An interfaith discussion about inner peace and outer peace. And the three of us, this is Brother David Stendhal Ross, too many of you know. And this is Gayan Macher, who is really enjoying his first time at Tassajaraf. Brother David's representing the meditative Christian tradition. Gayan's representing the meditative Sufi tradition, and I'm representing the meditative Zen Buddhist tradition. And Gayan also teaches with song, so I'll have him begin with a song. Sounds like we're getting a little feedback. Good evening.

[01:07]

I was pondering this topic that we've been exploring this weekend, inner peace, outer peace, and wondering in this setting at Tassajara where so many years diligent practice and a natural and in the context of the natural world which is just vibrating this piece and all the practice here is a portal to to deep peace and people working so diligently what could I possibly add say One thing that I thought from the tradition of Sufism, one element of this question about peace is that it is the result of finally landing in the place where our hearts can rest.

[02:32]

And so this... This song that I'm going to sing, if I can sing it, I broke my cardinal rule and I ate the eggplant that had dairy in it, which I never do at all singing. It does well. That's my one disclaimer. This song came to me one night when I was lying in my bed and we have a skylight. above our bed and the moon was coming in. And there's a line of this song that says, who could have known that the moon, who could have known that the, who could have known that the moon with a kiss could bring me your promise. And We practice mindfulness in all traditions and being in the present moment.

[03:42]

And one of the experiences that can arise, which is the cure in some ways to the malady of the Western psyche, is that when we start to feel and realize that the world, like the moon and the rocks, are not just inanimate objects that we're walking through, but they are that we are in relationship to them, that they are alive and we are in communion. And when we feel that, that the moon is a messenger and it's speaking to us, it's an answer, then the heart can relax. So this song is called On the Shore of My Heart, and it's... a song of interior intimacy with what satisfies the heart. Here on the shore of my heart, calling out over the water,

[05:05]

Patient black night Scented with stillness Here on the shore of my heart Where I once was a stranger Now here we are Nothing is hidden The swan is sleeping Her sadness turned to grace. Her head beneath her downy wing. My eyes are weeping at the sight of your face. You've waited all along for me. Who could have known that darling? With a kiss of bring me your promise intimately cradled I am here in this black velvet dome where first you open my eyes it's only been here we

[06:34]

have all wanted what is now true only your beauty it all becomes your shining grace i call out to you i'm already answered here in your You said a lot there.

[07:51]

Do you want to say any more? So there's a Zen story. Yunnan was sweeping. And his brother, Monk, Dao Wu came up and said, too busy. And Yunnan said, you should know there's one not busy. And Dao Wu said, do you mean there's a second moon? And Yunnan held up the broom and said, Which moon is this? So I was happy that you... Which moon?

[09:01]

Which moon is this? There's a notion in Zen, in particular, that inner peace comes when the internal chattering mind is quiet. And I think in maybe our current understanding of psychology, the function of the internal chattering mind is to keep us from deeply knowing ourselves, that the internal chattering mind actually interferes with an inner listening, listening to what may be painful or unwanted in ourselves. And the internal chattering mind then also obscures communication with others.

[10:03]

Since we're not willing to listen deeply to ourselves, then also we're not so open and clear in how to hear others. So in this case, at Yunnan sweeping, there's the activity of the sweeping. And when Da Wu, his brother comes up, his elder brother monk comes up and says, busy, he's checking, you know, are you actually aware that you're sweeping a pure land, that the land is already pure, the garden is already pure, it's already complete. Do you have some idea that actually you are, say, fixing things?

[11:06]

Are you stirring up dust? And Yuen Yang says, you should know there's someone not busy. So this one who's not busy, this raises this question, is the one not busy the same as the one who's sweeping? And so Dao checks and asks, you know, is there a second moon? Is there some enlightened world, some peaceful world that's this moon, kiss of the moon world, somehow separate from this activity. And so Yunyan presents this question. Which moon is this? Sometimes I think, I've thought that the holding up the moon and saying which moon is this is kind of like a challenge.

[12:11]

Which moon is this? But right now I feel it's more like a genuine question. And a kind of curiosity a curiosity there himself. Which moon is this? So is this the activity of peace? Is this the activity of someone who's completely present? Or is this the activity of someone who is involved with the chattering mind? So I want to present this question to each of you. Is there some way in which in your activity and in your stillness, in your stillness that you are working with, what is the question about the chattering mind and your own deep, say, inner wish, the request of your heart?

