You said that you don't feel so well. This is Yvonne Rand, a long, long time member of this community who was ordained years and years ago, correct? Prehistorically. Prehistorically, and is one of the people who has been through this community and around this community through all of the various struggles that we've had with power and authority. And you were the first person that the Air Council thought of when we decided to have this series on conflict, which happened at such an interesting time in our history. So, if there's anything that you want to say about yourself, please do. But what your title for tonight is, is Power and Authority. Okay. Thanks. That's what I was told on Wednesday in the city and I didn't talk about it then.

[01:00]

So, good evening. Excuse me for drinking ginger ale, delicious ginger ale in front of you, but my stomach is a little unhappy, so. I just tore over the hill to the nearest ginger ale bottle. There are a few of you who I saw the other night, so bear with me. I hope I won't repeat myself too much. But there are a few things I'd like to bring forth, and hopefully we can have some discussion. Now, I know you all get up at an unseasonably early hour, so what time should we end? What we've been doing is ending anything formal that you might say, you know, just to you by yourself, by 8.30, and then if there are questions. And people have asked questions in the middle, too. Yeah, okay, good. Questions after that, but definitely out of here by 9.00, absolutely lights out.

[02:07]

That's good, because I'd turn into a pumpkin then, I think, also, so. Of course, between the day I was invited to do these talks and today, the world has changed so dramatically. So I don't really want to talk about power and authority issues per se, except in the context of what's happening for a lot of people who don't feel part of the mainstream view and voice now. It is a sense of powerlessness, of not having a voice, of not knowing how to have a voice.

[03:12]

So I think that part of what I would like to bring up tonight has to do with the importance of finding our voice and using it more now than ever before, I would say. And I have a couple of things to read to you that will illustrate my point. This afternoon I was listening to President Bush as he talked about signing something, he said, with the stroke of a pen, freezing the assets of 27 individuals and organizations recognized as having some affiliation with terrorism. And at the same time that he acknowledged that most of the financial resource for terrorist cells and groups throughout the world have their money outside of the United States, nevertheless, this was something that could be done.

[04:25]

I've been practicing speaking carefully and respectfully with the President. I just think as a mind training practice it's very important to do. He needs all the support and help he can get to rise to the occasion. But there were a couple of things that struck me about what he had to say this afternoon, which was in the spirit of this signing of this freezing of the assets, goes also for any banks and financial institutions throughout the world that might harbor or be engaged with the funding for terrorists. So be on notice, he said, because if you're not with us then you will be frozen out of any financial transactions with the United States.

[05:32]

And I was struck by the want of skill in what he had to say. The tendency that we can get into both individually and collectively to go to this mind of if you disagree with us, if you're not with us, you're against us. Which closes off the possibility of listening and getting to know who our opponents or enemies are. And freezes us out of the possibility of discovering how much of what contributes to our seeing someone or group of people or nation as our enemy, based on a lot of assumptions that we have not looked into. And in conflict resolution of all kinds, this is very fundamental territory.

[06:37]

Because so much of conflict arises out of ignorance, out of simply not knowing what is so for the other person. The other night I made a very strong pitch, and I'd like to make it here as well, for a book called Difficult Conversations. I actually think it should be a required Dharma text for everybody in this community. Very, very practical articulation in detail about how to engage in the conversations you don't want to have with somebody. The definition in the book of a difficult conversation is one you don't want to have. It's written by three people whose names I don't remember, but they are disciples of Roger Fisher and Bob Urey,

[07:39]

who wrote another Dharma text called Getting to Yes. And they started the Harvard Negotiations School. These three people studied with them and are colleagues, students and eventually colleagues of theirs. Fisher and Urey were in charge of the negotiations team during the Cold War for the U.S. in negotiating with the USSR. And I think that this whole articulation of view for process rather than outcome is more critical for the world we live in now than has ever been the case before. And these three people who did the book Difficult Conversations really break apart all the elements that lead to conflict and help us begin to see how to step back and open up the process of engagement

[08:46]

such that we can begin to see what is poor communications, what is projection, what is unchecked out assumption, and begin to move closer and closer to the capacity of putting ourselves in the other person's shoes. Because it's only when we can put ourselves in the other person's shoes that we can begin to understand the nature of the conflict that we find ourselves in. I was very interested in listening to someone who was interviewed on NPR who is a long time kind of student, if you will, in the Middle East, who described the Taliban as being not even a minority group in Afghanistan, not even that big. A really tiny group that is not respected or liked by virtually all of the Afghanis.

[09:53]

I thought that was very interesting. So to talk about the Taliban as the government in Afghanistan is already not so accurate. I think that's very useful for us to understand. So let me begin with these three things that I'd like to read and then make my points from them to the degree that I need to. The first thing I want to read to you is a poem by Wendell Berry which doesn't need explaining. Now you know the worst we humans have to know about ourselves, and I'm sorry. For I know that you will be afraid. To those of our bodies given without pity to be burned, I know there is no answer but loving one another.

[10:59]

Even our enemies, and this is hard. But remember, when a man of war becomes a man of peace, he gives a light divine. Though it is also human. When a man of peace is killed by a man of war, he gives a light. You do not have to walk in darkness. If you will have the courage for love, you may walk in light. It will be the light of those who have suffered for peace. It will be your light. This is a poem he dedicated to his granddaughters who visited the Holocaust Museum on the day of the burial of Rabin. Now the next piece, I don't know what we do without the internet.

