So, don't wait. You're very quiet, so it's hard to say. So a disciple of the Buddha does not harbor ill will. Not negative, not positive, neither real nor unreal. There is an ocean of illuminated clouds and an ocean of bright clouds. So I'm going to continue with the second of these three

[01:05]

prohibitory precepts that guard our minds against these poisons of greed, hate, and delusion. Yesterday I talked about greed and its antidote, which is the perfection of giving, dhamma-paramita. And today I'm going to talk about the poison of hate and its antidote, which is kshantid-paramita, the perfection of patience. Master Yunman said that Patience is to sit where all the Buddhas sit in the midst of fierce flames. I remember hearing once that the practice of patience doesn't count when you're being patient. So I had a lucid dream many, many years ago that I'd completely forgotten until the other day when it came back. I was kind of surprised. It happened during Oryoki breakfast, and I began to notice that I was really angry.

[02:09]

And I'm going to be talking about the reasons that I was angry when I get to the precept of not killing. But it had to do with some reading I've been doing. I think some of you noticed that a little bit of it came out during the Bodhidharma Memorial. A little bit of my anger. So, in particular, there's a book by a professor from New Zealand by the name of Brian Victoria, who is a Soto Zen priest and a professor of Asian Studies at the University of Auckland. And he wrote a book called Zen at War, which has been around for a while now. I remember reading it when it first came out and being really disturbed by it, and then putting it away. And I forgot all about it. Amazing. There's another book I think you all ought to read, really, really ought to read, which is called The Red Thread by Bernard Foer.

[03:15]

And I'll also be talking about that book during the discussion of precept of sexuality, not abusing sexuality. I think these are both really important for us as practitioners of the Buddha way, not just so that we're well-educated, but also so that we deeply feel the humility we ought to feel as human beings trying to do these virtuous practices together. It's hard. For now, I want to talk about the precept of not harboring ill will, which also is hard. Very hard. Not harboring ill will. So that's this dream. I'm going to tell you about this dream. I'm standing in a meadow in a wilderness area, a beautiful place, very much like where I used to live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And there's a cave, and I'm standing across from the cave, and then this giant bear.

[04:22]

comes out of the cave and it stands up with its big claws pointing at me and starts walking. And I think because it's my dream, I'm not scared, but this bear comes forward and then I notice it's got a big splinter in its paw. So I put my hand out and the bear puts its paw on my hand and I pull the splinter out quickly. And then it gives one of those grizzly bear roars right in my face. And then it goes down on all fours and ambles back to the cave. So what I realized when I was remembering this dream is that the bear is my anger. And that the anger has a cause. The cause is pain. Terrible pain. Sadness. Heartbreak. Anger is our cover story.

[05:23]

Protection. I have a specialty kind of anger. I think many of you may share. It's called righteous anger. It's my favorite. Anyway, it did take me a while to figure this out. And then I was thinking about all those... beings in hell I was telling you about the hell beings where anger resides in hell and I thought well of course it does they're being tormented relentlessly tormented they're in terrible terrible pain in fact we even use this term bear baiting right make the bear angry how hurt it scare it so I think it's really important for us to always remember that when anger arises it's a cover up for pain You hurt me. I hate you. In my family, as I was growing up, it wasn't safe to be angry.

[06:29]

So we were silent about it. And in fact, my mother's way of punishing us was called the silent treatment. If she was angry at one of us, she would tell everyone in the family not to talk to us until she wasn't angry anymore. And that could go on for many days. So I learned, my brothers learned, not to speak about our pain or our anger, but just to stuff it. Pride took its place. I'm not going to show her how much it hurts that she's not talking to me. So when I got into my adolescence and my adulthood, I had a real fear of my anger. I thought I was going to hurt somebody if I ever got really, really angry. So, you know, it went into the cave. It hibernated in there for a long time, waiting for God knows what to bring it out.

[07:34]

So in 1985, right here at Tassahara, our beloved Catherine Thanis was the Tanto at the time, and I think you were in the room. when this happened, but you don't remember anything, so you won't remember this. I'm going to remind you right now. Okay. Anyway, Catherine was the tanto. I was something, maybe tensile. I was on staff, on the senior staff. And Catherine came to the senior staff meeting. We were all, oh, Richard Baker had just left. That was adding to the torment. It was that right after that happened, or maybe that summer. And we were all in pain, come to think of it. So we were having a very miserable meeting, and Catherine comes in, and she asks if she can put Dan White's name on the altar. Now, I don't know who remembers Dan White. Most of you, yeah, great, a few people.

