"Public Talk, Santa Cruz, CA, April 1999"
Claude AnShin Thomas
AnShin: Wiebke will invite the bell and then ring it three times and I'd like you to read just this part.
Woman: OK.
AnShin: Do you mind?Woman: No.
[Bell rings three times]
Woman: We evoke your name, Avalokiteshvara. We aspire to learn your way, which is to listen in order to lessen the suffering in the world. You know how to listen in order to understand. We evoke your name in order to practice listening with all our attention and open heartedness. We shall sit and listen without any prejudice. We shall sit and listen without judging and without reacting. We shall practice listening in order to understand. We shall practice listening so attentively that we are able to hear what the other is saying and also what is left unsaid. We know that just by listening deeply, we already alleviate a great deal of the pain and suffering in the other.
Question [AnShin]: What's the most important thing in your life?
Answer [member of audience]: Living.
Question: What's the most important thing in your life?
Answer: This moment.
AnShin: This moment? It's already passed. The most important thing in your life?
Answer: Family.
Question: The gentleman with the glasses on just here one, two, three rows back. What's the most important thing in your life?
Answer: Finishing a project I'm working on.
What's the most important thing in your life?(inaudible)
Laughter.
Answer: Making art.The most important thing in anyone's life is their breath. That's not to say that these other things are not important, but the absolute most important thing is our breath. Imagine what does any of that matter, if you don't have your breath? Imagine what it would be like if someone walked over and put duct tape over your mouth and held you like this. How do you think you might react? That struggle to breathe the most important thing, one breath. One. One is not in and out; one is in. The next most important thing is two: out. Breathing in and breathing out. And how often in the course of the day are you actually aware that you're breathing? How much attention do you pay to it? Imagine this: the very most important thing in our life we take it for granted. Just anticipate it's going to happen until suddenly it doesn't or something interferes with the process, then we panic.
It is impossible to live in the present moment unless we are aware that we are breathing. If we're consciously aware that we're breathing in and breathing out, this is the key to mindful living. Mindful living is to be present in the moment. There is nothing else except now. Nothing exists. There is no past. There is no future. There is only now. But yet most of us are so consumed with what's going to happen or what has already happened that we don't live now. We're trapped in our thoughts.
In the introduction it was mentioned that I came in contact with the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Mahajana monk. He has a monastery in the southwest part of France, and the monastery is named Plum Village. It's located about 70 75 miles east of Bordeaux, so it's in the southern part. I lived off and on in this monastery for three years between 1991 and '94, I think maybe it was '92, '93… I don't really remember exactly. But I lived there off and on for three years. How did I get there? On a plane, of course.It was also mentioned in the introduction that I served in Vietnam. [The life how did you phrase it? - the life changing experiences, something like that? I don't remember either.] But dealing with the reality of Vietnam, the trauma of that war, that that was a life-altering experience. In fact, that's the truth. Anyone who has ever experienced trauma of any nature knows that it's life altering. See this scar here on my chin? There's a scar right here on my chin. Every time I look in that mirror I see that scar. Now this is a wound. It was a wound; it was open, bleeding. But it's healed now. But what's healing? Healing means it's not open and bleeding anymore, but yet it's still there. Every time I see this in the mirror, I know how it happened. I know where it came from. I know the events that took place. Whenever we experience a traumatic event, we are cut. Like my body was cut, our soul, our emotion, our psyche is cut. Healing is not the absence of suffering. It's not the absence of pain. It is not the dismissal or the elimination of those traumatic events. The healing is the art of learning to live in harmony with the reality of who we are. Who we are is that trauma. We're also more than that trauma, but not other than that trauma. And the more we attempt to repress, deny, ignore, the more that trauma controls our life. The more those incidences control our life. This all has its roots in Buddhist teaching. It all has its roots for me practically in the way in which my life has evolved.
War is not an isolated incident, although it's a very particular experience. War doesn't begin with a Declaration nor does it end with an Armistice. War is a continuous and ongoing event. In Buddhist teaching we talk about karma. We all know you've heard about this word karma. It's pretty hip, you know, it's in popular culture, 'Bad karma, man, can't do that!” 'Oh wow, dude, you got good karma.” But it's a very serious and powerful teaching, and there are two streams of karma. There's the karma we inherit, and the karma we create. What is karma? Cause and effect. Physics. I think it's physics. If I say physics and it's something different, please the last mathematics class I took was Algebra I in seventh grade. I believe it's physics the law of for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. The blending and spiritual teaching. In Zen practice we have a saying that study and practice aren't two. Science and spiritual teaching are not two. The law of karma the law of inherited karma that which we inherit: in Buddhist teaching they talk about the interconnectedness of all things. There is no separate or independent self. I'm not different from this piece of paper. No really, it's true. I'm not different from this piece of paper. I'm not crazy, really. It's also true that I'm not this paper, but I'm not different from this paper. And how does that happen? What was it before it was paper? 'Tree.” Yeah, and before a tree, what was it? It's the sun, the rain, the minerals in the soil, it's the clouds, it's the air that we breath. Those are non-paper elements, but they're all present here. Those same non-paper elements are also present here. It is at this place that I am not different from this paper. And as I treat this piece of paper, so do I treat myself. So to treat every element in my life as I would treat myself this is the teaching that grows out of the reality of interconnectedness.
