative skill, you know, very likely to, you know, pull up the hood, take it out, take it all apart, look at what's there. For those people, monastic life is the tool in order to perform that understanding, and it provides you with a very intimate knowledge of that kind of inner workings of our psyche. And a great deal of the access to what to most people seems like a kind of mystery, which is the inner workings that we do in the psyche, really I don't require much more to enter than a kind of simplified grid light, like monastic light, with some long periods during the day in which you're not doing anything. Distract yourself like so then. And then all of this quite suddenly and remarkably powerfully surfaces.

[24:23]

And so of course the the inner meaning of a precept like do not take what is not given becomes much more of a theoretical interest when you live a training mind. And I keep having to point out to people who come here, for instance, without much true knowledge of Buddhism. The kind of life that we're living here is, you know, quite artificial in a sense. It's not the way Buddhists live particularly. People often come to the egos. This is Buddhist. This is the way Buddhists live. You know, they think, well, Buddhists live in this odd, restrictive sort of way. And you're kind of obsessive, compulsive sort of people who can't cope. This is why we're living this way. Well, I mean, true for some people, maybe that's all right. But the basic idea is that this is the way you should live for a while in order to enable whatever life you return to to work better.

[25:26]

And, you know, there are many traditional Buddhist cultures in which the ideal would have been every adult should spend some time in order to illuminate their ordinary life with that kind of experience. So, you know, people... People, even yesterday on the radio, I was still hearing the news commentators teasing Governor Brown for leaving a room with a mattress on the floor. That image has really crept into the mainstream of people's consciousness. They were talking about the new governor's name, whether the new governor would live in Newfoundland. And somebody who was involved was saying, well, we I've never had a governor, probably never will again, that chooses to sleep on a mattress on the floor and so forth. But, you know, Dr. Brown did spend quite a few years in a monastery, changing the kind of person that finds value in that sort of work.

[26:32]

And yet, in our society, that kind of interest is considered to be a bit bizarre, though it's almost not normal or something. It's also very threatening to a lot of people, because it's pointing out that one can live successfully simply. And don't you think that that threatens people almost more? They find it bizarre in sort of a defensive way, in that they don't want to be reminded that because when they're out spending mega-dollars, trying to make themselves comfortable, to be reminded that you can, in fact, be comfortable with very little. Well, maybe at present time, it seems to be. But the point I'm making is that for large sections of the world and for large parts of our own history, That was not considered threatening, it was considered admirable. And so I'm just pointing out that the kind of culture that we're in right now is quite distant from the roots of this kind of teaching, whereas even in our own society, like a few years ago, it would be considered an admirable and rather highly developed form of life.

[27:40]

So our own roots in this regard have become quite distant. And so even in the Catholic tradition, which is one of the foundations of Western civilization at the present time, A person in public life who is attempting in some small way to remind himself or to continue to follow what in one time is the highest form of life of that religion is considered a little bit strange. So we have developed a kind of culture which, far from being skeptical of the idea of possession, almost worships it. that possession is, you might say, our highest goal. Maybe it's the hidden underpinning, you might say, the unwholesome underpinning to what we mean by the word freedom in our society.

[28:42]

It's possession. That you have your possession and no one will mess with it. And that's freedom. You know, you can have your answer, your property, or whatever, and, you know, in our society, it is acceptable to kill somebody. If they enter your property, you can use a plea. That's non-violent self-defense. If somebody enters your property or your house, you have to believe they don't take up a right to kill them. Of course, the circumstances may vary, but you can be... considered the issue responded admirably and appropriately. Whereas for Buddhists, the whole thing, and for, I know, the American culture, the whole concept is a bit crazy, actually, because the idea that one can own land is It's not that you own land.

[29:43]

That's not the primary reality. The primary reality is there's a social agreement for everyone to mutually support everyone else's property rights. What you really have when you own land is an agreement by society to back you up. If anyone threats it, you can call the sheriff or whatever. Somebody empties, we can call the sheriff. Withdrawing them, they'll call them away. That's what it means to own the land in a sense. So I'm not saying that you shouldn't own land or something, but I'm just trying to fill in the background of this idea of what is given or what is not given. Buddhist view would not necessarily be to say you shouldn't own land. In a sense, you can't get away with some practical arrangement of articles of use in society, but rather that one would hope you could have a society which would see through it.