[08:36]

Anyway, briefly, Dan White was a supervisor in San Francisco, who in 1978 went into City Hall with a gun, And he had resigned his position. And then it changed his mind and asked the mayor, George Moscone, to give him his job back. And the mayor said no. So Dan White went into City Hall and he shot Mayor Moscone. And then he went down the hall and he killed Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay elected official probably in the world. And a very wonderful man, as was George Moscone. So there were riots because what happened next is that the jury basically acquitted Dan White of murder. They charged him with involuntary manslaughter. And the reason was that his attorney said that he was kind of crazed by eating too much sugar. So they called this the Twinkie defense.

[09:39]

And he got five years in prison. And I can feel it coming up. Can you? My anger is starting to boil up. All right. Amazing. Anyway, so he gets five years in prison. He gets out of prison and starts to get sad. Two years later, he goes in the garage of his house and he sits in his car and he kills himself. It's karma. The worst kind for everybody. He was probably mentally ill, but none of us gave him credit for that. He was just this awful man who did this awful thing. So that's how I was thinking of him when Catherine came in. So Catherine then proceeded to go around the room and ask each of us if it was okay to put Dan White's name on the altar. And I didn't want to speak because the bear was coming out of the cave.

[10:42]

But she persisted. She named everybody, and then she said, I was Nancy. And it happened, you know. There's this explosion. My anger blew, you know, like an atomic bomb going off. But there wasn't any sound. I just put my head in my lap and put my hands over my head, and I waited. And it was kind of amazing because it was like there were no concepts, there were no images, there was just this white light. And I think the greatest thing of all was that it was cold. You know? And silent. So I really felt gratitude for our practice of sitting in the flames because I actually had a containment vessel to allow me to hold my feelings as large as they possibly could be.

[11:53]

And this was the biggest one I've ever had. I didn't move. I didn't make a sound. I just laid there with my head in my lap. You know, this is what you're all doing. Day after day, hour after hour, you're building that containing vessel for your feelings. Just like the Buddha did under the tree. Armies came, excruciating pain, lust, anger, confusion. And he just sat there in his body, upright, breathing, relaxed. All those angry hell beings, terribly in pain, charging him. So after a while, I uncurled, and I sat up, and I looked around, and everyone was staring at me. I wonder why. But gratefully, no one had touched me or spoke to me during the time I was down, which probably was only a few minutes, really.

[13:04]

It seemed a lot longer to me. So, you know, everyone looked worried. And, you know, what they didn't understand is this was the best thing that had ever happened to me in my whole life. You know, it had to happen. It was so overdue. That suppressed anger had finally imploded. And I could see that incandescent light that I had been stuffing down since I was a child. So nobody died and nobody was hurt as a result of my anger. And nobody even knew what happened. All they knew that I was curled up by this abog. So I'm telling you this story because I feel like it's important that we learn not to be afraid of ourselves and how we feel. And that we actually know we're not going to hurt anybody. Most important of all. That was my fear.

[14:06]

I thought I would hurt somebody if I got as angry as I thought I could get. But I didn't. And I won't. And I know I won't. I feel safe to be inside this body, grateful for this body. So this is what it means to me to not harbor ill will, to not give it a place inside of ourselves to hide and to scare not just us, but everyone else away, and scare ourselves from knowing who we are and what's hurting us and what we need to do to get help. My therapist used to say to me, ships are safe in the harbor but that's not what they're built for. So we got to get out there on the high seas, test the rigging. I've often heard students here say that they're afraid of telling us, meaning practice leaders, seniors, what's going on inside of them because they're afraid they're going to get thrown out.

[15:11]

So I want to reassure you that we are all afraid of getting thrown out. And not only that, for good reason. We are going to get thrown out, you know. It's all about impermanence. There is no place to hide. There's no place to stay. Anchor down. The high seas. That's where we all are. No guarantees. But still, I think we need to ask for help from our fellow travelers, you know. What do I do now? I don't know, but I've been out here for a while, so I can maybe give you some pointers. And we do want to encourage you to come out of the cave. Come out of hiding. It's the only way to heal. There's no other way. Or that, you know, there is, I suppose there is a way you could just stay in the cave until you pass away.

