And those of you who are online, you can hear me
Yes.
All good, good. Thank you very much.
I always, I'm nervous now because
I did a ceremony in May and it turned out that we thought we had everything set up on the laptop
For this huge ceremony and found out later that not only were the participants muted
But we were muted too
So no one heard anything.
That was very disappointing for those who are online. So good.
Just a quick note.
has to do with a form
For those of you who were here for the walking meditation, I just want to say that when you're walking
The movement of your feet is coordinated with your breath
So as you are, so your feet are like this, one's in front of the other. As you are inhaling
This foot comes up
And as you exhale
it comes down
Inhale
Actually.
I just I noticed a couple of you moving very slowly, and I know that you can't hold your breath that long.
So just, you know, be aware of that.
So how many of you know who Leonardo da Vinci is? Hands up, please. Good, glad to know that. Important guy.
I just saw something recently, and because I'm a big Da Vinci fan, as I'm sure many of you are
I saw that it was da Vinci's five life lessons
And as I was reading, I thought, oh, this is practice. In a nutshell. So I thought I would share it with you today.
We talk a lot in this practice about staying in the present moment.
And paying attention, and observing and understanding this idea of emptiness, which is not really an idea, it is the reality of
No separation that actually there's no such thing as a permanent abiding nature for anything, including us
But everything is interconnected. So that's what emptiness is.
And we also talk about developing character. This sort of happens very naturally when you do practice for a long period of time.
So as I say, recently I saw this article on Da Vinci and I thought that, oh, this is perfect in
because in the past, long before I came to practice, what I realized was I would be reading something fiction, nonfiction
And something would strike me and say, yes
That, I agree with that.
That is my actual experiences. I have to understand, I didn't have a lot of experience at that point. I was only in my 20s, but
The fact is, eventually when I read a book on Zen practice
Every page was, oh, yeah, oh yeah that too. It was surprising because it was like it was all in one place.
So
The fact is, wisdom is not just found in Zen practice.
It is found everywhere and all around you.
So this was Da Vinci's take in the 1500s.
The first one
Never stop learning.
So
This person wrote the quintessential Renaissance man, Leonardo believed that the mind was meant to be used, challenged, and continually expanded.
Da Vinci wrote
The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect because it may thus drive out useless things
and retain the good
Useless things. All that stuff that's going through our minds all day long. And when we sit down in meditation. We suddenly become aware
Of all that stuff, right?
So to da Vinci learning was never wasted.
Every new skill observation or experience
to him was strengthening the mind and replacing ignorance
with understanding
So da Vinci understood the importance of knowledge.
As a way to strengthen the mind.
To replace ignorance
with understanding
So we talk about the three poisons in Zen practice.
Thirsting desire. I want what I want
A version I don't want what I don't want.
And then we either say ignorance or delusion.
And it's ignorance of what?
It is ignorance of our complete connection to everything.
Because when you look around in the room right now, it appears that there are all these separate people.
And of course, that is true also.
But on some very fundamental
Reality.
There is nothing separating any of us.
In order to get here today.
You had to get in a car, I'm assuming, unless you are one of those bicyclists that I envy.
Somebody had to make that car.
Somebody had to design that car. Somebody had to figure out how to get the fuel for that car.
And then, even if you've got a car, you need roads.
Somebody has to build the roads. Someone has to design the roads, someone has to repair the roads. And then finally you get here.
Someone had to build
this temple
So that when you arrived, it was ready for you
Nothing in your life is without connection to everything else.
At the end of his life
The Buddha told his sangha, this is after 50 years of teaching. He said
Forget everything I've said to you.
Hmm.
Be a light
unto yourself
Not because his words weren't wise and valuable.
But because he understood
That what he was talking about always
Was his experience.
And he had these wonderful enlightenment experiences of exactly what I was just talking about of no separation.
But he understood that his experience
It's not your experience
The best any of us can do is talk about it.
