This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. I spent a wonderful day today with the senior staff. in the afternoon having a tea and also a meeting, going to the staff meeting. And I wanted to talk with everyone tonight about the theme of peace. What is peace? and also a little bit about the Dharma Transmission ceremony that took place all last week that some of you may have been wondering about.

[01:10]

So that's what I wanted to talk about tonight. This morning we had our monthly memorial service for Shinryu Suzuki Roshi, our founder, the Zen master who came from Japan and helped establish the San Francisco Zen Center. He wasn't alive to establish Green Gulch, but it was part of his thinking of having such a place. So I wanted to read a little bit from his biography about what was going on with him during the war, in the Second World War, and as we're commemorating the the tragedy of the bombs that were dropped. I just read a little bit about what was going on with him at Rinso Inn at his temple.

[02:13]

So I wanted to share that with you. Maybe some of you have read that already in Crooked Cucumber, the biography. So in some ways, just to go back to this past week, when this ceremony was happening last week in particular, and for the two weeks before, Reverend Kokkyo Yakai Luminous Owl was here, and there's a lecture that Suzuki Roshi gave about Dharma transmission, and I can't remember the date of it, but basically... he said when you have an idea of what it is that you're getting something from your teacher, that your teacher's giving you something and you're receiving something.

[03:16]

But he said when you realize there's nothing to transmit, when there's nothing to be given, when you lack nothing, then the Dharma Transmission Ceremony happens. So it's not that there's something... given it's more something celebrated, some understanding that there is nothing to be transmitted. But there's often a lot of curiosity about it, and in fact, there's a place where Dogen says, from the 1300s, says to a disciple, you know, everybody will talk about it and everybody will be interested in it, so don't bring it up. I think it's just a natural human tendency to be interested in something that's happening like that. But basically, the passing on or celebrating or saying that someone has

[04:30]

clarified their life's intention to such a degree that they are entrusted completely. I think in the simplest sense, that's the ceremony. So in this biography of Suzuki's life, I came upon this thing which I had never read. I must have read it, but it never jumped out. And basically, this was after the war, about 1954, and he was at Rinsowin, his temple, and just leading the life of a temple priest with the laity around him.

[05:39]

And he was telling somebody there had been an incident where because of all the nuclear testing in the islands off the Bikini Atoll, there was all this heavily contaminated waters and Japanese fishermen went and fished those waters and ate the fish and died. And then these fish had been already sold and were throughout Japan. It was a big, big demonstrations and big problems. And Suzuki Roshi also demonstrated, but mostly against nuclear testing and nuclear war. This was after the war. And in talking with this person afterwards, Uh-oh, did I just pull this out?

[06:42]

No, here it is. The person, he said to this that he had an old yearning, I want to leap the border, he said to this person. And the person said, why is that? And he said, I want to do more with my life than what I'm doing, more than looking after the Danka, that's the kind of lay people that surround the temple. And this person said, where would you go? maybe to America, and what do you want to do there? And what Suzuki Roshi said, and this is what I've never, it never struck me before, he said, teach Buddhism for world peace. If I could do that, my life would be fulfilled. So I, you know, I have known the story of Suzuki Roshi wanting to come to America, wanting to bring Zen and interested in studying English and all, but I really never saw this before. Teach Buddhism for world peace.

[07:45]

If I could do that, my life would be fulfilled. And I think this comes out of his own life and living through wartime Japan and what he says, what Suzuki Rosh said was this where the whole country was filled with nationalism and brought the country to the brink of destruction, as well as the whole world was doing the same thing all over. And he had written articles before the war had started with the United States But after that, the danger in speaking out was very great. But he always spoke about it would be better for Japan to live in peace.

[08:49]

This would be supportive of Japan. We would prosper if there was peace. So Suzuki Roshi spoke as supportive of Japan and the people of Japan and his country, But the best thing would be to be living in peace. So he didn't speak out against the government or nationalism or the war. He spoke about what was best for the people. So he wanted to teach Buddhism for world peace. So I think some of the most basic, basic teachings of Buddhism are reverence for life, kindness, and all the precepts support this, all the precepts.

[10:05]

taking care of life, taking care of self and others. And how is it that we can live in such a way that we have peace within our hearts, peace within our relationships, peace in our work situations, in our family situations, with all of our contacts with beings, The Buddha, there's an analogy, or a parable analogy, I guess, of a boiling of a pot. This is from the Buddha's early teachings. There's a pot with stew in it, a big soup, and it's on a fire, and it's got a big fire going, and it's boiling away, the pot. And to cool the soup, you can stir and stir and stir all you want, but unless the fire is turned down, the stew...