[16:15]

That's an option. Some people do that. Just hide away. But if we don't know ourselves thoroughly, if we don't know who we are, what we can do, how it is when we have these feelings, our anger, our lust, our confusion, we really are dangerous. Terribly dangerous. And we make victims not only of ourselves, but also of those around us, the ones that we blame for causing us to be in pain or to be hurt. You make me angry. You're hurting me. We don't understand where it's coming from. It belongs to us. It's mine. It's my response to causes and conditions. So this experience that we call anger is like a flashing light on the dashboard. which is telling us to stop the car. Stop the car and wait. Wait until you figure out what's going on.

[17:21]

Take a break. Take a time out. Otherwise, you respond. You react rather than respond. Reactivity as opposed to responsibility. Ability to respond. You need some time and space to consider how to respond. And the difference between those two, between reacting and responding, can actually make the difference between life and death. Greg and I have spent time over in San Quentin with the men in Blue. And most of them are in life imprisonment because when they were, I'd say almost all of them, when they were teenagers, did something really stupid. They reacted. out of anger or greed, stupidity, doesn't really matter. But in a moment, their entire life course was determined because they killed somebody.

[18:24]

And you can't take that back. So I sat in a circle with these men who are now in their 50s and 60s, some of them are older than that, and they said their names, there were about 25 of them, and the name of the person they killed and how long they'd been in prison. And they call their sitting group the Buddha Dharma Sangha. In fact, we have some sitting benches here that were made by the Buddha Dharma Sangha. Whenever I see San Quentin, which is in Marin County, I see it quite often, I bow to them. Those Sangha overcrossed the bay there. So they missed their chance, you know. They missed that one chance they had to have a different life. But now they're mature men. They're very polite. They're very kind-spoken. They're kind to one another. They were very kind to us. And they're making the best they can out of their circumstances, hoping to stay in San Quentin as long as possible because that's a very good place, apparently, to be incarcerated.

[19:32]

There are a lot of programs. People can visit you. There's a little bit more kindness there. than in some of the other prisons which are way off in the woods if nobody knows what's done to those people there. Great harm, no doubt, like hell. Bupali the barber asks the world-honored one, suppose a bodhisattva breaks a precept out of desire. Another does so out of hatred, and still another does so out of ignorance. World-honored one, which of the three offenses is the most serious? The Buddha said, if a bodhisattva continues to break precepts out of desire, for kalpas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, his offense is still minor. If a bodhisattva breaks precepts out of hatred even just once, his offense is very serious. Why? Because a bodhisattva who breaks precepts out of desire still holds sentient beings in his embrace.

[20:36]

whereas a bodhisattva who breaks precepts out of hatred forsakes sentient beings altogether. A bodhisattva should not be afraid of the passions which help her hold sentient beings in her embrace, but she should fear the passions which can cause her to forsake sentient beings. Desire is hard to give up, but is a subtle fault. Hatred is easy to give up, but is a serious fault. Ignorance is difficult to give up and is a very serious fault. Upali, if a bodhisattva is not thoroughly conversant with the precepts, he will be afraid when he transgresses out of desire, but will not be afraid when he transgresses out of hatred. If a bodhisattva is thoroughly conversant with the vinya, he will not be afraid when he transgresses out of desire, but will be afraid when he transgresses out of hatred. Interesting.

[21:38]

You know, I just read this part in Tantunoshi's book, which I'd sort of forgotten about. He said, in our Zen community, we have a lot of regulations about sexuality, but very few about anger. You noticed? Mirroring our society at large, in which depictions of cruelty and violence make excellent family moviegoing, whereas explicit scenes of human sexuality have been and continue to be subject to censor. kind of upside down in terms of consequences. There was a really great comedian by the name of Lenny Bruce who was in prison for obscenity in 1961. Yeah, I think he said the F word. A lot. A lot. See, the F word, I don't even say it. Anyway, he was basically, what he was doing was pointing out the fundamental hypocrisy in our society. You can't say the F word, but you can give... guns to your children for Christmas. And, you know, anyway, he got himself arrested, which actually was good, because he could then say these words, and he actually later on was exonerated, you know, kind of the beginning edge of the free speech movement.

