Appropriate Response

[00:00:00] Speaker A: For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website. [00:00:16] Speaker B: So I started off with an anecdote about Calvin Coolidge which I don't need to repeat, but Yuen man gave short answers to the two questions. He lived in the nine hundreds in China, was the founder of the fifth lineage House of Chan. Classically, in the case of 14 of the blue Cliff Record, Yunmen was asked, what is the teaching of a Buddha's whole lifetime? And Yuen Men responded, an appropriate response or an appropriate statement? One teaching meets each in appropriate response. So this is the teaching of a whole lifetime. And so what is our appropriate response today? Just reading a little bit more from the blue cliff record. Case 14 Yuanwu, who is a commentator of Blue Cliff Record, which was compiled by Xuanzhou by Xue De. Anyway, Yuan Wu says, members of the Chan family, if you want to know the meaning of Buddha nature, you must observe times and seasons, causes and conditions. This is called the special transmission outside the written teachings, the soul transmission of the mind seal, directly pointing to the human mind for the perception of nature and realization of Buddhahood. So observe causes and condition. Observe time and seasons. What is an appropriate response? It continues, within one sentence of Yunmin, three sentences are bound to be present. These are called the sentence that encloses heaven and earth, the sentence that follows the waves, and the sentence that cuts off myriad streams. So an appropriate response, a response that meets the situation, the time and season. In the records of Yunmen, Erzop, who translated that, says, what is the teaching of the Buddha's whole lifetime? And he says, speaking in time, with any particular occasion. Speaking in tune with any particular occasion. So an appropriate response. What is an appropriate response to our situation today? The next little case in the record of Yunmen says someone asked Master Yunmen, what is the I of the genuine teaching? And Yun man just said, everything. So an appropriate response is one that includes everything. All of us, each one of you, everyone that you know, everyone you might meet, everything you might meet. The mountains and waters, the flowers, the birds, all are part of an appropriate response. Everything or the universal response, the response that includes everything. So one of my previous books is called Zen Questions, because Zen is about questioning. Zen asks questions, what is going on? What is an appropriate response? What is the true meaning of the Buddha nature? What is this situation right now, this tune, this time, this season, and I'm thinking of Writing another book, a sequel called Zen Responds. Because Zen does respond. Somehow we respond. We find an appropriate response to friends, family, to Sangha. How do we respond to each other? How do we respond to all the questions that come up in our world, in our lives, in our situation, just sitting but then getting up and having tea together. What is an appropriate response? And this week, how do we respond? So this week we invaded and bombed Venezuela, kidnapped their president. This was an illegal, lawless action according to the United States Constitution and according to international rules of conduct. We just went in and as President Trump said, we took their oil. So the United States is now kind of a rogue nation. We don't abide by any rules of law or any. Our government doesn't abide by any rules of law or any international accords. We just go and take what we want. Maybe Congress will stop this. Congress has been pretty ineffective. Also this week, ICE murdered Nicole Renee Goode in Minnesota, mother of three, who was just dropping off her child in Minneapolis and was shot and killed by an ICE agent. Her name is on the altar. How do we respond? What is an appropriate response to this? There were two more ICE shootings in Portland, Oregon. So our federal government is now attacking us. Maybe not attacking you, but attacking people in our neighborhood or anywhere. Many people have been deported, many families have been broken up, and this is the ICE policy. Also this week there was an expansion of health care costs, of health insurance costs for many people. I don't know how many people here were impacted, but healthcare costs have gone up exponentially. So how do we respond? What is an appropriate response in this situation in these times? And there have has been response. There are demonstrations in cities around the country, including Chicago. So people protesting in the street, people signing petitions or calling or writing to Congress. People. There's been massive response, and I want to talk today with you all about what are appropriate responses not just to the situation in our country, but to each other, to our life, to the world. So I happen to believe personally in peaceful protests and gathering on the streets, Dan Ellsberg, who was the spreader of the Pentagon Papers, some of you may know, he helped to end the Vietnam War and to end the presidency of Richard