World Peace and Health

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SF-04063
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Copyright California Diamond Sangha: "2 tape set $12.00"

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intention
so we are affiliated with robert eight kids hawaii diamond sangha and so we have close ties with eakin roshi and
a kid roshi at hawaii diamond sangha itself comes from a japanese buddhist tradition concern both cured on which was started by degreed hirata roshi japanese zen master of the twentieth century and is interestingly enough one of the few communities in japan that is or
a detour lay people rather than toward a monasteries at monks like most of zen buddhism in and is
so sanga means community and we're a community of people practicing zen meditation resides in as a lot of you people out there probably are too
and so that is the center of our life here in sonoma county and we do lots of other things to we get together and we have fields we work together play together and we have those kinds of organizational meetings where you point all these committees and draw up all these plans that have arguments in didn't have a big meal
yeah kind of stuff too
but the basis of our practice is always our meditation practice
and this is a very old practice as most of you probably know buddha started it when he parked himself under a tree and decided he was gonna stay there until he understood the nature of human suffering
and so from buddha the practice spread through china and japan and found its way to america and everywhere it went it underwent changes and i find those changes very interesting changes stead zen buddhism made in america and in the west in general
i'm part of the change is that we don't live in monasteries we live in the world so the world disarm monastery and
to our our life is our practice and another one of the changes is that we are a democratic people so we are you in wrangell and take votes and so forth and work out our practice day by day it's not handed down to us and another change that
is happening in the west more and more is that into leadership of his own community and in in california diamond sangha there are many women involved and i think that's nice
so why do we do this meditation practice people come to meditation for all sorts of reasons
to relax or to be happier more successful or to meet somebody but it seems like we stay in the practice
what because our friend does it it seems like we stay in the practice because we find that we want to find out who we are what is our true nature
and in the context of are very confusing world
and most of us probably everyone in this room looks at the suffering and injustice the world and wants to go out there and reach out and fix it
and change it and make the suffering and injustice go away
but how can you do that if you don't know who you are you can just mess things up so zazi in his are we focusing on who we are so that we are more effective in our life in the world and
we we study who we are not in figuring out sort of way but
by the heart is hard
and we do this with our saga because it helps at a jaunty or and roshi at this point and
john is the teacher of california time and saga he is it all student of a kid roche's and he ah is akin roshi dharma heir he's belongs to the tradition of teaching that started with buddha in has come down through many generations
and john lives here in santa rosa with his wife and very charming today half year old daughter who is not here to turn against
and as soon as john speaks you will realize that john is not from around here
and so we're very happy to have john tyrant roshi who came all the way from australia to live and work with us in santa rosa john terry

i always felt you should wait to hear what i say before you clap

oh
talk a little and then handover to a commercial film
you're supposed to nearly came to hear can you hear me your case is working
no
if it's not working so many ways

the like
events i've been interested for a long time and i wouldn't means to try and establish british culture in this country
so slow long term project that we're going back to time
ah a project in which we try and set things right at the center we have a deep meditation practice and then from that practice with act in the world so there's a kind of circulation from the inner world to the outer world and than backing again
perpetual motion of meditation and action
so i think her
a conversion his life
very well represent this kind of circulatory movement between the inner and the outer worlds
ah yes first brush with as as and sitting meditation and contemplate of world was in internment during the war in japan and
and also was kind of as those with with a deepening of his poetry
since you knew there he met at least one of his poetic mentors who's in the same camp with him
and
i myself very grateful that he did all the work of interpreting the japanese tradition to me
because then i didn't have to do the work myself and i could go on study with him in hawaii instead of having to go to japan which well wonderful is a very difficult place to get established for westerner
and when he is
is often described as the grand old man if americans and
i'm
he he did a lot of that that work of going to japan learning the language finding teachers
not being able to keep the you know teachers having teachers die or move or and then having to establish a new relationship with another teacher at process familiar i think too many of us that arduous in the first generation
i'm grateful for the way he plowed through the snow for us
and his other has many interests
the one of the ways he has interpreted meditation is in terms of
a sensitivity to the widest system of the planet the ecology
to the harmony between people to peace and
and a good relationship with the other beings on the planet and that's the main theme of his talk tonight
i think he has done a great deal to
bring it about that buddhism will ask a lot longer than a kudos in russia and
and so that in this time of upheaval and hope so
i think it's good to listen and go inside and connect there as well as finding a things something to do in the outer world is robert a commercial
the
he just like your john i'm delighted to be here this evening
a bit odd
the
poster for this meeting