[22:52]

So he's another one of those characters that you all should remember and pass on to future generations. He and Rod Serling are two of the great ones. They really broke the barrier on a lot of ignorance and denial. in our culture. So for bodhisattvas, the passions such as lust and anger are considered to be fields of blessings. Walking the middle way through that field is the path of awakening. For bodhisattvas, the passions such as lust and anger are considered to be fields of blessings. Walking the middle way through that field is the path of awakening. Sitting in the midst of the flames is the path of awakening. Not avoiding it. So for those who have taken this vow, the bodhisattva vow, there's this ongoing challenge to see the arising of anger and quickly, you know, to come up with a strategy or a plan or a response that will not lead to harm. That's our ongoing job, our ongoing assignment.

[23:57]

Some beneficial action rather than harmful action. And this isn't easy. Not so easy. So patience is the antidote to anger and is also a primary condition for enlightenment. And patience doesn't mean that you just tolerate your pain. It means you expand your capacity to bear it and even take on some more. You know that figure of the Buddha that has a big tummy and smiling? Well, that tummy is full of sorrows. He's swallowed all those sorrows. He's taking on the sorrows of the world. I can give you some more. Give me more. Big tummy and big smile. How does he do that? By expanding your capacity to hold pain, not just yours, but others as well. What's the bodhisattva vow?

[24:59]

When we practice patience, you know, our sitting upright is the practice of patience. Zazen is the practice of patience. Relaxed, breathing, and that's it. And waiting. Waiting. And in doing that, the path of harm is blocked. Nobody has hurt anybody in this endo that I can remember sitting Zazen. We respect each other's, you know, space. Don't get off my Zabotan. I stay right where I am, and I respect that you're doing the same. And we sit with our backs to one another. That's kind of a scary thing to do. But that's part of the deal, you know. I'm going to learn to trust you, even though that's really hard. It's really hard. It's a practice. So... Denshin Roshi also mentions in his book that people say to him sometimes, well, isn't that kind of indulging for you to be sitting around facing your own suffering when there's so much more suffering out there in the real world?

[26:10]

And, you know, he says, well, that's true. And yet we shouldn't use the suffering of the world as an excuse to not deal with our own. Put your oxygen mask on first and then the child. So we have to render ourselves harmless before we try to protect those around us. Otherwise, we're just going to add to the violence. That was one of the big temptations during the Vietnam War was, do you join the side of those who are getting guns and doing violence against government? That was a choice. The weathermen. I mean, you could get angry and you could join those who were. It was a choice. Burn the bank. I had a poster of the Bank of America on fire above my bed. Amazing. So we have to admit and feel our pain, enabling us to listen more carefully, deeply to the pain of others, the suffering of others.

[27:21]

And of course we all know the most renowned of all listeners is Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva, compassion. the Regarder of the Cries of the World. Japanese kanon, Chinese wanyin. Avalokiteshvara appears in the Lotus Sutra. It's a whole chapter about him. In that case, in the Lotus Sutra, Avalokiteshvara is in the guise of a male. But in that sutra, the Buddha goes on to say that whatever you need, Avalokiteshvara can appear in that form, can appear as a Buddha, It can appear as a Brahmin or a god, as a king, a commoner, an elder, a youth or a maiden, as a dragon or as a Garuda, a human, or anything else that anyone needs. It's a real shapeshifter. There are lots of stories about Guan Yin, so I'm just going to tell you one, which is from a Chinese book called The Complete Tale of Guan Yin and the Southern Seas. Kuan Yin had vowed to never rest until she had freed all sentient beings from the cycle of birth and death.

[28:28]

Despite strenuous efforts, she realized that there were still many unhappy beings yet to be saved. After struggling to comprehend the needs of so many, her head split into eleven pieces. The Buddha, Amitabha, upon seeing her plight, gave her eleven new heads to help her to keep her vow. With her new heads, she was now able to hear all of the cries of the world and to comprehend them. But as she reached out to those in need, her two arms shattered into a thousand pieces. Once again, Amitabha came to her rescue and bestowed upon her a thousand new arms. And since then, Kuan Yin has never taken a rest. Yin Yang asked Da Wu, What does the bodhisattva of great compassion do with so many hands and eyes? Dao Wu said, It's like someone reaching back for the pillow at night.

