Precepts And Vows

This teaching was given at a Recovery Dharma all day sitting at the North Carolina Zen Center. It discusses the difference between the steps of the Eight Fold Path and the idea of living in line with Buddhist precepts. The talk also deals with the idea of living by vow, rather than the storm toss of karma.

Transcript

So the topic I want to talk about is our precepts and vows.

A lot of what we talk about in Buddhist-inspired recovery programs is more Theravadan Buddhist practices,

Four Noble Truths,

The existence of suffering,

The idea that suffering has reasons that we cause for ourselves,

That there's a way out of suffering,

The whole path away from suffering.

We work with our breath to develop mindfulness,

We observe the effects of life on us,

We look at the five different entrances,

Things like doubt,

Which I've been wrestling with for quite the last couple of days,

Sense desires,

Anger,

Spiritual laziness,

Those funny words,

Sloth and torpor,

Restlessness.

We're also taught to work with factors that lead into enlightenment,

Into a more awakened state,

Keeping a mindfulness of the reality of the life around us,

Bringing a sense of investigation to our life as we go through it,

Building energy,

Determination,

Effort to stay with the practice,

Engaging in concentration,

Practicing equanimity,

Accepting reality without craving,

Without aversion.

You know,

I've heard so many people really take to heart the different folds or different parts of the eightfold path,

As we move and interact with others and interact sort of with ourselves.

These ideas,

They almost feel kind of archetypal at this point.

You hear them with the words right or wise in front of them,

Right?

Wise intention,

Right action,

Right thought.

These teachings have been called a teaching of investigation,

And it's really important for what we do.

As I said,

We work to understand our own role in suffering.

We gain insight and meditation and practice,

And we apply that to our own experience,

And we gradually lighten our suffering.

That's the first goal.

That's Theravādham Buddhism.

That's what we read about in the Refuge Recovery Book,

That's what we read about in the Recovery Dharma Book.

Mahayana Buddhism,

Which is the Buddhism that is up more in China,

Japan,

Korea,

Tibet,

The Zen tradition is a Mahayana tradition,

Also approaches suffering.

The Vedic teachings,

Affordable truths,

Etc.

,

Are the same.

The roots of suffering are the same.

But I want to talk about an important difference between the Mahayana tradition and the Theravādham tradition and how our suffering is relieved,

Maybe even perhaps why our suffering is relieved.

I love the Theravādham traditions because they focus like a laser on pulling us out of this emotional and spiritual mire that we sink ourselves into.

And I think that's a better place,

A more enlightened place.

They're strong and helpful practices.

In Mahayana Buddhism,

Simply put,

We relieve our own suffering,

That we might relieve the suffering of others.

It's the idea that a seeker shouldn't necessarily only look for personal enlightenment,

But work toward the enlightenment of others,

The enlightenment of all beings.

There's a spirit of altruism here.

Buddhism becomes,

In this light,

Kind of an altruistically oriented spiritual practice,

Embodied by the ideal of the bodhisattva.

Is this a word that people are familiar with?

Well,

Bodhisattva,

In Theravāda Buddhism,

The Buddha himself was referred to as the bodhisattva,

A being who had worked through countless incarnations,

Countless lives,

Toward a greater understanding,

Toward a moment of enlightenment.

I mean,

That's a story that we take refuge in still today.

Mahayana practice broadens this understanding,

Seeing a bodhisattva as beings with a high degree of enlightenment.

Bodhisattva,

The word,

Literally means bodhi,

Which means enlightenment,

Beings.

Bodhisattva literally means enlightenment being,

One who seeks a path of awakening,

An individual who's on the path to becoming awake.

So we're really talking about two things here.

We're talking about enlightenment itself,

And we're talking about being on the path that leads toward enlightenment.

And then here are these disclaimers that are in the language,

In the description of bodhisattva,

A being with a high degree of enlightenment,

One who seeks enlightenment.

You know,

There's nothing here that speaks about having to be enlightened.

And this is kind of a key difference here.

There's nothing that says that a bodhisattva has to achieve something in order to address the core issue that we suffer,

That we can find our way out from suffering.

Really,

Mahayana Buddhism in its purest form represents,

And this is what blew my head when I first heard it,

That there almost really is no difference between enlightenment and an active,

Honest path of practice leading to enlightenment.