How was it that I came to a point of being responsible for taking the lives of other people? How did that happen? If I'm not separate from anything, how can it be that I can do that? Because I live in a world where I'm taught and encouraged to see the world as separate. I'm conditioned to see the world as separate - that I'm a particular and unique entity. And this is true and it's not true. My military training began long before I went into the military. My father was a soldier in the Second war; my grandfather a soldier in the first war; my great grandfather a soldier in the Spanish War. And I'm also told I have relatives that were soldiers in the Civil war. The interconnectedness of all things, the law of karma, that stream of inherited karma. Why wouldn't I go into the military? In the society that I grew up (I grew up in rural western Pennsylvania, a small town called Waterford, Pennsylvania, just south of Erie, about 25 28 miles. Erie is in the northwest it's right up on the lake between Cleveland and Buffalo). And in the area where I grew up, when I went to school, how did we start the day? Well, we met in this little (what we called) homeroom, we had a little gathering (each class had a gathering) and this started when I was in first grade. And the first thing we did was listened to a reading out of the Bible, and the next thing we did was we placed our hands over our hearts and we Pledge Allegiance to the Flag. 'I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” And I believed it. The conditioning began then.
I was very active. I was athletic. I played sports from the time I can't remember. I grew up playing sports: baseball, basketball, football, wrestling, and that was very good. What was happening in this program of athletic training, was that I was being told that it didn't matter whether you won or lost, it's how you played. That's what I was being told. In reality, the information I was being given was that second place is last. If you don't take first place, then what's the point? What I was conditioned is every time we were preparing to play another team, the other team was never presented as humans or individuals. They were always presented as 'the enemy.” The other team, the people to beat, defeat. And they were never given names; we never knew who they were. They were always assigned some sort of, some term to eliminate their humanity. So I began at an early age to be conditioned to dehumanize. Now, I'm not saying sports I'm not making a comment about the rightness or wrongness or positiveness or negativeness about sports, just sharing with you directly my experience and how I understand this experience today without judgment.
I grew up in this small town. My father used to hang out at the American Legion. The American Legion is a group of people who served in the military. And when they get out of the military, it's sort of like a place where people who share their common experience can meet. What I learned about the Legion though is it's usually a place where people hang out and get drunk. Now, I don't know if it's changed because I don't go. But when I grew up, I grew up with my father in those kinds of places. And what those people did is they told stories about the war, about their war experiences. It made it seem like a very grand adventure. Nobody ever talked about the reality of what war was. They only told these stories. I never once heard my father say how he felt. I never once heard my father talk about being afraid. I never once heard any of that. All I heard was these grand adventure stories, and I was ready. I was ready. When I graduated from high school, I had two choices: I could go to college and play football on a scholarship; or I could go into the military. And my father said, because I was a he described me as a wild child. What he said was that it would be a good thing for me to go into the military.
[Bell]
That the military would make a 'man” out of me. It would give me discipline. I would never I just wouldn't question my father. Why would I question my father? So I went into the military. And the process of military training is a process of dehumanization. When I went out on the rifle range, we had cardboard cutouts that was the enemy. When we did bayonet training that's where you fix a knife on the end of your gun and you stab people with it we did that with burlap sacks, sacks you could put rice and stuff in, filled with straw on posts. That was the enemy. And the enemy was assigned names. The enemies were called 'gooks,” they were called 'slopes,” they were called 'slant-eyes.” They were called anything but Vietnamese the process of dehumanization. It is not possible to have feelings and take another's life, but we can't stop having feelings. They're constantly there. What we're conditioned is how not to acknowledge them. We're trained how not to acknowledge them; how to repress them; how to build walls around them; how to keep them trapped; and to look dispassionately at our actions. The dehumanization took other forms. While training, we were on the rifle range doing marksmanship training, and I dropped my weapon, dropped it on the ground. It doesn't sound like a big deal unless you've been in the military. If you've been in the military, you know, because you're conditioned. That just doesn't happen. That weapon that rifle, that handgun, whatever it is that you have, that machine gun that weapon is the most important thing in your life. The single most important thing in your life is your weapon. There was a drill sergeant on the ridge, and he was probably I'm not so tall, I'm 5'8” [and _] he was probably 6'1”, 6'2” great big guy, tall. He started screaming at me at the top of his lungs and in front of all these people screaming at me, and he put his chest right up against mostly right about my face and was screaming at me and jabbing me with his finger. I won't repeat the names that he called me. And then he pulled out his penis and urinated on me right there on the firing line in front of everybody. What was my reaction to that? My reaction was to hate. Actually what was happening is that I was embarrassed, I was ashamed, I was humiliated, I was intimidated, I was overwhelmed, I was afraid, but I couldn't feel any of that because I didn't know what any of that was, and I wasn't supposed to feel any of that. I'd been conditioned since the day I was born not to feel this stuff. What do they tell you? When I was competing, when I was playing ball, it was like, you played when you were hurt. You just blocked the pain out, and you continued to play. Because if you didn't play, then who were you?