[29:29]

Yunnan said, I understand. Dao Wu said, How do you understand? Yunnan said, All over the body is hands and eyes. Dao Wu said, You said a lot there, but you got only 80%. Yunnan said, What about you, elder brother? Dao said, throughout the body is hands and eyes. You know, I like thinking of Kuan Yin as the Sangha itself, you know. So many hands and eyes and arms and hearts working together. All day long, responding to each other, to the cries, in the dark, in the light, wherever they're coming from. It's a wonderful thing. I feel great gratitude to all of us for that commitment we've made to respond. So I wonder if there are a couple of questions you might like to ask.

[30:35]

Or comment. Ian. between anger and rage. Anger and rage? Maybe intensity, I would think. Yeah. Racial anger, I think you can put them together, too, and really have a fierce response. How about, what do you think? Did you have an idea about the difference? I have an idea that Rachel really feels like shame, which is inward, not shame as outward. It's really kind of I kind of think of anger like a gun and rage more like a solid shotgun. You can direct it very well. I don't know. Yeah. Powerful stuff. Fuel. Well, we have talked about this much in this position.

[31:46]

Well, who doesn't Yeah, I have that question right now about this figure on the altar with the sword. That's the one. I am concerned. You can interpret things any way you like, but a child will tell you that that man is holding a sword. And it's fun for kids. They like that. Little boys make toys, guns out of any stick. They can find it. No matter if they're Buddhist kids or not, it's like they're all running around. Bang, bang, bang. So I wonder. I wonder about this image. I really have a big question about it, Rathful. soldiers. We have a man with a bludgeon at the gatehouse.

[32:47]

Yeah. I understand. I know. I've seen them. They're big. They're huge. Yeah. I know. And I'm really concerned. I have a big question about that. And that's why I got really angry reading Zen at war. And I'm going to talk about that. And We can have more of a conversation. I have a question about that. I'd like to see it. I've seen the other kind quite a lot in my life. We'll continue that conversation, I hope. I know, I definitely want to talk to Zen Center elders about these images that we have. Yeah. Yeah.

[33:50]

And apparently they hate you right now. They're trying to get them to stop hitting the monks. And it's really hard to get them to do that because they were hit. And the parents are complaining because the boys are being beaten severely and have been for centuries. So I do have a question. And I think a lot of people do. When is it a metaphor, and when is it actually abuse? The lines get really blurred, and I think that's the danger in my thinking. Okay? You spoke of not fearing our anger, not fearing, anger that comes up, and then... There was an apparent contradiction in the story of the Buddha saying that bodhisattvas should not fear desire, but they should fear anger. Could you comment on... Yeah, I would say more like fear what you might do.

[34:55]

Like I was afraid of my anger because I didn't know it. I didn't know it was cold white light. I thought it was hot white atomic bombs. I had a misunderstanding of what the nature of it was. It's empty of inherent existence. Thank goodness. But if I didn't know that and I act out of something that I think is my anger, which means I've got to be violent, I think we should hesitate and be afraid of that potential. Again, that's that line between action and thought and knowledge, insight into the emptiness of whatever it is that's arising. So I don't want to, you know, I won't quibble about the language itself, I think you're right. I'm not really saying it. But I try to look at it a little more, take it apart. It seems you're saying, in your case, when you said, don't fear the anger, it's like, don't fear knowing it, or don't fear gaining familiarity with it. Yeah, right. And then in the other case, it's, yes, fear the consequences.

[35:58]

Yes. And respect that. Exactly. Yes, thank you. a lot of times I experience anger more as like frustration and maybe the response comes up as like sarcasm or like an unwillingness to engage in whatever's going on and it feels like this kind of like really convoluted you know it's like it could just be simply anger and maybe that would be easier to let go of but feels like this more convoluted response that has all this stuff mixed in. And yeah, I also have dreams about bears. And I feel like when a pure, more clear kind of anger comes up, sometimes it actually really is helpful.

[36:59]

Like what you're talking about. Because I think I can see myself able to. express it without doing harm you know maybe skillfully but there's more often this kind of just this simmering frustration which i don't want to yeah it just feels gross you don't want to let anybody see it that sounds more like you've got the combo of confusion in there so three the big three communicating confusion so Am I angry? Am I just frustrated? Am I upset? So that one sounds to me more like confusion about what am I feeling? There's anger in it. There's other things in it. So there's another approach. That one, too, has got its own anecdotes, like clear mind and reasoning. So there are approaches for each of these emotions that we can take. So maybe the anger is more obvious. When you're really angry, it's kind of obvious. I know when I'm angry.