the poster
an ancestor
okay i
a great western zen master
it couldn't come
and you know there was a second poster that said
ah
westerns and master
but he couldn't jump either
i showing up as i am
let us persevere together
our read this short piece and then
we can have a question period
and i do better extemporaneously but i also write things down so i i can be sure that i say what i want to say
i'm looking through the literature of
a peace and ecology
i'm struck by the frequency
and metaphors of illness
johan gotten professor of peace studies at the university of hawaii and
founder of the international peace research institute in oslo
has remarked that if you ask what is the cause of war it is really like asking something like what is the cause of illness
another example that truck carrying kelly co-founder of the grown in the german green party
rejects bar and the exploitation of ah the habitat as a sickness that arises from called hearts and greedy ambition
gaia our living planet is ill
entire species are dying out each day for us are being relentlessly they stride rivers lakes and seas are less and less nourishing for their inhabitants and for the rest of us
and the earth is losing its fertility the community of human beings also
his ailing violent crimes in danger the piece of cities and villages war destroys the occurred within and among nations exploitation of the week by the strong black the fulfillment of human potential everywhere
and they reckless destruction of our environment brings famine pestilence and premature death to people in poorer parts of the world and in increasingly larger areas within wealthier nations have the feeling
here that i'm preaching to the choir so
anyway
no actually we are all of us are afflicted
the momma kitty
legendary teacher said to have been a friend of the buddha shock your money
but once asked why are you sick
he replied i am sick because the whole world is sick
and in context his words refer to the human condition and the condition of our species we are here on lay briefly and certain will pass away without a trace
all things are transient
but today his words can also be understood ecologically
this guy is in a dangerously toxic conditions and therefore i too am poisoned
we can reverse the molecule or where words
the whole world is sick because i am sick
the pathological views of a single person infects all beings
and we can reverse them still again
even in the throes of a critical illness
even at the extremity of our life or a community in ruins it is possible to take up prophylaxis and therapies and work for a healthy persona
and i help they were on
earlier this year i visited an inmate at the
aquilani correctional center on the big island of hawaii this is a minimum security prison
ah
the inmate i visited and i have been corresponding for some time but this was our first meeting
it ourselves
i asked him if he had a question
and he said tell me about the buddhist precepts
you know buddhism has precepts ah the way christianity and judaism have commandments
they're approached a little differently but that's another tough
i was quite struck by his request i didn't feel and that he wanted an exposition
you know besides sir
ah he had my book and just exposition right there
so i asked him
as a graciously as i could oh what he was getting at
and he said well i want to be able to respond and not just reacting
he had diagnosed his sickness clearly
he knew that the condition of just reacting is pathological
what is a day therapy for this distressing malady
can moral ruins be of help
i told him that the precepts give guidance like rails on a footbridge
and while they cannot be overlooked
it is important to understand their source in our original peace and harmony
i explained that when the practice of zazen
focused meditation he could find the peace that is buried under his thoughts and worries
and the leisure so to speak
to adjust to whatever happens
he would have a chance to recall the teachings of not harming
if he were struck by someone he could respond
gently why did you do that
rather than just hit back
this is the process of opening to the other and is a change of attitude
rather than of fundamental human nature
indeed the definitions and contours of human nature become more clear
the old illusion of a self that requires defenses of sovereignty can drop away
not only can illusions of personal sovereignty drop away but so can the fantasy of a sovereign family disappear and the fantasy of a sovereign community cooperation are a nation state
imperatives afar status and power can gradually be replaced with responsibility for health
and healing
with the dropping away of illusions and the cultivation of our ability to respond
responsibility in other words
we find the original garden of peace and harmony to be more and more evident
this is not the mythological garden of eden
which our ancestors lost by their foolishness
nor heavens where we go after a life of faith and morality
nor is the original garden within ourselves exclusively for it is also our homes and workshop our office
however full of distraction they might be
in the words of hukou in a cocker the grade reorganize or of rinzai zen buddhism and the eighteenth century in japan
this very place is the lotus land
by whatever name this very place
accommodate the come up the complimentary cities have self and other
it provides us with the breadth which my friend in prison and indeed all of us need in order to experience and practice interdependence and reconciliation
this very place is no other than my own family and yours our own communities and our networks have like minded friends where we can work for health and mutual understanding in ever widening circles of him
implants
my friend in prison
was not ready to say that his environment was a garden of harmony
but certainly he was taking himself in hand in order to bring forth a healthier view of himself and his fellow inmates
he was conscious of the hatred in his psyche which had brought him before a criminal cards to be sentenced to a minimum of fifteen years of confinement and hard labor
how can i deal with my hatred he was asking
hatred is one of the three poisons which the buddha declared to be the toxins of the world the other two being greed and ignorance
they poison our human systems of politics and economics as they did in the buddhist time
and today they poison our sophisticated technology has well
however we can see signs
at last
the some of the greediest managers are coming around like my friend in prison to question their old attitudes and responses
no longer his dog eat dog the conventional view of society
there is i think gore growing awareness that we face a world in crisis and now or never we must take up the task of transmuting the three poisons
to the virtues of generosity loving kindness and wisdom