[13:23]

Is the activity of your life obscuring your own inner heart, or is it an expression of your inner heart? So I think this question of inner peace and outer peace is a very intimate affair, really. And what we do here at Tassajara relates then to how the whole world can be healed. or the whole world continues to miss the potential for realization, really. So we'll stop with that and offer the time to Brother David. And then we'll have some chance for questions. Yes, we were thinking of our input simply as a primary of the pump for your own questions about in and out of peace, because we're sure that you bring the questions and they will enrich our exchange.

[14:35]

What I would like to offer is just some clarification of terms, because it's always important to me to agree on the terms and to have clear terms and know what we are talking about. We do not have to say that this is the final definition of the terms, but at least it's a definition that we share tonight, or we ask about it and change it. And so I start with the definition of peace. First of all, with the very term peace that comes from the Latin tax, P-A-X, and that happens to be the logon, of the Benedictine order for 1,500 years now, a dove with an olive branch and the word peace, P-A-X, pax, peace. And pax means, comes from the same root in Latin as gluing.

[15:40]

It's a gluing, it's a bonding. So peace is bonding. That's the basic order. And peace is a feminine word. It's not, as in German, der Friede, but it is feminine. And that's very important, I think, because that bonding is something under the Latin-speaking nations sense to be a feminine quality. And therefore, equality also of the anima in us men, and that's an important aspect. And that piece, that pax, is defined as, in two words, it's obviously so elegant in Latin, the stillness, there's a ray from chattering line, the stillness of order, the stillness of order. when things are in order when they are as they ought to be then there is a stillness but it's not the stillness of a public library where you only whisper or the stillness of a morgue but it is a dynamic stillness as of this flame that is burning without a draft very still if it weren't burning so well it would be flickering in every direction but it's

[17:10]

It's still, it's all this dynamism of stillness, or the dynamism of a hawk before it swoops down on the prey, it sends perfectly still, that kind of stillness. But that is looking at peace from the outside as this stillness of order. Then you ask, and what is order? And order is defined as... The definition starts with omnium verum, of all things. So before you can have order, real order, you have to go all things. A little bit of order is still just a little island in chaos. Real order has to include everything. So it is ultimately... That disposition, that arrangement of all things in which each gives the appropriate space to the other, in which each gives the appropriate space to the other, an arrangement of all things in which each gives, respectfully, we'll concede in parentheses, the appropriate space to the other.

[18:32]

That's the outside view. And the inside view is... by Augustine defined in just two words, ordo est amoris. Order is a function of love. It's a function of love. It's a good translation of ordo est amoris. Order is a function of love. And only love can bring about that order that is so dynamically still. But what is love? And we have to again find at least a working definition of love. I found that a very helpful definition of love is a yes to belonging. And not just a yes that you say with your lips, but a yes that you live, a yes that you are, an existential yes to belonging. And belonging on every level and in every respect. And there we come back to the original word peace, which is bonding. And the bonds have snapped.

[19:35]

In many cases, between us, between humans, we know how painfully our world is suffering from the fact that there's no peace because the bonding between nations and the bonding between people and the bonding between neighborhoods in our cities and between ethnic groups and between religious groups and between sexual persuasions and between religions have all snapped. So the reestablishing of these bonds between us and the bonds within ourselves. We are alienated from ourselves. So peace cannot come about until we establish solid bonds with ourselves again, with that self which is one for all. which we all share, with that oneness that we all share, which is our true self, are over against that little ego. And finally, with the ultimate, with that for which our heart restlessly longs, that sacred reality towards which we are underway, that unseen gravity with which we have to be in relationship, whether we like it or not.

[20:57]

The question again that we ask of each of us, ourselves, and each of you is, what is your attitude towards that bonding? Where does it come easiest? That would be the point to start. Where does it come most difficult? That would be the obstacle to overcome. Where do I find my obstacle and my path to peace? through that inner bonding that will lead to order and to the stillness of order and to that peace which is that wonderful feminine quality that bonds all things together. I thought we'd give you a moment of silence in which to think about that deep question. What is it that I bring, what is the question that I bring personally to that topic of inner and outer peace. And then we have lots of material to share in our question.

[22:00]

So let's open it up and invite anyone who wants to express response to this question that we're raising. There's a hand. A warrior for peace. Would you be more like in your efforts for peace, or is it a more passive? So the question? I'll repeat the question partly for the recording here. As I heard it, there's a question, can you be a warrior for peace or is it more passive? Is it by necessity a passive activity? Is it a passive activity or can you be actively a warrior for peace? Okay. Did you see it?