One doesn't have to perceive the other.

The two exist at once.

Practice enlightens the mind,

Insight leads to further and deeper practice,

A unity of practice and enlightenment.

So in the Mahayana tradition we're working kind of within a subtle shift,

That our work toward relieving our suffering is not only about developing oneself to a point of enlightenment,

But now toward the question of how does our enlightenment serve others?

How does it benefit other beings?

How do we live in such a way that our own practice toward enlightenment,

Our own practice of enlightenment,

Serves the benefit of others?

How do we live this way,

Moment to moment,

Choice by choice,

Action by action?

That's where an active consideration,

Precepts,

Comes in.

The precepts in Zen Buddhism,

They really are based in the rules of the community that formed around Shakyamuni Buddha 2,

500 years ago.

Then,

As now,

They're meant to develop mind and character,

To help us make progress on the path to enlightenment.

It's really a system of Buddhist morality,

Which is a word I know that makes some people uncomfortable,

Because there can be disagreements about what that actually means,

But in the end it really is something of a system of morality,

It's an intention of mind that we develop,

We practice in relation to our thoughts,

Our words,

And our deeds.

Now we see this in broad strokes in the eightfold path,

Sort of umbrella ideals that we use to guide ourselves.

In the precepts we're looking more at specific elements of human nature,

Anger,

Greed,

Ill will,

Jealousy,

Disappointment.

And seeing these things not only as things to avoid for our own betterment,

But seeing things like that as things which alter our true basic nature,

What we call our Buddha nature.

They detract from that,

But things make us into something that is other than what our true selves are.

So way back when,

12th century,

This Japanese philosopher,

You may have heard his name,

Eihei Dogen,

Wrote a lot of really impenetrable stuff,

If you ever sit down and read some Dogen,

You're like,

God,

What is this man talking about?

You're not the only one,

I promise.

But he wrote,

In an essay that we've been studying here,

We're having a practice period here four weeks long,

He wrote this sentence,

The way is originally perfect and all-pervading.

And in his writing that's understood to mean,

As I said,

That there's a sense of enlightenment that pervades all of reality,

Including what we can refer to as our own Buddha nature.

We are,

Each of us,

In our inmost nature of the quality of the Buddha.

We are each inherently Buddha.

This is what that teaching is.

It's not something that we have to figure out how to be.

We have to figure out that we already are.

It's a slightly different process.

We each possess the essence of an enlightened mind,

Almost by birthright,

Just by being human.

What we have within is a purity,

A sense of balance,

Equanimity,

Sort of an undifferentiated uni that lies right beneath the structure of our thought,

Of our thinking,

A nature that's not beyond thought,

Rather before thought.

Not beyond judgment,

But before judgment.

There's a chant we do here in this room.

It says,

The great way is not difficult for those who do not pick and choose.

Our inherent Buddha nature is that that is apart from attachment and aversion,

Apart from grieving,

Hate,

Delusion.

So in that light,

Morality,

Our Buddha nature,

It's kind of a baseline of normalcy.

If you think about it,

It's a condition which is unqualified by our opinions,

Our judgments,

It's unadulterated by our fears,

By our anger.

And when we practice this position of morality as an expression of Buddha nature,

We return to our original state.

We realize our original basic nature,

Our original face.

You heard that chant?

What's your original face?

This is the Buddha nature that comes before all of these delusions and these distractions.

So to practice precepts is an expression of Buddha being.

It's a morality that trains us in preserving our true nature,

Not allowing it to be modified or overpowered by negative forces.

So that brings us to something called the three pure precepts,

Which is actually a Theravadin teaching.

There's this old story.

The three pure precepts are given to us in the old Buddhist story.

There's a government official,

I gather.

You never know about these stories that are really true or not,

But it's a good one.

There's a government official and he's walking along.

And he sees this Buddhist monk high up in the street swaying in the wind.

The monk is sitting there doing his best,

Meditating.

And the government official calls up and says,

Looks a little dangerous up there to me.

And the monk calls down and says,

Looks a little dangerous down there to me.

So the government official is like,

OK,

OK,

So tell me,

What really is the essence of the teaching?

