Good morning, everyone. And especially good morning to the young people who joined us this morning for the talk. Let's see. I'd like it, David, if you would pass these around and see that I hope each of the young people can take one of these cups and I'll tell you about it in a minute. Just in case there are any allergies here, I'll tell the parents and then you can... There's a couple of cheese crackers in there and a couple of chocolate chips and a couple of raisins and a slice of dried apple, I think.

[01:10]

If anybody's allergic to any of that, take it away. So I want to ask you, I welcome you here today and ask you, do you like doing live? Do you like being alive? You do? Well, then I want you, if you've got your mom and your daddy here with you, or your mother or father, this is more polite, turn around and tell them, thank you for my life. Okay? You do that? You know, if your mother and father didn't decide to have a baby, you wouldn't do it. So they gave him your life. So that's a pretty big present. So you should say thank you.

[02:12]

Can you do that? Well, maybe when you're all by yourself, you can remember to say thank you for my life. Because it's a big deal. You know, I didn't... I didn't understand that life was a gift. I was 63 years old when I found that out. I had a heart attack and I didn't die. And I thought, wow, I'm alive. I could be not alive. Oh, wow. The rest of my life was just a gift. You know, it always has been. So I'm very glad that I'm alive.

[03:15]

But, you know, by the time I found that out, I didn't have a chance to tell my father that I appreciated it because he had died of it. But I got to tell my mother. Anyhow, I want you to see what it's like to be alive. For example, so there's a few little tasties in the cups there. You want to eat one of them and see if it tastes good. And if you like the fact that you can taste it. And the cracker, if you bite it, you can hear it. And if you look in the cup, you can see it. Pull it in your fingers, you can feel it. Well, it's all because you're alive. So go ahead and, if you want to, eat some of that stuff.

[04:17]

If you don't want to, you don't have to. So this fact of life being a gift, Discovering it has made a huge difference in my life. And I heard a little bit of the other day that yesterday's history, do you know what history is? History is the story of what happened before now. And tomorrow is... Life... Well, future is a mystery because we don't know what's going to happen. So that's what this little ditty says.

[05:20]

Yeah, yeah, that's a mystery. We'll find that when we get there. what's going to happen. So, this is what he says. Yesterday's history, tomorrow's the mystery, to build the drift. That's why they'll call it the present. Oh dear. On? Where? On? I'm sure I remember who's losing the time now. So I ran across as I was preparing for this talk. You may have noticed that gratitude is big on my list of things I appreciate. I talk about it a lot since that discovery because I found that

[06:25]

knowing that life is a gift, that every moment of life is a gift, has made it so much more enjoyable for me. I could not be here to have this experience, and I'm so glad I'm here. So it just has changed the way I feel every day. And as I've mentioned before, an emphasis in Tibetan Buddhist practice, in Tibetan training of monks, an emphasis on gratitude. And there's this verse of gratitude that I ran across in my files. Oh, at some point I discovered this and then I forgot it. But it's often said, and I think, again, in the Tibetan tradition by monks, Lapur Dharma talk. In gratitude to my mother and father who gave me life.

[07:28]

In gratitude to my teachers who have shown me the way to understand and to practice. In gratitude to my friends who give me guidance and support me on the path. In gratitude to all beings in the animal, vegetable and mineral world who sustain me. That last part, we often don't think about that. We don't think about how our life depends on everything. Everybody supports us and we support everybody around us. So we depend on the air to breathe. We depend on the sunlight to allow the leaves to make oxygen for us to breathe. We depend on the soil, on the ground, just the dirt in the ground.

[08:32]

You know, if we didn't have dirt in the ground, we couldn't grow things to eat. So everything supports our being alive and we support everyone around us. And so I encourage you to be grateful for that opportunity. And maybe you've heard enough talking now and you'd like to go play some. Is that okay? Thank you for coming. And I think that Doug is going to be with you now in the lounge. Don't forget, when you get your parents alone, don't forget to say, thank you for my life.

[09:38]

Okay? Quit squirting their ear if you don't want to say it out loud. practice period is focused on the Four Noble Truths. And I know that you've heard a lot of talk about them there for the last several weeks. The last of the Four Noble Truths, as you know, is that the first is there is distress. There is unease, there is dissatisfaction in life. Dukkha is the word used in Sanskrit and it's been translated as suffering from early on by early Christian people who were exploring what Buddhism was

[10:58]

But I think distress or unease or dissatisfaction is a more precise rendering of the word dukkha. But anyhow, there is this unease, there is this distress, there is this dissatisfaction or suffering. So that's the first noble truth. It's just, if you look at your life, you notice that happens sometimes. There's also joy. There's also satisfaction. But we are prone to want things to be just a little bit different, to be just right for us. And so it cuts into our joy. Where this would be great if it were just a little different. So there is dukkha. And there is a cause, dukkha has a cause, this is the second noble truth.