[24:01]

And the only kind of Buddha Dharma is engaged, active engagement, being willing to meet and work with, work with others, work with relationship with others. So at the same time, I'd say that's informed by A deep stillness. Okay? In other words, it's neither aggressive in the sense that we associate with the warrior, nor is it passive, but it is non-violent. Very engaged, as you said, but non-violently engaged. as a way of maintaining power, are they committed to completely anti-Buddhist approach, keeping everyone separate, keeping bonds broken, they remain in control?

[25:23]

Is it possible that we're dealing with people who want broken bonds? Correct me if I didn't get it, but I understand the question is that are there people who are actually acting to perpetuate the breaking of bonds and separation and rupture? Yeah. As a technique of maintaining power. As a technique of maintaining power. Are there such people? Are there such activities? Are there such activities going on? Yeah. So I'd say, by the laughter in the room, there's acknowledgement of that. So the question is then, how does one engage with that? Yes. How does one meet that? Especially within ourselves. Because within ourselves, we all have the person who breaks the bonds.

[26:25]

And we have to reestablish them over and over again, right? One might mistakenly think that those are other people. Would you like to comment on that? The question about being a warrior for peace, I think many of us have seen perhaps in ourselves that it is possible and even likely to want to go out and do something in the world that we hope will better conditions, social work of different kinds, political work, then to discover in our own psyches, our own reactivity, our own intolerance is part of the toxicity.

[27:29]

So In Islam, there's a word that has been tainted so terribly that I almost hate to use it. But the essence of the word, the Muslims talk about the inner jihad and the outer jihad. And jihad means holy battle. But the teaching is the real battle is inward. That's the inner jihad is the great war. And then one, if one acts in the world, there's the possibility that one is not simply adding to the karma, adding to the vibration of in harmony. And in terms of the people you're talking about, I was telling someone at dinner that I've been meditating on Rush Limbaugh lately. It's been a very useful practice for me.

[28:32]

to remember that he is not other. And that, as Eckhart Tolle says, he is an expression of the collective pain body. And so to the extent that I can feel that he is an organ in the same body as me, then, the tendency towards hatred and rejection gets corrected. And it doesn't mean that I would not outwardly oppose his policies or try to in some way prevent destructive behavior, but we're talking about the inner ecology of our psyches as we go about that. One part of the answer would also be, how do we deal with that personal power within ourselves and outside?

[29:36]

One word answer would be patiently, and patiently implying both stubbornly and step by step. And I had a wonderful experience with Thich Nhat Hanh. on a peace march that brings that out. It was in the late 70s, a peace march in New York City against nuclear proliferation. And Baker Oshie and Thich Nhat Hanh and I worked together in that peace march. And before we started out, Thich Nhat Hanh said, but we make this a meditative walk and we go step forward. step by step very mindfully and so we did that really mindfulness walk and of course the other marches were pretty fast and before we knew it there were passengers left and there and left and right and always looking back and wondering who are they and finally the police very politely came and said you're really holding everyone laughter laughter

[30:47]

We'll show you a shortcut. So we took this out and took it in another direction. And before we knew it, we were again almost at the head of the house. And all those who had passes by would come and say, how did they get? First to the finish line. That was very significant on another level, you know. You might do that. There's another hand up here. Yeah, I guess kind of comments about that Matthew made about there being such an edge on power and divisiveness and exclusion. It becomes really apparent in the gap between rich and poor and those who have and those who have not. And I kind of wonder if each of you could speak from your experience and your tradition about meeting the poor.

[31:51]

And you said a little bit about what I consider to be like meeting the poor within, but also meeting the poor in community, meeting the poor in society. Can you say what your question is about that? Speak from your experience or your tradition about meeting the poor? By meeting the poor, how it feels to encounter poor people? What has your encounter been like? How is it fed your spiritual journey? Did you address the question to anyone else? Anyone of you or all of you? Maybe you can give us a start. The disproportion of distribution of resources in the world is due to the fact that all of us here are using up way more than is our share.