[30:49]

and not see it as something ultimate or final, but rather see it as the arrangement that it is. And to see it as, to see land as not something which is possessed, but something which is beautiful, that is to say, here it is. And one could use it in various ways. You could use it slightly or you could use it appropriately. You could use it that continues to produce that story or you could use it in such a way that it seems to be useful in a very short space of time. And I don't think we should be romanticized in the ancient world or other cultures and think that we're the only society that exploited and used natural resources badly, I think, actually at various times most of the world had. It's, you know, a universal human problem that Buddhism is referring to. And I think it's been a problem for every culture and every age, including to some of us, which I think we did, maybe very few of us, I mean, they didn't have

[32:00]

they would seemingly do what they did to the land quickly. They would slowly advance so that the land was more in the pace of the land itself and so the land would be recovered. So I think the issue that Pat brought up, you know, what is enough or how much do you really need? This is an extremely variable thing. You know, for people that live in caves, it's endless. All you need is a land plot. And you didn't even need warm clothes because many of these yogins produce heat by yogic practice. They could stay warm through the cold just by concentrating. So that maybe you didn't even need, you know, warm furs or something to do without that. So once you start experimenting, you realize there's an enormous range of what is enough. And again, I don't think this precept is necessarily trying to point you towards some standard of living which is considered appropriate, because that may vary a lot depending on your situation.

[33:11]

What's appropriate for a mother may not be appropriate for a lay person, and so forth. What's appropriate for a person in Lorain County may be different than what's appropriate for a person in some other part of the state. But at the same time, the underlying basis of how we relate to the world that we find ourselves in has to do with whether we are relating to the objects of use possessively or non-possessively. So for a Buddhist, freedom is the freedom from the idea of possession. That possession and possessions are considered to be a bondage. So it's almost exactly the opposite of what our secular culture has come to adulate. That to own things or have things is to make worry for yourself. And for others.

[34:17]

And one of the main practical reasons, actually, that monks only think is so they wouldn't have to worry about these. They could travel, wander around, feel quite comfortable. You think everybody knew they didn't have to. Other people wouldn't even allow it. You try to rob us. There's a nice, you know, folktale-type story about men teachers who were, who were, you know, robbed or approached by robbers. They responded, you might say, very freely, if they had so little. Poked him out of the house, came out with an old piece of cloth or something he could have, though I knew he had. The robber was kind of left to be used by the attitude. And I think if you look at both Buddhism and Christianity, that wherever and whenever, historically, the institution of the religion of Adam and Eve acquired these lands and built that precious cloth and so forth, the practice of those following the way has declined.

[35:38]

I think that's barely I should say. Buddhism was able to persecute China. Great persecutions came in ways that there was always a kind of conflict between the various religious streams of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. But the main persecution of Buddhism in 1845 was the Festival, partly because the masses supported it. because they had begun to perceive the institutions of the Buddhist church as their oppressors. They thought it was the generosity of the landed ability that left the Buddhist temples with large tracts of land, which they would continue the landlords of, and tenant farms. And Buddhist monks were exempt from taxes and conscription. So more and more society began to perceive Buddhism as part of the problem, not part of the religion.

[36:43]

And so after that, the older sects of Buddhism never recovered. And the only sects that survived were the Pure Lamp sect, which was the devotional sect, and Zen. And Zen survived because they were rough and ready returned, the reformers returned to the original spirit of Buddhist life and they for the most part lived in the countryside away from the big cities and lived very freely. And so they were respected. They bounced back and took over all of China and encouraged it over. And being newer and being more close to the original spirit of the teaching, So it's very much like in the ancient times, the lay people, in a sense, exacted judgment on the monastic community and engaged in a kind of historical self-correction.

[37:45]

And that, I think, probably happened in the non-Buddhist system. I'm pointing this out partly so that you don't get the idea that Buddhism is somehow beyond British criticism and beyond correction. The institution of Buddhism is composed of human beings, but it is corruptible if it's just in it. So this precept has been adjusted various ways over time throughout Buddhism. And even today, you know, we ourselves here at Princeton are all Christi. being a little bit too fat or too uncomfortable. Some people would feel more comfortable if you lived more through it. Maybe because it would fulfill their ideal, their wishful ideal of how they would like to be somewhat with. Of course, Tassa Harawai is pretty rigorous, particularly right now.

[38:51]

I'm hearing how cold it is down there. live potentially outside. And it's not an easy life. But our city life and Greenville's life is more like ordinary life. And I think that an understanding of discussion of this question of taking what is not given is something that is an invitation to investigate. It's not something that worked out in advance, particularly in our circumstances, because our circumstances are not, have no precedent. And, uh-oh. Again, just like the precept of killing, from one point of view, everything that you get, you take.