[12:01]

Although the quality of what's flying around is beginning to decline as the quantity increases. This was sent to me by a very dear friend of mine, a Dharma sister named Trudy Goodman. It's about Hell's grannies. Do you know about Hell's grannies? I think you'll like knowing about Hell's grannies. This is everything about. Power and authority. Women in black put us to shame facing down ethnic cleansing and nuclear criminality. Ariel Sharon's decision not to blast the Palestinians out of existence after last week's suicide bombings is at first sight mystifying. While jets blew up the Palestinians' police station in Ramalia and the Israeli soldiers occupied their East Jerusalem headquarters,

[13:03]

these reprisals were far less bloody than most people had predicted. Several hypotheses have been advanced to explain this uncharacteristic restraint. Sharon is seeking to keep faith with his more conciliatory foreign minister, Shimon Peres. He is hoping to collect some moral credit, which he will use to defend much fiercer intervention at a later date. The seizure of Palestinian offices does more to hurt their cause than the murder of prominent figures. All these explanations are plausible, but there is another possible interpretation, overlooked by almost everyone in killing Palestinians. Ariel Sharon can no longer be sure that he is killing only Palestinians. For the past few weeks, foreign peace activists belonging to the international solidarity movement have been arriving in Jerusalem and the West Bank, joining demonstrations, staying in the homes of threatened Palestinians,

[14:08]

turning themselves into human shields between the Israeli army and its targets. A few days ago, they were joined by one of the most remarkable forces in British politics, a group of mostly middle-aged or elderly campaigners called Women in Black UK. These hell's grannies have moved straight into the front line, ensuring that the brutality with which the Palestinians are routinely treated now has international repercussions. Israel cannot hurt local people without hurting them, too. For the past few nights, members of the solidarity movement have been sleeping in the homes of Palestinians in the Bethlehem suburb of Bet Jaya. Eight hundred and fifty homes have been shelled by soldiers stationed in the neighboring Jewish settlement of Gilo, as the army seeks to expel the Palestinians in order to expand Israel's illegal plantation.

[15:13]

The foreigners have been standing at army checkpoints, photographing soldiers when they stop people trying to leave or enter their communities, and recording the names of those they arrest. The soldiers hate this scrutiny, but whenever the monitors arrive at a checkpoint, there is a marked reduction in the violence there. The Women in Black also helped to organize the demonstrations outside Orient House, the Palestinian headquarters seized by Israel on Friday. They established a physical and political space in which Palestinians could protest non-violently. Arrested and beaten up with the local people, the women witnessed the torture of Palestinian prisoners in the police station, which would otherwise have gone unrecorded. In short, these volunteer peacekeepers are seeking to do precisely what foreign governments have promised but failed to do, to monitor and contest abuses of human rights, to defuse violence, and to challenge Israel's ethnic cleansing program.

[16:17]

Their actions put us all to shame. As well as seeking to enforce peace, they are trying, hard as it is in the current atmosphere, to broker it. They have been suggesting to their Palestinian hosts some of the novel means by which injustice can be confronted without the use of violence. They have plenty of experience to draw on. Some of these activists have been involved in the Trident Plowshares campaign, which over the past fortnight has been running rings around the Marines guarding the nuclear submarines in Scotland. To the astonishment of the guards, the protesters there have managed to evade the tightest security in the UK, swimming into the docks in which the submarines are moored and spray-painting the words useless and illegal on their signs. They have launched canoes and homemade rafts into the paths of submarines, trying to leave their berths. They have cut through the razor wire and roamed around the base,

[17:18]

hoping to arrest its commander for crimes against humanity. A few days ago, they blocked the main gates of the nuclear warhead depot, their arms embedded in barrels of concrete, bringing work to a halt as the police tried to figure out how to extract them. They do not function without humor. Two years ago, three of these women climbed into the Trident Program's floating research laboratory on Lough Gah and, as a delightful new video commissioned by the Quakers shows, threw all its computers into the sea. In Greenock Court, they were acquitted of criminal damage after the sheriff accepted their defense that the Trident Program infringes international law, rather than committing a crime, they were preventing one. Soon afterwards, the women borrowed a police boat from the Trident Base in Coolport and drove it into the submarine docks at Fas Lane.

[18:22]

Among them was one of the women who were also found not guilty in 1996 after smashing up a Hawk aircraft bound for East Timor. The subsequent publicity forced the government to stop exporting Hawks to Indonesia. Though they are acquitted as often as they are convicted, Hills Granny's has spent much of the past few years in jail. They take full responsibility for their actions. If the police fail to spot them, they ring them up and ask to be arrested. Their candor, clarity, and humor played well in court, but the risks of this accountable campaigning are enormous. The prosecution began yesterday of 17 British and American Greenpeace activists who were being tried on terrorism charges after peacefully occupying the Californian launch pad, being used for George Bush's missile defense tests. In the Middle East, such tactics are likely to be still more dangerous, as Israeli soldiers have shown no hesitation in killing protesters.

[19:28]

But as Gandhi recognized, the brutal treatment of nonviolent campaigners can destroy the moral authority of the oppressor, generating inexorable pressure for change. The women in black are clearly prepared not only to die for their cause, but also to make what Dostoevsky correctly identified as a far greater sacrifice, to live for their causes. They are ready to lose their homes, their comforts, their liberty, to be vilified, beaten up, and imprisoned. Their accountable actions require a far greater courage than throwing bricks at the police. Most importantly, perhaps, these campaigners never cease to acknowledge the humanity of their opponents. They seek not to threaten, but to persuade. The results can be astonishing. The police who pulled the trident swimmers out of the water ferried them back to their camp, rather than arresting them while massaging their legs to stop cramping.