[32:56]

And so how do we get to a more just distribution of wealth on this earth? That is really the basic question. And then we have to ask ourselves, what can I do towards it? That's quite apart from donating to good causes and helping the poor and so forth. But getting at the roots, how can we change this proportion of wealth? And my answer is through gratitude, through grateful living, because one of the reasons why we are using so much more than it's our share is that we do not appreciate the things that we have. That's why we need so much more. There's a wonderful little passage in a story in one of the space novels by C.S. Lewis in which someone from Earth comes to another planet and he walks through a

[34:03]

grow with wonderful fruit and he picks one of these fruits and he eats it and he just described what delight he ate and smelled it and touched it and tasted it and ate it with this great delight and when he's finished he licks his lips and coming from earth he is in the habit of looking right away for the next one and as he stretches out his hand a voice says loudly one was enough And that came from the fact that he was so attentive to what he had done there. And we take it for granted and so we are not attentive. And to be grateful means that you really wake up from just, well, that's my glass of water. And so don't even think everything. I'm thirsty, so I take a drink. To think of water. millions of people in the world don't have any drinking water.

[35:05]

They have to walk for miles and miles to get a little water, and that's not really good drinking water. So if we train ourselves in gratefulness, just as we lift it up, we think, wow, imagine that, you know? And then we drink. That would be a gesture of correctness. And if we train ourselves in enjoyment, that would give us so much more enjoyment. If we train ourselves, first of all, we'd be much more joyful. And secondly, we'd need so much less. The reason why we need so much more is that we drink one dollar and eat one and then need another one without thinking. Being grateful is a wonderful way of losing weight, for instance. Maybe that would be a good selling point. I think you're on this one. So if you ask yourself, how can we tackle this problem of poverty in the world?

[36:06]

By all the means that have been suggested, but personally, how can I tackle it just by... training myself to live more gratefully. It could be a great help. And that gives me a chance to, for a little commercial, we have a website, www.gratefulness.org, and at an average, 10,000 people from between 80 and 100 countries come every single day to that website and leave messages and learn practices and so forth. So check it out. I wanted to comment. One of the people in the workshop said, in the introductions today, said, or last night actually said, as an artist, I am very wealthy and I don't have much money. And it also reminded me that

[37:09]

After living at Green Gulch myself through the 70s and then moving to Mill Valley with my two children, after a couple of years, one of them came home from school one day and said, Daddy, are we poor? And I said, well, we don't have much money, but we have a lot of love for each other. So this whole question of poor is very interesting. I've also been working with inmates in San Quentin. Inmates in San Quentin really are poor. They have even poor in terms of physical space. Two people to a very small cell living right on top of each other. And yet, offering them dharma teaching has led many of them to the realization that there's tremendous freedom.

[38:12]

There's tremendous wealth, in a sense, of freedom in their minds, if they cultivate their minds, and practice the Dharma in San Quentin. And the very walls of San Quentin then become, in a sense, space. And then the third, just my own relation with, say, during the time I was running a landscape business, most of my employees were Latino immigrants. And so my feeling is at least I could treat them fairly and respectfully and help them take care of themselves and their families. So it's kind of one-on-one, this kind of relationship in which eventually, when I sold the business, I sold it to a foreman who was from El Salvador who had escaped the war in El Salvador.

[39:16]

And now he's doing actually quite well. Part of the whole process was an educational process. So I think there are many ways in which we can look at this whole question about even who is poor and what does that mean, and be directly helpful, I think, when we meet someone and we're not opposing them. The juxtaposition of two points of view really hit me when one of my clients, who was a very wealthy household in Mill Valley, was criticizing the fact that I I didn't have enough people on the job that day. And I said, well, Carlos just went back to El Salvador to take care of some family matters. And this person said, well, those people are a dime a dozen. And it just was like a knife in my heart because this was Carlos.

[40:21]

This was somebody who was uniquely wonderful and there was no one else like Carlos. But I realized that It's possible to live in this world in which one disregards people as individuals. And so I think part of our practice then is to be willing to meet and directly get to know someone so that then we can actually respond and just offer something helpful based upon knowing who this person is. You know, not some generalized idea of core, yeah. I would add something. First of all, if there were time, I would love to talk with you and hear more about where your question's coming from, what it means to you. One thing that strikes me

[41:24]

You asked what effect it has on our spiritual practice. And something that I feel very much that I receive both from my sense of the Buddha and also from Christ is the state of consciousness that stays awake and does not turn one's head away. does not turn the eyes of one's heart away at the sight of poverty or suffering. I may try to make it my practice if I'm going to read the newspaper not to numb out. When I read the newspaper I'm doing a business project now in Memphis, Tennessee and I go to downtown Memphis up to some 20th story building but to get from the parking lot to that building i'm walking past the black community there that's completely downtrodden and i hope i never stop hurting as i walk through that and witness it and not become known not stop seeing

[42:44]

Well, maybe let's go in the middle back here now. What does the Buddhist phrase, saving all beings, mean in relationship to distinctions between inner and outer? Is it the conceptually freeing objects of your mind? Or is it more like external? relationship to others or both. So the question, what does the Buddhist phrase, saving all beings, mean, both internally, objects of the mind, and externally? So there's a lot that can be said.