[39:53]

And there is no not giving. So what did it mean for something to be given? I don't know. What is there to be had to give? Once you begin looking closely, everything that you have is something that you have to take. So what does it mean? This is the issue that Precept brings up. If someone, for instance, criticizes an center and says, you have too much, you've taken what is not given, At what point do we decide that it's the right amount? When is it? I mean, actually, anything that we have, something that we take from somewhere is something. For instance, we're given donations. You give us donations. Where does it all come from? Probably, if you traced it all back somewhere, somebody took something out of the ground, killed some sheep or cattle, and he took something out of it.

[41:08]

You know, somewhere or other, the roots of all wealth, something is taken. So, the question of what is given is not something that's decided by God or by... some arbiter somewhere, it's something decided by you yourself. You yourself have to make the decision in each situation about what's your, what's your taste from the world in front of people. And again, this, this just as a first precept, this has kind of a metaphorical or interpersonal connection too. And it relates to the next precept, which has to do explicitly with desire, and that desire is related to its own human beings, having to do with giving, taking, in a relationship with someone else, does what we receive of someone, whatever it might be.

[42:14]

Is it something that's actually been given, or is it something that we're who are grasping at or taking on the person without their permission, without their voluntary consent. Well, this is the issue. I was expected to do no more today. I produced the issue for you, but I hope that you have something to endorse it. Could you do it for us? Yes. I did very well. Is there any kind of corollary about the act of deceiving? It seems that people do not make what is not given. The deceiver is sort of left out of the exchange. You know, what's the attitude towards the deceiver? Can you give what it offers? Can you take any kind of bond without desire? If you have to, what do you do with the deed?

[43:18]

I like the idea of exchange. I think the, I think the concept of exchange, the material being as a medium, that I don't stick to, somehow characterizes the relationship. But we discussed this earlier in what I read about, Well, it's probably not emphasized because that's the easy part. I mean, it's expressed negatively, but you're not to what's not given. I suppose you can equally as well say we see it greatly what is given. But that's rather easy to do in comparison to the other. So I suppose the emphasis is on uh, pointing out what the, the, the aspect of the relationship to avoid, if it were, by not being involved.

[44:24]

Uh, obviously, if something is given, then gratitude is, is one of greatness. And gratitude is, uh, first sign of something opening up, which is to develop. Uh, gratitude, you might say, has been fundamental It's not something you have to develop. Gratitude is, you might say, the ground thought of human existence when it's not covered over by anything else. And this is something which is not easily demonstrable unless you happen to meet someone who's fundamentally hurt or grateful by it. Oh, if you, if you, there's that book, movie by Ted Rosen, called How Can I Not Be Adopted by a Man, it was quite healthy to suddenly discover that.

[45:24]

And because he didn't possess anything, like his most cherished possession, I think, was in the process of being lifted away, what he suddenly experienced was remittance and gratitude. moment, which he very eloquently talked about, and he found, this is, I'm talking about this kind of empirical demonstration at the point, what he found is, whenever the doctors started telling about some new treatment they heard about or came up with they wanted to try on, he found that sense of gratitude vanish and get very depressed. When he thought there was some actual hope that he could survive, in a conventional sense, of a human being. That's what's there of when you don't have anything else on your mind. So you might say it's natural. We have this odd phrase in our mule chant, one of these mule chants that you can practice, the natural order of life, which actually is that

[46:38]

Baker has made it up. It doesn't really mean the original thing. The exegesis kind of came up with it. The exegesis accepted it. And it means something like a mind of gratitude, a thankful heart. I think it's a mind characterized by a realization that everything is given. Nothing belongs to you or can be taken for granted. Everything is a gift or something to be grateful for. So that maybe could be the parenthesis next to the reject. You could say, do not take what is not given. In the parenthesis, you could say, everything is going to be great. But I think the one we need more is do not take what is not given. In ordinary life, that's the one that we tend to stumble over. And it's about to come to the state of mind as you can maintain of actually feeling grateful for everything, including... You know, there is an idea in Buddhism called mudita.