[20:31]

When Angie Zeiter, one of the coordinators of women in black, was on remand for her attempts to demolish the British military machine, she was visited in prison by a timber merchant whose business she had once tried to shut down. He had, as a result of her campaign, stopped importing mahogany stolen from indigenous reserves in Brazil, and started refashioning his business along ethical lines, and now he needed her advice. All this is a long-winded way of saying something which in the 21st century sounds rather embarrassing. These people are my heroes. They confront us with our own cowardice, our failure to match our convictions with action. We talk about it, they do it. Hell's grannies are walking through fire. If they can, why can't we all? I found that very inspiring. So, a little closer to home.

[21:34]

I was supposed to fly to Minneapolis on Friday, and I was not particularly happy about getting on an airplane yet, until I got this. This is a report by a passenger aboard United Flight 564, which appeared in the Washington Times on September 19th. As it was at most U.S. airports, last Saturday was the first near-normal day at Denver International since the terrorist attacks. On United Flight 564, the door had just been locked, and the plane was about to pull out of the gate when the captain came on the public address system. I want to thank you brave folks for coming out today. We don't have any new instructions from the federal government, so from now on we're on our own. The passengers listened in total silence. He explained that airport security measures

[22:35]

had pretty much solved the problem of firearms being carried aboard, but not weapons of the type the terrorists apparently used, plastic knives or those fashioned from wood or ceramics. Sometimes, the captain said, a potential hijacker will announce that he has a bomb. There are no bombs on this aircraft, and if someone were to get up and make that claim, don't believe him. If someone were to stand up, brandishing something such as a plastic knife, and say this is a hijacking or words to that effect, here is what you should do. Every one of you should stand up and immediately throw things at the person. Pillows, books, magazines, eyeglasses, shoes, anything that will throw him off balance and distract his attention. If he has a confederate or two, do the same to them. Most important, get a blanket over him, then wrestle him to the floor and keep him there.

[23:36]

We'll land the plane at the nearest airport, and the authorities will take it from there. Remember, there will be one of him and maybe a few confederates, but there are 200 of you. You can overwhelm them. The Declaration of Independence says, we the people, and that's just what it is when we're up in the air. We the people versus would-be terrorists. I don't think we're going to have any such problem today or tomorrow or for a while, but sometime down the road, it is going to happen again, and I want you to know what to do. Now, since we're a family for the next few hours, I'll ask you to turn to the person next to you and introduce yourself. Tell them something about yourself and ask them to do the same. The end of this remarkable speech brought sustained clapping from the passengers. He had put the matter in perspective.

[24:38]

If only the passengers on those ill-fated flights last Tuesday had been given the same talk, I thought they might be alive today. So when I got called up to be told that the flight I was to fly on on Friday was canceled, I engaged the young woman of whatever age who was sitting in Carol Bull in Chicago. I said, could I ask you something? So I told her. I basically read this to her. And I said, I want to try to figure out how to encourage United to get every one of your pilots to do the same speech on every flight. So we came up with a little strategy. And one of the people who practices with us at Goat and the Road said, oh, when I read this at our last half-day sitting,

[25:40]

she said, oh, my son's girlfriend is the daughter of a very high executive in United. Send it to me, and I'll see what I can do. I'm going to find out how many people are on my flight and make a bunch of copies. And if I can't get the pilot to say something, we'll do it ourselves. I think that it is extremely important for us to stand and use our voices and be present enough to know how to act appropriately in whatever situation we find ourselves in. And one of the things that I found particularly striking about what this particular pilot was saying was, please, while we're on this flight, make some connection with each other. Because it is out of our making some connection with each other that we have a capacity to be quite effective

[26:43]

and quite powerful in difficult situations. And it is when we go to silencing ourselves, to feeling helpless and to feeling isolated, that we don't know what to do and that we are much more likely to feel overwhelmed by what has happened and by our not knowing what to do. We have to begin to be proactive. We have to end up being smart about the world we live in. Our innocence, our assumed, or, what, blanket-over-the-head innocence, has come to an end. And it's a good thing. Horrible that it's happened the way it has. But it's important for us to understand the world we live in. A doctor friend of ours who is Danish happened to be in New York on September 11th.

[27:45]

Much to my amazement, he said the meeting of scientists, they just kept meeting, which I found remarkable. And our friend, of course, brought up all the concerns which are very much in the minds of Europeans about the acts of terrorism that involve biological and chemical warfare. So I heard somebody interviewed earlier today on that wonderful and cheery subject. Our ability for public health programs in the face of emergencies has completely faded away. Just is not in place in any kind of effective way. And we don't have any vaccine for anthrax and smallpox. It's time for us to be noisy about that. To figure out who to be noisy with. This man said, you know, whenever I bring this subject up,

[28:50]

everybody says, you shouldn't be talking this way. You'll put ideas into the terrorists' minds. And his point was, these ideas are already in the terrorists' minds. The minds these ideas must be in are our own. Now, I don't say this as a way of making all of us feel even more terrified. But to invite all of us to understand what it means to live in the United States in a democracy where having a voice and taking action in this democracy is crucial if we're going to have a democracy. And it has declined. How many people didn't vote in the last presidential election, for example? It is extremely important for us to have our voices.