[11:08]

The soup is not going to cool down. So what is it to take the pot off the fire? And what is it to stir? Stirring it to cool it. So our most basic teachings of our karmic actions, our actions... voluntary actions. Where do our actions flow from? Where are our actions coming from? And for our actions of body and speech and mind to have peace as the result or be peace themselves, I think the most basic teachings are to be... studying and seeing where our words are coming from, what it is, what is it, how are we thinking about things, how are we thinking about others, and the actions that flow from these ways we have of thinking of ourselves and others.

[12:25]

Is there greed, hate, and delusion that's at the core of it? So recently I had a dream. It was a very simple dream. I won't tell you the whole thing, but there was just one part where I was sitting in the Zendo in robes, and I was carrying a large box of this candy that I used to like called Good and Plenty. Do you know Good and Plenty? How many of you don't know Good and Plenty? Good and Plenty are like little, they have licorice inside and a kind of pink and white sugar covering. And I used to get them in the movie theater, and it was a big box, and I was sitting there holding this box, and it said, good and plenty. And I thought afterwards, I didn't realize it until I kind of studied the dream a little bit, that it was just a wonderful way of expressing, you know, our Buddha nature or something.

[13:33]

Good and plenty. It's good and there's plenty. We lack nothing. And just to sit there holding that good and plenty. I'm going to try and paint this picture. I've got some watercolors to... I can't wait to paint that big box in with. So wars come from thinking that we don't... We're not good and plenty. We don't have good and plenty. They have it. So there's greed and then there's... revenge and hate, and there's just basic confusion and actions that stem from that. So we have the mini wars between beings, and then we have the playing out of that on a grand scale, on a worldwide scale, on a countrywide scale. And I read an interesting quote that it's not objective poverty, what you might say is poverty.

[14:51]

It's the resentment about perceived poverty and the actions that flow from that. So when I was in Colombia visiting my daughter in South America, and we were staying at this small village, and the villagers questioned, asked Sarah about her life. They said, do you have, some of you know this story, do you have pigs? Do you own pigs? No, we don't have any pigs. Well, what about chickens? Do you have chickens at your home? No. How about a cow? No. Do you have fields? Well, she happened to have fields. Anyway, when she was done telling them, they said, you mean you have to buy your food? You have to go to a store? Yes. They just thought, oh, poor thing. Que pena? Que pena? This is terrible.

[15:53]

And they lived in this very, very... remote village in the rainforest in Colombia, very beautiful, but, you know, dirt floors and, you know, not your modern conveniences. But they felt very, they perceived themselves, these campesinos, as rich, you know. And they had plenty to eat, and they had beauty all around them. So the perceived lack... and the resentment about that lack. And maybe, you know, talking about war, but also wars within communities, wars within families, you know. Recently, someone was telling me about a family member

[16:53]

and then the difficulties between the relatives about the estate of the person. And as my sister said, that all the siblings were doing snatch and grab. You know, they were going and taking things, and this belongs to me, and you don't have this kind of... So we have wars with families, wars between individuals, these kinds of conflicts. So where do we start? Where do we make peace? How can we have peace in our own hearts? And realize we have good and plenty. So when we're practicing mindfulness, when we're practicing meditation, complete absorption in our present moment in our life, we can feel this, we can touch this sense of lacking nothing, of good and plenty.

[18:08]

Just to be able to walk on this earth, just to be able to ride on this earth, or to see growing things to see other people, the experience of being so present that we feel filled by our experience. Are we giving ourselves that chance? Are we allowing ourselves to be mindful in this way? Or are we in too much of a hurry? Peacefulness has to start in our own hearts, and even when we're doing so-called good works or working for the benefit of other beings or some cause, if we're doing this work without taking the pot off the fire, if we're doing this work without

[19:24]

the stirring work of taking care of our life, if what's fueling it is anger and resentment and non-respect and non-acceptance of others' worldviews, not that we accept their view, but accept that they do have this view and respect that, I have questions whether the result of that will be peaceful. There's a description of right at the end of the war, after the bombs were dropped, and Buddha's birthday is,

[20:28]

not Buddha's birthday, Buddha's Enlightenment Day, was the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed. So it was December 7th in the United States, or in Hawaii, December 8th, Buddha's Enlightenment Day. That was the day chosen. And at the end of the war, Suzuki Roshi is sitting around listening to the radio, and the emperor speaks over the radio and says, tells that Japan has surrendered. And after that, there's this description of Suzuki Roshi. He had opened Rinsoen to soldiers and workers from Korea who had been basically, what's that called when you, impressed and taken to work in Japan. They lived there. Students, orphans were living there.