[38:02]

Often, I feel like there's a lot of anger that I don't recognize because often I'll just be going about my day and notice myself thinking, like, I hate that. I hate that. I don't like that. About, like, nothing in particular, you know? That might be just aversion. You know, there's different gradations of aversion. I like it, I don't like it. We can feel that way about the soup, right? I don't like that soup, which isn't anger. So maybe there's the whole, like, a spectrum along which you, at some point, you've moved into, I hate this soup. And that's kind of weird, right? So that's helpful when you see there's no really valid reason to be feeling that way. Yeah, it's kind of disturbing. Definitely. this side of the room anything mary so is there ever righteous anger that's a classic example your child yeah you stop them i don't know i don't even know that anger is very helpful at such a time you're probably doing what you need to do you know get the kid or stop the but you have to be also like

[39:34]

aware of what's going on. Are you stopping in a way that's actually going to help the situation? Are you going to make it worse? So you actually have to have some reason going on as well. It's never clear cut what to do. So when you give an example, if it's in a novel, it's clear because you read the whole story. But when it's happening, I don't think it's often very clear exactly what the right response is. Sometimes you have to watch carefully to see what is the most skillful response now. I am going to protect my child. I know that. But how? How? One time my daughter, this little boy, she was probably eight or no, maybe six. And there was a little boy, she was using a walker at the time. She has cerebral palsy. So now she's in a wheelchair, but she was using a walker to get around. Very cute little girl. And so this little boy was asking her to show him that she could stand without her walker, which she could do, not for very long.

[40:43]

So he was, I saw her across the way, and she had her arms out like this, and I'm like, what's she doing? And he's kind of, he wasn't taunting her, but he was sort of like, you can do longer. He was, you know, making her go longer. She started to cry. The she-bearer. I forgot about that one. Boy, I was all on that kid. I was going to take him. We were at Stow Lake. I was going to take him. And I said to her, he ran away. I said to her, are you OK? She said, I'm fine. I'm fine. I said, if I get that kid, I'm going to throw him in the lake. And she said, mom, maybe he can't swim. Humiliation. By this humiliation, you shall be liberated. Okay. Yes. I just... They said no. Yeah, that's a good question for you and all of us.

[41:56]

Keep it up. Keep it in front. Don't forget it. Just because you're angry doesn't mean it's appropriate. Remember I was saying yesterday? Just because we think so. We think we're right. We do. Not just you. We all do. So if you're angry, you might think it's righteous. But so you've got to give it some, you know, stop the car, check under the engine, what's actually going on here. Cool down, go for a little walk. Whatever you need to do to be able to be sure that you're not just adding fuel to it. Maybe wasn't even a fire. Maybe you're making the fire, you know? So we want to be careful, particularly because of our vows, which are restraint. Why is restraint? You'd have to show me, you know? It'd have to be in the situation. Theoretically, I could say no, yes, I don't know. Clouds, what I already said at the beginning there.

[42:58]

Yes, no, negative, positive. We have to be in the situation. And we have to ask ourselves, is this appropriate? It's up to you. I can't, I won't be there. Most likely. So you're going to have to figure it out. Kim? I've also been reading about patients and patients and it seems like they're great, but they're all There are also treatments for like a state. To be. To be. The same to be. To be, a thing to be. Right. So practicing that as a human being. It was almost, I don't know if it was confusing or I was just trying to do something that I looked

[44:02]

actually able to do. And then I'm wondering if it leads to suppression. If you're saying, you know, my hatred is, you know, it's just the worst thing in the world, this feeling. You know, I need to generate compassion So, yeah, whether it could be... Restraint. I don't think I was talking about suppressing it. I was talking about you got to know it. But I got to know mine. It's mine. It's my anger. You know, getting it on you isn't doing anything for me. It's just like, I don't know, it's just kind of dumb. But it doesn't help me understand how am I going to work with myself when I get... It's not the first and only time you're going to get angry in your life.

[45:09]

It's going to happen again and again and again. That has for me. It's part of who I am. Greed, hate, and delusion are what we are. They're in each of us. So I need to understand my anger. So when I'm in a situation where I'm not in control and conditions are getting kind of... The flames are getting up there... I need to be able to relate to myself in a way that's comforting to me. It makes me feel like I can be safe. And I don't know. For me, I tend to be better off if I take care of myself first. Really make sure that I either calm down. I like to go in the other room, you know, when I'm starting to get in my thing. I'll be right back. Go in the other room. Doesn't take very long. And I can calm down. I don't think you can do that.