[29:55]

And I think this is particularly important for those of us who are meditators. Because we can withdraw into the meditation hall and pull the roof of the meditation hall over our heads. And it's not appropriate. It's not right action. It's not coming out of right view. Our ability to cultivate our capacity for spaciousness and for presence is what will allow us to see more clearly how to act and when to act effectively. We have extraordinary resources as Dharma practitioners. I don't know how many of you feel, but I have never been so grateful for the Buddhist path as I have in the last two weeks. I have... I always have to think.

[30:58]

Six study groups. Small groups of five or six or seven people. And we're studying a quite interesting book by a colleague of mine named Ken McCloud called Wake Up to Your Life. It's a kind of five or six year Buddhist curriculum without the cultural baggage. What is really core in all of the major traditions of Buddhism. And most of the study groups that I'm working with we're working on impermanence. The chapter on impermanence. And everybody enjoyed the first meditation. A sequence of five meditations. And everybody enjoyed the first meditation which is on everything changes, nothing remains the same. Starting with the galaxies and the stars and the mountains and the sun and moon. Moving slowly, gradually, as we could bear it closer in.

[32:01]

The second meditation is death is inevitable. Lots of resistance arose in working with that meditation. And the third meditation which is death can come at any time. And the elaborate shenanigans for forgetting to do the practice or thinking of some other practice one would rather do which has been going on for a couple of months came to a crashing halt on the 11th. When these meditations suddenly didn't seem so abstract or remote. And of course for those of us who have been practicing

[33:05]

with meditations on impermanence for some time what we know is the vividness and joy that comes in our lives out of knowing that we all will die and we do not know when or how. So instead of turning us into a ghoulish and dour bunch these meditations actually have quite a different effect if they're practiced skillfully and long enough. So I'm deeply grateful to the Buddhist path. But it's also very clear to me that we have to bring our practice of meditation into the world that we are living in this evening. And to understand that if we join in this rhetoric

[34:15]

about it's us and them. It's either you're with me or you're against me. Is not skillful and not useful. It's like going into a very delicate situation with a big bulldozer kind of crashing in. And we can't afford that. So one of the real issues I think perhaps more accessible for us as Dharma practitioners is how do we stay in relationship with our so-called enemy. And see what our differences are and stay present enough to see what is actual difficulty and where we have real conflict, real differences

[35:16]

and where we have imagined them. The process of being able to put ourselves in someone else's shoes to understand how that person or group of people might come to the position of hating us here in the United States. It's extremely important for us to be curious and interested in what is the ground for so many people around the world to hate us. I think the President had it wrong the other day when he said they hate us for our democracy and for our success and for our wealth. I think he has it very wrong. I think it is because of our actions in other parts of the world that have caused great harm and suffering. And it's very painful for us to open ourselves to find out

[36:18]

why do so many people hate us. But I think it's crucial for us to understand that. It's crucial for us to be able to begin to listen to our so-called enemies from the perspective of what they're telling us about their own mind stream and their perspective, even when they're talking about us. Try that perspective in your own interactions with each other tomorrow. Listening to whatever each of you say from this perspective of what the self describes, describes the self. Somebody may be yelling and screaming at me about something they're upset at me about. And I can take it very personally and be rather likely to get defensive and reactive. Or I can hear what the person is saying, is telling me what is so for them.

[37:21]

What is difficult or challenging for them. And when I do that, I see possibilities that I didn't see from that position of defensiveness. I think that what is crucial now is the cultivation of the mind of both and, not either or. The tendency, in a way, a kind of solace to have the world so simple that there's either this or that. But we're all in the same soup together. Not just all of us as Americans, but all of us alive in the world. How do we let ourselves know that given the right causes and conditions, can we really say that we would not act in the desperate ways that people are acting?

[38:28]

We won't know that until we know something about the causes and conditions that have led to violence in the world. In the last couple of weeks, as I've listened to people, what I've heard over and over again, is at least at some point, the reporting, the describing, I feel overwhelmed. I like to think of the feeling overwhelmed as the feeling of being overwhelmed. As a kind of red oil light on the dash of a car. This is the indication that I've gone to generalize it. And the antidote is to come back to my feet on the floor, my butt on the chair, some specific detail in the physical body and the breath.

[39:32]

To come back to what is specific and particular in the moment. Because of course, when I feel overwhelmed and I sink into overwhelm, overwhelm begins to be in the driver's seat. And I'm not very far away from feeling helpless, hopeless, sunk, lost. If ever there was a time for us to understand the absolute, utter relevance of the Buddha's teaching about cultivating our capacity to be present. Because only out of being completely present, but with a spacious and wide mind, will we have an appropriate sense of being present. A sense of how to be and when to act and how to act. It may not be a bad thing that we will be inconvenienced for quite some while

[40:45]

and that we will have to slow down. A pilot, I'm not sure from which airline, a couple of days after the terrorist attacks on the 11th, said, well now we are going to have to go back to all the safety measures from 15 years ago. Because they're safer. No more curbside check-in, etc. etc. Get to the airport two and a half hours, three hours ahead of time. Like we don't have more to do than get to the airport early. The train begins to look better and better. What would happen if we give up flying? Probably the single biggest thing we could do for the planet. It would be huge.

[41:47]

And of course we wouldn't travel as much. We might go for walks more often. I actually tried very hard to figure out how I could take the train to Minneapolis on Friday, but I'm teaching a class in Berkeley on Thursday. There it is. But in the future, I won't schedule myself that way. I'm actually quite serious about figuring out how to stop flying. Not because I'm afraid of terrorists, but because I think we need to figure out how to change our reliance on Middle Eastern oil. And how to change the way we live in a way that would help us actually save the planet.

