You see there, you may expect there's going to be a talk, but there's not. I made the mistake of looking over with my notes for a talk I desperately wanted to give three months ago, and I couldn't read one of them. They made absolutely no sense after three months, so I figured... You're lucky because if they didn't make sense after three months, they certainly didn't make sense after three days. So I decided that we will turn things around today. Since there's no talk, now we'll start with questions. That's always better. I don't know if you've noticed that after any talk, good, bad, or indifferent, however you want to grade it, the speaker says, are there any questions? And then people get uncomfortable, and some wonderful soul wanting to help the speaker out makes up a question, and the speaker loves to answer it and screws it all up.

[01:09]

And so I think what we'll do is get the questions out of the way now and see if the talk comes. Where's Trevor? There you are. After you... He's partially responsible for this. Frequently, people, including Suzuki Roshi, as they come down the steps, suddenly change their idea of what they're going to talk about while they're walking down the stairs. So when Trevor said, what are you going to talk about tonight? I did not want to tell him. And I said something snippy. Then I went up and looked at the talk. I'll give you one clue. It was all about the fact that when I was a little boy at age five, I made a vow. Where's Zach? Zach, you here? Oh, dear.

[02:12]

Zach. He started me off on this because he spoke about vows in a general philosophical and religious aspect. And I wanted to talk about vows in a personal and intimate aspect. And so I was going to talk about that. And then I was going to talk about the vow I made to save the world. And this is 19, this is 28. I saw a picture of a man in the newspaper this morning burying a head of a relative. All that was left of him after one of those bombings. And I said to myself, what am I doing here? What can I say? What does anybody want me to say? Maybe they all want me to shut up and go away. Do you have a question of what you would like me to talk about? I'll let you lead off one.

[03:13]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would like to hear you present something about your decades of Zen practice that I'll let a young guy like me. Okay, well, they were phony. Huh? Oh, I always knew what it was. That's the problem. No, no. Can you guys get together? Can you two guys get together on that? No, I'm taking them all into account because I have to put a talk together out of all of these questions. Yeah. See, I know it's got several arguments and those like a drama wheel or something. Nobody knows. Seriously, when we were given that, somebody said, oh, those are guardians.

[04:17]

But then someone else got a hold of a book and said that they were some sort of kings. And they're just collectors, what they are. So, yeah. Yeah, you know? Good. Apparently, monasteries, there's two guardians, some monasteries, there's guardians that they gave, and they're the guardians of the truth, Gau and Perikos. And that seems like a good thing you didn't talk about. Do you want to give it? If that's what they are, then you need to... But if I don't know, I'm in a bind already. Paul asked me what it had in living my life without knowing about it. I always knew what I was going to do. I always knew who I was and spent a long time making it into something that was real.

[05:18]

And in the course of my years of Zen practice, how many years have I been practicing? 39 years. I'm reduced to what you see before me, before you right now. I don't know beans about Buddhism. What am I doing up here? I could give a Christian talk. I could give a humanist talk. I could give a Marxist talk. And once, I could give Buddhist talks. This is not involving Paul, but one time... Oh, you have a question? Whatever you end up talking about, Lou, I really would like to hear about... Okay, now. I will get there. Okay. But I got to satisfy these other people first. What did I say? You see, this is. Yeah, all right. One time, not too many years ago, I got a frantic call from the Eno over at Green Gulch.

[06:21]

Mel was scheduled to talk the next day and he couldn't make it. And would I please come over and talk? Well, I had a reputation of being able to talk under any conditions at any time. So I said, sure. And I got into a car and drove over. There was not a priest over there. There was no, you know, there was no nobody. It was just me and this crowd of people. So I started off by saying, I'm frequently mistaken for Mel Weisman. We're... Well, it's true. We're both older men. We're both bald. We both have a certain old-fashioned quality to it. And I said, but if you stay for the whole talk, you'll find out that I'm not no wiser. And then I took off. I didn't have anybody I had to kowtow to. I didn't have to worry about my reputation. And it was a blast. It was a wonderful time. And when we went over to get our muffins...

[07:25]

Somebody said, you should have been here a minute ago. There were two guys here, and one of them said, you know, the abbot speaks very well. So you would like me to talk about vows, and I would like to talk about vows, but not in the way that I had first thought about it. So I will ask your associates, may I honor his request? Anybody else have to get their nickel in before we... Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there's the microphone again. Who's... Oh, there you go. That's... Oh, yeah, that, yeah, right.

