And I'm Sir Panos, and I've traded near the Mercury, the Arma, the HPA, the Phoenix, and I've got a good million kalpas. It's good to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to face the truth, and I like to talk the truth's words. I think your sound is on over there. Good morning. Can you all hear me? Can you hear me in the room, Rob? Yes, can you turn the sound off there? We're getting echoes in here. Okay. Testing one, two. Can you hear me? Yes, now it's better. Thank you. Okay, good. Well, Hello, everyone. I'm here mostly just to thank you all.

[01:10]

And I can only see a couple people in the room with Rob, but anyway, I know it was a bunch of you. And thank you, thank you, thank you. Oops. Ann Johnson has joined us also. Good. Yes. So, um, I'm, I'm just speaking this morning to thank you and to encourage you in what you're doing on the ground in Wisconsin. And is this also going to Nevada at some point? It will, um, in recorded form. Okay, good. Anyway, uh, welcome everyone. Uh, thank you so much for what you're doing. I deeply appreciate it. Um, getting out the vote in Wisconsin and Nevada. Um, So I just want to speak today about Bodhisattva politics and encourage you. And Rob, I understood that there would be some non-Buddhists listening to this. Is that true? Eventually.

[02:11]

Not today. Not today. Hopefully in the near future. Okay, well, so I'll mention this, I'll explain that tomorrow and the next day when I'm talking also. Today I want to talk about Bodhisattva politics in terms of the Bodhisattva of compassion, Kanan or Avalokiteshvara. And so, first just to say about Bodhisattva practice being inseparable from politics, to put it that way. We are, we vow in Bodhisattva practice. Oh, and I see Carla from my Sangha is joining us. Hi, Carla. So Bodhisattva practices includes the vow to free all beings, to support life, not killing, and to include all beings. So I want to talk about Bodhisattva values in relationship to Bodhisattva politics. But these values are not separate from American values to me.

[03:19]

So basic fundamental American values. So in our practice, for those of us who are Soto Zen or Zen Buddhists, we We meditate and we connect with, commune with something deeper, with the universal, with the ultimate, with, we could say, the transcendent, with higher powers, to put it that way. And I have one of my assistants who's making a lot of noise. Hold on a second. Sorry. Okay, out. Sorry for that interruption. My assistant was meowing to come in, and now she wanted to go out. So, okay.

[04:21]

Our practice, whether it's meditative or as in Soto Zen, which maybe many of you are, or in chanting, is about connecting, communing with something deeper, with the ultimate, with the universal. But our practice is to bring that into our everyday activity. to bring our sense, our awareness of the ultimate into our everyday activity and into the world of politics too. Politics is just how we live together, how we work together as citizens, as people in the same country, the same world. So again, we vow to free all beings, to support life, not killing, to include all beings. And so how do we, um, allow this universal to come, to be expressed in our own lives, in the phenomenal world, in the particulars of our own lives and in our country's life.

[05:29]

This is the point of our practice. Um, and, uh, so again, when we, um, meditate, when we chant, we get some taste, some sense of something ultimate, something universal, some sense of wholeness. And our practice is to integrate that, integrate that wholeness, that universal reality that we commune with, with the particular realities. that we experience in our own personal lives and in our communal life. So suffering is both personal, psychological. We each have our own regrets or sadnesses. We each suffer in our own way from old age sickness, from death around us, but also

[06:37]

Suffering is communal and collective. And so how we bring, how we act, how we bring ourselves to participate in the collective, in what we call Sangha, whether it's a particular community of practitioners or the greater Sangha of all beings, of people and family and friends we know, but also of all the citizens of our world. So we know there's a lot of suffering now. We know that there is difficulties in the world, that there is injustice in the world, and genocide and wars. And we are, the Bodhisattva practice, the Bodhisattva vows are about responding to that, responding to the suffering on all the different levels. But also feeling the value of awareness of something deeper, of the ultimate or universal.