Which is, you know what we say, the finger pointing at the moon
The moon is the understanding we can point to it
But each one of us has to understand it for ourself.
So he said
Forget everything I've said, because it's just going to get in your way.
of you trusting your own experience. And where are you going to get that experience?
Sitting on this cushion
Watching what arises in meditation
Watching what you grab onto. The thirsting desire. I need to think about that. I need to plan what I'm going to do tomorrow. Oh, I need to think about what I'm having for dinner tonight, right? Crazy stuff.
Or the other. I really don't want to have that conversation with that person. I'm really upset with them.
Or
The delusion category is
Oh, I'm not in either of those categories, and I'm just going to sit here and daydream
I'm just going to watch stuff come and go. Oh, this is so boring
Boring is not bad.
Boring might be the settling of getting ready
To quiet the mind
So how do we do this?
How do we strengthen the mind?
The first thing I would say is please
Be curious
Ask questions.
The best thing to do when you're in a new situation with new people, ask them about themselves.
and ask them sincerely, like, you really want to know about them
They might never remember to ask you a question about yourself, but they will feel seen by you.
And you will have learned something about them.
So first of all, be curious
But most of all, be curious about what's going on in here in yourself
And when answers arise
Be honest with yourself.
Because you might not always like
What arises
We first asked the questions and then we look seriously at what's arising as the answers.
So the second thing is
Don't judge.
What you don't understand
So the author says, Leonardo returned to this idea more than once in his notebooks. He wrote many notebooks, journals, basically.
Seeing it as a foundation of wisdom
Da Vinci observed that
Nothing can be loved or hated
Unless it is first known
I think many of us would agree with the first part
Hard to love without knowing
But I think many of us succumb
To the second of hating
When we don't really know something
It's in our language, right? We use the word hate so casually
Oh, I hate that kind of ice cream.
No, you dislike it.
You don't necessarily hate it. That's a very strong word.
But Da Vinci has to remind us that understanding comes before there's any meaningful response.
Before you can really form an opinion.
But of course
We form opinions all the time about everything
Whether we have any notion about it or not.
And if you look at Da Vinci's work, you will see that this is true because before painting humans
He studied anatomy at length
to understand
All of the muscles of the hand.
How the wrist works. How the hips work
The physiognomy of the head, all of this he studied before he ever sat down to draw and paint
Genuine understanding must come.
before any meaningful opinion can be formed
How often?
Are we making decisions
Based on little more than a preference.
Or someone else's opinion.
I mean, I don't know about you, but when I was growing up, my parents had very particular political opinions
And
You know, what did I know
I was just a kid. And so what tends to happen is you take in what your parents are saying, and then you profess to believe that.
Without very much information. It took years
of educating myself once I left home
to decide what I believed and what my experience was
That didn't mean that my parents' ideas or opinions were not valid.
But they were valid for them. This is what we're trying to always say in practice.
It doesn't matter. You can listen to hundreds of Dharma talks, read a thousand dharma books
And you can agree with them. You can say, oh, yes, yes, as I said at the beginning
But until you sit down and have this experience for yourself of
Yes.
It's not really true.
You don't actually know.
So there's a really famous poem
Called the Shinshinmen
And it starts right away. It doesn't beat around the bush at all. It says
The great way is not difficult
For those who have no preferences
How many of you have no preferences?
Me too. Lots of preferences. Okay. So he makes it sound so simple. Oh, there's no problem, just don't have any preferences. Well, of course you have preferences.
One of your preferences is you wanted to be here today rather than someplace else, and that was a good preference. Thank you very much.
But he goes on
When love and hate
are both absent
Everything becomes clear
An undisguised
This poem predates da Vinci.
And they came to the same conclusion.
The Shen Xin Ming says, you know, make the smallest distinction.
And
Heaven and earth are set infinitely apart
As soon as I have an opinion about something
I have
concretized it
That is how I feel
You know, I'm not fond of wearing glasses, but I have 3 different glasses I have to wear.