[47:49]

This is just an example to show you how difficult this is. Mudita is a word with no English equivalent. There's not a word for it in our language because, you know, one has words to think you know about. We don't really know about it, but mudita means... means... To experience joy, the good portion of another. And it means, and it's bringing it home to you, what it means is if you work with a colleague at an office and they get the promotion you wanted, what you feel is a tremendous sense of joy about their good portion. You see, we don't have a word for that. It doesn't come up. Like nourishing. After we were talking about nourishing, like, important that we nourish. We nourish ourselves and others.

[48:52]

And that's important. And once we've nourished something, it seems like that's the important thing. Yes, I think that's true. It's a rather broad word, but it doesn't necessarily mean, you know, you could also speak about, you know, breakfast cereal duration, so... you know, it's kind of a study about the use of the word, we don't have a precise vocabulary or that particular state of mind, but I think in German there's a word, to rejoice with something, or to rejoice at someone's joy. And, curiously enough, English sees the lack of this concept of a specific kind of vocabulary.

[49:54]

But the, the, uh, That is actually not considered the highest form of gratitude. The highest form is that you don't feel anything special. It's called equanimity. This is something that immediately people have some reservation about. It's what sometimes is translated as detachment. And We don't like attachment too much. But you should be able to feel your gratitude. Having learned this stuff a great deal understands the twist that these things take. And the gratitude that you're aware of is not perfect. I mentioned last week the subtle quality of spiritual pride.

[51:00]

And what I've said about, you know, Kent Rosenthal doing great works and so forth is good, but from a yogic or, you know, subtle spiritual point of view, there's something a little bit imperfect about it. But the most perfect form of gratitude is one that you're not even consciously aware of, have no special idea about. I know a few years back there was this poster that was very popular I showed a little boy on the beach with his arms outstretched, looking at the sunset, and he said something like, the natural state of the human mind is ecstatic wonder. I never felt entirely comfortable with posting, although it seemed to express the zeitgeist of the moment, that kind of thought that was going around. Maybe we needed that kind of... message at that time.

[52:01]

But you know, this is not, would not be an expression of a fully developed mind from a Buddhist. This would be some preliminary stage. Because the natural state of mind for a Buddhist is not anything particular. And something quite ordinary, actually. Something with no special content. And ecstatic wonder is, you might say, a conditioned or repetitive state, too. And gratitude is, as such, a repetitive state. So, the highest form of non-possessiveness is what we call the peg shot, which, again, has no exact equivalent in English because upesha, which means something like equanimity or sameness or evenness, even-mindedness, we talk about the whole thing, even-mindedness.

[53:11]

It's an even-mindedness which is produced by meditation practice. It's not just a kind of temporary lack of desire or interest in something, but a fundamental a grounding in the unconditioned, which is not affected by anything. Or you might say, affected by everything equal, more active. So, even-mindedness means a kind of affective resonance with the whole world at once. As Fr. David said, people often ask him about celibacy. A Christian would ask a traditional question. Again, celibacy is something that doesn't have much to press on. But he said that in a strict sense, celibacy means to be in love with everyone without any narrowing down to anybody in particular.

[54:14]

That's why it becomes an unconditional kind of affection for everyone if you don't narrow it down. And that if it's not that way, it is the true... celibacy. I don't know if he would agree with me. But anyway, this is very similar to, I'll keep saying it, this is very similar to, I think, what Buddhism means by nature. It's a kind of even-minded warmth that emanates in all directions without influence, without barrier. And I would say it's the fullest expression or resolution of this precept of not taking what is not given. That is to say, you experience everything you need as a gift. And because everything you experience that way, you don't notice the gift quality of anything in particular.

[55:18]

It just looks like everything else. So the actual effect of this kind of attitude when it is lived is one of quite complete flexibility. There's a whole string of technical terms in Buddhism that all need something like quiancy. There are six of them that are often used to express a wholesome state of mind or a thankful state of mind. And they refer to the ability of something to be stretched or hammered or chained or stripped. It is to say that one's consciousness is able to take the shape of whatever comes before it. And so sometimes the awakened consciousness is likened to a mirror, and the mirror reflects whatever is in front of it without changing.

[56:35]

And you might say the ordinary mind of A more closed person is like a funhouse. You have the ability of curvatures, you know, to bend everything in the long way or something, so that things are going to bend like a gravitational field in towards some deep-seated sense of possessive selfness, which... is really not, in its root, have much to do with material possessions, as we've talked about. It has much more to do with the details of your life, your personal relationships, your decisions, your judgments, and so forth, than it has to do with how many TVs you have. Yes, you had something to add. Well, it's like, I guess, it emanates from Frederick David. But he was talking at one point about gifts.

