I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. A few months ago, I participated in a study retreat at Zen Center in the city. It was led by Shohaku Okamura, who is a Zen teacher.

[01:00]

He is the student or the disciple of Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, who is no longer alive. Uchiyama Roshi died not too long ago. but is not alive now. Zen Center has a good relationship with Shohaku Okamura. His lineage through Kosho Uchiyama Roshi and back further than that is a little bit different than the lineage here at Zen Center through Suzuki Roshi. But they're close. If you go back a few generations, it's... the same. So we're not exactly brothers and sisters, but maybe like cousins. The teaching is like cousins. And Shohaku Okamura is an expert on Dogen, who's the person who was the founder of Zen in Japan in the 13th century.

[02:13]

Ehe Dogen. So this study retreat was focused on a work of Dogen's, actually a lesser known work. I hadn't even heard of it before the retreat. Dogen wrote... During his lifetime, Dogen wrote a great deal. And among the things he wrote were 95 or 100, they're called fascicles, like separate works, but then they were all compiled in the treasury of the true Dharma eye, the Shobo Genzo. So this is a work by Dogen, which is part of Shobo Genzo. And the title of it in Japanese is Shō-ho-ji-sō. The true reality of all beings.

[03:21]

Shō-ho-ji-sō. Shō is all, many, various. Ho, dharma, dharmas, beings, things. Ji, true, actual. The genuine so. Form. The true, the actual form. The genuine form of all things. A big title. So. Shou Ho Jisou. the authentic way that things are, the authentic shape and character of people and things.

[04:24]

What Dogen says in Shohoji So is that All things are, these are my words, not exactly his words, but a gist of what he says is that all things have two simultaneous natures at the same time. A limited nature, a conceptual nature, and an unlimited nature. an inconceivable nature. And they occur simultaneously. So this was going to be my example. So this is a stick. And we say this is a stick. You all know what I mean. And it's useful if you're back

[05:42]

Itches. Or if you're angry at somebody. I've never hit anyone with this stick. Anyway, so this is its limited nature. It has a limited nature, and the limited nature is contained, is limited within the concept called this is a stick. It also has an unlimited nature. Many of you are familiar with this kind of idea. You know, if you think, well, who made this stick? This stick is composed of the tree and the person who made it and, you know, the person who made its mother and what she ate for breakfast the day that she conceived her child who carved this stick in 1912 or whenever it was, you know. And if you track things back in that way, you see that this stick has an infinite, infinite, inconceivable creation.

[06:58]

It came from inconceivable causes. If you think about it accurately, deeply. Do you see what I mean? So it's inconceivable that way, and then it's also inconceivable. So it's inconceivable, we say, dependent origination or interdependent origination. It exists in exactly that way if we think historically, but it also exists that way horizontally at the present moment because all of us are exactly the same as this stick. You know, it all comes up right now to create ice. I'm talking about a stick. Stick makes noise like that.

[08:00]

The noise also is conceivable concept. Two taps of wood. And it's inconceivable as... Our new abbot was talking about a few weeks ago. If you hear the bird, where is the sound, you know? No one knows where the sound actually is. There are conceptual answers. Is the sound in the bird? Is the sound in the bird's voice box? Is the sound in my ear, the hammer and those things that happen in your ear, you know, your canals? Is the sound in the chemical that the ear sends to the brain that says, that's a bird? Is the sound in the atoms of the chemical, in the quarks of the atoms, in the strings of the quarks?

[09:06]

Nobody knows. It's completely undullable. We'll never know. They're trying to figure out about strings now. Have you heard of string theory? I was reading a book about string theory. I don't know why they call them strings. Actually, it's supposed to be the tiniest thing you can possibly not imagine. Strings. Everything is made up of strings. So what are strings? Nobody knows. So Dogen didn't get into string theory exactly, but this is the gist of what he was talking about in Shou Ho Jisou, the true reality of all beings. So one of our responses that we may have to this teaching is, so what? Other than being interesting and gives us something to think about,

[10:14]

on a Sunday morning, you know, quarks and strings and such. So what? So what that there's inconceivable and conceivable at the same time, all the time, on all channels, same time, same station. So hopefully I'm going to try to tell you about so what today so that by the end of the talk you'll have a... You'll have an idea, so what, so what. So there's a particular passage in Shōho Jisō that I'd like to recite, partly because it talks about so what, and also because it's another aspect to it that really caught me. So here it is. So two notes before I start.