As soon as I say to myself, I don't like wearing glasses, I'm going to suffer
Because I have to wear them
Right now, I wrote my lecture in 12-point type
Which makes it possible not to use my glasses
But when I go back to my old paperbacks of Dickens or Tolstoy, those paperbacks are written in eight-point type
It's very hard to read.
So
When you make these distinctions all the time, I like this. I don't like that. I hate this, I love that
You are inevitably going to suffer.
Right? Because now you've you've made a line
As some people say, I've drawn a line in the sand, and this is how I feel, and to heck with how you feel. And so now we find ourselves a nation. I saw a wonderful opinion title in the New York Times the other day
If this country were a marriage
We would be headed for divorce
We have drawn this line
There's your idea, and there's my idea, and they never cross over.
That is not going to work in the long run.
In Zazam, in our meditation
Thoughts are constantly arising.
Even, you know, I've been doing this practice over 40 years.
More than 40.
And when I'm sitting, thoughts are still arising. I mean, I'm sorry if that's disappointing. This is
This is what the brain does
The brain secretes thoughts
So maybe a different way to think about it as a teacher, Gilfonso once said, is we are thoughtting
Thoughting is a bit different than thinking.
Thoughting just means some thought arises
Thinking is when I say, oh, I like that thought. And we grab a hold of it. Or I don't like that thought, but we grab ahold of it too.
And then we start thinking.
So there's a very famous phrase by Zen master Dogan.
Think of not thinking
not thinking
What kind of thinking is that?
Non thinking
I have struggled with that for years.
Non-thinking, I equate now with thoughting.
It just arises
And we let it go or not
When we grab ahold of them
We could be doing any number of things. We could be planning. We could be worrying
We could bring up old emotions from 10, 15, 20 years ago and relive that whole emotional
feeling
Of something that is long over.
It's amazing how it can come up so strongly.
But when these preferences and opinions, this love, hate, like, don't like
are absent
Suddenly
Things take on a new clarity
But to get there, we may need to ask a question.
In the first place, when a thought arises
It's a really good idea to ask the question.
Really?
Are you sure?
Because many of the thoughts that arise in our head are not ours
They were given to us by other people.
Starting with our parents and our siblings and our aunts and uncles and friends and teachers
If you were told when you were seven years old that you cannot carry a tomb
And therefore, you have never sung all of this time
You should ask yourself
Is it true? And second
Does it matter
We have a lot of old tapes in our head that get in our way, but we have to realize they're there.
That's why being curious is so important. And to ask yourself, really, is that really true?
Is it true right now?
Maybe it was true yesterday, maybe it was true five years ago. Is it actually true for me and my experience
And what we begin to notice is that much of one arises
I don't know about the rest of you, but there are certain kinds of thoughts over and over
Habitual thinking patterns
And you can break them by asking. Wait a minute, why am I thinking about that again?
What is that? Where did that come from?
Because those thought patterns generally do not contribute
To genuine understanding, as da Vinci
expresses it
Kindness or compassion because remember nothing can be loved or hated.
Unless it is fully known
So you're probably familiar with the four box theory.
In the first box
I know what I know.
In the second box
I know what I don't know.
In the third box
Maybe I don't know what I do know.
And then there's the fourth box
I don't know what I don't know.
So in the second box, in my case, I could say
I know what I don't know. I do not know calculus. I can tell you right now, math has never been my strong point.
But the next one, I may not know what I do know
Sometimes we surprise even ourselves.
Somebody asks a question and like oh
Oh, I actually know about that. I didn't think I did.
But it is the fourth box that always gets us into trouble.
We don't know what we don't know.
Especially if you go to another country, this becomes eminently clear because you create, you cause all kinds of faux pas.
Because their cultural norms are so different than yours.
So we were just talking the other day and I was doing tea ceremony practice and we were talking about bowing in Japan.
And how? Depending on who you're bowing to
You have all these different levels of bows.
Also, depending on who you're talking to, and especially if you're a woman
There are different forms of address and actually almost a different language.