[21:35]

And he and his family were gathered around the radio to hear about the surrender or to hear what the emperor had to say. And then after that, Suzuki Roshi got up and began throwing things, plates and brooms and just destroying the shoji screens. And just he had a complete... expression of everything that the war was. So many people had died, and he just expressed it in this way, which was, I had also forgotten about that. And then it was over, you know, it was spent, he vented, you know, and I don't, I judge, I do not judge whether that was helpful or not helpful, or

[22:37]

I have no opinion. I just, I was really struck by this expression of, at that moment. So in our life there are conflicts, there are conflicts. inner conflicts, conflicts between people, and through these conflicts we can learn, we can learn a lot about ourselves, we can stretch, we can find out what it's like to really believe, to not just mouth the words, but to really be flexible with another who may act and think and in ways that we find frustrating and impossible to understand. how are we going to meet that kind of challenge?

[23:40]

Do we want to? Do we see the benefit in this kind of subtle, subtle, flexible mind that is peaceful mind? And without that, I think we just contribute more to this boiling kettle. And I really feel that it's the responsibility of each one of us to speak and act and turn our minds in these new ways of learning and accepting and we're just contributing, you know, to an atmosphere of... An atmosphere that can create harmful and violence and more war.

[25:03]

So... Those were some of the things I wanted to mention. There's a... You know, we have Jizo Bodhisattva in the Zendo, the standing figure, you know, at the west side or side of the Zendo. And Jizo... Jizo is... Bodhisattva, who is dedicated to freeing beings in all the realms, especially the realms of great suffering. He carries the jingling staff to make noise as he's walking so that he doesn't hurt anything, and animals can know he's coming, and insects.

[26:15]

And he carries the wish-fulfilling of bodhicitta or living for the benefit of all beings. And we say this, we're going to say it pretty soon at the end of the lecture. And recently someone was telling me that they could, in hearing about loving kindness and compassion, they could feel their heart opening and and I think sometimes we hear these words so many times or these little phrases and they become very or maybe I should speak for myself they become pat you know they become trite or yeah yeah yeah I've heard that loving kindness da da da and the actual practice of opening to another opening to someone who

[27:19]

is hard to open to. Having the willingness to go into that realm, like Jizo, and be there with another person. It takes, well, I think it takes vow. I think it takes It takes bow because it's so hard. And it's so easy to judge and criticize and write people off. So five years ago, there was a group of people who went to Hiroshima on the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb, bringing a Jizo figure or a Jizo painting or a Jizo for every life lost in those bombings and life lost in the aftermath because there was enormous loss of life from injuries suffered and radioactivity and birth defects, and that's lasted and lasted.

[28:46]

and so I think the number was 250,000, I think, and a number of people made, Jesus made, maybe some of you helped with that project, and then a group of people brought them to the Peace Pagoda, I think, is it called the Peace Pagoda that's in Hiroshima? The Peace Pagoda, the museum, peace commemorative place there. And there were many, many ceremonies. So tomorrow we'll be going down to the Peace Garden and to the Jizo altar. And we have a number of Jizos on the altar and hidden amongst the bamboo. I think there's Jizos here and there. So this Jizo is compassionate practice. Compassion is an even meeting, not pitying or from a privileged place feeling sorry.

[29:56]

It's meeting another person and acknowledging suffering and being willing to suffer with. So this is Jesus' practice. And also Jizo is the bodhisattva, that energy that's especially directed towards children, children who have died. And there's a mantra for this, for Jizo bodhisattva, which I thought we might chant. You know, mantras are similar to mudras, which I was talking about in the lecture I gave on a Sunday, I think. Mudras being shapes that invite or evoke or call upon certain energies.

[30:58]

And mantras are also similar in that they're shapes of vowels and shapes of... vocal cavities and sounds that come out that are, um, have certain energies connected with them. And in this case, and sometimes just syllables, but in this case, it's for jizou, um, the compassion is the, to absorb yourself in the meaning of, of, uh, compassion. Same with the dahishindarani, which is, um, syllables, and the meaning of which is dai or great, great compassion. So when we chant the Daishindarani, even though we don't know what all the words mean, the meaning of it, the true meaning of it is to absorb ourselves in compassion. So the mantra for Jizo is...