[11:15]

One is, so this is a passage in a work by Dogen called Shouhou Jisou. But right at the beginning, Dogen quotes another Zen teacher named Shui Feng. Shui Feng was a Chinese Zen master who lived in Tang Dynasty, China. And the second note is that the translation As I said, the Shoho Jiso is a lesser known work of Dogen's, lesser known in the American Zen community, as far as I know it. And there haven't been any translations before the study retreat. I found this one translation. I couldn't make heads or tails out of it. I was like reading. I know those were English words on the page, you know. but I could not figure out what they were talking about at all. But Shohaka Wokamora's translation is not like that, and it's much more clear.

[12:26]

But he was very apologetic because he said he only had a couple of weeks before the retreat to actually do the translation, so he kind of rushed. So the translation is not very smooth English translation, you know, sentences. But the word for word is pretty accurate. And I found actually studying these things over years that sometimes the word for word has a certain power, strength to it, that when you get it into smooth flowing English, it loses that quality. So the passage goes like this. Shui Feng said, The entire great earth is the gate of liberation. But people are not willing to enter it, even when they are dragged. Therefore, we should know, Dogen continues, therefore we should know,

[13:37]

that even though the entire earth and the entire world are the gate, it isn't easy to exit and to enter. There aren't many who have exited and entered. Even when they are dragged, they do not enter. When they are not dragged, they do not enter. Those who take forward steps and enter will make mistakes. Those who take backward steps will stagnate. What can we do? When grabbing the people,

[14:39]

and trying to make them getting in and getting out of the gate, they are getting far and far. When grabbing the gate and putting it into the people, there is the possibility of getting in and getting out. So I've been memorizing this and studying this, enjoying this passage, each delicious word kind of, for a couple of weeks, so I'm familiar with it. But clearly you're not familiar with it. So let me say it again so that you get more familiar with it. Shui Feng said,

[15:42]

The entire great earth is the gate of liberation. But people are not willing to enter it even when they are dragged. Therefore, we should know that even though the entire earth and the entire world are the gate, it isn't easy to exit or to enter. There aren't many who have exited or entered. Even when they are dragged, they do not enter. They do not exit. When they are not dragged, they do not enter, they do not exit. Those who take forward steps and enter will make mistakes. Those who take backward steps will stagnate. What can we do? When grabbing the gate, no, excuse me, when grabbing the people and trying to make them getting in and getting out of the gate,

[16:42]

they are getting far and far. When grabbing the gate and putting it into the people, there is the possibility of getting in and getting out. So what I'd like to speak about this morning is, first of all, the entire great earth is the gate of liberation. What does that mean? What does that mean? It sounds wonderful. The entire great earth is the gate of liberation. What does it mean? And second, the part that caught me is, but people are not willing to enter even when they are dragged. we are not willing to enter the gate of liberation even when it's smack dab right in front of us.

[17:44]

I've developed some expertise in this area of not entering the gate of liberation. Both personal experience seeing others, being with others, I've noticed that even though the entire great earth is the gate of liberation, we don't enter. Even when we're dragged, get in there, go ahead. So I'd like to talk about that second. And then third, at the end of this passage, Dogen opens a little opening of possibility. in this mysterious phrase that he uses when grabbing... First he says what not to do. Don't try to grab the people and make them go in and out of the gate. That doesn't work. When grabbing the people and making them getting in and out of the gate, they're getting far and farther, going further away.

[18:59]

But what we should do is grab the gate and put it into the people. Then there is the possibility of entering... and exiting. So I'd like to speak about that also. So the entire Great Earth is the Gate of Liberation is related to the way things are, sho-ho-ji-so, the true reality of all beings. It's related to limited and unlimited world. The limited world is the karmic world. That sound is karma. Everything we do, everything we're involved in is karma. On March 17th, a little more than a month ago, I had my 60th birthday.