And so when I was cramming for 3 months in Japanese
The woman who taught me taught me the most formal
Of the language.
And so there I am on my way, getting ready to go home. I'm on the Shinkansen, their bullet train
And I'm drawing in my journal.
And these young girls, I think there were three or four of them, are kind of sneaking up behind me
Looking over my shoulder, because they can see I'm drawing something
And so I turned around and in my terrible Japanese, but very formal, I asked them if they liked to draw.
They all started giggling, and I only realized later
It was because I was speaking to them as if they were their grandmother's age.
Learning the most formal thing, right? They had never been spoken to like that before because children have they you speak to children at a different level.
So
We have to understand there is so much in the fourth box.
And that allows us also to be more compassionate.
When someone does something that we think, well, how come you didn't know that
Yeah, well, maybe they didn't.
So the third thing that da Vinci said was
Live each day with purpose
I love this
He understood that the value of life is found not
In the number of years
But in how meaningfully we use the time that is given us
When my father died at 73. And I was at the memorial
All of his friends came up and oh, he died too young
But two weeks before that, one of my students from school who had just turned 15
died from cystic fibrosis
And I thought
My father had 73 years. Most of that as an adult, doing the things he wanted to do.
Working, traveling, having a family. This 15-year-old didn't get to do any of that.
We don't know how long we have
We think we've got ages. We're hoping that we're going to be one of those people that lives a long, long time.
And I hope you do too. Because there is always something to learn, even when life gets difficult. And as you get older, there are things that are going to happen that are going to surprise you.
But
You learn new things.
Like when I found out that I had glaucoma
Which means that my peripheral vision is severely impaired. It means I really shouldn't drive at night, because you need a lot of light to see. I'm fine driving at this point in the daytime
But what it meant I didn't realize it until one of my friends who was always asking me to come and give a guest lecture in San Jose three or four times a year
writes and says, we really would like you to come and give a lecture on this particular day. And without even thinking, I wrote back and said, Oh, I'd love to do that. I'll put it on my calendar.
and only after I got off the email, I thought
Oh
I could drive there in the light, but
How am I going to get home?
And so for the first time in my life
I had to write a dear friend and say
Would you be willing to go with me and be my chauffeur
She was so happy to be asked
And she has done it several times for me since.
And we always go out to dinner first and enjoy each other's company
And so suddenly I'm in a position of having to ask for help that I have never had to do before being misindependence
It's very good for me.
So even when you think
That you don't want to welcome those things. There is always something to learn.
So
Da Vinci wrote
As a day well spent procures a happy sleep
So a life well employed
procures a happy death
Just as a fulfilling day brings peace
At the end of the evening
A life guided by purpose of some kind, any kind
Is going to bring you satisfaction.
When you look back on it
On the Han, that wooden mallet
In many temples there's a phrase written
It says
Awaken
to the great matter
Life is swiftly passing. Don't waste time.
And the longer the mallet hits
Words disappear
But it doesn't matter, because you've been hitting that mallet for years. Don't waste
time
The value of life is not found in the number of years, but in living a meaningful life.
Your life is limited. My life is limited.
Because we have a body
You are going to get sick. That's inevitable.
Hopefully, you are going to grow old, but that is not inevitable.
And then someday
You are going to die
And everyone else in your life is also going to be dying. And as you get to be my age, more and more people are getting very ill and dying.
We get caught up in our daily life.
Shopping
Cooking
Raising our families.
Taking vacations.
And the next thing we know
We're old.
And death is like right around the corner, but also actually it's always been right around the corner.
So how do we understand this idea of living meaningfully
What would it mean?
To live a day well spent
Or a life well employed.
To live meaningfully
Means to formulate your deepest inner request
I remember the first time I heard someone say this, a teacher, and I thought
What request?
What are they talking about?
This is your most fundamental
question
Somewhere deep down inside of you
There is a question
I finally formulated to myself that the question was
How could I live a life
that matters
And then, of course, you have to pull that apart. What do we mean by matters?