So all of those feelings left unexpressed, erupt in this ball that comes to be known as rage. We often mistake anger and rage. The expression of rage, we call anger because we really don't know what anger is most of it screaming, yelling, slamming doors, this is rage, not anger. So, there's this huge ball and I experience it as hate. And my hate is directed to him. What he does is channel that hate into those targets, into those dummies, into those names that we call people to strip them of their humanity. What's happening in this whole process has nothing to do with the other, not really. It has to do with self. I'm becoming dehumanized. I'm losing contact with my own humanity. Zen practice is about waking up to self, to the true nature of self. Self doesn't exist out here. Self is here.
I volunteered to go into the military. I volunteered to go to Vietnam. I believed in the nationalist rhetoric that I was brought up with. I believed in it, and I wanted to be of service. All of my life, since a young boy, I think my first remembrance of this is at the age of eight. I really wanted to be of service. To reach out to others. When I was eight years old, this is when they had these little TV's that were about this big, and they were only black and white, and we had one. In Erie they were having this fundraising effort for Unicef. Unicef, if you don't know what it is, it's to support needy children around the world. I saw this on television and I was so moved that what I did was I got myself a coffee can, I cut a hole in the top, and I started going around door to door in that little town where I lived collecting money for these kids because I recognized at a real profound level. I was so moved by the pictures that I saw. What happened after I I was very successful at it but what happened after about two or three hours of collecting money, suddenly a car pulled up and the police got out, and the police took me in the can and they took me home to my parents. They wanted to know who I was and what I was doing. Because, of course, I wasn't an authorized, certified collection member of Unicef. And I just told them. And what happened is that the next thing I knew the radio was interviewing me, and they had me on television, and people were very moved by this process. But I was generated purely out of this call to be of service, and that's why I went into the military from this place of wanting to be of service.
When I went into the military there was a civil war being fought in the Republic of Vietnam. It was being fought between those who aspired to the principles of democracy and I had been taught to believe in them, and those who aspired to live under the principles of communism which I was taught and educated to believe was something evil that needed to be wiped away from the face of the earth. So I volunteered to go to Vietnam to support the people who wanted to live like I live, out of a desire to be of service. To help to establish order and peace and the point of a gun it doesn't work. And what happened in the process is that I became very, very lost, very far removed from self. I didn't have any idea what self was. So I was moving through life and functioning, but not really living. I was a very good athlete; I was also a very good soldier. I understood when I got off the bus in Ft. Dix, New Jersey, to enter training, I understood that I had made a mistake and didn't know what to do next. So I just did the best that I could do with what was in front on me. And it was a difficult process for me.
When I volunteered to go to Vietnam, I'd seen all the movies and I'd heard all the stories. You know, I grew up with Audie Murphy, I grew up with John Wayne, and, you know, the people getting every time somebody got shot, they were always shot in the arm and it was OK. They just put it in a little bandage. I grew up playing army in the woods. When I got off the plane in Vietnam, we landed in Tonsinude airbase. We flew on a commercially-chartered flight. There were 250 guys on this plane. I didn't know one of them. When I got off this plane and I walked out of the door, I remember the quality of the air. It was so thick that I could hardly breathe. And the lights were so yellow [like this], this yellow kind of quality to it. And the smell - I'll never forget the smell: it's the smell of the jungle; the humidity and the decaying vegetation. Also what was happening was there was artillery fire, and the moment I stepped off the plane I knew instantly that this had nothing to do with what I'd seen in the movies or what I'd heard my father and the other men in my town talking about. I understood that it was very different from that. I didn't know whether the artillery was firing out or whether it was coming in. I didn't know. And I was terrified and didn't know how to be. What I wanted to do was when I looked at the plane, say, 'You know, that's it. I'm done. I wanna go home.” It's not possible. Well, nothing's impossible, but I didn't have any idea how to get home. I didn't have any idea how to turn this around.
I went over as a highly-trained infantry person, and I had no assignment so I was in what they call a holding company, just a group of men who didn't have orders who were waiting day by day to be assigned someplace, till the army decided where they wanted to send you and then they would give you a piece of paper and send you. And each morning we would meet and we would count off by threes or fives and ones would go someplace and twos would go someplace and threes would go someplace. I didn't know anybody in this holding company not a soul no one. Couldn't tell you one name. One day I was a three, they said, 'All threes are going to be gunners on helicopters. So I went. They took me to a helicopter place. I ended up being assigned to the 116th Assault Helicopter Company stationed in Fu Loy, Vietnam. Fu Loy, Vietnam was pretty close to Saigon but I don't really know where. Part of the 269th Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade. I arrived, put my clothes in a locker, they introduced me to a person and said, 'This will be your crew chief. He'll show you the way around.” He told me over to the gun shed and showed me where the guns were, how they cleaned them there, how to mount them on the helicopter, then said, 'Okay, we're going to go today and we're just gonna fly around. We're gonna take people on pass, we're gonna collect mail. We're gonna do things like this, just to familiarize you. And here's what you do. Whenever we take off, you just tell the pilot whether it's clear or not and then you look around for any other aircraft that the pilot can't see.” Cause the helicopters don't have radar. They have my eyes and the crew chief's eyes. We took off. We flew around for about two hours, and then it happened. There was a very heavy firefight. The company had been supporting that. They had lost some helicopters and they needed us.
[Bell].