[20:07]

Sixty years before that, I don't know what time of day or night, my mother gave birth to me in Brooklyn Jewish Hospital. I don't think it's called Brooklyn Jewish Hospital anymore. She gave birth to me at a particular time on March 17th, 1947. It wasn't March 18th. It wasn't 1847. It wasn't 2247. It was exactly when it happened. And 60 years later, I celebrated my 60th birthday. The first thing I did to celebrate was I went to the Dipsy Cafe with seven of my good male friends, and we had brunch. I had an omelet.

[21:15]

That's what happened. That's the way karma is. That's what happened. I had an omelet. I didn't have a giraffe. I didn't do something else. I did what I did and we all did what we all did. Most of you were not there. You did what you did on March 17th of 2007. And you did what you did on March 17th of 1947 as well. Every moment exactly happened exactly that way and no other way. There were seven of us, not eight, not fourteen, not two. That's the way karma is. That's the way the limited world is. Things happen exactly the way they happen. And they continuously happen exactly in that way.

[22:20]

The entire great earth is the gate of liberation. The liberation is to be liberated from karma. It's to be liberated from the limited world to the unlimited world. That's the first liberation. It's when we know, when we sense, when we understand, when we deeply know, when we really, really, really, really know. Know is not exactly the right word, K-N-O-W. Because K-N-O-W is also part of the world of karma. But when we get with, in a deep way, that there's something that isn't limited to the Dipsy Cafe, to stick. to eight people. This is our zazen practice.

[23:40]

Our zazen practice is the liberation into the unlimited world. In our zazen, in sitting, when we just sit, our body is here and maybe we have an ache or an itch or a this or a that. And we're breathing and our mind is going karma, [...] karma. Yesterday, tomorrow. Good, bad. Black, yellow, orange, big, small. I like it. I don't like it. Endlessly. Like that. Our mind is going like that. That's the karmic mind. That karmic mind creates March 17, 1947. And everything else creates all of that stuff. Our karmic mind.

[24:42]

Like that. So in Zazen, oh, well, let me say it this way. In Zazen, our karmic mind is going, but we don't get so involved in it. We don't get as involved in it as we usually do. This doesn't sound like much. This may not sound like much, but it's actually a big deal. If you don't get involved in your karmic mind as much as you usually do, you enter the inconceivable. That is entering the inconceivable world. Oh, you let your karmic mind go. You're not trying to stop it. Because if you try to stop your mind, that's more karma. It's like trying to stop something.

[25:44]

You can't stop it, but the same thing. So we don't try to stop our mind from going. It goes, [...] goes. Very busy all the time. Sometimes it's a little less busy. Occasionally. When we're unconscious. Somebody hits us over the head with a stick. But mostly it's busy. But we don't mind. We don't mind that it's so busy all the time. We just don't get so involved with it. So in this Uchiyama Roshi school of thinking, he called it opening the hand of thought. It's a very generous, open way. So the first liberation is, oh, the other important part here is, the other important point is, why it is, the entire great earth is the gate of liberation, is because the gate to the non-karmic life is always and only the karmic life.

[27:09]

There isn't any other life other than March 17th, 1947. other than the Dipsy Cafe, other than eight, other than white, not black, yellow, not red, other than six feet four, two feet seven. There isn't any other world. There isn't any other gate into the inconceivable. The entire world is the gate of liberation, the liberation into this inconceivable world. That's the meaning of the entire earth is the gate of liberation. That's where it occurs. The only place where an inconceivable thing happens is in a conceivable thing, in a conceivable moment, in a moment that we conceive of right now.

[28:11]

So that's why the entire great earth is the gate of liberation. An important note here is that I said first liberation. I'm kind of joking. There isn't a first or a second. But the second liberation is when you don't get stuck. The first liberation is to liberate from karma to non-karma. The second liberation is the liberation where you don't get stuck in non-karma. Which is around spiritual places where you get stuck in, oh, this is just the evanescent passing of my karmic self. I'm not going to worry about that. We're usually stuck in the karmic world, but sometimes we get stuck in this non-karmic world, which is, if we get stuck there, it's actually the karmic world.