Nixon. He. I heard a story from him. We became friends. When I was leading a vigil the year before I moved to Chicago, I was leading a vigil outside the UC Berkeley Law School against torture because John Yoo, who was the person who had organized the torture program in the United States, was teaching at the UC Berkeley Law School. Anyway, Dan came And spoke at a few of those. He told me a story, told us a story about a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War when Richard Nixon was president. This was many. One of many peaceful protests back then where hundreds of thousands of people were there, and this time they were around the White House. And as it happened, Richard Nixon was sitting in the Oval Office with Henry Kissinger and he had decided. He decided, and Dan Ellsberg says he's verified this, he decided to drop atom bombs on Hanoi and on North Vietnam. But then he looked out his window and saw all these people protesting, and he thought, well, maybe I shouldn't do that now. So that didn't happen. And those people went home and they heard on TV that Nixon hadn't. Didn't even know about the protests, that he was watching a football game. And some of those people maybe were discouraged, but actually they stopped an atom bomb attack. So how do we respond to everything that's happening now? The ICE murder of Nicola Negan, the attack on Venezuela, expanding healthcare costs. What is an appropriate response? So, you know, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and like there's nothing we can do. This is easy. And actually this is part of what Mr. Trump counts on, that we'll feel overwhelmed or that we'll feel frightened by these murders by ICE agents. There's so much going on and there's starting to be cracks even in the MAGA base. The Epstein files remain only partially revealed. So how do we not feel overwhelmed? How do we help beings? That's our. That's our, you know, that's our team spirit here. Right? The Bodhisattva vow. Beings are numberless. We vow to benefit them. Well, we help beings. We help each other. You know, Sangha is about helping each other and, and people who are particularly subject to ICE raids, we can be kind and helpful to them, too. And part of this is just witnessing, just saying, oh, this is going on. How do we strengthen our relationships? You know, Yun man said that the genuine teaching is everything, everybody, everyone, all beings, all things. So how do we help everything, all beings? Well, we witness, we strengthen our relationships in Sangha, of course, we help each other. We sit together and then we get up and respond to each other and. Yeah, compassion to see the wholeness of our world. Everything, everything is part of our response, our appropriate response. How do we include everyone and everything in our responses? Many of us have Trump supporters amongst our relatives. How do we, you know, maintain cordial relationships with them? And this may not be talking about politics or trying to convert anyone, trying to convert ardent Maga supporters may be a waste of time. Maybe not. You know, we can listen to feelings and reflections of people. We can respond from our own feelings and reflections. So what is an appropriate response now? How do we see the wholeness of our world? That compassion is about responding to everyone and everything, appropriately, reading each thing as best we can. So our appropriate response includes the whole world. It includes everything. And, you know, how do we do that? How do we find, you know, and sometimes we find our response was not appropriate. You know, this happens. But then we try and, you know, use skillful means, trial and error, trying to respond appropriately, you know, in the next moment or the next time, whatever. What is this appropriate response? So this is the teaching of a whole lifetime, of a Buddha's whole lifetime. The Buddha taught for 45 years, gave various teachings, said that he first gave the Huayan teaching, the Flower Ornament Sutra teaching, and over some say 49 days, and then realized that nobody could understand it and everybody understands it today. You know, we have many commentaries now. So he went and taught the four Noble Truths, that life is suffering, that there's an end to suffering, that. Well, that. Well, that's. The second truth is that suffering comes from causes and conditions. But then third truth is that there's an end to suffering. The fourth truth is the Eightfold Path. Some of us have been reading Friday morning Yana Shut's book on the Eightfold Path and anti racism, the Engaged Eightfold Path. So then Buddha taught other teachings, the Prajna Paramita and the Lotus Sutra. And anyway, many teachings, Mahapranirvana Sutra, there's different approaches to different people. There are different appropriate responses. So you know, how you respond to one person in Sangha may not be the way you respond to somebody else. That's appropriate. How do we meet each other? How do we get together? How do we find the wholeness in each thing? So how do we respond appropriately to our situation? Anyway, this is, this is, this is Yunmen's teaching. And