the attitude of wise compassion is actually quite similar to the poisonous attitude
for both arise from the treasure of individuality
there was never anyone with your eyes your nose your teeth before
and there will never be such an individual again
moreover you and i are born with certain particular potentials which we sent in ourselves more or less clearly
our lives are all of a piece
more or less consciously dedicated to the fulfillment of our potentials
it is in levels of conscious awareness that we can discern the difference between compassion and poison
individual is the one who realizes that the human skin is as porous as the universe and the potential of the self is the potential of the many varied beings working together
the much less conscious and cold hearted individual on the other hand follows the self centered way of the unloved child and is supported by other childish adults
cold heart
is a metaphor of warmth denied
the self center itself conjures up a self centred universe
i am at the center of the universe just as i am with my own unique qualities of personality intelligence and talent
it is my lifetime task to network with the other selves and to guide them and control them so that my unique self shall prevail over the dynamic organism of the many bags
thus you and i can be corrupted by the three poisons
and relate to the universe from an imaginary position of control like an infant demanding third
warm heart is a metaphor of warmth affirmed
they must be centered self
speaking from a single center
can testify i am a hologram
of all beings just as i am with my own unique qualities of personality intelligence and talent
it is my lifetime task to network with my other sobs
to turn the wheel of realization and understanding
and helped to bring that dynamic organism of everyone and everything to maturity
in this way the mature human being seized the same universe as the greedy manager does but season it with a different attitude as a season the physician
offering the food therapy and prophylaxis that will best serve in the circumstances
it is important to notice that finding oneself to be a hologram of all beings is not the same as the small ego and lodging to become a great eagle
ego is simply self image and can be altogether neutral the buddha himself had a clear ego he knew who he was and what he had to do
great ego on the other hand is pathological
and can wreak he meant immense harm
whitman's lines i am large i contain multitudes was intended i think as an expression of the hologram although of course he did not know the word
but his lines can be misunderstood as a presentation of the great ego and so they can be dangerous
the mature south
is not enlarged it is forgotten
and a power of individual potential becomes the power of the sage who is
of all things rather than by some kind of inner light
dough again kick in in his gang joe con dog and again g was the founder of soto zen buddhism in japan in the early thirteenth century
he set forth five steps in the development of the healthy body sat for mind the bodhisattva is how the bank
ha on the way to realization to enlightenment
the being who is enlightening others hotter
here we have his five steps in the in the well-known lines to study the buddha way is to study the self
the study itself is to forget the self
to forget the self is to be confirmed by the ten thousand things
to be confirmed by the ten thousand things is to drop away body and mind
and let the body and mind others of others drop away
no trace of this realization remains and this no trace his continued endlessly
very compact condensed expression ah of our practice
am
my teacher yamato call on russia used to say the purpose of zen is to forget the self in the act of uniting with something
it is the act of uniting with a task
or it is the act of allowing
the thrush
do your night with you are with me
so that there is only that sound that birdsong and the whole universe and everything else is dark and quiet
southern there is only that work
and the importance of everything else change