[57:39]

Yes. And he was saying that sort of everything is given. And there are sort of three aspects to gift, acknowledging, accepting, and sharing. And I think that, yeah, I think that's quite weird. When he said, he realized that every breath is a given gift. And the process becomes very quick of acknowledging each moment, the newness. And a few years of sitting and reflection and trying to follow these practices, I think the insight can come home to you. It's not that difficult, particularly if you are well prepared for it and your life is led you that way.

[58:42]

And I think that if you continue that insight and try to bring your life into accord with it, that's also not so hard. But then the real work begins, which is, what do you do about the world that you live in? and the fact that this way of life that you're trying to follow is not understood or shared by not even the insight which underlies it, then you have some real problems that are not soluble exactly quite the same way as one works on oneself. So this is part of what being a bodhisattva means, is that you don't think of your own practice as finished as long as that world exists.

[59:45]

You don't ever come to the sense of, oh, I am now finished. I will now relate to the unfinished world. That would be a kind of subtle return of a sense of self-worth. the attempt to devalue. And that Buddhism did tend to, because of its emphasis on withdrawal and meditative trance and so forth in India, there was a tendency for that kind of attitude to creep in, natural enough. And as a corrective, there was a corresponding notion, which became stronger and stronger in Buddhism until it pretty much took over, which is that but the terrain or domain of your spiritual work is every, not just yourself, or to put it another way, the boundary of yourself extends to every self. And that by including or acknowledging the incompleteness of our world, spiritually speaking,

[60:49]

That's the only authentic way to preach your own practice, to absorb the suffering or incompleteness of every being. And the actual test of these precepts really doesn't fully emerge until that's the terrain in which you're trying to apply them. So, what do we do about the fact that almost everything we own or have is stolen? One way or another. Buddha, it's big. He's ruckled out. All the, you know, or his water, you see all the Greek ideas are stolen. It's out of context.

[61:52]

And, um... you know, um, if you, uh, if you trace the origin of the source of many of the things which we take for granted in our life, you know, it's taken from us. And what do you do about that? Becoming a negative ascetic, uh, doesn't really help it at all. In fact, it's, uh, it may actually, uh, decrease your opportunities for being influential. But it definitely was tried, and it may still be an option for some people. On the other hand, if you just go about your life in a complacent way without examining this thing, that's not going to do so well for you. Yes, sir? One of the things that can really help is that somehow you change.

[62:54]

It's like the people, the services that they are in, they don't have it. So, like, where is the living for us? It might be a reason that they want to feed or, like, whatever they need. So you take something, like, sometimes you've got to give them anything. The Theravadas, you know, take these precepts quite literally. And I read recently that in England there's a Theravada group of locations, not Sri Lankans. And they have a little... I'm using this as an example of what she said. They have a little... the explanatory flyer they give to visitors to the monastery. And one of the things it says is the monks are not allowed to ask for anything.

[63:58]

So please be sensitive to that and, you know, try to know, anticipate their needs because the rule is they're not allowed to ask for anything or whatever. So if you don't give them anything, they'll just sit there, be cold and be hungry or whatever. And, you know, we don't follow such an idea literally, but still, it's an interesting idea. And there is, in a sense, a practice of that, that you wait for something to be offered to you. And if it isn't offered to you, well, just accept the situation in which it's not offered, and you don't ask. The problem with taking these precepts to that kind of literalness is that it makes you think as though you're following the precepts. Well, anyway, it gives you the sensation of completeness. And in a sense, you see, the bodhisattva path emphasizes the reality of the incompleteness of this situation, including the precept.

[65:13]

The precept is not complete. And even if you don't ask for anything, even your breath, still, there's still some level in which you can't follow the precept thoroughly. But it's an interesting practice. I sort of remembered just... They also, following the more detailed precepts, there are things like a monk, a charivate monk is not supposed to be in a room alone with a woman. And so they have to be chaperoned by somebody else. There has to be another person present which I'm not sure if that really needs to be so in our age, but maybe at the time. So they have these elaborate rules about when women come to the temple, they have to have this rather elaborate social setup so they can actually talk to the issue speaker.