[42:53]

We probably won't do it, but we could. And the fact that we might not is not good enough reason not to do it. Now, this is a little bit preaching to the choir, because this is a group of people who know a lot about the benefits of slowing down. But do you remember the benefits of slowing down when you leave Gringottsch? Gringottsch. We can get caught up. Some of the busiest, most overwrought people I know are Dharma teachers. With absolutely killing schedules. Places to go and people to teach. Airplane tickets, etc., etc. We do have this great opportunity to completely change the way we live.

[43:55]

And to, I would say, begin honing our skills, training the mind for how to work in a conflicted situation in the midst of our daily lives. Because it is out of that experience that we will know how to act as a nation. In the class that I'm teaching in Berkeley these days, a couple of weeks ago, someone in the class brought up a colleague of hers. She said, fortunately and curiously, I like this person very much. But I can't stand her politics. She's just gone on the president and everything he stands for. And I said, well, there is a little microcosm of what's going on in the world. She was completely caught with, I either honor my liking this person or I put all my energy into the conflict we have about the president and politics.

[45:09]

And all I had to do was to propose, what's the difference between either or and both and here? She got it. And she said the next week, the whole situation between us has just changed dramatically. We can stop ourselves because we feel like, what can little old me do that would make a difference? I don't know if any of you saw the Chronicle yesterday. There was a printing of a piece by an Afghani journalist. An Afghani who lives in San Francisco named Taman Ansari, which someone had sent me by email a week or 10 days ago. And which I found so remarkable that I sent it to everybody I could think of.

[46:13]

And I sent it around the people that I practice with. One of them then sent it along to all of her siblings, including her brother, who she had not spoken to with her as well for 10 years. They had a family reunion 10 years ago and had a great falling out. And he was very moved by the piece by Ansari and told her so. He sent it to a friend of his who teaches at St. John's University in Minneapolis. And that person sent it to a colleague of his who's a journalist for the Minneapolis paper, who had it printed on the op-ed page of the paper that weekend. We never know. We just never know. And the more we are there, it's prudent for us to be willing to be surprised.

[47:23]

It's prudent for us to keep as open as we can to being surprised about what might arise moment by moment. The person that I consider as my enemy, if I stay in eye contact, if I have some sense of connection with that person, I'm much more likely to find my ability to listen to that person. And to find out something about what the world looks like from their point of view. I remember some years ago when there were two people here, Green Gulch, in great conflict with each other. And Norman and I were the kind of witnesses for each of these two people. And basically what we did over a very, very long period of time was to meet regularly, not for too long, and let each of these two people speak and be listened to.

[48:36]

And then sit for a little while, and then the other person would speak and be listened to. And over time, what was remarkable was how much of the conflict between these two people began to change. And as each of them was able to put themselves in the other person's shoes, what arose was their ability to understand the suffering that each of them had caused in the other. Anyway, that's more than enough for me. And I wonder if you have some things you'd like to bring up or talk about or ask about. Yes? I was struck by the beginning of your talk, how you were drawing on the same teachings or the same points that Joanna Macy made last week to a large crowd over in Berkeley during a teach-in.

[49:43]

And one of the things that she really emphasized was, which I heard you say also, is that this is an incredible time, and we can't turn away. And she came from a place of gratitude saying, we should all be so grateful that we're alive at this time to be able to speak. And also something you said was something she really emphasized in terms of feeling isolated was to get together in small groups and to come up with ideas of what you can do as a small group and how easy it is to feel isolated and powerless. Well, the Buddhist path is everything about relationality as the nature of reality and as the path. I mean, look at what people did as they were about to die. How many people called the people they loved to tell them, I love you.

[50:48]

It's amazing. And what I've been doing the last couple of weeks is actually asking the man at the gas station and the woman at the checkout counter in the grocery store, etc., etc., etc., including the toll taker on the bridge, how are you? I hope you're well today. Thank you very much for helping me. And what's amazing is how often and how easily people want that moment of connection. I think we all do. It's easy to do with the people where we have some ease. But how about doing it with somebody with whom we have some disease? As I've been saying in the talks I've been giving the last while, the real inspiration for me comes from the Tibetans and their experience of being imprisoned and tortured under the current regime, especially some of the young nuns imprisoned in the big prison in Lhasa.

[52:07]

And their practice consistently as they report it is to always stay in relationship with the person who is the guard or their torturer, whoever it is, to hold in their hearts the recognition that this person also suffers. And that suffering is inevitable from actions that cause harming. May I stay open-hearted to the suffering of this person? And by and large, with very few exceptions, they are coming through these just horrendous experiences, don't have any post-traumatic stress syndrome. Kind of remarkable, isn't it? But we have to train the mind for that capacity to stay in relationship in the situations where our reactivity, our conditioning is to disconnect as a way to protect ourselves.

[53:16]

And that takes practice. So, it's the great antidote to isolation, I think. Yes? I was looking at what you were saying for a kind of a release that I would like to have from the frustration. I just want to talk to George Bush. I just want to talk to him. And so, short of that, how to have faith in the immediate person right in front of me kind of acts that you were talking about, how to have the faith that somehow it will ripple. I don't think it's enough. I think we have to also be active expressing our understanding. I mean, one of the things that my husband and I are doing, and I would invite everybody here to join us,

[54:24]

is to figure out how to send some of the quite remarkable stuff that's coming in through email to people who live in every state in the United States, who can then communicate to the people they elect to be in Congress and the Senate. Because the people we elect listen to us much more than the people who we don't elect. One of my students sent me a kind of canned letter from Barbara Boxer, which she was very unhappy about. And I thought, well, I'm going to write a get-in-her-face letter to Barbara Boxer. I don't want a canned letter full of platitudes about bipartisan. Where were you with Barbara Lee, who was the one lone voice in Congress who voted against going to war?