What is the heart of all of this?

And the monk looks down and says,

Renounce all evil.

Practice all that is good.

Keep your mind pure.

Thus all the Buddha's taught.

These lines are old.

And they feel broad.

They feel like this sort of folds the eightfold path.

And like them,

They're easy to feel intuitively.

Renounce all evil.

Practice all that is good.

Keep your mind pure.

Thus all Buddha's taught.

As Mahayana Buddhism developed,

These lines underwent a change that reflected this shift from the ideal of personal perfection to the ideal of oneness with all beings in this expression of Buddha nature.

A shift for the ideal of bodhisattva or enlightenment being.

I remember bodhisattva is a being who's enlightened by merit or just being on the path of enlightenment.

One whose way of being helps to enlighten other beings.

When we accept tasks of mercy and compassion like that,

We're walking as the Buddha.

So the last line of this was dropped.

And the third line was rewritten.

Became,

Renounce all evil.

Practice all that is good.

Save the many beings.

There was a Buddhist monk in I think the eighth century,

Shantideva.

He was apparently not a particularly good monk.

He didn't come to the siddhis very often.

He seemed kind of spaced out.

And the other monks didn't respect him.

And they wanted to get rid of him.

So they cooked up this thing that what they were going to do was arrange for him to have to give the talk.

And their assumption was he'd make a fool of himself and then he would just leave in shame.

So he sits down,

Like he does,

And says,

So do you want to hear something that we're familiar with or would you like to hear something new?

And they're like,

Oh absolutely,

Something new.

So he proceeds to lay out this stuff that just blows the roof off the place.

And at the end,

He floats up into the heavens,

So the story goes.

But what he said gets right to the heart of bodhisattva practice.

And I'm going to read about,

I don't know,

Seven or eight stanzas of poetry here.

It's entitled May I Be.

It says,

For sentient beings,

Poor and destitute,

May I become a treasure ever plentiful,

And lie before them closely in their reach,

A varied source of all that they might need.

May I be a guardian for those without protection,

A guide for those who journey on the road,

For those who wish to cross the water,

May I be a boat,

A raft,

A bridge.

May I be an isle for those who yearn for landfall and a lamp for those who long for light,

For those who need a resting place,

A bed,

For all who need a servant,

May I be their slave.

May I be the wishing jewel,

The vase of plenty,

A word of power and supreme healing,

May I be the tree of miracles,

And for every being,

The abundant cow.

Like the earth and the pervading elements,

Enduring as the sky itself endures,

For boundless multitudes of living beings,

May I be their ground and sustenance.

And thus for everything that lives,

As far as are the limits of the sky,

May I provide their livelihood and nourishment until they pass beyond the bonds of suffering.

Avoid all evil,

Do that which is good,

Save the many beings.

Now these ideas are developed in what are called the ten grave precepts,

Or serious precepts.

Some people call them the enlightened mind precepts,

Which I like a little bit more.

And I'm just going to read them through.

They're on the paper that's underneath the right side of your questions there if you want to read along.

These are specific ways of being that are meant to be practiced in our community with others.

Cherishing life and not killing.

Cultivating generosity and not taking what is not offered.

Cultivating honest caring relationships and not misusing sexuality.

Being truthful and not telling lies.

Maintaining clarity,

Not misusing intoxicants.

Speaking kindly and not speaking ill of others.

Encouraging others to abide in their awakened nature and not praising self at the expense of others.

Being generous and supportive of others and not being possessive.

Being understanding and loving and not harboring ill will.

Cultivating awakening,

The path of awakening,

And the community that takes refuge in awakening.

And not disparaging the three treasures of Buddha,

Dharma,

And Sangha.

So it's interesting the sort of dual way that these are expressed.

You can see these not so much as imperatives like don't do this,

But rather as do this,

Be this.

These precepts are said to represent the life of the Buddha,

If we can assume together that Shakyamuni lived the teachings that he created and brought.

We assume that he truly was an enlightened being.

The practice of precepts is said to be practicing the life of the Buddha.

Each of us,

Especially in his understanding of interdependence with other beings.

The idea that each of us,

Each thing is linked together in a state of mutual support,

In a state of mutual reflection.