And each of you is going to be able to formulate this in your own way. But realizing what that question is, is going to give your life purpose right there.
What is the thing that you most want to know?
To live a life that matters is probably the same thing as what da Vinci is saying.
A day well spent, a life well employed
Because
are in most request is about our hope
I desire that at the end of the day
When we are dying
That we have done something useful in our life
That we are loved.
and that we love
You're not going to be caring about your bank account
Or the amount of land you own
You are not going to be worried about whether you are famous.
Or whether you have a lot of followers on TikTok.
No.
You're going to be wanting whoever is standing next to your bed at that point.
I'm telling you
How much they love you.
And how much you matter to them
One Tibetan llama, years ago I heard that his daily practice when he wakes up is to ask himself
How can I be of service
today
Such a great question
The answer is different for each of us.
Taking care of an elderly parent, a young child
Speaking with a co-worker with compassion
Driving carefully on the road
Not taking offense even when it is given.
There are so many ways to be of service.
But when we are absurd
And so many times it's something very small. Like, oh, please, you go first.
There's a little bit of joy that arises right there.
So who is the first person to experience that joy?
You, me.
The other person being allowed to go first, they might like that, too.
That feeling of joy that arises, it is instantaneous in your head
There's a pleasure center in your head that immediately feels good.
So da Vinci also says that the fourth one is that character matters more than wealth
or accomplishment
This
by one of the greatest artists that ever lived
Leonardo believed that the greatest measure of a person was not what they possessed or achieved.
But their character
He wrote
That is not riches which may be lost. Virtue is our true good
and the true reward of its possessor.
Well, status, recognition.
They come and go
How many of you can remember
Secretary of State from
Five years ago
At the time, they were the most important person. They were in every column in the newspaper.
Fame is fleeting
Wealth may also be fleeting, but even if it's not, it will never buy you what is actually the most important thing.
Status also is not going to buy you.
The
Love and admiration of others because a lot of times the way you got that wealth and status
Was by stepping on other people as you climbed the ladder.
But integrity
compassion
Wisdom
No one can take those away from you
Unless you let them
At the end of our life
What we're wanting
Is to know that we did something useful and that we are loved
I don't even need admiration.
But to know
But maybe I did live a life that matters, and that that may go on because of ripples to other people's lives.
I know that the words character and virtue sound really old fashioned
When in fact
They're really the only thing that is left to you
In the five recollections of Thich Nhat Hanh, he basically says that you are going to get sick. You are going to grow old, and then you're going to die. And everything is going to be taken away from you and everyone you love.
And the only thing that is going to be left to you
Are your actions.
Our actions are our only true belongings.
Our actions
are the ground upon which we stand
Our actions must be grounded in character.
The qualities of integrity
Authenticity
Being really who you are completely
Compassion, wisdom.
The courage to maintain that integrity.
And no matter what anybody else is saying, you know, it's that old joke where your parents, when you said well you know Linda gets to go and your mother says to you, well, if Linda says to jump off the bridge, are you going to do it? It's exactly that. No, you have to have the integrity.
to stand up for what you believe, despite everybody else maybe disagreeing and saying, oh, you know, live and let live, or let's be nice, or
No, if it's wrong
That's wrong
Da Vinci says, you know, riches may be lost
But virtue is our true good.
And the true reward of its possessor.
It's not something to lord over anybody or feel smug about
That wouldn't be virtue actually
It is about being upright
It's a wonderful book on the precepts of this practice by Reb Anderson, who is a teacher emeritus for Green Gulch Farm
And
The title of the book is being upright
And so we have an upright posture.
And we have an upright mind.
Finally and perfectly, da Vinci says to pay attention
to the world around you
He believed that understanding begins with careful observation.
He said all our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.
No, he doesn't say your observations.
He says perceptions
He expressed his belief that discovering begins with paying attention to the world around us.
Before any of his theories or inventions or his art were created
He realized there needed to be a willingness to look closely at the world.