[66:23]

You're not allowed to be alone with them. It makes it sound as though these monks are rather dangerous people. Well, it actually emanates more from the latter, that there's a kind of Indian cultural concept that then created that women are the dangerous side of the pair. And women are sort of uncontrollable. And you have to keep them at arm's length. It may have been a vast projection of the man's own trauma. But you find throughout the literature of some of the communities of Vient, a sense of worth. We'll talk about this more detail next time. The third one we said of what The third precept literally, again, says no wrongful use of kama, which only sense organs, and there are six of them. But that's almost always been interpreted to mean sexuality.

[67:26]

But literally, it simply means your eyes, your ears, your nose, your tongue, your sense of touch. your body, and then sexuality would be a kind of subcategory of that. And then the sixth one would be the mind organ, which is your brain, your synchronic apparatus. These are the six senses. How I refer to all of them. And next week, we're not quite finished yet. Oh, yes, we are. I'm attending to have us discuss that one. which brings in the whole question of celibacy and the understanding of sexuality, marriage, and all that. It's just a rather complex subject, and it's one of the areas in which the Zen Center has made the most experimental adjustments to the tradition, although what we're doing is not unique.

[68:34]

It's an unusual adjustment which remains to be seen how well it will work. My mind is jumping back and forth in hopes for this culture. It may be that the discrepancy or the incompleteness of these efforts were noticed by the electorate to probably be the first to hit that. But, you know, I don't... They were looking for something. [...]

[69:38]

They were looking for something. They were looking for something. They were looking for something. with authority and authenticity, or else you may be better not to use it. I mean, it's true, if your basic life is quite conventional, having some little corner of your life which you publicize and set it is not really going to wash in the long run. Maybe the example of female activity is destructive, because female activity didn't make any effort to disguise the fact that it was a rich layman, a rich banker, He did everything exactly the way a person in his brank station would do. He even went to cabarets and brothels and racetracks and bars and everything. He did all the things that everybody did. And the point of it was that because his actual consciousness was quite pure, he was actually not pushed around or moved by any of that, and therefore to be a very effective Bodhisattva.

[70:45]

And one of the dramatic episodes have to do with the gods bringing flowers down on the assemblage that are around. And the flowers stick to the robe of all the gods. monks, you know, and they ghost it, but you want to cure it. And the most... There's a rule, you're not supposed to have any adornment on your body, you know, trying to knock out the regular rule, and being like, here it is, you know, fine. He's very relaxed, and he says, you know, what's the problem? The point is that, you know, his consciousness was not involved with it at all, so they weren't sticking to him. Another very funny thing about having to do with men and women is... A car has come to talk to one of the bugs in the assembly.

[71:52]

Shariputra is a real... Shariputra represents in Buddhism a kind of uptight monk. And Shariputra is always being lectured to by these wiser, broader beings. Always, you've got the rule. This goddess, you know, a white being, you're a woman, you can't be a Buddha, you know. You know, so he says, I'm not either a wilderness or a man. My mind is not either masculine or... So he says, oh, come on. So she magically transforms his body into her body and her body into his body. So she looks down and he's got her body. She's got his body and she says, well, now what do you think? And he doesn't know what to think. And it's a kind of... a little morality play about the... The Buddhas actually could not have anything to do with whether you're a man or a woman.

[72:59]

It has to do with a level of consciousness which is pre-sexual, you know, transsexual. And Viva Kiri Sutra is one of the few pieces of literature that actually makes it explicit that most of the others don't. And the underlying message there is the same as the former story about the flowers, that the bodhisattva mind is based on this radical or far-reaching equanimity, which is not limited by any concept or any category, and that These precepts are descriptive viruses concerning the shape and appearance of this mind, actually, rather than behavior rules.

[74:03]

And maybe we'll leave it at that. Here's the gel that makes it. And next week, I have no special reading story this week, but next week we'll discuss the next. I think we're close to that. Okay, perfect. Three officially speaking things. It took a long, long time for the acceptance of that method of progression to build up. So in the same way, the idea of dharma, or of a way, or the Tao, some underlying principle of the way things go, is something which I think is rather hard for us to have a sense of. Maybe we find that it offends our sense of individualism or freedom or something. We feel that we should be free to create our own dharma.