It's an idea we saw early in Theravadin Buddhism.

Maybe with the idea of Indra's net.

Have you ever heard this before?

If not,

If you picture like a hammock net,

Right?

Where you have these sort of large knots where the pieces meet.

And just pictures filling all of space.

And in each of those knot places is a jewel.

And in each jewel is a reflection of each other jewel.

So none of them really exist independently.

Later these ideas were developed into an idea called dependent co-arising.

It's the idea that things arise because conditions come together to allow them to arise.

This is because these are.

This cannot exist,

Cannot come into being without that.

That creates the conditions which allow for this,

This,

The conditions which allow for that.

Not just interdependent,

But a dependent co-arising.

An idea truly that things come into being only in relationship with other things.

The idea that everything is linked in the most basic,

The most vital ways.

Thich Nhat Hanh said,

Everything arises in dependence upon many causes and conditions.

Nothing exists as a singular,

Independent entity.

And if this really is the thing,

That we're each linked inextricably with each other thing,

With each other being,

Then that connection calls us into compassion.

Into a desire to work toward the betterment of all,

Toward the enlightenment of all.

And to live into the specific actions of the precepts themselves.

We're helping others to resolve suffering by resolving our own suffering,

By creating and bringing conditions to others that allow their own efforts toward enlightenment to grow and to flourish.

The idea that my enlightenment is dependent upon your enlightenment,

Your enlightenment dependent upon my enlightenment.

Because what are we doing if we're practicing precepts?

We're cherishing life.

We're cultivating generosity.

Cultivating caring relationships.

We're being truthful.

We're maintaining clarity.

We're speaking kindly and respectfully.

We're encouraging others to abide in their awakened nature.

We're being generous.

We're being loving and understanding.

And we're cultivating our own awakening.

We're honoring the path of awakening,

The community of awakening,

Which is all sentient beings.

That's kind of a lot to take on.

You know,

Kind of a tall order.

I mean,

When I was first hearing these ideas,

I'm like,

I can't necessarily uphold that.

I don't necessarily uphold that.

I work toward it.

I practice.

I try.

When considering precepts and their actualization as a way of life,

When we practice their presence in our life,

I think a lot depends on intention.

I've always been a person who says that intention is worth a lot.

I love to use the phrase to rouse in this context,

To rouse our intention.

Not to arouse.

These words are pretty similar,

You know.

And a lot of them,

We use them interchangeably,

Rouse,

Arouse.

But if you look at synonyms of these two words,

You can see that the two have a slight difference.

To arouse is to prompt or provoke,

To incite something to happen.

Like a crowd is aroused to violence,

Right?

To rouse is to awaken.

So maybe it's a slight difference,

But to be aroused seems like something that happens to you.

And then has an outward manifestation.

Someone influences you,

You respond,

You sexually arouse,

You're aroused to violence,

Etc.

To rouse,

On the other hand,

Feels more like something that we do ourselves.

We rouse ourselves from sleep into wakefulness.

We get up.

So when it comes to working with precepts,

Pema Chodron speaks of the importance of intention.

To live in this way is perhaps more,

And to live in this way with intention,

When you rouse that intention,

That's maybe even more than half the battle.

But what I continue to wrestle with is that intention is not enough.

We all know that it's not enough.

It's beautiful.

It's necessary.

It's strong.

It's a key foundational step.

But it's not fully enough.

Precepts are sometimes worded like commitments.

If you look at the San Francisco Zen Center website,

For instance,

It lists the first precept as,

A disciple of Buddha does not kill,

But rather cultivates and encourages life.

If you go to the Chapel Hill Zen Center and you sit in on one of their lay ordination ceremonies,

That same precept is given the energy of vow.

I vow not to kill.

I vow not to speak falsely.

That's serious business.

So what's this alchemy that's required for an intention to become a commitment?

Or something even more than a commitment?

And that's where we come to the idea of a vow.

The idea of living by a vow.

If you think about it,

A commitment is something.

.

.

I mean,

It's being dedicated to an idea,

To an undertaking of some sort,

But you know circumstances change.

And so do our commitments.

A vow is more like a promise.

It's not something that should be subject to circumstance,

But something really that's given from our heart that should inform our choices.

A vow should guide our lives.