[12:04]

The cause of dukkha is said in Buddhism to be, well it's sometimes said self-clinging, it's sometimes said thirst or A thirsting desire, because thirst is very strong when, you know, if you really need water, it's a big urge. And so this thirsting desire is the term that's used for the cause of suffering. And the third noble truth is there can be an end to Dukkha. And the fourth noble truth is about the path. the end of dukkha. The Eightfold Noble Path. And I looked up Eightfold Path in the Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhist Terms and it says the path leading to release from suffering

[13:20]

the contents of the last of the four noble truths. The eight parts of the path are one perfect view. Now, you often hear right view, but that gets tangled up in English, you know, right and wrong, you know. So you think of right view as distinct from wrong view. Lama Govinda, who was a German Buddhist who went and spent most of his life in Tibet. The last few years of his life he lived here in Miller Valley close to Green Gulch and we took care of him. But he translated it from the Sanskrit as perfect view rather than right view because the literal meaning the term is more like complete the Sanskrit word. It's more like complete.

[14:22]

So perfect is a better rendition of it than right. Sometimes nowadays I hear people in the insight meditation community use wise view instead of right view. But in any event what jumped off the page at me was in talking about perfect view So the view based on the understanding of the Four Noble Truths and the non-individuality of existence. And that seems to me to be a very much more accessible term than emptiness. So it might help you to understand what emptiness means. the non-individuality of existence. That is, we are so interconnected and interdependent with all that is, that each being is not somehow a separate freestanding entity, but is part of the web of life.

[15:39]

So I really appreciated Non-individuality of existence. The second on the path is perfect resolve. That is, resolve in favor of renunciation, goodwill, and non-harming of sentient beings. Renunciation, goodwill, and non-harming. So this is perfect resolve or wise resolve. Perfect or wise speech. The avoidance of lying, slander, and gossip. In Durban Zenji's Four Methods of Guidance for the Bodhisattva, the first one he says is kind speech.

[16:42]

I mention that because kind speech is, it says, of rodents of lying, slander, and gossip. But that doesn't, I like the connotation of kind speech. It's not just that you're not lying and you're not gossiping and you're not defaming anyone, but you're actually being kind with your speech. Perfect or wise conduct. The burdens of actions that conflict with moral discipline, that is, keeping the precepts. And perfect livelihood, or right livelihood, or wise livelihood. The burdens of professions that are harmful to sentient beings, such as slaughter.

[17:44]

Sletterer, hunter, dealer in weaponry or narcotics and so forth. So non-harmful livelihood. Perfect or wise effort is cultivation of what is karmically wholesome and avoidance of what is karmically unwholesome. Effort has been a big... Understanding right effort or wholesome effort or wise effort or perfect effort has been a big focus of my practice from early on because the first time I heard it was when I heard a talk by Suzuki Roshi when he said Zen is making your best effort on each moment. Forever. I thought, wow.

[18:45]

Okay, that's what Zen is. So I just, that was, that in my mind, that's what Zen is and that's what I tried to do. But he also said, you should practice with no gaining idea. No grasping, no gaining idea. And I saw those two things together and I said, What kind of effort do you make with no gaining an idea? Gee, every effort I've ever made in my life has been to get something. To get A's in school, to get my mother's approval, to get people to be my friends, to get, I don't know. But making your best effort on each moment forever with no gaining idea. just to do it because that's the way you want to express your life. I noticed this morning one of the servers came into the room with real energy and determination and really moved through the room and it just energized the whole room.

[19:56]

We have breakfast in the Zendo on Saturday morning and I noticed how for me it just invigorating the whole experience of having breakfast in the Zendo, to have someone moving with that kind of energy. I think that also is, I mean, technically speaking, right effort or wise effort or perfect effort is to not do unwholesome actions and to do wholesome actions. to I think the way I've heard it is to make effort to avoid the arising of unwholesome actions that have not yet arisen and to relinquish unwholesome actions that have arisen and the effort to initiate wholesome actions

[21:02]

that have not yet arisen, and to continue wholesome actions that have arisen. That's sort of the first sort of technical description I read of what is right effort. When I say right effort in the Four Noble Truths, what is right effort? Well, that's the technical description in the Abhidharma of right effort. So, if you see some action based on wholesome motivation arising the first right effort is to notice it being mindful enough to notice oh this maybe this aversion is arising in me and I'm about to say something unkind to see it arising and not not feed it not allow it to arise or if it's already arisen and the unkind speech is out of your mouth to stop it, apologize for it, and let it go.