[29:25]

It just looks more spiritual. That's when we're above the, you know, we're above it all. There's no such place So there was a particular thing that Okamura Sensei in this study retreat said that helped me understand more deeply this liberation idea that I'll mention to you. And it was what the Chinese characters are that are what we translate into English as suchness. If you read sutras or so on, you'll see the suchness, the suchness of this moment or various suchnesses are referred to.

[30:33]

And I've never quite gotten, what does that mean, suchness? So, suchness is the English translation for two Chinese characters, Nio. I think the Japanese name of the Chinese characters are Nio and Zai. Nyo zai. Nyo means like. Zai means this. Like this. Nyo zai. Okamura sensei said, quoting another passage from another work of Dogen's, a bird flies like a bird. Like a bird. So, the like and the this. The this is the karmic world, the conceptual world, the world of form, rupa, so on.

[31:38]

The five skandhas, that's this. Like is shunyata, emptiness, the non-conceptual world, the inconceivable world, the non-karmic world. Like this. A bird flies like a bird. Or, this is just like me talking. This situation is just like a Dharma talk on a Sunday morning at Green Gulch Farm. It's just like that. Just like that. It's just like you're listening and I'm talking. Unless it's just like you're falling asleep and I'm talking. It's just like that. What that means is it is that. That's this world. It is that. Like that. It's like that. What do you mean like?

[32:41]

Like means it's not quite that thing. It's like it. Just like it. It's identical. It's exactly like that. You see what I mean? Like that. Like this. Nyose. Suchness. So when we speak about something in its suchness, we mean it is, it is. The stick in its suchness is a stick. That's the this part. And it's like a stick. That's the inconceivable part. Laminated to the conceivable part. They're laminated together. Nyose. They come up together. Now there's an important, I don't know if it's a restatement or a corollary of this, important for how we conduct our life and our attitude, which is, there's a small book,

[33:56]

called To Shine One Corner of the World. Some of you, I'm sure, are familiar with it. And this is a book of little vignettes. David Chadwick put this book together of vignettes of people remembering little stories about Suzuki Roshi and things that he said. Suzuki Roshi is the man who founded Zen Center. For those of you who don't know. So this story, so this is a story that Ed Brown related on page 35 of To Shine One Corner of the World, not page 34, et cetera. I won't go through that again. On page 35 of To Shine One Corner of the World, Ed Brown related that on the fourth day of Sashin, which are these Sashins, usually at Zen Center we do a seven-day sashin or a five-day sashin, which is sitting from early in the morning, sitting zazen from early in the morning until late at night, which is generally considered difficult.

[35:04]

In the conceptual world. On the fourth day of such an event, such a sashin, Suzuki Rishi began his Dharma talk, Ed Brown relates. Suzuki Rishi began his talk by saying, the problems you are experiencing now, and he paused. And Ed said, Ed wrote, that he thought that Suzuki Rishi would finish the sentence with something like, will... disappear or are only the insignificant murmurings of your selfish mind. And therefore when you really understand big mind, they won't come up anymore. Or

[36:17]

Once you have attained Anyuttara, Samyak, Samvodhi, they will disintegrate. He thought he would say something like that, as we all would hope. But he didn't. What he said was, the problems you are experiencing now will continue for the rest of your life. That's what he said. People laughed. The problems you are experiencing now will continue for the rest of your life. But we may feel we don't like that. We don't like the problems. we have now. We want better problems.

[37:26]

We want more elevated, spiritually developed problems, problems that would indicate that we're really advanced people, that we're really developed, advanced people, practitioners, you know. Not the kind of problems that we actually have. Which are pretty, I don't know about yours, but are pretty low rent. They're low, they're not really classy problems. They're junk. They're crappy problems to have. You know... Like on the Han, it says, you know, the thing that calls people to Zazen, it says, life and death are the great matter.