And I was pressed into action that very day. Pressed into fighting that very day. When we arrived at the staging area, one of the helicopters that had been shot down had just been brought back in with a larger helicopter, called a Chinook. They carried it in on sling load because it couldn't fly. And there was a water truck and they were hosing the blood out of this helicopter. The inside was covered with blood, and I was terrified and didn't know how to be. I didn't have any idea what was going on, none. And we started to fly troops into combat, and we started receiving fire. And I didn't have any idea what was happening, none. And there was no one to tell me. And I was terrified and didn't know how to be. In fact, everything that I was taught, trained and conditioned was to not ever show you how I felt.
This cycle continued for twelve months. I was injured, very seriously wounded. I spent nine months in military hospital and was discharged from military hospital. And when I came out of military hospital, I went back home to Waterford, Pennsylvania. I didn't have any idea what to do. The other part of this that's important is that there was a point while serving in Vietnam that I knew that I had been forever changed forever. And I can't explain it, but I just knew that the person who came there, I was not that person any longer. I knew within the first week of my service in that helicopter company that what was going on there was bogus; it wasn't the place to be. This fighting was insane. What Nothing made any sense. Nothing made any sense. We weren't doing everything that I was told we were there for was like not the truth. And how do you deal with that sort of revelation? How do you deal with it? Because, I just couldn't say, 'Okay, I'm done,” pack up the bag and go home. It's not that simple.
How do you manage that? How do you realize that? How is it that you come to the point to realize that there is nothing else but this present moment? That you are not separate from anything in the sphere of your universe and that the entire universe exists right here, right now. And that every action that we take has consequences throughout the entire universe. Every action that we take effects the entire universe. And you can't wrap your mind around that. It transcends intellectual comprehension it transcends it. We might be able to think about the idea of that, but you can't really get that. How do you get that? You get that by living intensely in the present moment. By being aware that we're breathing in and breathing out, and by being open to all that is. To realize the interconnectedness of all things. I didn't end up in Vietnam just by chance. Those decisions that I made were not decisions made of free will, although I will tell myself that. Those decisions were mandated to me by the reality of inherited karma. They were mandated to me by the karma that I was creating. They were mandated. I didn't have a choice. To have a choice in my life, I need to wake up NOW, wake up. Because if I don't, then I continue to contribute to the endless cycle of suffering.
Before my 18th birthday, I was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 200 people. This finger right here pulled the trigger this finger, nothing other than this. There is no way around that. And I live with that daily. It's not a myth. It's not an intellectual idea. It is a reality. Vietnam stripped the skin off my body. I have no buffers between me and the world. That I have survived that experience and survived the ramifications of that experience is a pretty amazing thing. That I have survived relatively in tact. In the official ten years of war in Vietnam (May '63 August, '73 those are the official dates of the war), 58,216 Americans were killed. Since the end of the war, more than 100,000 have committed suicide more than 100,000. The war is never over. And if we do not wake up to how the war manifests itself in our person, then we will continue to perpetuate that cycle of suffering. And war is not an external phenomenon. It doesn't happen outside of us. The roots and seeds of war are right here in each and every one of us. None of us are immune. None of us are separate. We all contribute. To wake up. That's the invitation of the Buddhist teaching. To wake up. And what the Buddhist teaching says is that we can turn this around now. We can make a difference now; if we apply ourselves; if we set our mind to the process. And when I talk about mind, I don't mean mind necessarily here, although this is part of it. The interconnectedness of all things I talked about it here. It also is more basic than that. It is the integration of our whole self our thinking self, our sense self, our emotional self, our psychological self. It's living in harmony with our whole self; neither rejecting nor clinging to any individual…existence. It is no more or less valuable than the emotional self, or the sense self, or the psychological self. Through embracing Buddhist practice, to living in the way of mindfulness, to live in the way of mindfulness, to live in the present moment, we come to a place of understanding beyond the intellect, a place of true understanding. That doesn't mean that the intellectual understanding is not also true, but it's only a piece of understanding. My best thinking can get me in a lot of trouble. Because with my mind, I can massage, manipulate and shape events and circumstances in any way that I want. Often I can massage, manipulate and shape all that process takes place because of this inherited stream of karma and because of the karma that I'm creating through the actions in my life. We call those causes and conditions. What are causes and conditions? A cause is my training or the condition was my military training and the cause was my role that I played in the military, my shooting, killing, and destroying. Because it's not only the killing of human beings, but the destruction of villages, the blowing up of bridges, the killing of animals, the deforestation of a country that the destruction of the elements, all of those things are involved. I participated in all of that. I'm responsible for all of that. And you know what? I'm not a good or a bad person because of my actions. If I look at it from a moral perspective, I will never, ever have the possibility of waking up. I'll never have the possibility of doing it differently. And for the longest time, it was about morality. I was trapped, because I saw myself as being somehow evil or bad because of what I had done.