[22:13]

Or if you feel an impulse to do something beneficial, to add energy to that impulse and act on it. or if you're doing something beneficial, to continue. So the effort is both to kind of nip unwholesome activity in the bud before it's, you know, spilled out into your life and caused a big mess that you have to clean up now, and to encourage the arising of wholesome activity. and when it's arisen, to keep going. You know, keep making your best efforts. So this is sort of the whole matter of that of right effort. I can't get out of that right thing, you know.

[23:19]

It's so, you've heard it for so many years. But I do think wise is better or perfect. So, perfect resolve. Resolve in favor of renunciation, goodwill, and non-harming. Well, I think, you know, all of us have had enough experience to notice that we really do need to put some energy into renouncing bad habits. that spring from aversion and having renounced them we have to work at it because even though we have strong intention old habits keep pushing us around and

[24:26]

Even when we've noticed that the old habits are not serving us well, you know, if you do something unkind, you know, what's the saying, what goes around comes around, the current result is not something you really are eager to entertain. So... The attention, you know, first the resolve to relinquish unwholesome action and then the attention to notice when an impulse might arise so that you can say, not today, thank you. Been there, done that, didn't like what happened. Learn from my experience. Wholesome actions. Actions that are beneficial are appreciated by everybody around you.

[25:31]

When you do something friendly, people enjoy it. And they're likely to do something friendly back. When you do something unfriendly, people notice it. They don't like it. They're likely to be unfriendly back. So how do you want to live your life? It's up to you. It's not rocket science, you know. If you focus your attention and your intention on taming some of your less beneficial tendencies and on cultivating some of your more beneficial tendencies, you will appreciate it and so will everyone around you. So... Of course, I'm speaking a little bit against my no-gaining-idea thing. There is some thought that life might be more pleasant if I were more careful about how I lived it, if I paid more attention to how I lived this life.

[26:45]

If this life was a gift, then it's up to us how we live it. Kobenshina Roshi was a wonderful, wonderful young monk who came to Passahara to have Suzuki Roshi establish a monastery there. He came from Aege, one of the head monasteries of the Soto School in Japan. And he had been, he had had the job there of training the new monks who were training in the monk's training hall. And at that time, probably most of you have heard of the kiyosaku or the stick or the encouragement stick that's sometimes used in zendos to help people stay awake or to help them if they're restless to settle down.

[27:47]

The kiyosaku was being used rather and peerlessly in the A.H.G. monastery when he was there as a monk in training. And when he had completed the three years of training that monks often do at A.H.G., he was asked to stay on and take the job of being the trainer of the new monks in the training hall. And he said, I'll do it if I can do it without the Chosaku. I can train them without the Kiyosaku, and then let them do it. So, some of the people that Suzuki Roshi had sent to Oheiji to train, worded back to Suzuki Roshi about this monk. He was, you know, quite well known among the monks. It was kind of a refreshing approach to their training, and they appreciated it a lot. When we got Tassahara and wanted to establish monastic training there, Suzuki Roshi asked for Koban by name.

[28:56]

Can you send Kobanchino over here to help train, help set up, you know, teach the monks here at Tassahara the traditional monastic practice? And he was a wonderful, wonderful person. And he was talking one time in a sashim that he was leading down in Mountain View. He said, you don't use the precepts to achieve your highest image of yourself. Don't use the precepts in that way. The precepts are the first... Let's see. I wish I'd thought... The precepts are the first something of Buddha's mind in the world.

[30:07]

And he said, when you realize... how rare and how precious your life is. And how it's completely real responsibility how you live it, how you manifest it. Because that's such a big responsibility that naturally such a person sits down for a while. It's not an intended action, it's a natural action. So how you live your life, what kind of effort you make, what kind of intention you gather to sustain your practice is all your responsibility. But how you live your life will also have a great deal to do with how you experience your life.

[31:17]

So do you know if you talk about right effort a lot? And talk about, you know, this making your best effort on each moment forever. which somehow that forever sort of made it stick in my mind so that I kept coming back to, is this my best effort? I keep coming back to this, is this my best effort? Okay, so the next of the Eightfold Noble Path is is perfect livelihood or wise livelihood. And that's just choosing a profession that does not cause harm. I mean, aside from just our immediate actions causing harm, is the work that we do beneficial?

[32:29]

Is the way we support ourselves beneficial? I was having lunch with someone the other day and they were remembering The way-thinking mind talk. We have often new, in a practice period, students will give a talk, which we've called the way-thinking mind talk, where they'll talk about how they came to practice. What were the influences in their life that led them to Zen practice? I've given a number of them, and you know, each time when I'm preparing it, something new will occur to me that So each one of my way-seeking mind talks has been different. It's not like there's some set thing that we can know was an influence that led us to practice. And I have discovered over the years, oh, that teacher is someone who led me to practice. When she said, you know, early in my life, during the Depression in 1932, in fact,

[33:37]

My county high school that I was going to closed. It ran out of money and the school just closed in March. And so my parents put me in a private school. It was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And the only private school was a Catholic school. And my teacher was Sister Mary Catherine Flynn. And she was so sweet and so kind. And what was... What I remember years and years later was how devotional she was, how devoted she was as a teacher. And that spirit of devotion really landed in my body somewhere because I find that it's very, very moving to me to be with someone who's so devotional.