I wanted to discuss this with you. So how. How are people responding to the situation of murder in the streets of Minneapolis? People being shot by ICE agents in Portland? How are people responding to this invasion of a sovereign country, Venezuela? How are people responding to health care costs going up? How do we witness all of this? How do we strengthen our relationships? How do we see that everything, everything, everything, everyone, every being is involved in each response? How do we find compassion and see the wholeness of everything? So this is our practice, this is our challenge in these Times. So I'm interested in hearing any comments, responses, questions about this. Please feel free online or in the room. David want me. [00:16:03] Speaker C: I think Jonathan will supply a mic to people in the room and then invite people online. Is that right? Thank you. [00:16:12] Speaker B: So, anybody online have response or comment or question about. Yes, Joe would like to say something. Okay. [00:16:21] Speaker D: Venezuela's above my pay grade. [00:16:24] Speaker B: I can't hear you. [00:16:25] Speaker D: Oh, I. How about now? [00:16:28] Speaker B: It's one sec. [00:16:29] Speaker D: Oh, dear. [00:16:30] Speaker B: No, it's fine. [00:16:32] Speaker D: Can you hear me now? [00:16:32] Speaker B: You are not really. [00:16:35] Speaker D: Oh, dear. Am I? Am I? [00:16:38] Speaker B: I'll repeat it. Go ahead, Joe. [00:16:40] Speaker D: How about now? [00:16:41] Speaker B: It's okay. Go ahead. [00:16:43] Speaker D: Okay, I'll say it slowly. Venezuela is above my pay grade. [00:16:50] Speaker B: Venezuela is above Joe's pay grade. [00:16:56] Speaker D: And I'm on Medicare so that the price of insurance doesn't affect me. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Okay. [00:17:05] Speaker D: But I have been thinking about this ICE business. I've been trying to understand, almost obsessively, these ICE fellows, these officers, where their heads are coming from. I have an idea of where the demonstrators are coming from. And second or third hand, I have some idea of how the immigrants are taking all this. But the. The ICE people are just. I don't understand it. So I'm trying to. I'm trying to look at it as. You know, they're any other. Any other worker anywhere else, and my guess is right now their morale must be in the bloody sewer. I mean, I would hate to be an ICE agent anyway because I don't understand how that works. But aside from everything else, they're not being treated well. Vice President vance said that Mr. Ross, who by all accounts and appearances did murder Ms. Good, had been traumatized by another event that took place six months earlier. Well, any kind of policing organization, certainly on the federal level, when somebody happens. When something happens to somebody that's that traumatic, that guy would be taken off, given therapy, given counseling, briefed and debriefed, put on a desk job somewhere, re briefed and re. Debriefed. None of that appears to have happened. [00:18:53] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, go ahead. [00:18:56] Speaker D: And there was. They're not treating. They're not treating their operatives well at all. Aside from the morality of the whole mission, they're being treated poorly. There also is a really lousy chain of command. Everybody's seen those videos. The poor woman was given contradictory commands and she tried to follow all of them. And there were contradictory responses from being shouted at, cursed at the hand, put in the driver window. I'm still not sure what the guy was trying to do. Somebody else trying to open up the Door someone else. Well, bang, bang. My question is, where was the chain of command? Where was somebody in authority who would have said, hold your fire? It was bloody chaos. And if it's happened in a situation where everybody's got happened to have a phone on them and can record this, it must be happening in other places where everybody's, for lack of a better term, less lucky. So where do we take this? What's the skillful means again? I think the morale is probably pretty bad. They have this professional wrestler, this joke of a CEO, Secretary Noem, who. I'm sorry, they're not all. All these ICE guys are not dummies that some of them know that she's a loser and is leading them down the primrose path. Now, this is just an idea. I have no idea how to. How to do this or how to go about doing it. Just an idea. But I know that during the Vietnam conflict, a very potent tactic, a skillful mean, was to organize the GIs and the veterans, help them realize the difficulty of their position and give them ideas on how to fight back. Now, was this. Yes, you may. Please go on. [00:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, one difference was that there was a draft then and people were drafted into the service and. But the people who are in ice, at least some of them seem to be just thugs. I mean, excuse me for saying so, but some of them may care. Some of them may take professional pride in what they're doing, but it's also, you know, all of the people who were pardoned