A vow should guide how we live.

So by what power does intention become a vow?

And perhaps more importantly,

How is a vow sustained over time and through the events of our lives?

We need a sustained energy for this.

To support vows,

To allow them to guide our ways of life.

Not sometimes,

But all the time.

And in all the places.

A fellow named Reb Anderson,

He says,

The precepts need to be continually maintained because the conditions of our lives are constantly changing.

And the significance of precepts is different in every situation.

So it requires a lot of effort on our parts to see where we are and what's happening and how we're holding steady as things swirl around us.

Again,

It's serious business.

And where does that sustained effort come from?

Where does that energy come from?

Not necessarily from outside of ourselves,

Though we can support each other in sangha by coming to sit together.

We support one another.

A fellow named Paul Haller,

Who is DharmaTalks,

I listen to a lot on the San Francisco Zen Center website.

He said that giving is participation in life.

Indicating that maybe the energy for this practice that we're talking about comes from the practice itself.

He goes on to say,

The body has no life without the vow.

Because the vow illuminates the body,

The vow moves the body and motivates the body in its living.

Our vow is our sense of purpose and meaning in life.

It's the basic spirit behind everything we think,

Everything we choose,

And everything we accomplish with this body in this lifetime.

This sounds like a lot.

Can we live this way?

Can we be as committed as this under the power of having made a vow?

Do we even want to?

It's a lot to live up to.

And maybe it feels kind of constricting.

But I think an idea that fascinates me as we talk about moving toward our enlightenment by serving the enlightenment of others,

The idea that practicing precepts doesn't really restrict our liberty.

Their wording is positive.

Cherish life.

Be truthful.

Their living is positive.

Cultivating generosity.

Maintaining clarity.

These guarantee our own liberty from the suffering of our own preconceptions,

Judgments,

Interpretations,

Valuations.

When we practice this way,

We liberate ourselves.

And in so doing,

We bring to others conditions that are necessary for their own enlightenment.

And then they give that back to us.

That's all I really wanted to talk about.

I would encourage you,

You can take the sheet of paper I left and I've got more if you didn't have one.

In fact,

I even really,

We've got time,

It's just noon now.

I would encourage you to read back through for a few minutes these precepts.

And ask yourself,

Wow,

How am I doing here?

Is there something that you can say to yourself,

You know,

I do this.

I practice generosity.

Feel good about that.

Other things in this list that you might say to yourself,

Yeah,

This is something I could live into more deeply.

But more than that,

And out of here,

And when you've gone home tomorrow,

Reread these things and think about how do these things interrelate with each other.

How do they support one another as a structure?

How does the not practicing of one tear at the others?

You see what I'm saying?

How do you build this structure so that you're really able to practice all of these things?

That's what I have.

Questions or comments on this or any other sort of matter?

When we talk about not killing,

Are we talking about like deaconess?

I think a lot we're talking about intention because the truth of the matter is I kill things every day.

I walk on bugs every day.

My car runs into bugs every day.

You know what I mean?

So I think it's the intention of living a life with the intention to do as little harm as possible.

Now,

If you want to talk about am I going to kill animals in order to eat,

There are certainly people who would say no,

If you're practicing a precept of not killing.

Yeah,

You're talking about veganism.

In the end,

I'm a meat eater,

So in the end that's something that everybody has to reconcile.

I try to be respectful of the animal.

I got into this little beef with my brother because we were having this place and he had this huge ant hill.

He just went over there and started stomping and kicking it.

I'm like,

Well,

That's my yard.

They're eating at my yard.

I'm like,

Well,

They're meat.

I don't know what we got into,

But it's enough.

His intention was to destroy their home.

They're way out in the acre in his yard.

They're not perfect.

Right.

Do we need to do that?

No.

Absolutely.

I agree.

Do we need to spray more than that?

Yeah.

I think that that's the one that everybody has to just wrangle with.

I spray poison ivy at my school because I don't want my students to get poison ivy.

You spray poison ivy?

Or whatever.

Whatever it is.

Upward and whatever.

So,

An observation maybe.

It kind of relates to this.

My initial involvement with Buddhism was really about self discovery.

It was actually a pretty selfish thing.

I was looking for a way out of the misery that was my own thoughts and my own mind.