[34:38]

It happened again 50 years later when I met Choshin-san, a Japanese Buddhist nun who came here to teach us how to sew these robes, the okesa, the rakasu, that we sew when we're preparing to receive precepts. And she also was very devotional. She, it was her feeling that the Kesa is, every Kesa is Buddha's robe itself. And she was, what does she know? Every Kesa is Buddha's mind itself. And so she was making Buddhas when she was making robes. And that devotion I could feel in working with her. And some years later I realized, oh, that's the devotion I felt in Sister Mary Catherine Flynn as well.

[35:39]

And I found out by happenstance at a Buddhist-Christian intermonastic dialogue that she was still alive in the infirmary at a convent in Coleman, Alabama. I got home from a conference and I got a plane in Birmingham and I went to see her in Coleman. I was so glad I did. And I walked in the room and she said, I'm sure the person that I talked to who told me about her still being alive in her convent could only have told her that the name of this person was Blanche Hartman. She didn't even know my maiden name. So I walked in and she said, Blanche? nice to see you. How's your sister Margaret?" It was 60-something years since I'd been in her second grade.

[36:44]

Because we were the only Jewish kids in a Catholic school, so probably later on. It was wonderful to see her. And although she was almost immobilized, she was, as you can see, quite clear. And it was great to talk to her. But that quality of devotion is really, really appealing to me. All right. So the next one is perfect mindfulness. Keeping your mind and your body together so that you're aware of what you're doing when you're doing it. This is completely the key to the previous one of keeping the precepts.

[37:52]

If you are aware of what you're doing while you're doing it, the precepts are in you. They're not some rules that are out there. The precepts come from inside us. We know if we're paying attention when we're about to do something that is going to cause harm. And we'll feel, if we're paying attention and being mindful, we'll feel some hesitation. check it out watch your mind when some oh anger is arising or some ill will is arising just watch watch that energy and say oh this is the time not this is what right effort is this is the time not to feed this unwholesome energy that's arising in me but to notice it Relinquish it.

[38:53]

Take a breath. Step back. Not give rise to unfolds and actions. So rent mindfulness is very, very important in keeping the earlier stages of the path. And then perfect concentration. This is just a kind of a quick overview of the Eightfold Noble Path, but I thought I would at least introduce you to it, and I'm sure that Jordan will give you more of a dose of it in his classes and lectures as this practice period goes on. I think the most important thing I'd like you to take home from this talk is the gratitude, the verse of gratitude.

[40:13]

And, well, maybe to... share with you a Mary Oliver poem which I've shared with you before. My work is loving the world. Hear the sunflowers, there the hummingbird, equal seekers of sweetness. Hear the quickening yeast, there the blue plums, hear the clam deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young and still not half perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The Phoebe, the Delphinium, the sheep in the pasture and the pasture.

[41:19]

which is mostly rejoicing since all the ingredients are here, which is gratitude to be given a mind and a heart and these body clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren and to the sleepy dug-up clan, telling them all over and over how it is that we live forever. I think I need to mention in connection with this poem, I mean, I love the opening line, my work is loving the world. But she's running out all of these things that's easy to love, you know, the hummingbird and the sunflower and the clam. I remember a very important story that I heard about Suzuki Roshi once when he was telling people about seeing virtue in everyone.

[42:25]

And someone came to him to tell him that it was just too hard to see virtue when they were being such jerks, you know. And he said, oh, you don't know how hard it is to love some people. I really like that. Sometimes, even though you know you should love the world, sometimes it's hard. Sometimes somebody just pushes all their buttons and it's hard. And that's where our effort is then. How am I going to, it's easy to love someone who's really lovable. You know, it's easy to love the sunflowers. They don't ever do me any harm. They don't even look cross-eyed at me, you know. But, you know, sometimes somebody's being unpleasant and it's hard to love them. But we don't know. What are the causes and conditions that are causing them to be unpleasant? Maybe what they need is our love and compassion more than our irritation and ill will.

[43:32]

I was talking about way-seeking mind talks. Sometimes the way-seeking mind talks break your heart. A person will sit up here and tell you... their experience of their life, which includes such difficulty that you can't imagine how they could have survived it. And you want to just throw your arms around them and say, they're there. There are people in the world who have had such difficulties in their life. It may be hard to love them, but they're the ones who really need our love. our work is to love the world. And it's really work sometimes. But it's important work.

[44:38]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_94.01