[08:32]

Oh, that's a good, let's save that in case I need something decent at the end. Can I put together? Okay, very good, thank you. Yeah, that will tie in with what, Paul? The reason this is difficult after having spent a lifetime working on this is that evidently I have forgotten it in the way that it was beginning a passionate personal identity situation. So it's going to be a little on the dry side, the bare bones of what I wanted to say. When I was five years old, I made this vow to see God again.

[09:35]

I had seen him once. I was sitting by a stream on a lovely stone. Birds were flying. Sun was shining. Trees were towering. And I disappeared. Just like that. I was... then towering with the trees, flowing with the stream. And those of you who know about such things know that's the way you feel during Kensho. And if anyone wants to know a statement about Kensho, Long Day's Journey Into Night by Gene O'Neill, the play, there is a monologue in which there's a perfect description of Kensho. The person giving the monologue doesn't know that, but if you're interested, you can find that out. And that was so wonderful. I thought, well, If I saw God once by accident, he must want me to see him again. So I began to find out how I would see God, and this is where it takes off.

[10:37]

And I thought he'd have a description in his book. Directions, you know how to do it. And he didn't, until you get to Matthew, which is in the New Testament, and Jesus is addressing the multitude. And they... He lists all the rewards that will be given to them. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are those who are in want, for they shall be fulfilled, called the Beatitudes. And right there at the bottom of the list, it says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Purity in heart is not something you associate with 14-year-old boys. I'm very sorry. But a few years later, I discovered that the Bible had it wrong. From the Greek into the English, King James Version, pure is the right word.

[11:41]

From the Aramaic, which Jesus spoke, was empty. Blessed are the empty in heart, for they shall see God. That means everything that comes into this empty heart is it. You don't have to pick and choose or go looking for them. And to make it final, and so I can bring in Suzuki Roshi, a young man like I might have been had I been in those days, a young man, was complaining that since Buddhism is a religion, he wasn't getting any religious training in Zen Center. He was a little piety about it. It's quoted in one of the books. And Suzuki Roshi laughed and said, We don't need any religious training. We are always face-to-face with God. Now, if I had known that when I was five years old, I'd be way ahead of the game. I wouldn't have spent all that time running around. But I honored the vow. The other vow was to save the world. I was saved, literally, by a watchman who played a concertina, drank red wine, and gave me dried cherries to eat because I had run away from home.

[12:54]

About from here over to where the cafe is. And I looked back at my house and I saw a German family like people in a fish pond. Light, light, light. So I knew you didn't have to live like that. Here was a man who did not live like my people did. So when a few years after that happened, he came by with his push card. He was the night watchman at the first meeting and asked if he could pick up the pears that were falling by the trees outside our fence. Would I go and ask my grandmother for permission? So I went in and I said, the man would like to have those rotting pears. And she said, you tell him no. Those are our pears. We were family that at that time was very well off. Didn't have a box at the opera, but we had a seat in the family circle.

[13:56]

Went to Europe, we had servants, you name it, we had it. And I watched him turn around and go, and I said, my more is his less. And ever after that, I wanted to save him and all like him from the kind of a world that would forbid him to pick up rotten pears. Well, at 17 years old, giving a preaching in Baltimore during the Depression, the two things came together. I was addressing a very poor parish of people, some of them who smelled as though they hadn't had hot water in their bathtubs for a long time, the depths of the Depression. And I must have spoken in tongues because When it was over, women were weeping, men were embracing me, saying, if there's one like you left on earth, we are not lost. And that's where both the vows began to twine together like wisteria.

[15:01]

God sing for me, world saving for you. And I did everything in my power to maintain the integrity of both of those things. They don't go together very easily. For instance, when the American Activities Committee got to me, instead of going out and getting another job like a responsible father, Blanche went to work and I stayed home, took care of the kids, honoring my vow. I was not going to be taken away from finally seeing God at some time. also in politics, taking advanced positions and being not a rabble-rouser, but a real lefty. I don't know if any of you have ever been around lefties. They're very good people, the best people I met ever since before I came to Zen Center. They were loyal. They were kind to each other. They honored their vows to save the world.