[43:53]

Let me just say, saving all beings means not disregarding anything. Not disregarding anything, whether it's internal or apparently in the environment. So, practically speaking, that often means being willing to be uncomfortable to not turn away from what's uncomfortable in oneself, to not turn away from what's uncomfortable in meeting someone else. So it means not making distinctions and saying, well, I'll save this being, but not that one. I'll save the ones that are easy, where I'll be aware of what's comfortable in my own body and mind, but I will disregard what's

[44:58]

uncomfortable and we often do that actually unconsciously we veer around or wiggle or squirm to find some position that's more comfortable or we avoid someone rather than meeting them so that happens internally and it happens in all of our associations so that's a beginning place to work with that Yeah. I think we're... I'm wondering about our time. What time are we supposed to end? Who's in charge here? The... There's the, you know, right here. A couple of minutes, 9.30. I was thinking of ending with...

[45:59]

Singing. So instead of that, we'll... In addition to that. There's a gentleman over here who's had his hand up all evening. The saving all souls and the notion of spiritual warriors, I think there were a couple of manifestations of some great beings who did that. Mahatma Gandhi and the Dalai Rama, Mother Kriksa, And they just come from an infinite love of loving kindness in the heart that's expanded from their interior stillness. And so to be the peaceful warrior is really to love and to be loved and nothing else. And they stayed in that place through their contemplation, their inner stillness, and they were beyond the mind with a very loving place in the heart. And from that loving place got the Mother Teresa, Sue Chavez, the Darlana Mountains. It comes from within. And they just stay in that place of love.

[47:01]

And that's the transforming power. And that's what they bring to earth, to bless them, to heal them. Thanks for that comment. And Yuki had her hand up. Can you speak up? Okay. She was asking about what is bonding, as you were talking about bonding, between us and how to feel it. especially the unwholesome state of mind arises?

[48:05]

How to bond within yourself when unwholesome states of mind arise? Well, it's very simple and very difficult because we are so complex, so the simplest things are most difficult. And the simple answer is, But all spiritual practices, Sufi practices, Buddhist practices, Christian practices, Hindu practices, all the practices in the world have for their goal, and that is to be in the present moment. And when you are in the present moment, you have to do nothing else but be in the present moment rather than in the past and in the future. But if you are in the present moment, then you are bonded because you are simply channeling that cosmic power, that force that flows through you, and that flows through all else, and you're one with all else, and you're one with yourself. And the reason why we are not there is that most of us hang on with a very high percentage of our attention to the past, and with a very high percentage of our attention we're stretching out to the future, and there's very little left to be in the present moment.

[49:22]

If we take it all back and are simply in the present moment and learn to be in the present moment, then we are in that place where we are bonded. We don't have to make any effort. We simply are there. So that's what our practices aim towards, and that's what we can achieve. And grateful living is one of those practices. You can't be grateful in the past or in the future. You always are grateful at this present moment. for the past or for the future, but in the present moment. So if we train ourselves not to take things for granted, but just be grateful, we are there and we are bonded with ourselves. Whatever constitutes that fullness of all of us in which we participate and with one another and with the ultimate, as simple as that, but as difficult as all the spiritual practices are. Thank you.

[50:24]

We don't want to let you off the hook. No, no. We're really looking forward to this now. All the requests. So I'm not practiced the way Gayan is, but... You get one disclaimer. I picked it up the edge. That was it. So many of you know this. And you can all join in. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Help you live a great long time.

[51:27]

Sometimes you've got to relax your mind. And when the light turns green Put your foot down on that gasoline That's the time You've got to relax your mind So now please join Lead Valley Relax your mind Relax your mind Help you live a great long time. Sometimes now's the time you've got to relax your mind. It's always in the present moment. And when the light turns red.

[52:33]

Push that brake down to the bend. You gotta stop sometimes. That's the time. You've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Help you live a great long time. Sometimes you've got to relax your mind. Oh, I had a friend cross the railroad track. Oh, Lord, Lord, he forgot to relax. He lost his life. Cause he forgot to relax his mind. One more time.

[53:36]

Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Help you with a great long time. Now's the time. You've got to relax your mind Thank you. Thank you all for your listening. Our intention uniquely extends

[54:23]

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