Good morning. Good morning. And good morning to all of you young people who are here today. So today I'm going to read you one of my very favorite stories, which is called Where the Wild Things Are. Have any of you ever read that before? Have any of you ever read that before? The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, he's chasing the dog and the cat around, and you can't see too. His mother called him, wild thing. And Max said, I'll eat you up. And so he was sent to bed without eating anything. That very night in Max's room, a forest grew. And it grew.

[01:02]

And it grew until the ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around. And an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max. And it has his name on it. And he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are. And when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roar. Can you all roar? Good roars. You can all roar. And they gnashed their terrible teeth. And they rolled their terrible eyes. And they showed their terrible claws. Till Max said, be still. and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once.

[02:20]

And they were all frightened, and they called him the most wild thing of all, and they made him king of all the wild things. And now, cried Max, Let the wild rumpus begin. So here's pictures of the wild rumpus. All jumping about and swinging from tree branches and having a wonderful time. Now stop, Max said, and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper. And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where somebody loved him best of all. Then around from far away across the world, he smelled good things to eat. And he gave up being king of where the wild things are. But the wild things cried, oh, please don't go.

[03:22]

We'll eat you up. We love you so. And Max said, no. So the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth. And they rolled their terrible eyes and they showed their terrible claws. But he jumped in his boat and he waved goodbye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room. where he found his supper waiting for him, and it was still hot. Have any of you ever felt like a wild thing? Any parents here to attest otherwise? And what do you do when you feel like a wild thing? Do you do anything when you feel like a wild thing? No?

[04:24]

Well, maybe it's time for the wild rumpus to begin. Do you want to go? Who's here for the kids today? You want to take them and have a wild rumpus? You can all go with Renee. Thanks for coming. There are many. And good morning to all of you. My name is Linda, and I'd like to welcome you all to Beginner's Mind Temple. How many of you are here for the first time today? Wonderful. Special welcome to all of you. And I also see many familiar faces. So this is the first...

[05:30]

Saturday of the new year of 2010. And New Year's is traditionally a time for reflections on the year gone by and often a time for New Year's resolutions. Are any of you here because you made a New Year's resolution to come? often found that New Year's resolutions don't work so well for me. And I was thinking about why is that? And I was reflecting that it seems to me that resolutions don't work so well when we think that there's a part of ourselves that there's something wrong that needs fixing and that we can make go away somewhere else. Last week, Joan was talking about away and where is away anyway. So when we set some part of ourselves up to get rid of it, we start thinking in terms of success and failure and right and wrong and good and bad.

[06:43]

And that just seems to set us up for failure right away. So is there an alternative to this? What do we do when the wild parts of ourselves come out and cause mischief? What can we do about that? So we can't let them take over. And we can't let them be the boss. Can't let them be the boss of us. We can't fix ourselves like there's something malfunctioning. but we can illuminate just this one corner of the world, this corner of our world. And we need to meet the wild things of our own lives very directly.

[07:47]

I love that Max tamed them with his magic trick of staring them into their yellow eyes without blinking once. But first he said, Be still. Be still. So when we're still, then we have the stability to stare into the rolling yellow eyes of the wild parts that exist in each one of us, and to be king of all the wild things, because we can tap into all of that power It doesn't have to be separate from us. It doesn't have to be something we're afraid of. I remembered a story of Milarepa, who's a Tibetan saint, mystic master. And it's remarkably similar to where the wild things are.

[08:57]

In fact, I think Milarepa probably got it from Maurice Sendak. So Milarepa lived in a cave, and he practiced great austerities. If you see pictures of Milarepa, he's often depicted as being green in color, having green skin. This is because he was said to live on a diet of nettles. So he practiced these great austerities, and one day he went out from his cave to collect firewood. And when he came back, his cave, inside he was startled to find five demons with eyes as large as saucers. One was sitting on his bed and preaching, two were listening to the sermon, another was preparing and offering food, and the last was studying Milarepa's books. Following his initial shock, Milarepa thought, These must be magical apparitions of the local deities who dislike me.