[46:19]

No, it's impermanent. It's empty of inherent existence. Meet all the teachings. You know? I've never read, replace your anger with compassion. I think you have to actually explore what is the nature of anger? What is the nature of lust? What's the nature of self? Who am I anyway? Protecting who against what? So the more you explore the nature of reality, this stuff starts to kind of come apart that you're so protecting, that you're so interested in defending, and that it's all coming out of self-defense, self-love, self-concern. So we're all like that. But we come into this practice to get some kind of grasp of reality. Let's wake up. See who we really are and what we really need to take care of. It's hard.

[47:21]

This is not easy. We all know that. And those of us who are older know it even more than you do. And done a lot more crazy things. You remember that, though, Leslie. How crazy I am? You remember how crazy I was. Yeah. As she does. Really. Anyway, but it gets better. Time goes by and you learn. We're learners. That's the hope. That's the hopefulness. Hi. Didn't get a chance to say hello to you yet. Welcome. Yeah. Good. I've related very strongly to you saying that you grew up in a family where a group that wasn't sick to express, that a father who expressed it, where really a father can just shut down. I kind of learned both versions to your extent. And then with practice, I learned to take all those feelings that I was feeling and sort through them by entertaining it.

[48:26]

And then at that point, I'm like, I'm not sure if it's what, I feel like there must be some question is um the benefit of sharing that pain with mostly the people that caused it but when you're in relationship with people or you're around people and i feel like anger comes from my understanding anger is it comes from a place of saying like this is not okay you know like your level of getting angry about masoni bean cha and milk bean cha and then why are we going to honor this from respect this person did that, but there's that pain that he was having, the level of the ceremony being able to feel that pain. So I guess in a way, the question is, if we get to the point of pain and the anger, is there the benefit to sharing that pain with people that kind of were part of that feeling?

[49:28]

Probably when the anger subsided. Yeah. When the anger's up, you're kind of worthless. No, definitely not right then. But then later on, it's just sort of like... Can we sit down? I don't want to let the film stay for me. You know? Well, then there's not a lot of intimacy there. I mean, in an intimate relationship, I think at some point you have a containment vessel of trust. And then being able to, when you calm down, go back and say, can we talk about what just happened? Let's sit down and talk about what just happened. I'm really sorry. I didn't want to go there. You know, I take responsibility, blah, blah, blah. Books and books and books on difficult conversations for this very reason. And they work. I've had many of them. And they work with people you're close to. They work with people that you work with. They work with people you practice with. So there's skills that we can learn of how to have our emotions, you know, not get it all over everybody. And then come back when we're calm, because we are. I've never seen anybody be angry for like five hours straight.

[50:29]

I mean, that's kind of hospitalization stuff, right? So you're angry, and then it's gone. You cool down. Everybody does. So that's when you can try to go back. Now, if you rekindle the anger, get out of there. What's your motive for talking? Do you want to make sure you get even? You have to watch yourself really well and know what you're up to. Again, these are skills. Is there such a thing of imposition of intimacy? The what? The what? He doesn't want to know that you're a thing because of what they said. Can you still? Forcing? I think I'm going to be like, what you did because you were being an asshole. Probably not. They may be not ready. your wisdom and kind corrections yeah there you go there you go probably not wait till they ask yeah maybe a while maybe that's not please be comfortable those of you who aren't um okay maybe two more uh uh

[51:40]

anger. I think it's a great help, as you said, to kind of dissolve those emotions over time. But I was also wondering about actually generating compassion. I feel like we talked a lot about that in this book. I was wondering if you have anything to say about that. About generating compassion? Generating compassion. Well, that's the Kuan Yin piece. There's huge compassion. There's There's another story about her, too, where every possible horrible thing is done to her by her cruel father, and she keeps just coming back at him with, like, he needs an eye and an arm from someone who doesn't get angry, and she offers them to him, even though he's done terrible things to her. And finally, he repents because of her not getting angry, just being patient and generous and practicing compassion for all beings, including the one who's being most cruel to her. So, you know, that is the recommended.