[38:38]

Don't waste time. That would be a good problem to have, you know. I am working on resolving the great matter of life and death. That would be a nice problem. Then I, you know, switch us, you know, you're... of the way. But that isn't the problem we're usually working on. Usually we have some problem like I'm anxious, I'm angry, I'm upset. We don't like those problems. We want some problem that happens after those no longer occur. Suzuki Roshi was encouraging us to understand that the problems we have now will continue for the rest of our life.

[39:52]

I don't think he actually exactly meant that. I think it would be okay to say we should act as though the problems we have now will continue. for the rest of our life. We should act that way. We should act that way because the entire great earth is the gate of liberation. There isn't some special place that's the gate of liberation. The entire great earth is the gate of liberation. Actually, right now. even before you have elevated problems, even with the crappy problems that we've got right now, these are the gate. This is the gate. This is where we enter. This is a big emphasis of our school.

[40:56]

We don't seek elsewhere. So it means that we take care of, we deal with our problems that we'll have for the rest of our life that I have right now, that you have. We take care of them really seriously. We don't mess around with them. We don't wait until we get rid of them in order to have really good ones. We take care of the ones we've got just like they're really good ones. That's why I believe, that's why Nansen said, when Joshu said, what is the way, Nansen said, everyday mind is the way.

[42:18]

Everyday mind is the gate. The entire earth is the gate of liberation. So, let me go on to, but... People are not willing to enter it even when they are dragged. So I had a really good story about this, which is... Let's see. There was someone who was staying here, a young man, who had been here for a while. who was a very troubled person. And sometimes people come and stay for a short time or whatever, who are troubled, very troubled person, big emotional problems, psychological problems.

[43:29]

And sometimes that's very helpful to come here and be here. And sometimes it's not. kind of hard to say when it's helpful and when it's not. But my experience has been it is 100% guaranteed to not be helpful if a person is very troubled and they are ingesting drugs. And that was the case with this young man that I'm talking about. So he was taking... I mean, you know, powerful drugs like heroin or that kind of thing. This person was, I believe, ingesting amphetamines. That's guaranteed not to be helpful to them, to the community, to anybody. It's a lot of trouble when that happens. So anyway, this person was here and then they left or they were asked to leave and then maybe they were in the hills or

[44:36]

camping out in the hills and coming in and taking things and so on. So it was announced at a work meeting that if you see this person, they're not supposed to be here, contact one of the authorities, the director or the tanto or somebody. Now, I wasn't at the work meeting, but my wife... and then she told me about this. In retrospect, I wasn't listening. I wasn't listening to my wife. I wasn't... I was... I don't know what I was doing, but anyway, I wasn't paying enough attention to what my wife was telling me. So... That's part one of the story. Part two. So part two of the story is that I live here and I work in the city and sometimes I bicycle from here into the city to go to work.

[45:46]

Which is a wonderful thing to do and at this time of year phenomenally beautiful. At 6.30 in the morning on Highway 1 as the dawn is dawning. It's just stratospherically beautiful. So a couple of weeks ago, I was bicycling. I was bicycling down, just starting. And over where the turnoff is to the guesthouse, there was this big thing on the road. This was a few weeks ago, so it was still pretty dark. So I could see this big shape I did not know what it was. I thought it was a bear. I'm going to be a bear. There are no bears around here. But anyway, it's a big shape. So the flight or fight chemistry started to get going.

[46:55]

I started to get adrenaline in my body. I stopped the bike. I turned on the other light that I had on my bike. As I was doing all of this, it turned out that it was this young man who was getting up from a bow. And he said, Hi, Steve. And I said, Hi. He said, Oh, I was just bowing to your wife, Linda, because I love her. And I don't remember exactly what I said, but something like, oh. And we exchanged a few more words, and I bicycled away.

[47:56]

So I'm on the road, and I had a real slap your forehead kind of moment, like, What was that? This guy was out on the road during the middle of morning zazen, bowing, and then he tells me he's bowing because he loves my wife. Because she's such a wonderful teacher. The entire earth is the gate of liberation. But we refuse to enter it. Even when we are dragged. I was being dragged to the gate of liberation to see. Do something about this, you know. But I refuse to enter it. So I'm cycling along, you know. Anyway. Things did work out when I got to work.