I'm raised in America. The dominant religious philosophy in America is Christian philosophy, and the Commandments, and I believe it's the Fifth Commandment that says, 'Thou shalt not kill,” except in the time of war and if the government says it's okay, and you know you're defending your country; you have the right to democracy. For me, it was one of the most difficult paradoxes I had to face. Thou shalt not kill means thou shalt not kill. So how am I responsible for killing in my life and how can I stop that? But I had it on a moralistic level, and as long as I have it on a moralistic level, there's no possibility to heal. It wasn't until I was able to come to the place of knowing that I'm not a good or a bad person because of what I've done. I have to look at - I've done what I've done because of the interconnectedness of all things, because of the inherited karma. Now that doesn't excuse my actions. This is a danger here, to use this as an excuse. Because the truth is I am responsible for my actions. This is the law of karma that I create. I am responsible. What must I do? What can I do? Well, I was taught that if I blow up a bridge, I can build a bridge. If I blow up a house, I can build a house. So how do I give back life? And, of course, the answer I got from the Buddhist community was, 'Oh well, you weren't really responsible.” The response wasn't much different from the Christian community or from the other religious communities: 'You weren't really responsible, you weren't really aware, so you really didn't know, so it's okay.” But, in fact, it's not okay. I am responsible. So how do I work with this? I commit myself to a life of service. I commit myself to a life of service. An awareness that I came to after having become ordained and placing myself available, suddenly I had this very powerful awareness and I think it actually came to me in a talk, like this, or it came to me in a talk I was doing in a retreat, that where my responsibility lies is that all people well, actually, here's how it went: for the longest time, I had a lot of difficulty with the fact that I had survived…
[bell]
…I had a lot of difficulty that I had survived Vietnam. I'm not guilty that I had survived, but angry. Angry because I had believed that the people who died there really were the lucky ones. Because they didn't have to deal with the consequences of the actions that I was having to live with, and others who had survived were having to live with. The place that I came to, and it was through this practice, was that I have a tremendous debt of responsibility, a tremendous debt that I owe to all those names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and to all those names that are not on the Memorial that have died since the war. And my responsibility is to not let their lives be wasted. I have survived for a reason; that reason is to not let their lives be wasted. And their lives, the loss of their lives are a standing monument to show us that this is not the way. And then it extends that my responsibility lies to all people who have ever died in any war at any time, that there lives not be wasted because they died to show us that THIS IS NOT THE WAY. So to commit my life to a life of service in honor and respect of those who have gone before me to teach me the way; to show me the way.
How much more dramatic a presentation do we need? 58,216 American lives; 1,200,000 South Vietnamese soldiers; 2,300,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers; and about 3,000,000 civilian casualties during this period of ten years of fighting. Ten million people when are we going to get it? When are we going to wake up? What's happening in Kosovo right now is not just happening in Kosovo. It's happening in Kosovo; it's happening in Niger; it's happening in Sri Lanka; it's happening in Burma. There are 35 major wars being fought around the world. 33 of those wars are the result of religious differences. Can you imagine that? And part of the practice is to imagine that. Because what are we supposed to do? What is it that we embody? The heart of all spiritual teaching talks about the interconnectedness of all things. In the Bible, in the New Testament, in Matthew, Chapter, 25, verse something-or-other, Jesus is talking to a group of people. And Jesus is saying, 'Gee, you know, when I came to visit you, you fed me not.” And they said, 'Come on, when did you come to visit us, we didn't see you?” And Jesus responded, 'Well, when anyone comes, I come.” What is that if it's not the interconnectedness. 'When I came to you and asked you to clothe me, you clothed me not.” 'Jesus, when did you ask us for clothes? We didn't recognize you.” 'When anyone asks you, I ask you.” What is that, but interconnectedness?
In the Buddhist teaching, the other is not separate from us. As the other suffers, I suffer. So how do I commit myself to the healing and the unification of humankind? Certainly I don't do it through dropping bombs! But then, what do I do? What do I do then? Well, you know, I know what the way isn't, but I don't know what the way is. That's what this bell is about. This is a bell of mindfulness. Every time we hear this bell ringing, it's an invitation to stop what we're doing and come back to our breath to live in the present moment to be just here.
I'm initiated into the Zen Peacemaker Order. It's the first all-Western Buddhist order founded by Roshi Bernie Glassman. I'm one of the first monks ordained in this Order, as well as being a Soto Zen priest. The Order is founded on three core tenets: the first is penetrating the unknown; the second is bearing witness; and the third is healing. Those three core tenets don't talk about seeing how you can fix something. It talks about penetrating the unknown. It means meeting somebody right where they're at. Let go of your ideas. Throw them away. You can't really throw them away, but be aware of them. When you meet a person, don't meet them from here to here, meet them here. Where's the place at which we're interconnected? And it's true that I'm not you, but I'm not separate from you. Where we are interconnected is this space right here between us. This is not empty, individual space. This is not a void. Here exists those non-self elements. It's here that we connect. So when I meet you, can I embrace the teachings of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara? Can I listen, just listen to you, listen to you talk, meet you right where you're at?