[16:05]

And somehow or other, It didn't work out and the therapist told me to come to Zen Center. And ever since then, I have violated one of the orders that were given to us for proper meditation. Don't make up Santas on your own. I was skillfully weaving my personal passion into the Buddhist form after having tried it in all the others. But that's not what's wanted. And I think after 39 years, I finally got the message that to save the world is not what I thought it was. Saving all beings is not what I thought it was. I don't know what it is, but I know it's not what I thought it was. But I tried awful hard, Paul, to make it mine.

[17:10]

And then to find out that I did not accept that, that this talk that I wanted so desperately to give shouldn't have been given. And I was lucky that I didn't, because I would have dug myself a big hole. I mean, when you're 17 years old and people are hugging you and saying, if there's one left like you on earth, you're not lost, that's hard to take. You want to take it. You want to be thought of as such a person. I can see how a lot of these well-meaning preachers get sucked into something like that. Somebody tells them that and they're off and running. Now, I'm 93 in six months. Right? Somebody wants me to live to be 100. No matter if I live to be 103, I don't have all of those years, all of that energy, all of that passion to do what I set out to do when I vowed as a five-year-old.

[18:28]

And to come upon that realization at this time, I mean, I had a minor operation that didn't really, wasn't really serious, but it did uncover the fact that I've got a leaky valve and a sticky valve and no operation is indicated, but at least now I know that I have an affliction that keeps me from jumping on the bus and getting down to the foot of the Filbert Street steps and running up the steps, which I could do a couple of years ago. Or when I have something I'm really interested in and want to test it, that's what I do. To have the strength to still go up the steps. So now, no big deal. Lots of people have got it worse than I have. I'm not complaining, but it's going to mean a big change. But fortunately, I think it was necessary.

[19:33]

for me to separate my modern self, my present self, out from my childhood self. Old men are supposed to be in Japan, they are treated like children again. That must be pretty neat. Now, Along the way, without knowing it, some sense of the actual situation of practice, as you asked about, came. I had always been that way in everything that I did. What I was doing was practice, not knowing the word. but it had to be done the same way my father always wore a flower in his lapel.

[20:38]

That was his practice. What was that poem that you wanted to hear? Oh, yeah. Okay. There was a moment, just a moment, when all of this childhood stuff and all of this grown-up stuff and all of this Buddhist stuff met for an instant. My first seshin was with the Suzuki Roshi. Before I tell this poem, I'm gonna have to tell what happened to Mel Weizmann in that. He was Shiso, I think. And he rang the wake-up belly an hour too early. You don't do that. That hour is precious sleeping time. So we were milling around out there in the hall, and he says, all right, let's go back to bed.

[21:44]

So everybody but me and one other person goes back to bed. Now, I wasn't looking for glory or anything. I feel great early in the morning. 3.30 is good. 2.30 is better. So I went down to the Zendo to sit. And lo and behold, a few minutes later, in comes Suzuki Roshi. I said, oh, just us. And he looks around and he leaves. Then the bell rings. Then the schedule gets going. Then we're all, this is in the dining room then, was where the zender was. The zender wasn't even fixed for the, or was it? Downstairs. Downstairs, okay. No tons, right. And then out of the middle of the darkness we hear, You are badgers and foxes sleeping in your zazen kei.

[22:46]

Calvary! Who is priest? Who is layman? Well, Roshi jumps up from the seat, takes his stick, and starts beating. I don't mean tap, tap, beating people. I can still see Yvonne Rand flying up the wall. And by the time he got to me, he had calmed down. But that was his big question. I mean, the man, it was an impossible situation. He had never talked men and women together. He never talked talk taught women. It was only monastery. And here he was surrounded by these people in the midst of the happy days out in the park, and we had somebody at the door who had to judge should we let him in or send him out to the Langley Porter. The drug situation was such that it just waved up onto the temple. And out of that atmosphere, I was a tea server in the middle of all of this.

[23:53]

And something must have happened when I was making my rounds because as I got out the door, I almost, and I should have, I guess I could have precipitated it sooner, I wanted to take the teapot and throw it up in the air. And then I wrote that line, See if I can find it in here. What a joke. What a joke. What a laugh. Here it is. First Sashin with Suzuki Roshi. What a laugh. That actor serving team is Endo. Thinks he's me. So I was there for a minute, just to that time that I wanted to throw the teapot away.