[49:03]

I phoned and nothing bad had happened and subsequently things did resolve themselves. But... Even when we... Oh... So why is it that I didn't do something? You might ask. I might ask. I think it was, well, at one level it was, look, I'm an important guy. I've got people to see. I've got things to do. You know, I'm a psychotherapist, so I have to go and see my people myself.

[50:04]

that I see on whenever it was, Tuesday morning. But actually that's not true because I don't see those people till later in the morning. When I first get to work, I have to wash up because I've been bicycling. And then I usually have a bowl of cereal with soy milk because I've used up a lot of energy. Then I have to take a nap. It's hard to get out. I have to take a nap. I have to take a brief nap. Because I've been using up all this energy. I've been eating. I want to be fresh with the people I see. So I take an eight minute nap. usually eight, sometimes twelve.

[51:06]

If I don't have much time, six. Very helpful. So actually, why I didn't do anything, why I refused to enter the gate of liberation, was because I wanted a bowl of cereal and to take a nap. That's really why. One would have to say, in retrospect. So, The entire great earth and the entire world and every moment and meeting somebody on the road and so on is the gate of liberation. But we refuse to enter. We're not willing to enter even when we're dragged, even when the opportunity is really presented to us on a golden platter. Try this. No, thank you. No, I got to go. I got things to do. So, we could spend a fair amount of time trying to understand why it is that way.

[52:17]

Why are we human beings that way? Why is it that we don't do what we're supposed to do? And we do do what we're not supposed to do. Why is it that way? I spend a lot of time talking about that. Or, for further entertainment, I could castigate myself punish myself, hate myself, loathe myself for being such a foolish person, for not doing what I should do, for doing what I shouldn't do, etc. But instead, Zen practice, the way we approach it is pretty much not paying too much, not really spending a lot of time in either of those pursuits, but rather the entire Great Earth is the gate of liberation, but people are not willing to enter it even when they are dragged.

[53:23]

Then what? Then what? Then what do we do? And this is what Dogen addresses in the last five lines of the quotation that I mentioned to you. He addresses it two ways. First he says, those who take forward steps and enter will make mistakes. Those who take backward steps will stagnate. What can we do? That's one response. And then the second response is, when grabbing the people and trying to make them getting in and getting out of the gate, they are getting far and far when grabbing the gate and putting it into the people, there is the possibility to enter and to exit. So in the first of these two, there's very little wiggle room.

[54:28]

There's very little room. If you take forward steps, and enter. Sounds like that would be good. You'll make mistakes. If you go forward, you make mistakes. If you take backward steps, don't go forward, you stagnate. What can we do? We're always, ever since March 17, 1947, I've been taking forward steps or backward steps. There isn't anything other than forward steps and backward steps. Until the system stops, I'll always be taking, you'll always be taking forward steps or backward steps. Again, this is the karmic world.

[55:30]

This is the world of living. There isn't any other place to go. And if you go forward, what's going to happen? You're going to make mistakes. Terrific. If you don't go forward, what's going to happen? You're going to stagnate. Wonderful. These are my choices. We want better choices than that. Better choices than mistaking or stagnation. But Dogen didn't provide a third choice. He did, actually. The choice that he provided is, what can we do? That's the third way. What can we do? We sit on a platform, a zafu of what can we do? That's the zafu we sit on. What can we do? It's a mystery. It's not something, I don't mean mystery like mysterious, I mean mystery, not something that can be conveyed like information.

[56:34]

There isn't an answer to what can we do that's conveyable as though it were a piece of information. What can we do is our life as we develop it. That's why in Zen practice we speak of the way. This is the Taoist influence on Indian Buddhism. The Tao, the way. It's a way. It's a way, a path. It's not a thing. It's not a stasis. It's a way. The way of what can we do. That was what... Well, let me think now. Yeah, that was what Nansen... When Nansen said, everyday mind is the way, it was the answer to the question, what is the way?