I did a pilgrimage the second one I did, I walked from Yonkers, New York to San Francisco. I walked in robes. I walked without money. I carried everything on my back. I was in one of the western states and it was a small town of about 80 people. What we did when we walked is we walked right through the middle of the country, so most of the towns we walked through were 1,000 to 1,200 to 1,500 people. And the largest town after Hackettstown, New Jersey was Peoria, Illinois small towns. And we would walk into these small towns; we would knock on the doors of the religious institutions; we would explain who we were, what we were doing, and then ask them if they could support us with a simple place to stay and simple food to eat. Excepting the proposition that if they all said no, then we would sleep outside, we would not eat, and we would walk to the next town. In one small town in the western community, there was only one church. We made contact with the church. The pastor approached me, because when you have the robes on, you're 'the man,” (or, you're 'the person!”). When I say, 'You're the man,” I say that because I happen to be one. I don't mean that in a generic sense. In this case I was the person that people would contact. And so, the person walked up to me and engaged me in some conversation and then he said, 'Do you believe in our teacher?” And I said, 'Why, yes, I do.” And then it caught him off guard. Because, you know, I'm a Buddhist. I'm supposed to be different. I mean, these concepts, right? This is what we're talking about the intellectual self, concepts, illusions, all of this being projected on to me, and that became my identity. It was impossible for him to meet me where I was at. When I said, 'Yes,” he was suddenly stunned. Then he said, 'Well, do you believe in our teacher the way we believe in our teacher?” And I said, 'You know, how do you believe in your teacher? I don't know.” He explained, and I said, 'No, not really.” He said, 'Well, then you are the anti-teacher.” And I looked at him, breathing in and breathing out, and I said, 'I don't think so. This is a serious promotion you just gave me! I'm just a simple monk.”
Then I said, 'How old are you?” He gave me his age. I said, 'Did you serve in the military?” He said, 'Yes, I did.” I said, 'Did you fight in the Korean War?” He said, 'Yeah, I did.” He said, 'Isn't America a great place? I fought for the freedom of this country so you could do what you're doing.” And I said, 'Thank you very much. I was a soldier in Vietnam, and you know, I fought so that you could do what you're doing.” This is the wonderfulness about this place where we live. He got in his car and drove away. He refused to give us a place to stay. We wouldn't be permitted inside their building. He wasn't going to feed us, so we were just going to sleep in this little park and then leave. He came back about 15 minutes later with three bags of food, and I was moved to tears. Because, you know, always looking for the place where we connect; looking for the place of connection.
That's what I do when I engage other people: look for the place of connection. Some people just don't want it. It's much too frightening for them. So they create these walls and barriers around them to prevent that. And there's very little I can do, nor is there anything that I'm empowered to do. But just to make the effort to meet them right where there at. Stepping into the unknown is making that effort. Bearing witness is watching what rises in myself. Healing is the result that I don't have to take an action.
I've lived in the same small cottage for 18 years in Concord, Massachusetts. It's my home. I've lived there longer than I've lived anyplace. My landlady, whom I had a familial-type relationship with, died in January. Though her death I learned a lot. She spent the last month of her life in a nursing home and I went to visit her every day, sat with her every day. Sat with her just to sit with her. The niece-in-law who lives across the street inherited the property and I've been evicted thrown out of my home , the only real home I've ever known. In Buddhism there's this teaching of impermanence the impermanent and selfless nature of all that is. So to be able to let go of that, to just move. But, of course, penetrating the unknown and bearing witness, what's the first thing that rises up into my mind? I want to burn down her house. Yeah, I mean, it's like, the power of those sorts of feelings and how they manifest in my person. This is what this practice empowers me to do is to have all of these feelings, neither rejecting nor attaching myself. Now that doesn't mean that I just go through life and not take any actions. Because also this practice is not just about sitting on the cushion, it's about DOING doing. What do we do? And sitting on the cushion is doing something. It's not all. I mean, there's more than that. But here is an anchor; here is a root.
[Bell 2x]
What to do? It's always the question: what to do? But I never think about the answer. Sometimes the answers come, well I'll do this, I'll burn down her house, I'll sue, all sorts of things come up. But to just allow those to rise it's a process of meditation. Meditation is sitting on the cushion and it's other than sitting on the cushion. When you walk through the door it's an act of meditation. When you tie your shoes, it's an act of meditation. When you open a door, it is an act of meditation. When you open the refrigerator. When you pour your milk, can you really pour your milk as if it were the first time that you've ever poured milk from a container and marvel at the miracle of that? Marvel at it really watch the milk, really participate fully in the whole event. This is meditation. Every opportunity is an opportunity to wake up.
Buddhist teaching is based on some basic guidelines. They were developed during the time of the Buddha. They have come to be known as precepts. I want to share one with you and then I'll end here with this part and provide a few moments if some people need to leave so that you don't feel all embarrassed when you walk out, and then I'll open it up for questions and responses I keep forgetting, I don't have answers. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive other's viewpoints. Truth is found in light and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world. If I sit on the cushion to become enlightened, it will never work, because enlightenment isn't something that exists external to us that needs to be pursued. We are all already enlightened. We simply need to embody our own enlightenment. To live it.
And how can I help you on your path? How can I be of service to you? As I can be of service to you, please ask me. If you interested more in Zen practice, Katherine Tonnis is the Abbot of the Zen Center here in Santa Cruz, and there are other members of her community that are present. Please talk with them. Meditation is a powerful tool in the process of integrating. Yet it is only a tool. It helps us define the many different fingers and extensions of Buddhist practice that exists all around us. There are many tools. I don't want to stop. I'll end here. It's tough. There's just so much that I want to share. But I'll stop here.
What I'd like to do is, first we'll invite the bell and then ring it twice. I would ask people if they would please to sit upright on their seats and place their feet flat on the floor with their hands in a comfortable position, their back straight, their chin in slightly. As the bell is ringing, please breathe in through your nose, feeling your abdomen rising. Breathe deeply into your body. And when you breathe out, feel your abdomen return to its former position. Let's breathe in and out together three times, then have just a short pause so if anyone needs to leave they can do that. If I don't see anyone leaving, then we'll move right into questions and responses.