[75:08]

We shouldn't be under some constraint of some other thing. But that's a little bit like saying we should be pre-applied. You know, they should be creative to apply. And there's no reason why we should be restricted from that. And, you know, the reason that we don't think that is because, you know, I suppose somebody tried once in life. That was all the fermentation that was necessary to determine if not something that the average person should really attempt. The equipment simply wasn't there. It's not in the dharma then for us to be able to apply. And in the same way, there are certain things that we'd very much like to have be the case. For instance, we'd very much like for all human beings to be wonderful and good and behave where they should when they don't. And, you know, really one of the starting points of Buddhism, practically speaking, is that one has to get through one's head the fact, the inescapable fact of

[76:16]

which means really that human beings don't intrinsically have it together to behave very well unless they're trained. We do not come out of the womb finished. And this is, you know, the dharma of our particular nature, the kind of consciousness that we have and the kind of beings that we are, is that we are not finished beings. And there's some special work that we need to do in our life to complete our potential, and this is called practice. Again, in oriental society, the idea of living your life without a sense of practice, in traditional society anyway, is rather bizarre. I mean, it would be like not being human or being like some aboriginal hairy creature.

[77:22]

But I think for us, our image is more that as much as possible, we should live free from all restraints or limitations to do what we want to do. It's just a very different idea. And, you know, I think maybe others have mentioned that in Chinese and other languages, there is no word that corresponds to our English or our Korean. Because it's not an observable fact of those cultures. Rather, there are words like being in accord with or the feeling of being one with the Dharma in a way that you feel. Your inward feeling is you feel good, you feel at peace. You have a feeling of freedom, but you don't have some arbitrary ability to do whatever you want to do. I mean, I think for Americans, freedom includes the ability to throw a tin can down, just leave it there.

[78:39]

That's part of what we think it's, you know, maybe that's on the edge, now there's some renewed interest in trying to, but you know, the initiative that's up is really to try to legislate that by greed, basically, you know, by making it um, valuable monetarily, we're hoping to change people's behavior, rather than, I think, you know, in Japan, it's much more the fact that you don't have a law about it, that would be kind of absurd, but rather you simply train your children to pick, and no one throws things on the ground, just shameful. You know, you go put things in the trash can, which would be considered low class, to any degree, to just throw something down the street, you know, because someone else had to pick it up and You know, so it's incorporated within what you just grow up with. If you wouldn't defecate in your pants, you know, in our culture, that would be considered, you know, pretty weird.

[79:45]

You would think that as an adult. I mean, I think we accept it like that. I don't think any of us would consider that to be, you know, a rap... You know, it all has to do with where you draw the line. But the idea of dharma is more that real freedom or real liberation really means to find a sense of accord with the dharma that's all around you, which requires practice. You can't just do it instinctively. So, again, part of what it means to take refuge in Dharma is to be willing to hold, to expose your own presuppositions about this. And a kind of attitude of radical questioning that can expose these hidden assumptions that we all live with.

[80:56]

It partly means also to be willing to question the assumptions of the society, which require a certain energy. And it makes Buddhists, particularly in the West, rather like not exactly necessarily in accord with the dominant assumptions of the society. I was going to say, Buddhist is revolutionary, but that may be going a little too far. But certainly, to be a Buddhist in the present circumstance, it makes you a little bit radical, because you're operating at the level of basic assumptions and questioning. And as you can see with the next one, which is Sangha, you end up, through this experimental investigation into Dharma, you end up inevitably creating a somewhat different kind of society called Dharma.

[82:13]

A society which is based on principles of Dharma. Yes. Well, I think that the ethnic culture in New Zealand is not guided as well, if you actually look at the question, if you look at the inertia of the culture. Well... The Dharma stuff is absolutely golden. There's more to that culture. Sure. Yeah, an entire society can be, you know, completely going in the wrong direction. That could be possible. No, not to put yourself in accord with what the trade in Buddhism called the foolish common people. And, you know, this isn't a phrase, it's actually a technical term.

[83:20]

And it means, you know, just ordinary folks that don't have much sense of anything, and they do all kinds of things that you had best ignore because there's not much consciousness in it. So you align yourself in Buddhism with... a vertical and horizontal society, a vertical society of the lineage or the predecessors of those people in each generation who have seen through the foolish common people and their doings and come and go. And that they are the society that you align yourself with or try to do accordingly. And horizontally, in your own society, you ally yourself or align yourself with those people who are committed to some kind of conscious life. And naturally enough, yes? The only thing I understand is to be able to function within that society while you're in a sense aligned with the different societies.

[84:32]

And there is a problem with that balancing. If you have to function Every day, 30 people would put you down. And there was an expectation. Yet, in a sense, you're lowering up to, I think, your fundamental weight of people, and you're going through the downfall. Well, that's where the whole idea of Sangha comes in to help you, because the Sangha traditionally, and I want to start with talking about the traditional institution of the Sangha, the Sangha has never been an exclusive club of some kind in which there's a wall. There's never been a wall in which the Sangha is separated from the society. And on the whole, the history of Buddhism has been in the direction of breaking down the wall to whatever extent it existed, rather than building it up stronger.