[32:03]

It's got ten syllables. So this evokes or calls upon this energy, Jesus' energy or compassionate energy to to meet us or for us to become that energy. And I think... Is that... Do you think we can recite that? Do you think it's hard to recite? Yes? Oh, yeah, Aum. Aum. Aum ka ka ka kabisa mai. So why don't you... Let's just repeat. There's the Aum to start. Aum... Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-bisam-maye-so-wa-ka.

[33:11]

The so-wa-ka is the same as at the end of the Heart Sutra, which basically is like a kind of a... a feel kind of for the end. Like bodhisvaha at the end of... So-wa-ka. So again, it's ka-ka-ka-ka-bi-sam-ma-ye-so-wa-ka. Okay, let's start with the om. Om ka-ka-ka-ka-bi-sam-ma-ye-so-wa-ka. Ka-om ka-ka-ka- kābhi-sāng-mā-e-sō-vā-kā om-gā-kā-kā kābhi-sāng-mā-e-sō-vā-kā

[34:23]

Thank you very much for that. Is there anything that you would like to bring up? or add to the conversation. Do you have any suggestions about how to cultivate this flexible mind that can enter into difficult situations and conflict, and engage supplely and stokely? Well, I think our Zazen practice, where we sit and enter into difficult situations and neither or can watch and see whether it works, whether it's actually helpful to run out or fight or what's helpful there.

[35:58]

So in a very intimate... intimate with our body-mind practice, we can see our own conflicts and what to stay put and stay still and stay close to our feelings, our fears, our confusion. And when we can do that with ourself, even a little bit, we can begin to do that with others. And also when we accept our own reactivity and understand and accept that this is how we can be, then we can begin to accept this is how someone else is and to have room to work with someone else.

[37:01]

So I think we do start with ourself. One of your stories of Sarah and Columbia came back to me again this evening. It was a story that you told about when she was translating for a general, and it was really hard for her to translate because she basically didn't believe what he was giving aside to the conflict that she didn't particularly agree with. And yet she did it. She did the translation apparently. And what came up for me this evening was that I'm wondering if wars are not caused by words but direct translations. if somebody says something and we translate it as personal or an attack or as a grab or as a, you know, and so it's not so much what they said, but we translate it, what they said. And it causes that. And I was thinking, you know, how many times I translate something somebody says.

[38:02]

And so I'm wondering, when you were saying compassion is a meeting with the Kasha Jester, I was wondering if... If compassion maybe means not to translate, just to take, just to breathe it in without trying to change the meaning or attach a meaning, but just not in the sense to put that other head on top of the head of translation. I'm feeling very sensitive to sort of words lately. Yes. And how I turn them and how I turn them maybe defensively or, you know. Yes. So this idea of translation as war starting is very alive. What we do with other people's words. Did everybody hear what Valerie said?

[39:04]

Yes? Yes. You know, because of our own karma consciousness, our karmic life, I think we can't help but translate. I think when there's a lot of shared karma or shared experience, we can understand each other maybe sometimes where things don't get lost in translation. when we find ourselves translating things and we feel like this is a translation, I'm being attacked, I'm being put down, I'm being betrayed, all those things, I think that can tip us off to, you know... perhaps I have mistranslated, or perhaps I have jumped the gun here, let me find out more. What did they really mean? Is this, this is how I understood it, is that what you meant?

[40:06]

And to have that as a practice, rather than to leap to your particular translation, which I think because of our samskaras skanda, you know, we can't help but react to certain, or understand things in a certain way. But... the more we know ourselves and know, oh yeah, when somebody talks like that or with that tone of voice, I feel this way. But they don't really mean that. I know this. Recently somebody was telling me about this email that they got. Someone wrote it at four in the morning, which already would tip you off to, you know, don't read it. A long email that was a rant and a rave, you know. And it... was very hard to read, and then they had their reaction, right? So this happens with email. You read, especially with email, you read it, and I don't know what happens to us when we write email.