[Bell 2x]
Please, if you ask a question, form it as a question. And also, I don't want to engage in political discussions or theological discussions. If you want to talk about those sorts of things, I'd rather do it in a different format than this. So please ask your questions as succinctly as possible, and would you please say your name.
Question: My name is Bill. My question is more on detachment and ability especially with a (inaudible), in a lost love where you were very upset at that human experience and that loss and you know that you're growing even stronger spiritually because of it, but the detachment part can become very difficult, and I was wondering (inaudible)
Response: Whenever I look to anything to fulfill me, to identify me, this is attachment, and this is suffering. Now, suffering, this word comes from what I come to understand as the very essence of Buddhist teaching rests in the Four Noble Truths. The First of the Four Noble Truths is that suffering is a natural condition of life. The Second of the Four Noble Truths is the causes of suffering: selfish desire and craving, backed by ignorance. The Third of the Four Noble Truths is where there is a cause, there is a cure. Where there is suffering, there is the cessation of suffering. And the Fourth Noble Truth gives the cure: it's the Eight Fold Path. Right understanding, right wisdom, right livelihood, right intention, right mindfulness, right speech, and 'some other right things.” I never make it a practice to memorize stuff because I just want I really just want to commit my life to action, to step into the unknown with each moment, to bear witness to what rises and then to heal.
I'm really sad about the loss of my home. This is my home. I have a relationship with this space. I'm angry, I'm scared, I'm frightened. And everyone keeps telling you, 'Oh, you know, when one door closes, another will open.” You know, I go, yeah well. On good days I can know that and other days I think, Jesus, I don't want to live in my truck for the rest of my life. I lived two years on the street. I lived homeless. I do a regular spiritual practice. I take people out on the street and we live homeless for five, six days at a time. If you've never had the experience of living marginalized, it's a very powerful practice and I invite it. Because you're nameless and faceless, and so therefore you become the projection of all society's unwanted, unaddressed issues. I don't want to be homeless, yet I've taken vows as a mendicant.
So, how to? The question you ask is how to? The attachment for me is that the way I understand attachment in this incident is that if I just get obsessive and crazy about the reality of what's happening and try to make it, shape that reality in a way a think it ought to be, then I'm attached to some notion of how I think reality how to be. And I'm not really living in the moment. There will be some things that I will do in relationship with this process, and they may be positive things, they may not. But I'm going to do them anyway. And I'll learn, see bear witness. I'll learn. It's a development of skillful means. How to live in this world. How to live in this world of -- what was the word that we used today when we were talking about evil?
Response from audience: Beyond good and evil?
AnShin continues: Also, living in the world of good and evil, Samsara, but also this world of material existence, the reality, this human existence, how to live in that. Knowing also the other how to do it.
I've also been subjected to an intense form of discrimination by another Buddhist community that doesn't want me to move into their town because their attitude is that their town isn't big enough for the both of us! So, this reality of suffering exists in all. Precepts: Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means, they are not absolute truth. I invite you to just what I attempt to do is just be present to all that's happening in the moment, to bear witness to that. And learn how to hold the completeness of my being, the completeness of my experience, neither rejecting or attaching. Sometimes I attach; sometimes I reject, but if I'm bearing witness then I'll see that. That process will become revealed to me. And I will grow. Attachment prevents me from growing. It keeps me trapped in endless cycles of suffering. I keep doing the same thing. That was my life after the war. It was my life before the war. And there are still some aspects of that that manifest itself in my life today the way the war still manifests itself. But, to breathe, to just be present, to bear witness.
From the Peacemaker version of the precepts: As Peacemakers throughout all space and time have observed the precept of not being angry, not harboring resentment, rage or revenge, so will I with determination abstain from anger, not harboring resentment, rage, or revenge, I will roll all negative experience into my practice. I get a little nudgy about that: not being angry. Because I encourage I just encourage myself to just be present. If I'm angry, I'm angry. To just be angry. And then, that's stepping into the unknown; giving myself permission to just be, really be as complete as I can be, having these precepts, this practice and this sangha to support me. To do this alone is difficult; yet only I can do it. It's important to have a supportive community. Sangha is a Pali word, I believe, for community. Four basic elements to the Buddhist teaching: the Four Noble Truths; the teaching of Sangha, or community; the teaching of Dana, which is selfless giving; and the teaching of Mindfulness. It's just going to be painful.
Question: (inaudible)
Response: When I leave here, I may never see you again, but, in fact, you're inside of me now. You're part of me. Wherever I go, you come with me. That's the wonderful thing about having these possibilities because I gain so much.
AnShin: Next question. In the back. Your name?
Scott. Question: You have been to Bosnia and are planning on going to Kosovo, and I'd enjoy hearing you share how you practice, or how you have practiced the Peacemaker precepts.
Response: The three things I talked about are not precepts, they're Core Tenets. They're the Tenets on which the Peacemaker Order is founded upon. I've been into the Balkans; I've been into other places of fighting: the bowery of New York, South Central Los Angeles, mostly every major city. What I do is, to the best of my ability, I enter into these places with no preconceived notion of what to do or what's happening. And then just to meet the situation, the circumstances and people, right where they're at. Penetrating the unknown, letting go of projections and ideas and stuff; bearing witness is just being present for what is; and healing is simply what happens inside of me. Learning more faces of my suffering. My sadness has 10,000 faces to know them all intimately. My anger has 10,000 faces to know them all intimately. It is not just one expression. To not close myself off from anything and to know there is absolutely nothing I can do. Nothing. But I find when I go there with that sort of attitude then what to do becomes revealed to me.