[09:58]

Although I have been living here a long time, I have never given them any offering or compliment. How often do we treat the parts of ourselves that way? We don't acknowledge them. We don't take care of them. So he began to sing a complimentary song to the demons of Red Rock Jewel Valley. And it concludes... ye local demons, ghosts, and gods, all friends of Milarepa, drink the nectar of kindness and compassion, then return to your abodes. In other words, I'll say hello to you, I'll greet you, I'll give you a little cup of tea, but please go away. But the demons did not vanish and stared balefully at Milarepa. Two of them advanced, one grimacing and biting his lower lip, the other grinding his teeth horribly. This is just like where the wild things are. A third, coming up behind, gave a violent, malicious laugh and shouted loudly as they all tried to frighten Milarepa with fearful grimaces and gestures.

[11:05]

But Milarepa, knowing their evil motives, began the wrathful Buddha meditation and recited forcefully a powerful incantation. Aren't we like this? We try every trick in the book we know to get them to go away. Whatever our demons are, you know them intimately, I'm sure. But they still would not leave. Then with great compassion, he preached the Dharma to them, yet they still remained. So we try to be rational, we try all our tricks, and it's still not working. So Milarepa finally declared, through the mercy of my teacher... I have already fully realized that all beings and all phenomena are of one's own mind. The mind itself is a transparency of emptiness. What, therefore, is the use of all this and how foolish I am to try to dispel these manifestations physically?" So he sees them.

[12:08]

He just sees them clearly for what they are. that they're a part of himself, they're a reflection of his own mind, and that they can't hurt him. So he sings a song, the Song of Realization, which includes, Though the storm on the snow peak is awesome, I have no fear. Though the precipice is steep and perilous, I am not afraid. Ye ghosts and demons, enemies of the Dharma, I welcome you today. It is my pleasure to receive you. I pray you, do not hasten to leave. We will discourse and play together. Although you would be gone, stay the night. So he actually invites them to stay. And just like Max, he said, okay, let's play. But unlike them, oh, and then Milarepa arose with confidence and he rushed straight at the demons in the cave and they were frightened.

[13:09]

And they shrank back, rolling their eyes in despair and trembling violently. Then swirling together like a whirlpool, they all merged into one and vanished. So, I actually like where the wild things are because they hung out a little bit and they got to play together. And it never seems to work for long if we think we can make friends with them in order to get them to go away. So that's really the task, is how do we befriend our demons without letting them become the boss, without going along with their mischief, and without just pretending to go along so we can really get them to go away? What is it to really see all the parts of ourselves and all the parts of everyone else and all the parts of the world so clearly that we can really love them.

[14:17]

What are the parts of yourself, the demons that you've had such a hard time with, that you've come to love, that you've come to completely accept, because you know what they bring. You know what that offering is that they bring. It might be a fear that you've had or an anger or a resentment. It might be a deep, deep wound. But all of these parts of ourselves and these parts of the world that we think of as something to get rid of are just a part of ourselves and a part of the world. And we call them by the name of demons or wild things when we don't recognize their true being. And when we do recognize their true being, then we see them for what they are, and we see ourselves for who we are.

[15:29]

doesn't really have a name, but you can call it by love or offering or Buddha nature. It's the part of ourselves that really has something to give. Because we've really been there. We've been through the fires. And it's not just something from the surface. It's not just an idea about, oh yeah, that's good for your practice. It comes from real compassion. So when we shine the light of awareness on what is difficult for us, on what our challenges are, whether they're small challenges or large challenges, we develop fearlessness.

[16:34]

So that's one of the reasons that we practice zazen, is just to have a field where we can sit down and be present with whatever comes up in such a safe place. Not moving, being still, we can just meet whatever arises completely. And then we have confidence that we can meet whatever arises in our lives. And this is a lot of freedom. Suzuki Roshi likes to say that if you want to control your sheep or cow, give them a large, spacious meadow. He's talking about controlling other people first, but then he says the same way works for you yourself as well. If you want to obtain perfect calmness in your zazen, you should not be bothered by the various images that you have in your mind.