[41:14]

Sometimes we don't have our usual, because there's not a face there, we don't have the regular, I don't know, not filters exactly, but just give and take. It's just... Anyway, I think the conflicts that come out of that kind of communication is huge. But can we stay still? Can we breathe? Can we check it out? Can we hold off on assuming we understand exactly and find out, is this what you meant, as a practice? I was thinking of the very early in the Dalapada, there's that section that says, those who think he beat me, he killed me, he stole from me, you know, are not, are deluded. And those who don't think he beat me, he killed me, he stole from me, you know, have this equanimity. So not to translate emotive.

[42:17]

Yeah. You talked about good and plenty. Yes, good and plenty. In daily life, even though I know this is my story, if there is one, for example, there is one position I really want, but I didn't get it, and somebody's all right. Even though there is plenty of explanation, but I know exactly what it is. Maybe I'm not good enough, or Another example, if I fall in love with somebody, but he or she likes somebody else, well, that maybe not good enough. Or more simply, she or she didn't say good morning to me, but started talking to the person next to me. In these kind of situations, how I can hold myself, I'm around 20. Yeah.

[43:21]

Well, that could be a new mantra, you know? Well, what you describe, you know, the disappointments of our life, the sadnesses of the not getting what we want, or getting... or getting something we don't want. This is our human life. This is the first noble truth, right? That there is suffering. There is not getting what we want. There is someone we love doesn't love us or chooses someone else. This is life. This is our daily life. So... And then sometimes we do get what we want. That happens too, right? But if our happiness... What?

[44:24]

And that changes, right? All those. So if our happiness is dependent on getting what we want or not getting what we don't want, it's a very precarious happiness. Precarious means... It's on the edge and it's about to fall off. It's not a stable, solid, calm, peaceful, I think, content with what we have state of mind. So this is a practice challenge for all of us because this is true of all of us, that we don't get that position and we really wanted it. I think there's many people in this room who could say, yeah, I know about that, you know. And then what it felt like, you know, I'm not respected, I'm not good enough, I'm not good and plenty, or I'm never, they are always, or all that stuff.

[45:32]

And this is kind of shared suffering, and our practice of working with those individuals daily frustrations or sadnesses and disappointments, and finding something that's beneath that, that's deeper than that, that it's okay, that it's basically okay. And this may take years. More basic than getting what we want? I think that basic, there's good in plenty, is that I am a child of awakening.

[46:35]

Just like in the ordination, You are Buddha's child. You are a child of awakening. And you're... And it's only a Buddha and a Buddha. This is the transmission ceremony. That you are complete. You are good and plenty. And... So this is... But coming to that over years of... I think realizing that getting the things that we want is not the basis of our happiness. Well, faith in the sense that, not faith in some other thing, but yes, just like it says in the beginning of the ordination, invoking the presence and compassion of our ancestors. In faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way.

[47:40]

That kind of faith. In faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. That kind of basic good and plenty. More than good and plenty. So we can fool ourselves over and over and over that happiness lies in all these other places. But we'll never reach that happiness because it doesn't really exist, you know? And it comes in all these different forms, you know? Like, you know, we may know people that if I could only get this job or if I could only get this material thing, house or car or some object, then... And that's samsara, where one fools oneself over and over and over. Then I'll be happy. If I could just, I just saw my sister-in-law, my sister and brother-in-law, and they're both doing, I think this is okay to say, they're both doing Weight Watchers, and my brother-in-law lost like 33 pounds, and he looks great and he feels great.

[48:54]

But if one thinks that I will be happy if only I could lose 33 pounds or something, Once you lose the 33 pounds, then there's still, you know, it's never ending. That's samsara. So samsara is the wheel that's going one way, and we want to, as I showed some of the other day, we want to turn the wheel the other way. Turn it the other way, because this will not satisfy, actually. It'll always be not good enough and not enough. So I think we start like right now, you know, with the fact that we can breathe. Hmm. Sometimes I get confused because I think about the uncountable causes and conditions behind all things.

[50:12]

It's hard for me to isolate an event that's good or bad. Even something like, it seems obvious, like nuclear weaponry. And it wasn't created in the back end. And so I'm wondering, you know, you said there's a memorial service for the victims. continuing victims. Well, there's a memorial circus tomorrow when there's a memorial pagoda. It almost seems dangerous to me to isolate an event that is good or bad, but it seems kind of evil not to in this case. I'm confused about activism and how to hold that. So we sometimes talk about, not sometimes, we talk about we, who's we?