[55:25]

One person spoke out. So, you know, I'd like to get enough of a network going so that there are people in every state in the country really actively engaging with the people that we've elected to be in Congress and in the Senate. And keep training the mind with the people that do such-and-such. That's where the actual work is about what's really so about my mindstream. And if I keep doing that work, in particular, immediately with the people in front of me, that will inform my ability to be skillful when I'm writing to somebody who's in Washington and in a different kind of world, a different kind of time and place. I also think, you know, when the Dalai Lama sent a donation to New York, $30,000, and he wrote a letter to the President, and he addressed the President as Your Excellency.

[56:39]

I think we have to surround the President with as much support to rise to the occasion. But boy, I wouldn't leave any stone unturned. You want to communicate to the President? Do it. But also, what about, you know, our elected representatives and senators? Anything you can think of. Bill? You just said it, but I don't have my capacity as Obama's husband. The lady who said she wants to speak directly to George Bush, go for it. Write him a letter and say, I want to speak to you. I'll come to Washington, and we can meet. Or if you're here, I'll meet you here. But I want to speak to you directly. Write the letter. Place the phone call. I'm sure you will find it empowering. It may not come about, but you don't know.

[57:42]

Don't block yourself for anything you come up with. Don't defeat our own wish by saying, oh, it'll never happen, they'll never hear me. We don't know what the outcome will be. Sometimes when you ask for something, people say yes. Well, the irony... You can start with that, of course. Well, the irony also is that that's exactly Bush's strong point, is talking to one person. I've heard that. It's been in the description, but I had never seen it until... I guess it was on one of the nightline programs that first week when there were no commercials. I hadn't watched television in ten years before I was something else. And he was speaking live to Giuliani and Pataki. And I got something about what causes people to have the kind of loyalty to him that he has. I saw something different in that moment.

[58:45]

So, yeah, I think this not blocking is very important to rule in improvisation work. This is all a giant improvisation, isn't it? So, yeah, I want to underscore what Bill said. Laura. Hi, Yvonne. Twice in the morning. I work with children, and it's been a real privilege to be with children during this time and to watch how they ground themselves in the present moment. And coincidentally, we had scheduled a community meeting for my school last Thursday night. So, everything we were going to talk about, we threw out the window and we talked about this. And the teachers met in their classrooms with the parents of their students just to hear how the kids are doing. And one thing that really struck me among some of the parents that are feeling overwhelmed is that they have an idea that I'm going nuts, I'm overwhelmed,

[59:51]

and it would be dishonest for me to hide this from my child. You know, I can't pretend that I'm not going crazy. And I shared with that group the letter that Tony Patchell forwarded to me from the Dalai Lama where he said, you know, if you want comfort right now, provide comfort to someone else. And I just thought it was interesting, this idea that if we're going to really be ourselves, then we have to go, and we're going crazy, then that's the reality. You know, and to find some other alternative, which is, yes, I'm feeling this way, but can I shift it around by giving to my child at this moment what my child needs, which is reassurance. And I can't help but think of this time of when Kennedy was shot or when Martin Luther King was assassinated and watching Robert Kennedy get assassinated on TV. I felt like the children at that time were just left adrift with those feelings.

[60:54]

I don't know, it was as if the adults didn't think we knew what was happening. You know, and I don't want that to happen to these children, that this is a teaching moment for them to, you know, and we're doing it at my school, to discuss other ways of dealing with conflict. Well, you know, I also think that one of the difficulties with letting our feelings be in the driver's seat is that we lose track of, this is how I'm feeling, but that's not the whole picture. I'm not just a bundle of body sensations and emotions. And I think it's particularly important for children to be around adults who don't just kind of sink into reactive emotions. And of course, all this emotion stuff, especially fear, fear and anger are up a lot,

[61:55]

but we do have some choices about how to be with rather than feeding and kind of sinking into. That kind of negative emotion. The thing I appreciate so much about young children is that they have such a good sense about how much they want to hear and then that's enough now. In many ways, more common sense about that's enough now than adults. We are not sometimes so skillful at giving ourselves a break. You know, going out and doing a little walking meditation. Well, this is what's been so healing to me about being with kids. They go out and play handball. I mean, they know how to stop. And I've seen kids just put their hands over their ears. They don't want to hear it. Little three-year-olds in the preschool part of the school. Enough now. That's all I need to know. But of course, the adults are all watching TV day and night and getting more and more scared.

[62:56]

Yes. I think it's interesting to me and encouraging that you're saying, you know, you're thinking of not flying. I think I noticed the, like that day. I mean, besides, it was a very traumatic day, but just that there were no planes around. It felt like everything sort of slowed down. So I think that might be great if we start a movement. I'll join, you know. I don't know. Well, it would. Oh, I mean, again, who knows? Right. The effect on global warming would be huge. Really huge. And, you know, we've gradually gotten to be more and more used to being able to get on a plane and go somewhere for a short period of time. I mean, I'm, of course, at a decrepit age to remember this, but I do remember when it was unusual to go on an airplane somewhere. I can imagine it being unusual to go on an airplane again.