from attacking the Capitol on September 6th were invited into ICE, and many have been. So I very much appreciate your considering what's it like for an ICE agent, you know, and on some level we need to do that, and on another level, we need to just oppose them. So I don't know. Yes, please, Hogetsu. [00:22:05] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:22:06] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:22:06] Speaker C: And thank you, Tigan, for bringing forward your experience. And, you know, in reading Avatamsaka Sutra, you know, it's a giant compendium, qualities of Bodhisattvas. It's like a giant training manual for exactly this moment. And one of the things I was contemplating recently was the ten powers of Buddha. And this actually goes back to very early Buddhists, before the Abbat always arose as a parent, say, this Millennium Cell of Common Era. But previous to that, even during Buddha's time, it was said that Buddhas had 10 powers. You know, these 10 powers seem like awesome, like knowing how things come to be and knowing how things can't be and seeing with the divine eye. I Mean kind of wild things, like being in multiple places at once. But I, I've been thinking about those descriptions going calm. Do these people really believe that there were all these like amazing powers? And then I thought, oh, this is about creativity in response and complete caring, complete understanding what Joe's trying to understand. What is the ice agent? What is the experience of the people in the street? What is, you know, but it is our practice from ourselves and service this. Thank you very much. Did people hear that? Because it was a little bit impassioned. I'm, I'm making a case for creative response that flows through our zazen and throws through, flows through our community and that what we're talking about here is being able to meet all circumstances completely, which our wonderful ancestor Yunmen brings us to. But it's, it's, it's not just oh, I've got to do X, Y or Z, but it's like we have to do things we can't even think of. [00:24:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:24:10] Speaker C: And so, and that. And grounded in the ground of our saws and our experience. And so I've really been contemplating that in reading the Avatamsaka and these texts. And I'll just also just make a little add on. At the risk of virtue signaling that when this occurred in Minneapolis, I sent a note to Ben Connolly who lives in Minneapolis and who has a Zen priest who's taught here on several occasions and is very engaged in the community. Like he goes on a regular basis and hangs out where George Floyd was murdered and he just hangs with the people as a Zen priest, sits quietly and people gather there who are very disturbed, some of them disturbed in multiple ways. Not just, you know, traumatized by this lost, terrible killing. But. And I said, you know, we're with you and we're grateful and we know that you must be grieving and we're also grateful and I want you to know you're in our hearts. And he sent back and he's like, I'm reading this on the steps of a church where I'm conducting a non cooperation training. And he said, but tears are in my eyes to feel like maybe something, you know, touches. I have your support basically. And, and I think that these small things, you know, I thought, oh, should I even send an email to this person? Is this too swarmy? You know, or whatever. But I think like we can do things that we're not even aware of or don't even know what they're going to do. And we send this love letter out to the universe, you know. [00:25:53] Speaker B: Yes. [00:25:53] Speaker C: Through this creative response. And so I just want to encourage us too. And I think that's what you are encouraging us to do, Twigen. So anyway, that's my little rant, so thank you. David Weiner, you look like you want to grab my mic. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah, Eve has your hand up, but. [00:26:10] Speaker C: Sorry I preempted you. Eve, I didn't see you. [00:26:12] Speaker E: Well, no, I defer to somebody else in the room and then I can go. [00:26:17] Speaker B: Okay, yeah. [00:26:18] Speaker F: Thank you, Tigan. And hearing what Joe said too, I'm reminded of the Al Gore Climate Reality Project training I did. And the very first morning, the whole morning was devoted to, not to climate reality, but to listening and understanding people that if I come out as a climate person and say, oh, all your data is wrong, this is the correct data, I'm not going to pull that person into my loop. I'm going to just make them defensive and push them away. And I think as and from a sense for I'm looking at you, Hougetsu and Tigun, that in Buddhism we don't look at things with judgment of good or bad, but rather what is helpful. [00:27:05] Speaker E: Right. [00:27:05] Speaker F: And what is, and what can we do to help. And in a sense, what they said at the Reality Project is instead of saying, oh, this is my data, and it contradicts your data is to say, why do you feel that way? What's going on? [00:27:23] Speaker B: What are you afraid of? [00:27:26] Speaker