[51:21]

There's the teaching of conventional and ultimate truth, right? The two truths. So we have the ultimate truth, which you might say is that everything's empty and you can't say coming or going, increase or decrease, good or bad, increase. It can't be talked about or even thought about in that way. So that's, you might say, the ultimate truth or the truth of interdependent, codependently arising reality. And then there's what we would say is conventional reality every day. And we do talk about good and bad and you know, this belongs to this person, this belongs to this person. And if you get those mixed up, which people tend to do, sometimes in a kind of confused, actually, way,

[52:32]

you get in lots and lots of trouble. So we have to be very, as Nagarjuna says, grounded in the conventional life, grounded in precepts, grounded in our agreements, and are completely grounded. And to be able to know the difference, really. There's a story that I've told before about, it was in the 60s, you know, it's all one man kind of time, and somebody said, Actually, it's Peter Coyote's story. So he had this beautiful workshop with tools and everything. He liked to hang everything, and everything was really beautifully set up. And I think he lived on a commune, and somebody said, could I use your workshop? And he said, yes. And the guy threw stuff around, and he left stuff out, and he... And when Peter said something to him about it, he said, hey man, what are you so uptight about? It's all one. What's yours is mine. And it was confusing, I think, because yeah, that's right.

[53:37]

It's all one, man. I'm supposed to not be annoyed at this. But he was. But I think that confusion can happen. So to say to someone, whose entire city and 100,000 people in an instant were incinerated to say, well, that's not good or bad, you know, is cruelty, you know, to use emptiness. The teaching, the beautiful, incredible, liberating teaching of emptiness and independently co-arising, to use it incorrectly is cruelty, right? But also to... you know, to be too rigid in, you know, there's also, in certain situations, this is okay to do this. In other situations, it's not, you know, to have, to be, you know, what's an appropriate response, to know.

[54:40]

So I don't know if that helps sort that out, Rachel? I have to think about it. The... The analogy of, you know, stirring the pot versus taking it entirely off the fire was helpful to me because it seemed kind of like absolute and relative. But I guess then how do you know, well, you know, at a certain point they kind of blend together like the memorial service. How do you know if you're stirring the pot or taking it entirely off? If even seeing something in a simple way is dangerous. Well, each person, when they go to the service tomorrow, will have to realize whether or not they're filled with anger and hateful thoughts about what was done and what happened, you know.

[55:49]

Or is it... This is what happens when people are driven by greed, hate, and delusion. And I vow, I vow with all my being to, you know, to study my actions and to have my actions flow from love and kindness and, you know, So a service like this or any ceremony or ritual helps us to study our own intentions. So for some people, it might stir the pot. For another person, it might say, I will not live a life that will create more conditions for this to happen. That's my vow, or something like that.

[56:49]

Only one person, by the way, has said that they have a poem or something to offer tomorrow. So I don't know if any of you have thought about that. If you have, could you let me know? I mean, it's fine if it's just one person who wants to, but there will be space. You do. Okay, good. That's two, three. Good. about defensiveness and how defensiveness is a reaction. And so often, it can be a reaction to a mistranslation. And in the context of this discussion, I'm also thinking about the Second World War and how

[57:59]

The creation of a bomb like that and the dropping of this bomb was a defensive act. It was an act of a group of people identifying with a great amount of fear that they were going to be destroyed or taken over, and their identities were going to be eliminated. the end of America, basically. This is like such a strong fear that such a large result comes out of it. And I'm also thinking about, I can't think about the bottom so much, I'm thinking about Pearl Harbor and how if you think about Pearl Harbor in terms of translation, I'm trying to imagine mistranslating Pearl Parker.

[59:00]

You know, the idea of, like, being in 1942 in America and, like, telling people that they're mistranslating Pearl Parker. And I find this, like, really challenging to do. And I think it's an almost unthinkable thought. Yeah, yeah. It's totally irrational. Well, I think... the time to work on translation was way, way, way earlier, probably years earlier, right? Like about 100 years earlier, maybe even. The causes and conditions that led to the whole thing, and this debate of whether it saved lives, this is an ongoing discussion still, whether dropping the bomb and ending the war and all that. Setting that aside, you know, setting that particular debate, which can never be settled, I don't think, right?

[60:02]

And looking at the reality of violence and pain and suffering, you know, and relating to that. But I think you're right. I think when it comes to that, it's already, it's too late, you know. It's too late to... say, did you mean, you know, it's, or when you say that, I feel really, you know, hurt, you know, or some kind of nonviolent communication. It's already beyond that. So how do we, and there's a story of the Buddha, you know, there was a war between the Kalingas and the Katyas, these two clans over water. And I remember reading that and thinking, you know, the wars that will be happening will come around water, you know, in our future.