[24:56]

So I tried as best I could to integrate myself with practices that's done here. And too much personal... too intimate before. There was a basis for real intimacy. When we talk about intimacy in Zen Buddhism, it's not what you think. But it will be recognized when you get it. So, Paul, that's how it was. Even with Suzuki Roshi and all my many, many teachers that I've had, I have still been doing it my way.

[26:04]

You know, it would be fine. I should be one of those. Who are those two guys in the ancient mountains? Their pictures are up on the second floor in front of my, those two crazy ones. Yeah. That would have been the place for me. I could be crazy and still acceptable. But one thing has happened and that is I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know. Don't let me try. So now we can have questions. Yeah. What's your favorite Adilio story? Whose story? Adilio. Oh, I like the one where he's running his gambling club and somebody across the table has pulled a knife and Adilio grabs the chandelier and throws himself across the table.

[27:22]

and gets the guy with the knife before the guy can get somebody else. That is presence, man. And that was before he was a Zen person. Now, he was very much what you call in Jewish a mensch, a human being. And also him sitting there when the Chinese came down in the war in Korea, the human flood, and Aditya was sitting there throwing hand grenades into them as they go by. And he was able to take up this practice. I like the story also that he was picked up by the cops. in this area somewhere and had in his wallet an ad for Zen Center.

[28:25]

We used to advertise in newspapers in the early days. And the cop was so impressed with that, that's what he was looking for, that he didn't even ask to see his license. He just directed him how to get to 300 Pastry. It was someone, one of these out. That's what I liked about Adilio. He was doing what I thought I was doing. He was being himself and also taking in Buddhism as a, should I say, he regretted that his language difficulties made it, felt that it barred him from some of the experiences that he could have had had he had a better education. But what he did get, those of you who know him, knew him, he had a very good sense of the deep parts of Buddhism.

[29:35]

Oh, yes. Up to revolution. After that, after you raised your hand and said up to revolution, then what? greed, hate, and delusion are everybody's inheritance. My grandfather was a Jew-hating, Hitler-loving, nasty man. And I almost shot him.

[30:38]

If I'd have been a little less scared to use a gun, I would have done it. I thought that he was the source of greed, hate, and delusion before I practiced. I thought greed, hate, and delusion were the were the possessions of people like my grandfather. Then I discovered they are also the possessions of the revolutionaries and also of all of us. So now I don't know. This is the way Paul asks. I was firmly convinced. I mean, I went in front of the American Activities Committee. I lost a couple million dollars worth of income because there was blacklisted. I paid my dues. But when you go and look at what's going on in the world, you know that the political struggle with the Kalashnikov rifle, which was talked about on the radio the other day, is not where it's at. So now I don't know, you see. This is, again, I had a certain understanding I would sacrifice.

[31:41]

Well, okay, so you fried that one, but then I know you tried to say... That was one of the things I was going to talk about. I'm sorry. I was going to try. I was going to try to get from point A to point B or C, having been through all of these other things. Now I have it. Now I know. And I don't know anymore.

[32:47]

Yeah. Is that... The end? I mean, is that the point? You're satisfied with that? Oh, no, I'm not satisfied with it. I'm not satisfied. Where does that fit in here? It doesn't. This is exactly the point. That's exactly the point. Oh, look, we have been called a middle-class, white, Glockgate group. We've heard that happen. Sincere people, loving people, you name it, that's what we are. We don't know what we're doing in the deep stuff. In fact, I can go further back. There was a teacher in Tibet at the time of Lama Govinda. Did you ever hear about Lama Govinda? The German man who became a Tibetan follower and himself a great teacher.

[33:49]

You heard of him? He went to Tibet because he couldn't take what was happening to Germany in the time of the fascists. And this teacher told him, your problem in your part of the world is, I've got to get this absolutely right, is morality without wisdom. The morality that I have felt all my life, which I still feel is not substitute for wisdom, beyond wisdom, that would let us understand how in the midst of all of this are we to function. There's where we need the leadership. How to be what we are and at the same time move in a wise direction.

[34:52]

And you don't know what it could possibly mean. Paul would know more about this than I do because of his experience in Ireland where there was a situation that people who were not familiar with it could not understand. It might be that we don't know. And yet we get up in the morning not knowing. Thank you very much for saying this.

[35:43]

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