[07:44]

So we can also do this work with joy, with happiness. And I'm so grateful again to all of you who are on the ground in Wisconsin or in Nevada. going around and trying to encourage people to vote. It's so important now. So, philosophical values, American values, are important for government leaders, are important for citizens. These include kindness, inclusivity, compassion, empathy. It's easy to become overwhelmed It's easy to feel hopeless sometimes with the difficulties in our own lives and in the world. But that's not realistic. Hopelessness is not realistic. Feeling overwhelmed is not realistic. All actions that we do have some effect.

[08:46]

We don't know the outcomes. But something happens. Each action that we make, whether it's just a smile to somebody or reaching out to someone who's having a hard time personally, but also in terms of politics. This is a talk on Bodhisattva politics. In terms of our politics, how do we include all beings? How do we express kindness and caring and compassion and empathy and include everyone? This is about getting beyond seeing some people as other, not stigmatizing others. So one of the major presidential candidates this weekend, in addition to other things, criticized Abraham Lincoln and said that Abraham Lincoln should have made a deal to stop the Civil War.

[09:51]

You know, he could have made a deal, this candidate said, and which would have included, of course, continuing slavery in some form. So basically advocating slavery. This is, you know, an extreme of some of the horrible things that are being said in this presidential campaign. So again, I'm so grateful to all of you on the ground, going around in Wisconsin, in Nevada, and reaching out to friends in swing states, as I've been doing, to get out the vote. So I wanted to talk about bodhisattva politics today, specifically in terms of the bodhisattva of compassion. The next two days I'm going to talk about this again, in terms of other particular major bodhisattva figures. But the bodhisattva of compassion, in Sanskrit, Avalokiteshvara, in Chinese, Guanyin, uh, in Japanese, uh, has something to teach us about how, about political activity and how to respond to this political world.

[11:03]

So, um, You probably all know, again, I guess there are, everyone listening to this is a Buddhist and knows about the Bodhisattva's son. And in the service this morning, we referenced the Bodhisattva of Compassion, the Balakiteshvara. Her main practice is, one of her main practices is listening. So in terms of our political activity just to listen to each other is really important. To listen to so-called others, to hear different viewpoints, to include different viewpoints, that our politics is about everyone, all people in our world, in our country, and including them. And rather than trying to persuade people to agree with our political particular viewpoint, uh, we may, we may have a clear viewpoint that, and it's okay to espouse that.

[12:18]

But if you're trying to persuade somebody who thinks some other way, that's not a useful way, useful way to spend our time. I don't believe, uh, I think just to listen to the fears and concerns of others is, uh, a way of including different people, to recognize differences. So part of what the Bodhisattva of Compassion does is to actually pay attention to differences. Even those of us who may agree on particular candidates or parties or whatever have different perspectives, and we should honor and accept and respect everyone, respect everyone. sharing our respect makes a difference, makes a change. This is an aspect of political activity that we can do to not, you know, stigmatize so-called others, even those who disagree with us.

[13:19]

So that's one important point. And the bodhisattva's compassion has many different forms, and that's appropriate to recognizing differences. recognizing that we are all together in these differences. And so there are many different forms of the bodhisattva of compassion. Sometimes just the Chinese goddess of mercy that we see in all Chinese restaurants is one of the forms of this bodhisattva, Guan Yin. But sometimes she has a thousand hands and eyes. hands spreading out, and each hand has an eye in it to see, to see from different perspectives. So this image of the Bodhisattva of compassion, one of her forms, with a thousand hands and eyes, is an important lesson for us in terms of politics.

[14:24]

And it's about Sangha, it's about all the different ways that we can contribute to making a difference. to helping preserve the values of our country, the values of democracy, the values, and the Buddhist values, the Bodhisattva values also, again, of supporting life and not killing, of including all beings, of basic kindness and empathy. How do we respect all others at the same time that we take definite actions, as you all are doing, and again, I'm so grateful to you all for going out uh, in Wisconsin or Nevada or, uh, people in other swing States to, uh, help support people to vote, to encourage people to vote. So a lot of the practice of the Bodhisattva compassion, I think is just to encourage ourselves and each other again, not to feel hopeless or overwhelmed. That's not realistic. We take on some activity like going around knocking on doors, uh, uh,

[15:31]

I've been writing lots of postcards to Michigan and Wisconsin, calling people, talking to friends in swing states. These are all things we can all do. And it makes a difference. It helps to try and see our values and how we can express kindness So one of the main practices of the bodhisattva of compassion, I know on Avalokiteshvara different names, is called skillful means. And this is about recognizing differences. So encouraging people to vote, just for example, if you're going door to door or talking to people on the phone or whatever, You know, hearing where they're coming from, listening to them, will help us to develop skillful means.