To learn from his experience.
In this particular practice, actually, observation is one of the key components.
Albert Schweitzer once famously said, example is not the main thing in influencing others.
It is the only thing
Teaching by example
This is what parents do with children.
It is what teachers in schools do.
It is what we do here.
We teach always by example. Nothing I'm saying matters
Watch teachers
Any teacher in your life watch your elders
Everything they're doing louder than what they're saying.
They have to be able to walk their talk.
So
The problem with observation and teaching by example
is that the individuals need to know to observe.
This is a problem in Zen practice, actually. The teacher can be offering their example as much as possible. But if nobody's watching
So years ago, years and years ago
It was the middle of winter at the temple where I was practicing
And there was a little heat in this building, and the floor was always freezing
But my teacher, when we would do the walking meditation
Always did it barefoot.
So I always did it barefoot
Because I figured it was 22 years older than me. If he could suffer the freezing floor
So could I
But later, you know, other members of the sangha came up and said, why aren't you wearing socks? It's freezing cold.
My teacher is not wearing socks.
This was like a revelation to them. It's like, oh, they hadn't thought to look.
All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.
So I think I've mentioned this example once before, but it bears repeating.
of a time when I was teaching an art class in watercolors, and the first thing that we had to do was a little sketch. We were drawing flowers that day.
Particularly, we were drawing nasturtiums
If you know about nasturtiums, you know that the leaf
Is shaped like this.
The stem comes here.
And creates a little round circle where it comes into the leaf.
And then there are veins
that come out this way
At angles. And it's usually 5 or 7 veins per leaf.
So always the problem when you're teaching art is there's the kid that wants to rush through and already be done while you have other children that are still looking at the paper.
So on this day, naturally, there was a child who was anxious to show me his drawing of the nasturtium leaf so that he could then get to the painting part.
So he brings up the drawing
And it's a circle
And there's a dot in the middle
And then there's four lines radiating out from it
Now, as a teacher, you don't want to discourage your young students. So I was very careful and I said.
Interesting.
Can you go get me that leaf that you were drawing from?
So he brings it over, and we lay the leaf next to his drawing. I said, okay, so
First of all
this thing that you have in the center, this dot, where is that on the leaf?
Down here. And can you count the number of veins on this leaf for me?
There were seven
And how many are in your drawing?
Four
I would like you to go back now
And try to draw exactly what you are seeing
Not your idea about it
This is the problem.
We have ideas about everything, and so we are never actually seen
They say that we make up our mind when we meet a new person
In 5 minutes or less, based solely on our perceptions of that individual
Without giving them a chance even to open their mouth.
Hmm
We need to pay attention to the world around us. We need to carefully observe
Because otherwise, we will continue to suffer from
Thirsting desire
from a version and from ignorance
We will always be coming from that place of preferences and opinions, and we will never actually have a chance to see
what's happening in front of us
So
I would like to end
was a poem by Shantideva
May I be a guard for those who are protectorless?
A guide for those who journey on the road
For those who wish to cross the water, may I be a boat
raft, a bridge
May I be an aisle for those who yearn for land?
And a lamp for those who long for light.
For all who need a resting place, a bed
And for those who need a servant
May I be their servant
May we all live a meaningful life
Thank you.
So as usual, I think I've gone over my time limit.
Two minutes, yes.
So I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to skip the questions. I'm going to be up in the room if you have questions, you can ask me there. I'm happy to talk to you.
The most important thing is ask yourself
Your in most deepest question. Figure out what it is. It may take you a while to get there. Certainly took me a long time.
But it is well worth looking for
Thank you.
Thank you, those of you online.
Pensions, equally
inexhaustible
I vow to become
And one last thing
We just heard a siren.
When I was six years old, the nun who was my teacher gave me a practice which I continued the rest of my life
Which is to stop when you hear a siren
And offer well-being for who is ever in trouble
Let us take just a moment to do that.
Thank you.