[52:51]

Bodhisattva compassion is sort of our primary. So whatever we can do to generate compassion for others, the Bodhisattva vow, I live for the benefit of all beings. I mean, we say these words all the time. It's, where's this at after a while? Okay, maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll just be kind and just feel affection for everybody. Even those who hurt me. Hard. But it's an act of generation. Well, I think it's an organic growth that comes from sitting in pain, to tell you the truth. Start to melt. Some of that stuff, some of that selfishness starts to melt off. Like, who did I think I was anyway? Maybe not so important. Yeah, this brings up a lot of stuff for me, especially around the idea of leaving anger and then coming back when you're not angry.

[54:13]

Because most of my anger is self-directed. I assume it's not meant this way, but it's so easy for me to hear the negative attributes of anger kind of that fuels my anger, angry at myself for being angry. And it just becomes really not of shit. Yeah. And I feel like I took track that I'm just going to come back to this, but I'm not angry. And that feels uncompassionate. I guess I have a practice. I have one. I have this image of my niece, she was four-year-old, who just went crazy for no reason, just really angry because of not enough food rollers or something like that. And she starts beating on my brother's chest, just like wailing, full of emotion and feeling, and he lets her.

[55:16]

And then eventually she breaks down and cries, and the pain of just being alive, and being four years old was there. I don't know, I feel like for me, is it okay that I still do that? Not eat people's chest, but where is there for that expression of anger, that release? If I say to myself, wait till you're done being angry, come back, That's just, that feels like more like screw you for being angry. Oh, that's for other people. That's not for you. You're not going to, you go in the other room, you're still angry. You didn't get away from anything, right? That recommendation wasn't about get away from yourself. That was about get away from the person you're yelling at. That other person is not this one. I do recommend getting away from them and not just keep spewing anger at them.

[56:20]

But if it's about your internal work, what you talked about is what parents do. They contain the child while they're raising. You put your arms around it if you can. Sometimes you have to hold them down. I've seen that too. That they really need to be restrained and held while they get through it. Then they learn to make that own hug of themselves. As they grow older, hopefully they learn how to do that for themselves. But that's what the parent does. Embrace the child. Hold them really tight and let them get through that like your brother did. So that's what you're describing that you're doing that for yourself. I think that's probably very wise. Just stay with it. Keep holding. They better be open to it. I didn't want anyone to touch me when I was doing my thing. You know? I think it's really important that we basically respect that other people maybe aren't asking us, you know, to intervene with their work.

[57:23]

Permission or request, it seems okay. You know, if you ask permission or someone says, would you give me a hug? I always go, sure. But I don't go give hugs if I'm not invited necessarily, or I'll ask, man, give you a hug? So I think it's really important to remember the boundaries of, You have boundaries and they have boundaries that can make it worse if someone comes in at the wrong time. It would be a really, really scary feeling. You probably sense that. Sam, maybe last one. Why is it so painful to fail? To fail? What is humility? Humility. Repeated failure. Very painful. But it's also, for me, it's like the part I'm resisting because my pride was so strong, like not wanting to cry, not wanting to be seen being weak, not wanting to be seen being scared.

[58:38]

And so this fear and the And the leak and the crying, it was kind of like, you know, there was some horrible armor that I was putting around myself. You know, blank, blank. Because I didn't want anyone to see that I was vulnerable and scared and embarrassed, all that stuff. But boy, they could see it. You know, you could see the armor. Must be a sign if something's going on in there. So I think that's a pretty normal thing for us to be embarrassed about other people. But then also our own self-evaluation, shooting arrows back on ourselves. So it's a learning thing how to sort of say, okay, I see that I'm embarrassed and my face is all red and it'll be red for a little bit and then it won't be. And I'll still keep talking. And it'll be okay because everything's impermanent. Even all of those feelings that go through us don't last. I feel like you really want me, you really want to do it, you know, and you don't.

[59:56]

It's just, it doesn't feel great to have that intention and you miss the mark over it, you know. Yeah. Well, what I heard is that you really want to do good. I mean, that's the part that I'm admiring and appreciating that you've said. I'm so happy to hear that. And as long as you keep wanting to do good, the rest of it, it doesn't matter much at all. how many times you miss, how many errors. If you run out of errors, it doesn't matter that you want to do good. That's it. That's your vow. Thank you all very much.

[60:50]

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