[64:08]

It doesn't seem like it's so necessary. I mean, maybe people would need to do it. It's like business, right? We've gotten very, very used to convenience and a fast pace and doing things quickly. It would be an enormous change for this society. Enormous. But I'm convinced that the pace that we are going at, or have been going at, isn't sustainable. I think it actually isn't sustainable. So. Yes. Of course, in the email. You know, there's this internet thing, which is this great connection. Sorry, I have two other thoughts. Just that you brought it up about Dharma teachers and their overwrought schedules. It strikes me so often how bizarre that is. And why is that ever brought up?

[65:13]

And I also feel like maybe it's a good time to consider what we can do as a community to encourage people to not be overwrought for the sake of the Dharma. Or to live a life that includes some conception of, yes, we all suffer, and teachers suffer, and something. Anyway. Another thing is this feeling I've been having, which I haven't even been bringing up with peers because I'm sort of embarrassed about it. But I feel like probably to me the biggest enemy in the world is this sense that there are covert operations of our government. There's these things that. And I don't. I mean, this is also. I don't know who does it. But I know that there are CIA covert operations. And I don't know who can touch them. And I don't think that any amount of.

[66:14]

And I hope I'm wrong. I'm actually saying this. Somebody will say, oh no, you're totally wrong. You can write to these people and it'll make a big difference. But I feel like there's somebody and they're making these decisions and they're doing unbelievably atrocious things. And I don't know. I can't imagine what their mindset is. I can't imagine that. I can imagine being so upset with your life and the world state that you do something insanely violent. But I can't imagine how. So these must be people with a nice amount of comfort living in the United States like CIA officials. I don't know. Well, it would be very useful for you to take your question and your I don't know seriously and educate yourself. It's it's it's it's possible. To read some sound documentation about the history of the CIA and and some of the covert operations that the United States has been involved in.

[67:18]

I don't know how many of you know that bin Laden was part of our training program. I think it's extremely important for us to educate ourselves about all that stuff because the funding and support for increased covert operations is it's it's it's on the on the agenda. Absolutely. And I think we are at a very delicate point in terms of the policies of our government and how we proceed, which is why I'm advocating not so much that we get involved in politics per se, but that we develop some sense about the effectiveness of how to educate ourselves and how to have a voice that's appropriate and can influence the policies of our government.

[68:27]

And I don't think it's so easy to do. And somebody just sent me a list of books on just the subject that you're asking about. I'm teetering on overwhelmed with the amount of email I'm getting right now. You know, some of it I don't even get to read on a regular basis. But if my memory, this is something that I caught my eye earlier today. If that's in fact so, I'll send it up to somebody here. Yeah. But, you know, we live in a time when there aren't so many of us who have been reading history. And I think it's important for us to know some history at this point. You know, something somebody told me a few days ago, which I think is somehow appropriate.

[69:33]

During the Second World War, when the British were trying to crack the Nazi code, they pulled together everybody they could think of. Every weird fringe person imaginable. Artists and just everybody. And it was out of that collective mind of people who think, not just in the mainstream, but on the edges, that the code was able to be broken. And I actually think this is such a time. And that we as meditators, as practitioners of the Buddhist path, have a lot to offer in our ability to think about the situation we're in. And think about the world with a bigger frame than maybe usual in more mainstream circles.

[70:39]

Not exclusively, but I think we have something to offer if we can educate ourselves about the situation. Yeah. Two things, actually. One is that I would be very interested in getting together with some people here to have a support system to help each other do this kind of study. Because as I work, it's like I started writing an editorial, and it's like there's just too much I don't know. And the other thing is... Five people could be looking at five different things. Yeah, that's a great idea. And remember where it came from. And the other thing is that you're sending things to people by email, and I'm wondering if I can get on your email list. Because you mentioned three things that I want to send out. Absolutely. I'll put a little piece of paper here, and you give me your email address. Because, you know, I am calling...

[71:46]

Stuff that's coming through email now is getting to be mixed. But people are helping me. Yeah. Of course, I don't have a pencil, but that's all right. Somebody will come up with a pencil. I mean, who knows what the internet will make possible. I mean, this Ansari piece suddenly went... First day. Went, like, all over the country. And then about a week after I sent it out, I started getting it back. And one day I got, like, nine copies of it. And I thought, that's terrific. Yes. Really terrific. Yeah. Will you leave the stories behind, or maybe... Sure, sure. We actually don't have a computer right now. Yeah. One email address from Green Gulch, and the person here can circulate it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so if you give me... Are you here?

[72:50]

I'm here, yeah. Give me your email address, and I'll send you what we've done so far. And then you'll just be in the loop. Yeah. That's the best way to do it. Phil is trying to save me from... Yeah, myself. Yes, back there. I just want to confess to something, either or, that has been coming up for me in these conversations. Yeah. Which we've been having a lot of here. And... I think you're kind of isolated, or defensive, because I feel like the position that you're saying, sort of a position against monasticism, and as someone who's interested in monasticism, I need to defend monasticism. And as I've been sitting with that, with your image of both and, and trying to...

[73:59]

to not... to not land in any kind of simple view of either activism or monasticism. Uh-huh. Like the... I think it's painful to me, the image of sort of pulling the roof of the meditation hall over your head. I was talking about motivation. And I know too many people who hide in monastic life. I'm not speaking against monasticism. I think that we can never be effective in the world unless we have effectively studied and begun training our own mind stream. I would not in any way disagree with the potency and deepening that monastic training can bring.