[57:35]

That was... Joshu's question, what is the way? What is the way? Everyday mind is the way. Everyday mind is the gate. So that's one kind of response to then what? And then I'll end just by speaking about this last question that Dogen says, about grabbing the people or grabbing the gate. And it's very parallel, for those of you familiar with it, to the Genjo Koan. When we go forward and realize myriad things, this is delusion. When myriad things come forward and realize themselves, this is awakening. It's almost exactly, it's very parallel. with that, this statement of Dogon's.

[58:38]

When grabbing the people and trying to make them, getting in and out of the gate, they go further and further away. In fact, that's part of this Nansen-Joshu dialogue also. Joshu said, what is the way? Nansen said, everyday mind is the way. Joshu said, can I approach it directly? Can I approach it directly is like, can I take the people and shove them through the gate? Can I take me and go through the gate? And Nansen said, if you try to approach it directly, you're going in the opposite direction. It's almost the exact same thing as what Dogen is saying. If you grab the people and try to make them get in and out of the gate, if you try to make them go through the gate, they are getting far and far. We're just going to go further and further away from this gate if we try to coerce ourselves into it, push ourselves into it. Instead, we should grab the gate and put it into the people.

[59:42]

What does that mean? What does that mean? One thing it doesn't mean is this kind of coercive kind of direction thing. So I think I offer that one way we can understand what it means is is that it means skillful means. Rather than trying to grab the people and push them through the gate, we take the gate and we shape it, we shape it around the person. We give the gate to the person instead of making the person, instead of saying, oh, there's a gate over there, you better get through that gate or you're going to go to hell or something. They don't do that. We say, oh, well, let's see now. What's the right shape gate for you? Oh, this current moment looks like a pretty good shape. How about this? We try to help somebody see how the current moment is just the right gate for them to go through right now.

[60:48]

So as many of you know, my wife has come up a lot in this Dharma talk. I miss her. She is leading, co-leading with my daughter, a peace delegation in Colombia, South America, with about 10 or so Buddhist practitioners, mostly Zen Center people, Zen Center students. So they're down there. I took her to the airport. I took my wife to the airport, Linda, a week ago today. We talked just once briefly about some logistical things. But I pretty much feel no news is good news. And they're meeting with various peace groups and Buddhist groups.

[61:59]

So I was in Colombia visiting my daughter a year or two ago, but I haven't ever been on a delegation. But this is the second delegate. So Linda and my daughter Sarah are leading this delegation, but Linda has been participated in another delegation two or three years ago. And... Many things happened of significance in that delegation, but the one that I want to bring to our attention as to grabbing the gate and putting it into the people is that in addition to the peace groups and people who are working on the conflict there and trying to help people, Peace groups, women's groups, youth groups, theater groups, many different things.

[63:01]

In addition to meeting with all of those people, there was also a meeting with the colonel who is the colonel of the brigade of the Colombian military that is in charge of the area where the peace community is that my daughter lived at So another kind of background piece of information is that the war in Colombia, it doesn't have so much to do with drugs. Everybody uses the drug trade to finance their part of the war. We usually think of Colombia equals drugs, but that's actually just sort of in the background, the drug thing. The war actually has to do between the guerrillas on the left and the paramilitaries on the right, who have both committed... human rights violations and atrocities, although it's pretty clear that the right-wing paramilitaries have done more of that.

[64:09]

And the government is supposed to be neutral, but actually the government is in cahoots with the right-wing paramilitaries. So the reason I'm saying all of that is because meeting with the colonel of the brigade that's in charge of that area would be kind of like meeting with an enemy. So Linda told me about it afterwards, you know, I don't remember the man's name, but he was very proud military colonel who had been trained, I think he'd been trained in the United States. Or maybe you as people down there had trained him. And he was very, you know, confident about his way and the right way and so on. And what was so impressive to me was, first of all, to meet with him.

[65:16]

And second of all, to listen, to listen to what he said. See him as a person, not as the enemy. See him in his fullness. So I don't know if he was able to enter the gate of liberation, but that activity was the most helpful thing, the most skillful thing to help him do that, that could be done, I think. Thank you very much.

[66:02]

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