the film forgotten is the myriad things that make you and me up
there is no other me
in matsuo basho was simple verse
look children hailstones let's rush out
the point forgets himself completely in the context of children allows their presence and the hailstones to confirm his him as an older child and he inspires his young companions
to forget themselves to
no trace of self conscious realization remains and this no trace as a poem continues endlessly encouraging you and me ha to join the poet and forgetting our
ourselves to
the opposite of the forgotten self is the preoccupied guilty self
always on the edge of paranoia
the healthy person sees a distant lantern and regards it as a guy
the unhealthy person regards it as the light of a spy
self consciousness like self centered conduct generally is the denial of mature wisdom
by shaw's experience is a sample of maturity which account can afford to be childish again
and there are many other samples my friend in prison need to listen to his fellow inmates and to the corrections officers and to respond to them from within the organism they share
at home at the departmental meeting at the post office we have the same task as family selves communal selves corporate selves national south selves we have the same time
task
this task is a practice and conscientious
and it's a practice and not something one just let happen
we take it up consciously and conscientiously pursue it
though dorgan set forth this practice as a step by step linear practice
it is actually not something sequential
at each moment of our practice we study the put away at each moment we forget ourselves and each moment we are confirmed by the ten thousand and things
for the zen buddhist the prototype form of this process is zazen literally seated meditation
the practice of sitting as erect and as still has the buddha
quietly breathing in and out while uniting with a theme
this theme might be the sounds of the world
it might be ones breaths
it might be a word or phrase of particular existential residence
it is a practice of intimacy
when you are intimately you are one with
when you are not intimate you are isolated in your head
intimacy is wisdom the awareness that just as i am with all my peculiarities and weaknesses i contain everything
just as every cell of every leaf contains the universe
this is compassion suffering with others
and it's function is to work with the myriad components of the living dynamic organism of all beings
to bring more and more intimacy to world consciousness
the buddha himself was enlightened by a glimpse of the morningstar
and in our zazen you and i are practicing with that star and with everything and everybody
right here
on our seats
we are breathing together with people animals and plants as ourselves
we returned to are superficial selves on wave reflect on the zaza in practice the and process itself
or when we think about something in the past or future
at such a time we don't hear the birds and the wind
however when we are focused on our theme
the birds and the wind join us
daily life practice goes hand in hand with intimate zazen this is the proof of the pudding
like sauce and it arises from the right attitude
and in simple language it is the imperative to be decent
guided by the wisdom of words we find that decency is etymologically akin to honor
and the ancient ideals are validated once again
in teaching honorable conduct to our children we confirm and brain to their awareness what they already know in their hearts
halloween express this innate awareness by sang all beings by nature are put up
we need simply to bring forth and practice what we really are
hey jay musty is said to have asserted that peace is the way
in other words piece is the way we conduct ourselves
it is illumined by the ideal of peace
the way the sun illumines our past
we can't leave our work to the sun however
our practice is to lose ourselves in our task of bringing forth light and harmony wherever we are
and of organizing with friends in social and economic communities to bring good health
two are interdependent raft
i can't