But it really was.

This meditation practice was something that I was doing.

As I kind of went further and further with practice,

It wasn't like I just decided,

Okay,

I'm going to come up with somebody else's list and I'm going to do this because I'll be a better person.

I'm actually not capable of doing that,

I don't think.

But there is a certain sensitivity that comes.

And then,

So it's not like I'm doing this because I have to.

I'm doing it because if I don't do it,

I feel bad.

And if I do do it,

There's something good that comes out of it.

So the practice originally was sort of a solitary thing,

But it led me back to other people.

And back to really understanding how I interact with other people.

What kind of energy that I choose to put out there into the world and that I have to take responsibility for that.

So if that's hurtful to other people,

Then ultimately it becomes hurtful to me.

And so somehow in that sensitivity,

It just sort of happened that all of a sudden I began to feel like this is not okay.

I'm putting out energy to frankly just feel well.

Let's choose a simple one.

It is much more difficult for me to reach out and pick up and feel well because I now have a better understanding of how I affect other people.

And so it just came somewhat naturally in a way,

Some of these things.

I still practice them all the time and not so well at times.

Okay,

Of course.

But I think the point I'm hearing is that as you develop a meditative practice,

As you continue in this practice,

You start to live these ways more readily.

And you start to see when you don't.

It uncovers a lot of that blindness.

I was just had a lot of time to go to sleep and read the precepts.

I'm not going to say the name,

But they couldn't write time.

I'll read the end of the book.

And they made a lot of sense.

And at the time they talked about the beginning of that intention of not killing and things.

But the wise speech helped me out a lot.

And the simplicity in which it was all written just made a lot of sense.

And in the circumstances I was in,

Practicing all this stuff really like came easier.

And there was a flow of things like how do I help?

How do I let this go?

How do I be at ease with the situation?

And it was almost a little like a thought would come,

You could really overreact to this,

But that's not the nature these days.

And in a way I was a little disappointed because I could have thrown in a seat,

But I did.

And it was a change,

You know.

But you talk about the practice being exhausting.

I am exhausted now,

Coming back to the real world and out of it.

And hearing that you just have to try,

Not just have to,

But today is not such a great day to live in this moment or practice these things.

I'm trying my best.

And it's the intention of trying my best that helps me be better.

So that's okay.

Yeah.

I'm not very sure.

I'm just really sure.

The idea that an honest effort matters.

I love this idea,

This practice of enlightenment as opposed to practice to enlightenment.

So is there anything,

Speaking on the vows and making a commitment to make a vow,

To make,

I guess,

More than just to make your intentions,

I guess,

Into effort and energy,

And to really commit to that?

Yeah,

As a human,

As somebody that's made a lot of mistakes and has been punished before,

So is there a thought process of negative karma if you don't fulfill a vow or a punishment if you fall?

Do you see where I'm going?

Like fear of a recovering Catholic that I am,

Lots of guilt if you fall short.

And lately I've been very gentle with myself when I fall short instead of beating myself up.

I guess what I'm trying to get,

If I was to commit to make a vow to that,

I think there's an element of fear to that,

Of falling short.

Yeah.

Is there,

You know,

Is there,

Do you see what I'm getting at?

I do.

It's not like there's a structure of retribution or punishment.

There's also a difference between breaking a vow and not living up to your vow.

Do you see what I'm saying?

I mean,

I screw up all the time,

And sometimes it's by choice.

And sometimes it's just because,

You know,

It just happened.

I managed to offend a friend of mine yesterday,

And he wrote me an email about it,

And I'm like,

What?

I'm like,

You know,

Shit.

And then he talked to me about it,

And I'm like,

Oh,

Yeah.

Right.

I get it.

Yeah.

And I had spoken,

Not with ill will,

But in a not favorable way to him,

And I had a different goal,

But it didn't matter.

It didn't come across that way.

So I didn't break my vow.

I just kind of screwed it up,

You know,

As opposed to saying something to someone that I know is going to be hurtful.

So maybe that's the best answer I can give.

Yeah.

I think you're wise to be gentle with yourself,

Because it is a human life,

And it is hard,

And we're confronted with a lot of things.

Life in America is hard right now.