F: I do not condone ice in any way, shape or form. I take my whiskey neat, no ice. But why are these people doing this? You say they're thugs, something's going on, something happened in their lifetime, the, that made them become who they are now. And if I don't have compassion for them, I'm turning out to be the same as them, at least from my perspective. And I have to find out, why are they doing this? Why do MAGA people think the way they do? Do they feel they're threatened? They're going to lose their sense of, you know, validity in this society. Okay, so that's my, my point. [00:28:09] Speaker C: Anyone? [00:28:11] Speaker E: Eve? Well, I can, I'm in, in raising, you know, the question, what is an appropriate response? I think you raised another question and one that people have been responding to and that's who is we? You know, when you started out, you were saying that we went in and kidnapped the leader of a country. And I think, you know, all of us here are feeling like, you know, we thought that larger we, you know, was supposed to be a representative democracy, you know, whatever that means to us. But, but, but there's this disjunction between, you know, this larger we and. And our sense of what we want the we to be. And. And in. In Hougetsu's story, she was activating, you know, the we that she. She's part of the connections that she has and the connections of community that she has and using them or trying to figure out how to effectively build on those connections to create the kind of we that we want to be part of, to extend Sangha. And I feel like David spoke to that also. And I think, yeah, that one way to creatively respond is to try to figure out what communities we're part of, how to build the connections between those communities, and maybe reach out to our congresspeople and our representatives to. To encourage them to act in the ways that I think most of us think they should be acting to support democracy in our own country and what that means for how that larger we should act in the world. And I think that David's wise when he talks about listening. I do think there is a place for demonstrations and a reason for them, but they also have their limitations because when people are shouting slogans, they don't hear each other very well, I think. So anyway, I'm grateful for Sangha and grateful for the opportunities that it gives us to think and act on, you know, how we can extend that sense of community to the greater communities that we're part of. [00:30:55] Speaker B: Yes. Thank you. [00:30:58] Speaker C: Just have maybe one for you. Justification. Thank you. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Okay, thanks. I just want to offer my thought that I think it's important that whatever response we have as individuals or collectively, not contribute to the violence that's already happening. And that's very hard in times that just seem to become more upsetting with every passing day. But I think that that is where our practice can help us to settle ourselves so that we are not, in trying to understand someone else. Else's experience, you know, subtly imposing judgment on them. And that's just a very hard thing to do and to, you know, reflect on what. What power we may have as individuals in a situation versus what power, you know, someone in a different position actually has. And how can we, you know, maybe help to support someone who does have maybe a little bit more power than we do as individuals. [00:32:04] Speaker B: Thank you. Ishen. Yes. Yeah. [00:32:09] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:32:09] Speaker B: Just. Just in conclusion, though. Yeah. We don't have all the answers. We don't know. We don't know what an appropriate response is, but we can make our effort towards that and towards including beings having, you know, in terms of peaceful protest. I remember during the build up to the invasion of Iraq, there were large, large demons, very large demonstrations before actually the attack. And there were many people sitting, just sitting, just sitting zazen at the big demonstrations at San Francisco City Hall. And that energy we can bring to peaceful protest. Not to shouting slogans, but just, okay, here we are. How do we respond? So, yeah, it's complicated and we don't have the answers. We don't have the answers. And yet the efforts to reach out, the efforts to creatively think about how we will respond and to keep trying is important. So thank you very much. Beings are numberless, we vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible, we vow to cut through them. Dharma gates are boundless, we vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, we vow. Close it. Beings are numberless, we vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible, we vow to cut through them. Dharma gates are boundless, we're to them. Buddha's ways. Unsurpassable, we vow to. Beings are harmless, we vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible, we vow to cut through them. Our undeads are boundless, we vow to enter. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. We have to realize.