[85:39]

I'm talking about the idea of the bodhisattva vow, living in the world and saving all beings, therefore. I would say that Buddhism started out with more of a sense of a wall than it later became. came up with. There was more of a sense initially of the world being, the ordinary world being a dangerous place for spiritual practice and then one should in some way retreat from it or minimize your contact with it. This tends to emphasize the monastic vocation. And that's what monks and nuns do. And early Buddhism tended to uphold the monks and nuns as the exemplars of those who seek dharma, and everybody else as being somehow compromised. More and more, I think, partly at the pressure from the non-monks and nuns of Buddhism, who didn't exactly go along with this idea, there was a different movement in Buddhism, which maybe was parallel to it, which was more in the other direction. to treat the Sangha not as a refuge from this deluded society that you are in, but rather a refuge for the whole society.

[86:53]

In other words, it was ultimately there for the benefit of everyone. And of course, for it to function as beneficially, it had to have some function, contact, and role within the society, that is to say, it had you participate in the society to a great extent. But the advantage, the critical advantage of the Sangha for an individual is that it gives you refuge, it gives you a place in which you can, the inevitable conflict and tension between the kind of effort you're making to live a more conscious, developed life, and the inertia of the society at large, which is always threatening to pull you down from that, the Sangha gives you support to maintain yourself. And if you look, for instance, at Zen Center, where have all these people come from?

[88:02]

Who are all these people? I mean, how did they all get here? Well, we don't really talk about this too much, but in fact, the fact that Zen Center exists and is fairly well known, not only in the United States, but even in foreign countries now, means that from everywhere, people find their way here. And whether or not they stay any length of time or not, the mere existence of such a place and the fact that there are people maintaining an institutional continuity of Buddhism is extremely important in people's lives. I'm sure you would probably admit that in your own life. The difference between now and 25 years ago when there were only a few scattered books that you'd find in the way in the metaphysical bookstores. and a few other mysterious exotic things, you know, and now there's all these proliferation of actual Dharma centers where there are people trying to live the teaching.

[89:15]

It's just a whole different thing. And already I think you can say that the You know, 20 years in the time span of Buddhism is not actually very significant yet. But still, even in 20 years, I would say that the founding of all the Buddhist centers in the West is beginning to have an impact on society at large as well. But it's very difficult for an individual to do much. Most the individual can do is is join his or her energy with a sangha, which can then have sufficient impact to... So you relate to the society at large best, I think, through the sangha, rather than... You know, people often talk to me about how difficult it is for them as Buddhists, or feeling some affinity with Buddhism, to try to figure out how to cope with

[90:21]

your work situation or something, and where other people are not that. And I am expecting, actually, the kind of thing we'll probably talk about as we go on in class. But I wouldn't attempt to raise your hopes too high on that score. There's not a whole lot you can do, really, as one person. Just, you know, you against the world, but through the support structure of the Sangha, you can do a great deal. You know, five or ten people together as a Sangha can do a lot more for themselves and for others than those same five or ten people each operating alone out there. There was a question. You know, going back a little bit, um, you think of the Oriental culture and Indian, the things you like doing yoga, the culture is so old and there's so much confirmation that after a certain time, the moment you feel the confidence you have to quite a bit of exercise, but to feel it for a time, to get in touch with it, whereas in the West, you have a new world and it's more open.

[91:39]

to, um, critical possibilities. It's quite, quite a large niche, you know. I mean, there are these things that can really carve out people from the process. You know, whereas we're sort of learning about yoga because, again, because, um, the population is so, Because we're a kingdom constructed, basically. And so, recognizing our constriction also recognizes our need to build up the other. Well, European culture is pretty old, isn't it? For a couple thousand years. I mean, I suppose you could think of various explanations for the difference. I think, you know, probably the simplest explanation is as good as any, which is that it just didn't occur to us, I mean, It's something that has to... Yeah, but of course in ancient India there was lots of, there weren't many people, it's a huge country. It just, you know, there's many possible explanations.

[92:58]

You know, one possible explanation which may not make us feel so good is that there is some racial difference, you know, that those cultures and, you know, genetic stocks had some more affinity to yogic experience. We're coming around to it a little bit remedially.

[93:18]

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