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. So I started off with an anecdote about Calvin Coolidge, which I don't need to repeat. But Yunnan gave short answers to two questions. He lived in the 900s in China. was the founder of the fifth lineage house of Chan, classically. In the case of 14 of the Blue Cliff Record, Yuanmen was asked, what is the teaching of a Buddha's whole lifetime? And Yuanmen responded, an appropriate response or an appropriate statement, or one teaching meets each, an appropriate response. So this is the teaching of a whole lifetime. So what is our appropriate response today?

[01:02]

Just reading a little bit more from the Blue Cliff Record, Case 14. Yuanwu, who was a commentator of the Blue Cliff Record, which was compiled by Xuanzhi, by Shuedo. Anyway, Yuanwu 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 sole transmission of the mind seal directly pointing to the human mind for the perception of nature and realization of Buddhahood. So observe causes and conditions. Observe time and seasons. What is an appropriate response? It continues within one sentence of Yunmen, 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.

[02:14]

So, an appropriate response, a response that meets the situation, the time and seasons. In the Records of Yunmen, Urzap, 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 Yunman says, someone asked Master Yunman, what is the eye of the genuine teaching? And Yunman just said, everything. So an appropriate response is one that includes everything. All of us. Each one of you. Everyone that you know.

[03:16]

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 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.

[04:19]

How do we respond to each other? How do we respond to all the questions that come up? in our world, in our life, 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.

[05:23]

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 Good 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 heist policy. Also this week, there was an expansion of health care costs, of health insurance costs for many people.

[06:27]

I don't know how many people here were impacted, but health care costs have gone up exponentially. So how do we respond? What is an appropriate response in this situation, in these times? And there has been response. There are demonstrations in cities around the country, including Chicago. So people protesting in the streets, People signing petitions or calling or writing to Congress people. It's been a massive response. And I want to talk today with you all about what are our 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, as some of you may know, he helped to end the Vietnam War and to end the presidency of Richard Nixon.

[07:41]

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 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.

[08:50]

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 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 Adam bomb attack. So how do we respond to everything that's happening now? the ICE murder of Coronet Good, the attack on Venezuela, the expanding health care 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, you know, this is part of what Mr. Trump counts on.

[09:54]

that we'll feel overwhelmed or that we'll feel frightened by those 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 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 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?

[10:56]

You know, Yunman 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, you know, strengthen our relationships. In Sangha, of course, we, you know, help each other. We sit together. And then we get up and, you know, 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.

[12:03]

Maybe not. 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, meeting 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... And sometimes... We find our response was not appropriate. This happens. But then we try and use skillful means, trial and error, try to respond appropriately in the next moment or the next time, whatever.

[13:07]

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 Huayen teaching, the Flower Ornament Sutra teaching, and over, some say, 49 days, and then realized that nobody could understand it. Nobody understands it today either, but 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. Well, the second truth is that suffering comes from causes and conditions. But then the 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 Rhianna Schutt's book on the Eightfold Path and anti-racism, the engaged Eightfold Path.

[14:13]

So then Buddha taught other teachings that Prajnaparamita, and Arama Sutra, and anyway, many teachings, Mahapana, Ravana 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 a situation? Anyway, this is Yuen Lin's teaching, and I wanted to discuss this with you. So how are people responding to the situation of murder in the streets of Minneapolis, people being shot by ICE agents in Portland?

[15:14]

How are people responding to this invasion of a sovereign country, Venezuela, how are people responding to healthcare 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. I think Jonathan will supply a mic to people in the room and then invite people online. Is that right? So anybody online have a response or comment or question about

[16:17]

Yes. Joe would like to say something. Okay. That Israel is above my pay grade. I can't hear you. Oh, how about now? It's one sec. Oh, dear. That's fine. You hear me now? You all right? Not really. Oh, dear. Am I trying to ask? I'll repeat it. Go ahead, Joe. How about now? It's okay. Go ahead. Okay. I'll say it slowly. Venezuela is above my pay grade. Venezuela is above Joe's pay grade. And I'm on Medicare, so the price of insurance doesn't affect me. Okay. But I have been thinking about this ICE business. I'm trying to understand almost obsessively. these ICE fellows, these officers, where their heads are coming from.