[61:03]

And here it was back in India 2,500 years ago. There was some war about water rights, and he went back and stood in between the armed groups and... They couldn't shoot the arrows or whatever at each other because there was the Buddha standing there. He met with the leaders. They talked about their differences and the conflict. That time resolved, and he was able to do something. But there's another story where it happened again. And at that point, there was no stopping them. It had gone too far. Even the Buddha couldn't bring them together to speak. So... It's not like a magic. It's not magic. It's depending on this, this comes to be. It's a codependently created situation that vast causes and conditions create.

[62:07]

Yeah, so at what point is it too late between two people or between countries? And then how do you not add more fuel to the fire? How do you help to take it off the fire? And maybe you can't do anything like the Buddha that second time around. He couldn't do anything. I think these were close clansmen. Did you want to say anything else, Marshall? Maybe it's less helpful to think about, theoretically, what a Buddhist response would be to these Second World War situations and more about how I can prevent future events like this.

[63:15]

I think to think about how you can, like tomorrow, or right now, work with the conflicts that come up between people inevitably, you know, skillfully, with peaceful, this kind of peaceful behavior and skillful behavior is not easy. It takes everything to have the patience to even ask, what did you mean by that? Or, I don't understand, do you mean this? Rather than jump the gun. You know, it takes, it takes everything. It's much easier to do a quick. But after doing that for a time, the quick reaction thing weakens to such a degree that eventually it's non-arising. If you work with these things and these kind of energies over time, they get weaker and then there's non-arising.

[64:24]

I'm going to look at my clock. So it's just about 8.25. Is there anything else that someone might want to say or add? Yes. When you posed the question, Connie, corrupt the fire, I thought of a couple of sentences, but a sound in Yomarachana Sutra that I memorized. Please. Those who cultivate qualities concordant with enlightenment, in order to burn the fuel of the afflictions, radiate the fire of wisdom. That's beautiful. And the wisdom, the fire of wisdom is this... the kind of luminous realization of... and other not separate.

[65:32]

And that will put out the fire. What did you say? Luminous wisdom? Radiate the fire of wisdom. Radiate the fire of wisdom, yeah. Isn't that beautiful? Actually, it just strikes me really beautiful to use the fuel of the afflictions, to use the fuel of greed, anger, and ignorance to radiate the fire of wisdom. Yes. So that's why, you know, it's not that we're trying to get rid of our afflictions. The energy that's fueling the afflictions, it's just energy and to transform it into... wisdom and compassion and actions based on wisdom and compassion. So I went to a talk that was given by Joseph Goldstein in Berkeley last evening and there was a description that he gave of when he woke

[66:56]

he was doing this personal retreat, and he realized that he had this pattern of when he woke up, he would know that he was awake, and then he would sort of drift off to sleep and dream, and then come back up again and wake up. And so when he was doing walking meditation, this sort of mantra came to him, and it was dreaming myself into existence. You know, dreaming myself into existence. And for him, it was, I mean, the way I understood it, was a way of sort of creating a new self each time. Like there was this dying process, and then there was this sort of, I don't know, just a way of coming into being again. So this... Anyways, so it sort of really resonated with me about when you were talking about your dream, I don't know the context of it, but dreaming myself into existence.

[68:04]

And there's this constant mantra that he was doing while he was doing this walking meditation. Yeah. Well, I'm not, having not been there, I don't know exactly, but that, you know, that... verse about, you know, a way of relating and seeing the world as a dream, you know, as stars, a fault of vision, stars, a fault of vision or a dream, a light show, no, not a light show, a bubble, anyway, a dew drop, that's like a dream that you can't get it and hold it and have it and it That quality is the way we should be relating to composite things or conditioned things.

[69:09]

So I appreciated that dream about good and plenty as the language of the unconscious or whatever. You know, I just found it so delightful that it would come in that shape, this giant box of candy, just with the writing on it, you know. Do you have any? No, I haven't had any yet. No, no, I was just... I was just holding it in the dream, in Zazen, good and plenty. And then I looked it up on the Internet to see the box, because they had... And that's what I'm going to draw the drawing. But realizing it was that language that was... arose out of... Anyway, it was a very positive dream. And I know many of you work with your dreams and respect your dreams. And with that, let's head off to dreamland.

[70:14]

Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[70:42]

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