[17:47]

Let them come and let them go. Then they will be under control. So whether it doesn't matter to you, What arises in your mind or what passes away, you don't have to push anything away, and you don't have to hold on to anything. That is perfect calmness. You can find calmness even when there's a lot of stuff going on. You can find calmness when you're stuck in traffic. And you can find calmness when things aren't going the way you want them to go. And you can find calmness in the midst of the holidays and rushing. and all the 10,000 things of the world. Then they will be under control. But this policy is not so easy. It sounds easy, but it requires some special effort. How to make this kind of effort is the secret of practice. The true purpose of our practice is to see things as they are,

[18:56]

to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control in the widest sense. So you may say, it's one thing to get my own life under some kind of control, And that's a very good thing. But what about the rest of the world? There's a lot going on out there. There's a lot of suffering out there as well as in here. And because of all the media in the world, we're so exposed to all of the suffering in the world. And it can get very overwhelming. there can be a temptation to not attend any of it.

[19:59]

In San Francisco, almost everywhere you go, you see the suffering on the streets. You see people homeless. And every time you see one, you have to decide how to respond. To give, to not give, to step over, to make eye contact, to not make eye contact. Each day, we meet suffering and we have to decide how we meet suffering. The suffering in our own heart and the suffering in the world. How do we meet it? And is there anything that we can do about it? So the Buddha taught in the Lotus Sutra to illuminate one corner of the world. You don't have to fix the whole world. We can't fix the whole world because we're just a part of the world. But we can shine a light in this corner of our world.

[21:06]

And in meeting everything that arises within us and in front of us, completely, clearly, with a calm mind, and with a loving mind, we can actually change the world. When we pick up one corner, everything comes with it. Because we are all interconnected, interrelated, taking care of ourselves is taking care of the world. Think about how profoundly we're each affected, you're each affected by having someone pass by you in a terrible mood or giving you a shining bright smile that you weren't expecting.

[22:11]

So we can offer this to each person with everything that comes before us inwardly and outwardly. We can take complete care of it. just by being completely present and completely ourselves and responding as best we can in each moment. At the end of lecture, we chant, beings are numberless. I vow to save them. So this is the difference between New Year's resolutions and the vows that we make. New Year's resolutions are things that look solvable but actually aren't. I will lose 10 pounds this year. And that will enable me to find the love that will make me happy for the rest of my life.

[23:17]

But it's actually not solvable. It's not a solvable problem. because the problem is that we're not at peace with ourselves. The vows that we make each week after lecture and at other times here are impossible. Beings are numberless. The beings of our own mind and the sentient beings of the world are numberless, but I vow to save them. delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. So, what does that mean that we vow to do these impossible things? It means that we just keep making our best effort moment after moment, that they're not a problem to be solved, but it's the way that we live our lives.

[24:22]

It's not about our capacity to do something or to get somewhere, and it's not about our small selves. Finding relief from suffering is not about the way we think we're going to get comfortable. It's about finding true comfort within the universe and to know the truth of things as it is. In that same chapter from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi says, to live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment. When we lose our balance, we die. But at the same time, we also develop ourselves. We grow. Whatever we see is changing, losing its balance. The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance.

[25:36]

But its background is always in perfect harmony. So when we can look into the fearsome yellow eyes of the wild things inside of us, when we have the capacity, the strength, the fearlessness to sit with our demons, the demons of others and the demons of the world, we can do so because we also see the background of perfect harmony. This is how everything exists in the realm of Buddha nature, losing its balance against a background of perfect balance. So if you see things without realizing the background of Buddha nature, everything appears to be in the form of suffering. But if you understand the background of existence, you realize that suffering itself is how we live and how we extend our life.

[26:40]

So that suffering is not a problem. It's just a part of our lives. It's just how we relate to what is present in our lives. That's why the Buddha called the first truth of suffering a noble truth, because it's actually ennobling to realize that suffering, our demons, the wild things, are not something to get away from. They're just part of our human nature. And we can tame them, and we can live with them, and we can love them, and we can keep them out of mischief. And each part of that is very important. When we sit, we can give the sheep or cow of our own minds a very wide pasture, because we're safe when we sit. But Max's mother in the book, when he was causing mischief in the world, did send him to his room.

[27:48]

So it's also important that we not make mischief in the world, and that where we can, we stop mischief from happening in the world. But that's always against a wider background of complete love and complete acceptance and complete presence, where we know that things simply are as they are. And we find our own place within that. Thank you very much.

[28:27]

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