[16:33]

So this idea of skillful means is a basic Buddhist practice, a basic Bodhisattva practice. There's no instruction manual about this. It's not a matter of do this, then this, then this. Skillful means is about listening and then responding. and trying things and making mistakes. So for Bodhisattvas, skillful means is being willing to make mistakes, being willing to give our best to trying to relieve suffering and help beings. So hopefully we make good mistakes, mistakes that we can learn from rather than harmful mistakes. But we have, but, uh, so this, this skillful means again, it's, there's not some instruction manual or go out and do this and that and the other. Um, it's about the practice of patience, which I'll talk about more, uh, next week.

[17:37]

Uh, one of these talks about, uh, bodhisattva politics, but Avalokiteshvara, kanon, the bodhisattva of compassion, and compassion itself is very much about the practice of active patience. We pay attention. We pay attention within ourselves, so in zazen, in meditation, we listen to our own feelings and thoughts as they drift by. We try to let them go, but are open to hearing our own feelings, our own thoughts, our own confusion, our own fears. And then we also share this with others. We listen. Responding to others with skillful means, whether it's family and friends or whether it's people we're going around to, knocking on doors, saying, please go vote, hear where they're coming from, give them a chance to talk.

[18:43]

It's not about telling them who to be or what to do. It's about interactive. So patience in the bodhisattva practices is active. It's not passive. It's about waiting, sitting, listening, and then responding. So how do we respond? The great Zen master Jungman said once that the whole teaching of a Buddha's lifetime is appropriate response. So this is difficult. How do we respond appropriately to the people we're engaged with? How do we share kindness with them? How do we share respect? Respecting people with other perspectives or with slightly different perspectives. So we want people to appreciate values of compassion and kindness and inclusivity, including all beings.

[19:47]

We want everyone to vote. This is an aspiration that has not been achieved in any American election before, as far as I know. But hoping that that people will all vote and vote how they see reality and kindness and caring. So patience is, again, it's not passive. And our training in meditation is to sit and wait and listen to ourselves and listen to what we hear of the world. Yet, when we see something we can do, we respond. So all of you on the ground in Wisconsin or in Nevada are responding to the realities of this election and this world and our country now. And this is such an important election. I would say the most crucial election of our lifetimes.

[20:50]

It's important to vote for Values of, well, as I said before, these are basic bodhisattva values, and they're also basic fundamental American values. Caring, kindness, citizenship, inclusivity, all beings, to speak for equal justice under the law. for including all beings in the process of democracy and of interacting and of responding with patience and kindness. So this is not, again, I want to say this is not passive. We all have a response ability. We have an ability to respond. This is fundamental to our lives and our practice. And how do we respond appropriately?

[21:52]

And again, there's no instruction manual. It's situational. Each person, each door we knock on, each person we react with, how do we see them? How do we give them a chance to express themselves? But also then we can encourage them respectfully to participate, to express caring and compassion and responding to all beings. So again, these thousand hands, each one has an eye to see from a different perspective. And they also have various tools. So in the basic iconography of bodhisattvas, there are many different tools. There are vows with nectar to share and relieve suffering.