[17:23]

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 ICE people are just, I don't understand it. So I'm trying to look at it as, you know, 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 a nice agent anyway, because I don't understand how that works. But aside from everything else, they're not being treated well. Now, 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.

[18:25]

Well, any kind of policing organization, certainly on the federal level, 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 well yeah go ahead 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.

[19:34]

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 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 their 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. Some of them know that she's a loser and is leading them down the print rose path.

[20:37]

Now, this is just an idea. I have no idea 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. Yeah, you know, one difference was that there was a draft then, and people were drafted into the service. 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.

[21:44]

So I very much appreciate your considering what's it like for an ICE agent. 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, I'll get to. Please, I'll get to. Thank you. and thank you try again for bringing forth your experience. And, you know, in reading of a Tom Saka Sutra, you know, it's a giant compendium, qualities of Bodhisattvas. It's like a giant training animal, or Sakuidos moment. And one of the things I was contemplating recently is the Ten Powers of Buddha. And this actually goes back to... very early Buddhism, before the Abhachal Sattva was sort of, arose as a fact, let's say, this millennium, and so on era. But, previous to that, even during Buddhist time, it was said that Buddhists had ten powers.

[22:49]

You know, these ten powers seemed like really awesome life. Knowing how things come to be, and knowing what things can't be, and seeing with the divine eye. I mean, it's kind of wild things. You might be in multiple places at once. But, I've been thinking about Buzz's descriptions going on, but these people wouldn't believe that there were all these 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 our zazen and state of possibility. Oh, thank you very much. Did people hear that? Because it was a little bit impassioned. I'm making a case for creative response that flows through our zazen and flows through our community.

[23:50]

And that... what we're talking about here is being able to meet all circumstances completely, which our wonderful ancestor, Yun-men, brings us to. But 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. Right. And so, and that... and grounded in the ground of our zazen 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.

[24:55]

And people gather there who are very disturbed, some of them disturbed in multiple ways, not just, you know, traumatized by this law's 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 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, through this creative response. And so I just want to encourage us, too.

[25:58]

And I think that's what you are encouraging us to do again. So anyway, that's my little rant. So thank you. David Weiner, you look like you want to grab my mic. Yeah. Eve has your hand up, but... Sorry, I corrupted you, Eve. Well, no, I defer to somebody else in the room, and then I can go. Okay. Yeah, thank you, Tiger. I'm 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 who gets so in Taigen that in Buddhism,

[26:59]

We don't look at things with judgment of good or bad, but rather what is helpful. Right. 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? What are you afraid of? I do not condone ice in any way. way, shape, or form. I take my whiskey neat, no ice. But why are these people doing this? You know, you say they're thugs. Something's going on. Something happened in their lifetime that made them become who they are now. And if I don't have compassion for them, I'm turning off 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?

[28:00]

They're going to lose their sense of, you know, validity in this society? Okay. So that's my point. Eve? Well, again, 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 there's a disjunction between you know, this larger we in our sense of what we want the we to be. And in Hogetsu's story, she was activating, you know, the we's that 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, you know, how to effectively build those, build on those,

[29:19]

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, you know, what communities we're part of, how to build the connections between those communities. you know, maybe reach out to our Congress people and our representatives to encourage them to act in the ways that, you know, 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.

[30:20]

I do think, you know, 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. Yes. Thank you. 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.

[31:25]

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'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. Thank you, Ishan. Yes. Yeah, yeah. 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.

[32:27]

Having, you know, in terms of peaceful protest, I remember during the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, there were very large demonstrations before, actually, the attack. And there were many people sitting, just sitting, He's sitting at the big demonstrations at San Francisco City Hall. And that energy we can bring to peaceful protests, not just 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.

[33:30]

So, thank you very much. things 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 to visit. Beings are numberless. We vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible.

[34:34]

We vow to cut through them. Dharma gates are boundless. We vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. We vow to find it. Beings are humblest. We vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. We vow to cut through them. Where all non-deeds are boundless, we vow to enter. But as weight is unsurpassable, we vow to realize.

[35:25]

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