[75:08]

Um... But I am completely opposed to using it as a place to hide. I'm talking completely about motivation. How would we know exactly? The only person who will know what your motivation is, is you. And if you don't know what your motivation is, I encourage you to take on discovering, what is my motivation, moment by moment. And you'll probably have to figure out what your motivation was after the fact, until you kind of get the hang of yourself. Because once you begin to have a more accurate sense about what motivates me to do this or this or this, to say that or not say that, what's motivating me to go to the meditation room and to sit down on my cushion and practice? That's probably not a question if you haven't asked it.

[76:11]

If you don't know, that may take a while. But out of studying motivation, one begins to see how what is crucial is motivation. And out of that understanding about motivation comes the ability to practice having a clear intention. That's actually a kind of aiming point in one's inner and outer life. But my experience is that motivation is the whole show. That a good life lived with an unwholesome motivation is going to cause harm. That the externals vary enormously depending upon what one's motivation is. And I don't think we can know what motivates us unless we really turn to and pay attention to coming to understand what our motivation is. I think it's a very important part of practice.

[77:15]

And of course, if you're living and practicing and training as a monastic, and you're in a practice period and there's a certain mode in the day, some of what I'm talking about isn't going to be so relevant. But you're not in that mode all year. The practice period comes to an end. If you were in Japan, you'd go back to your home temple and kind of be in the world a little bit. The issues that are in front of us right now are going to be around in late December, beginning of January. In between the practice periods. And of course, ultimately, you might decide to really stay in the monastic mode very intensely for several years.

[78:25]

But the Buddhist path suggests that that's in order to be in the world in a different way. And when I'm talking about presence, I'm not talking about necessarily always doing. If we're really present, we know when what is most appropriate is not doing at all, but being present. So forgive me if I sounded like I was not supportive of the monastic life that you're trying to follow. Just a description of my own mind. Well, you know, I don't want to help you out in that department. But I really encourage you to develop, as much as you can, some interest and curiosity about motivation. You won't regret it.

[79:29]

Okay, now, pumpkin time. Five minutes? Okay. Yeah. You're talking about, I guess, sort of a group empowerment. When you're reading about the pilot over the speaker, you can overcome. I feel like that maybe misses a little bit around the power of fear to freeze people, especially in groups. Because it's so hard to actually connect all together in such a way that you work together. I mean, we work on it day and night here, and it's almost laughable sometimes how hard it is for us to... So I just feel like advanced preparation, maybe, to know that you might be an effective individual on an aircraft like that.

[80:35]

To know that maybe people are going to be like, you're the headlights in that situation, and not be able to... Okay, this rope, we've got a blanket, we might not be able to move, period. Look what the guys did on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. You know, the fact that one of them was 6'5'' probably helped. I know, my sister had received that email also. So we had talked about this a little bit last night, and she was like, if only they had had that speech. But my reaction was like, but we don't know what that was like for them actually to be in that situation. Well, I think the point you're bringing up is extremely important, because one of the consequences of these acts of terrorism is a palpable amount of fear in the United States among many of us in this room. I would imagine that every one of us has fear arising, but as with everything, it both arises and passes.

[81:43]

And what is my relationship to fear? Do I have some capacity to be with fear for an inhalation, or perhaps an inhalation and an exhalation? And all I have to do is to do that once. Not in my head, but to actually be present with the emotion as it's rising and falling on the breath. And my relationship to fear is different out of that experience. If fear is coming up, don't sit in the zendo with it. Get up and walk. It is not skillful to sit with intense amounts of fear and or anger. But if you walk, you discover your ability to be with those emotions on the breath,

[82:44]

which means you can then begin to sit with them and begin to stay in relationship with those emotions. And of course, what happens if you stay with fear, for example, for a few breaths, is you experience, oh, even this has the mark of impermanence. We get scared about fear because we think it's a steady state that's just going to go on and on and on. But we keep it going on and on with stories and images and all those reruns of the bombings and the towers collapsing and all of that. We can keep ourselves just terrified. But that's because out of generalizing, in particular, can I be with the fear that's arising on this breath? That's what our practice is. This is not a path about being present with what we like.

[83:46]

I know everybody's heard that, but nobody believes it. I mean, I consider myself, I always thought, you know, after I started practicing, oh, I'm a fear type. You know, I got it with my mother's milk. And I remember one day when absolutely the worst thing that I ever imagined could happen to me happened to me. And I thought, I'm still here. What happened? I didn't die. And my relationship to fear has been different ever since. So can we be in relationship with fear as well as with the so-called enemy? That's really what I'm asking myself and all of us. I think that's what our practice is about.

[84:50]

Otherwise, that end of the emotional spectrum looms very big and gets bigger and bigger and bigger the less we turn toward that emotional territory. You know, this practice, which I love, it's a transformation meditation for working with intense negative emotions. The template relationship is that of a mother with her only newborn child. To hold fear at the heart chakra, including the body sensations that accompany the emotion, with that quality of attention, of care, of interest, of how do I take care of this? Breathing in, I know fear within me. Breathing out, I know fear within me. It's a completely radical thing to do.

[86:03]

To turn towards an emotional state I'm used to turning away from, distracting, let me out of here, I want it to go away. But that's what we have to do with anything we're conflicted about, is this, on the breath. Don't take my word for it. It won't make any difference to you if you do. But if you let yourself have the experience for one breath, see, see what happens. Send me a postcard. Okay, nice to see you all, even under these circumstances, very nice to see you all. Take good care of yourselves. Thank you.

[86:52]

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