Life in America is confusing right now.

There's a lot of weird energy out there,

Don't know if you ever noticed.

There's a lot of weird energy out there,

You know,

And we get pulled in a lot of directions.

I think the purpose of vow is to have something that you can hold on to,

You know what I mean?

And say,

I'm going to live by this,

And with the understanding that sometimes your fingers are going to slip off that wall.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And as long as you're reaching back for it,

I think you're doing well.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah.

Well,

I was just thinking,

I mean,

I definitely cherish life in the New Year's times.

I might pick up a cockle or two now or something,

Put it outside or something like that.

You know,

The other day,

The cat and the dog were playing with what I thought was a mole.

You have hands or legs,

So maybe it's not.

But anyway,

I tried it.

I didn't think that that thing bit me.

Anyway,

So,

John,

When you've got something to do it better,

To get it away from the animals.

So,

I mean,

There's times that we're trying to do that type of stuff.

But I've got to say,

You know,

We have this infestation of waltz in the food that we have to get,

You know what I mean?

And I've got to tell you,

I'm at war with these moths.

I mean,

I would like to say that I've got to live and wait and see and say,

Okay,

You ate that.

Take over my pantry,

It's fine.

But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

So anyway,

So I do definitely understand what you're saying.

You know,

You can look in my pantry and see smears of dead moth on the wall.

I mean,

Yeah,

I'm not a clever enough person to necessarily give you the answer that is going to make sense.

I kill pantry moths.

I try to be conscious if that's what I'm doing.

I even gone so far,

It sounds silly,

I even gone so far as to apologize,

You know,

To the moths at large after I've gone into my pantry and knocked off 20 of them.

So,

I don't know,

I think it just has a lot to do with our heart,

It has a lot to do with our intentions,

It has a lot to do with what our thought processes really are.

I don't have this answer.

It's a hard one.

And then the whole thing about ill will towards others.

I mean,

I really work hard on judgment and,

You know,

Great brothers and all that stuff.

But when you have so many different leaders and people that might,

You know,

Not out of us but they out there who are destroying the world at this minute,

You know,

I mean,

It really gets hard sometimes to be able to,

In me anyway,

You know,

To have harmony and to have good thoughts,

You know.

Because,

I mean,

I don't want to see the fucks,

I don't want to see the water,

I don't want to see the world not here for people's kids or grandkids because somebody's,

You know,

Lust for money at the moment.

So that's a huge one for me in terms of trying to practice.

It is.

I was just looking to see about what the other part of that statement is about ill will.

Can you read that?

What does it actually say there?

I don't know.

My glasses are showing up.

I'm sorry.

That's cool.

Speaking kindly and not feeling ill will.

Yeah.

Speaking kindly and not harboring ill will.

Being understanding and loving and not harboring ill will.

I know that when I have ill will toward these politicians I see these days,

It doesn't help make what they're doing go away.

It doesn't help the situation.

It does hurt me,

You know,

Because now I'm living in this negativity.

And I think the trick is,

And I struggle with this because I don't like what's going on more than a lot of people.

Can I be loving toward this person because can I be understanding that they have their own suffering happening,

You know,

Internally and from outside,

Pressures,

Etc.

What happens?

What does it accomplish and help when I'm actively practicing ill will toward somebody who's doing things that I disagree with?

And what might happen,

What might I accomplish if I greet that person instead with understanding and a loving heart?

And we have people in downtown Pittsburgh these days.

I don't know.

Piss for us is,

You know,

The Chatham board of whoever they are voted a month or two ago to rescind the lease on the Confederate statue that's down there in the circle.

And they contacted the daughters of the Confederacy,

Whoever they are,

And said,

We know we've given you this lease since 1907.

We're rescinding this lease.

You have to remove this statue by such and such a date.

And if you don't,

We will remove it for you.

Well,

You can imagine that some people are very glad and you can imagine that some people aren't.

Now you come into Pittsburgh off of 64 from the west and there's this huge Confederate flag flying.

Anybody see that?

Right now they've put up,

Somebody's put up another Confederate flag across important middle school,

Which was the segregated black middle school back in the day.

And a lot of us are very horrified by this.

And they have the statue fenced off and there have been demonstrations and this sort of thing.