break the ice yes
hey
greed hatred and ignorance
i was reflecting the other day about the word ignorance
realizing that it is related to the word ignore
when we ignore what's really there then we aren't being ignorant

yes

well about nine years ago and it can and i
in are naive t
ah decided to join
with
ah friends in the
american friends service committee and the fellowship of reconciliation and and other peace and social justice
movements who are withholding
all our part of their federal income taxes
by way of feeling better about ourselves i think that we are not to
providing gas and oil for the fire the engines of destruction and murder
and we studied the
the dow of tax resistance as carefully as we could
ah
and we learned that the best way is to fill out ones farm exactly
and show the amount due
and then either write a check for part of it are not write a check
but to and clause a letter explaining what we're doing
so he did that
and nothing happened
far some time
about four years later ah
we started getting letters
the nasty letters
ah nastier letters
ah and the upshot was that after about eight years they entered the irs entered our bank accounts and extracted
a part of what we owed
the confusing thing is that
oh oh we worked through a tax accountant you see he knows what we're up to he doesn't care he just wants to get his returns right sheesh
hum
but
where the returns showed that we paid too much even though we didn't pay it we got refunds
the

so ah and were reflecting you see where we pay fifty percent because as the the people who study the matter say that to fifty percent of our taxes go for military purposes the i figure is actually higher
than that if you can't touch the
payments on debts see that were incurred in past wars are the debts for pensions and things like that oh we don't mind paying debts but we just don't want to pay far
planning and conducting war
but if fifty per cent of our fifty percent of course is is used for
and then they extract joe
the
money from our bank account that we all are theoretically they do because the there are so confused that they're not able to keep up with all of our all if i returned so we only lost the match that we owed on some of our returns
but anyway the idea is that they come in and extract all the money that we all plus penalty plus interest
and so we end up paying more taxes
and so we're making this gesture and were making it to make our ourselves cells feel good
oh we're also may be making an impression
we hope with our letters and not only us to irs but also you know copies of those letters that go into the conscience and military tax campaign newsletter and and maybe the fellowship of reconciliation news
letter if we think to send it onto them
is so it's a really very ambiguous kind of position to be in we're going to persist and persevere and but i'm i'm giving you all this to show you that it isn't really a black and
hi are completely heroic are she ah me
an unequivocally currently pure stand marked your actions
hey how i dying

this
first centuries
no

yeah this is a very important question

hey

yes the question was first
when we is a when we do that he mentioned that his first and teacher told him that he should practice without hope by which he understood him to mean that ah he should practice without expectation ah five release
station are are a deep condition are anything of that kind of
and
hes the second part of his question related to our work
to save the planet and he expressed the feeling that he was hopeful about this work and is this justify how's that they're okay
the to adjust the first to part of the question
which is really a very interesting on
my first teacher sends zaki no gain sensei in los angeles a very gifted the monk who lived in this country a far more than fifty years
ah said much the same thing as your first teacher he said
don't think about an item i don't think about realization
ah
and i think that was a valid thing for him to say but it really needed a little explication
ah

you see arms
no
cause and effect ah are really only one side of the story
the other side of the story is that the present moment includes our moments and the present includes the future certainly
ah so we should
the
in practice holistically so to speak with the awareness that we are involved in this complementarity of time and no time
ah so
it is very important ah to sit with out expectation but at the same time not to make the mistake that i did when i was working with sense archie's sensei and that is i'll give up all ah
incentive
you see
i was just sitting there with the with a happy feeling that i was such as ah sitting with a teacher that i loved and
and that
the atmosphere was very very pleasant
and that somehow i was
unconsciously becoming a better person
well

i don't know if it relates to this
teaching but the fact is that nobody in his sanga ever had a realization experience with him and when he died said the the saga dispersed the community disperse
i don't want to be over critical of him i am i would not be here if it hadn't been far sends accent say i am deeply grateful to him for his many wonderful teachings
but in that respect i think ah he could have said more
he could have challenged us
see
who are you
what are you doing here

see with with the incentive that is aroused by this challenging questions
ah one does go a deeper and deeper into the question more and more focused upon it ah until
there is a natural kind of realization experience i don't know if your friend simone vile as she has
a very interesting life story
she is one of the truly great to a thinkers of this century
a
jewish feminist french philosopher
ah who grew up with english as a second language with a very broad interests and one of her interests was poetry
ha and she encountered george herbert's poem called love love bad me welcome and so on a very straightforward points but there's something a little elusive about it george herbert was one of the metaphysical poets but the word god doesn't appear in that
poem he uses the word love and personifies love so there's something elusive something hidden there in those straightforward words and the captivated her
and she devoted herself to that point she was altogether caught up in it and he read it over and over again until it was a completely a part of herself and she continued to face it repeating those words
and one day she had this great religious experience which transformed her changed our life completely
ah you see she wasn't reading it with any expectation
she was reading it because she was fascinated there is something here i want to get at she wasn't thinking about what might happen if she got it you know she just wanted to understand and that's really what does and process is about from my point of view
ah now the second part of the question of courses related to the first
we have some vision
of the kind of world we want
but we'd better not
put it into a organized farm
because it isn't gonna happen that way
ah
i think that we work far a decency and harmony
in our circumstances now
this damn are
ah this development project
our this prison system
it's not right
and it is not in keeping with or the overall general view of how i and we think things should be
and so we are
think globally act locally you know ah and and do our best
to
a challenge right here
ah with a kind of general idea of how it might be later
and the second a way of action is the
a democratic socialist way ah fuck are if we can use the bad word the anarchist way
of
building alternate structures
alongside the structures or fuss are far from the present society
is the savings and loan going bust well let's have our on
savings or know the laws allow it
why can't we get together with a credit union do our on
a
the immigrants