[Bell]
A short example: the second time I went into the Balkans no, the first time I went into the Balkans, I went in with an international group of peace activists. They had as a decision-making model, the consensus model. I'll never do that again. Because it really I watched it function just the opposite of what it was supposed to function and that enabled one or two people to take control of the group and mandate their own agendas on the group. They were sitting we had this meeting, and there were 20 of sitting in this room in the city of Mostar. Mostar is near to a place called Medjugoria, which is a very holy site. It's a pilgrimage site. And Mostar was a place of very intense fighting by all three sides that were fighting in this particular expression of this conflict in the Balkans. And they were talking about how to negotiate with these three factions how to negotiate a cease fire. It was absurd. They were really sitting around talking about establishing they were going to do this all in 24 hours establish connections with the various leaders of the military organizations on all three fronts and get them together and have a talk. Intellectually, it was a great idea, but it had nothing to do with bearing witness to what was happening. It had nothing to do with the reality of the situation. I listened to this for about 15 minutes and I became I just go so angry I had to leave. I was going to start putting my foot in my mouth a lot.
So I left. And I just started walking towards what was the front line. I reached a point and somebody said, 'You can't go beyond there. That building over there there are soldiers in there.” I said, 'Well, that's exactly where I want to be.” So I started walking and suddenly I was converged on by about six soldiers, very nervous, all with their guns armed and ready to fire, and really agitated and aggressively questioning me. At that moment, this bell rang. And I just stayed here with my breath, embracing this practice, and engaged them. They asked me who I was. Somebody spoke English. We got the conversation going. I explained to them who I was and they asked me where I came from. I said, 'I'm American.” I said I was here to talk about my fighting. They said, 'Well, what do you know about war? You're American.” I explained my service in Vietnam and suddenly they were interested.
They brought me into this building. I talked with there were about 15 soldiers in this building (it was a three-story building). They were snipers. They were taking turns killing people on the other side. And we met, and they prepared some tea, and we started to talk three or four of us. And then suddenly a couple more joined and then a couple more joined. Pretty soon all of them were there. We talked for 45 minutes to an hour. And towards the conclusion of that, I said, 'Why are you fighting? Why don't you just stop?” What a concept, just stop! They said, 'We can't stop. If we stop, then the beasts and demons from the other side will come and take us.” The beasts and demons aren't there, they're here. And I said, 'Well, I was just over there yesterday, and you know, they said the same thing. Do you think you're beasts and demons?” He said, 'Oh, no! We're not the beasts and demons, they are!” I said, 'No, they're not. Those people are your cousins, they're somebody's mother, somebody's father, somebody's priest, somebody's child, somebody's aunt, somebody's uncle, somebody's grandmother,” to humanize the situation, to bring the humanity back into the situation. Then they said, 'We can't stop fighting. They'll put us all in jail.” I said, 'The choice is not between fighting and going to jail, but fighting and not fighting. You can make the choice. It's yours to make.” They said, 'Well, it's impossible.” I said, 'Well, we've been talking for about an hour here. Nobody's fired a shot! It's absolutely possible. We've just done it. And what I realized at some point later on was that what those people were attempting to do up here, intellectually, was actually happening. That we had a cease fire. It happened, by taking the next step, by taking the next breath, by bearing witness. It happened.
But it's critical to be spiritually based. It's critical to have a community to support you. It's critical to have a practice. It's critical to have someone help you and guide you through this process of practice. Although the truth is, we're the ones that have to do the work. Nobody can do it for us. We have to. But that's spiritual basis. See, life is not other than spiritual. Life is a spiritual process. Tying my shoes is an opportunity to become enlightened. Imagine that? Taking a shower, drying the dishes. So, breathing in and breathing out, with no agenda.
What I discovered is most of these I came to an understanding and I say this with loving kindness that most of these people who consider themselves peace activists are really peace imperialists, because they have a preconceived notion of what peace is supposed to be or supposed to look like. To penetrate the unknown is to let go of my preconceived notions. To bear witness is just to listen to the others and just see what I can do to be of service. This is healing. To impose my ideas on another is no different than the soldiers in the military and all of these institutions are attempting to do. I am no different. But yet I will perceive myself as different. Because one of the things that I noticed: when we engaged, these peace workers made the soldiers the bad guys, or the bad people, cause not all of them are guys. They made them the source of all the trouble. So they saw them selves as different immediately there's no opportunity for peace. When I go to Kosovo, I have no idea what I'll do. I have no idea. None. I'm going there to bear witness. Next question. In the blue shirt? Your name? Elaine.
Question: How do you feel about vegetarianism as spiritual practice (inaudible)?
Response: I don't really profess any philosophy about this. What I know is in the precepts, the very first precept says: Do not kill. Do not let others kill. Find whatever means possible to protect life. Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Now, precepts are not rules to be followed rigidly. They are guides to help support us in making our own decisions. I don't eat meat. I don't eat fish.