And a friend of mine did something I really admired,

Which was he went down one day when there were people holding Confederate flags,

This sort of thing,

And he went and talked with them.

He said,

Help me understand what your value is here.

Help me understand what your thinking is.

And he didn't agree with them,

But he had a conversation with them.

And he came away feeling like,

Okay,

I don't agree with them,

But I understand more where they're coming from.

And it leads to engendered dialogue.

As opposed to me,

Who was standing on the other side of the street,

Saying,

Well,

People are out anyway.

Jesus Christ.

But it doesn't help anything.

It doesn't help anything.

It doesn't help me.

That's for sure.

And it prevents me from bringing them that which will help their own process of enlightenment.

So,

It's tricky.

So basically,

You don't have to agree with everybody,

But you don't have to send ill will because you can't agree.

So agree to disagree?

Yeah.

I tell my students a lot,

Disagreeing with somebody doesn't mean you have to be angry.

You might be,

And there might be a reason to be.

But not necessarily.

The two don't have to be hand in hand.

Ill will is like poison in my face.

Today when I picked that up after,

When I was using,

I did that all the time,

And it really didn't bother me so much.

But having chosen to live an intentional life,

And then choosing ill will now and then,

It really,

I can actually remember very clearly,

Like in the last five years,

The number of times that I picked up ill will on the shelf and put it out there.

And it came right back in my face every time.

Every time.

I regret it.

I apologize for it.

And it is like poison in my veins.

I mean,

It literally,

I didn't even have a second of like getting somebody because at the same time I hit them,

It didn't mean no gratification.

No gratification at all.

Yeah.

Good.

Well,

I have a question.

So if you know the door is closed,

Like I call it brain opener closed.

And if their brain is closed,

But I'm going to still be in your space,

And we're going to,

You know.

Sometimes I think it's my job to do no more harm and not to engage in a hostile conversation when I know you're on a tirade.

And nothing I say will change that.

But I love you anyway.

So maybe either divert it or not engage in it instead of fighting the fight,

You know,

Having the argument.

Because it's not going to help,

It's not going to generate any positive energy or change.

But if I'm still there and still kind and still available,

Then maybe another day we'll have a better conversation.

Kind of that,

Isn't that part of wise speech or wise intention?

Not try to win or try to change it,

But try to be available.

Well,

It means you're practicing with your own emotions,

You're practicing with your sense of aversion,

You're practicing with your sense of how things,

The way you think things should be,

Etc.

And you're not just,

You know,

Leaning forward in that sort of immediate reaction.

You're going about things in a more measured way.

I think sometimes that's all we can do.

And you know,

Not engaging is not necessarily a position of weakness.

That's fine.

Not engaging can be a position of strength because you know you're going to hurt yourself or you're going to hurt someone else.

It's not going to accomplish what your goal is,

So I'm not going to engage.

That's strong.

Depending on the situation of course,

Sometimes you have to engage,

You have to take care of what needs to be taken care of,

You have to have the difficult conversations sometimes.

But I think what you're talking about is doing it with a sense of clarity and cleverness.

You don't have any planning.

You're like,

Okay,

How am I really going to go about this?

And do I have to go about this right now?

The answer to that question is almost always no.

From a stance of wisdom,

Like I've done this before,

It helped nothing,

So maybe I should take 10 minutes or a day and then go forward.

That's wise.

But that's where practice is important and where the intention is important and where the vow is important because to do this stuff is hard.

To do these things,

These precepts,

It can be hard.

It takes vigilance.

You have to really start evaluating everything you do and everything you say.

What's really going on here?

How do I deal with this in a wiser way?

This interdependence really does speak to it to me.

Science bears us out.

I'm sitting here and the atoms that form this little thing with their electrons spinning around and the atoms that form my body with their little electrons spinning around,

We're swapping electrons here.

When you get down to things at the molecular level,

The atomic level,

There is no real this is the altar and this is the mat.

This is all just physical reality.

It's not really separated.

We just see it that way.

We see it that way,

But that doesn't mean it isn't.

If we really are connected so deeply,

If we believe this idea of interdependence,

Then what choices does that leave us other than the be-supported?

Because if you're me and I'm you,

Why wouldn't that be it?