[22:54]

There are scepters. There are sometimes lassos to corral difficult customers. There are traditionally... many many different uh implements that are held in all those different hands but we can think about that for ourselves in terms of this situation of this election in terms of what are the tools we have so you are all going the people on the ground in wisconsin and later in nevada and in other states also, to go around and try and encourage people to vote. This is a tool. This is something we have. Writing postcards, as I've done, or phone banking, or just talking to people we know in swing states. And there may be many other tools, making donations, paying attention, just paying attention to not just the presidential election, but all the very important

[23:59]

congressional and Senate elections and local elections, to really not ignore those, to respect that sharing the politics of compassion and caring and respect and inclusivity means working on all levels. So we each have various tools and are Responsibility is to use them now to help support caring and kindness and to reject the politics of cruelty, which is so available some places now. So I can keep babbling, but I'm going to stop there. And I'm really interested in your responses or anything you might have to offer in terms of how we can express bodhisattva politics.

[25:03]

So thank you all for listening. And Rob or whomever, maybe you can call on people to respond. If you'd like to ask a question, there are a few enough of us that you can just put your hand up. And when you ask your question, please unmute yourself. Oh, okay, Tom. Well, yeah, I was, well, Jerry raised her hand too. She's reading a book about the Brahma Viharas and it seems like that's a good formula for, you know, listening and responding and for compassion.

[26:10]

Yes, one of the joys of Buddhist practice and bodhisattva practices. There are many different systems to help us, to encourage us, to take responsibility. So the Brahma Baharas is a good one. The Paramitas I'll talk about next week. The different bodhisattva figures. So I'm talking about Kannon today and tomorrow I'll talk about Samantabhadra and the next day Maitreya who works for the future. Anyway, each of these different figures, so this is from my book, Phases of Compassion, on different Bodhisattva figures. These are, and all the different Bodhisattva teachings, the precepts and so forth, the Ramaviharas for sure, give us tools. These are the tools that are in the different hands of the Bodhisattva of compassion to find our own way to take responsibility and express ourselves in And interact with others to try and help foster compassion and caring and respect.

[27:20]

So thank you. Somebody else had their hand up in the room? Yeah, I did. Terry will be back. I was reminded, I was listening to you about the last time I saw the Dalai Lama when he was making his last trip around the United States and he was giving talks and we had one in San Francisco and everybody was, a lot of people. Raymond is saying that we can't hear her. So would you speak up, please? Thank you, Jim. Well, I was reminded when I was listening to you that when the Dalai Lama made his final trip to the United States and to San Francisco, he had a big crowd at one of the auditoriums in San Francisco, and he said, you know, this year I'm really going to cultivate compassion.

[28:23]

And he said, and it was so funny that he said that. It was just, everyone laughed. And then he said, what I do now is, is everyone I meet, I say, this is me. This is me. And I wonder what you think about that. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, I've seen His Holiness the Dalai Lama numbers of times. It's been a while since the last one. But one thing about him is he is formally, literally, understood to be a manifestation of this bodhisattva of compassion. Chenrezig in Tibetan, Valakiteshvara. So he is a walking total expression of compassion and of this bodhisattva of compassion. That's how Tibetan Buddhism understands who he is.

[29:25]

And so yeah, he offers compassion. He also has a great sense of humor. He's really funny. He laughs a lot, which is something we need to do. We have one candidate who laughs a lot, and I really appreciate that. So yeah, that's part of this, that in the Bodhisattva tradition, there are particular people who are considered to be incarnations, manifestations of these particular archetypal bodhisattva figures. And in my Faces of Compassion book, I just informally give examples of different people who represent these values of compassion. I mentioned Mother Teresa, So there are people in our world, in our culture, who are doing this bodhisattva work in their whole lives.

[30:33]

So how do we recognize each other as bodhisattvas, awakening beings, enlightened beings, enlightening beings, helping to awaken all beings? You know, our practice is not just a self-help practice. I mean, many of us recognize how we have benefited from the practice ourselves. So we are part of all beings, of course. But also, we're doing this for the sake of the whole world. So I will be voting for the people in... in Gaza who are suffering from genocide now. I will be voting for the people who are addicted and having difficulty with that. I will be voting for people who are enmeshed in poverty, people who are being oppressed by various powers, as well as voting for myself, of course, because we're all part of that.

[31:45]

So how do we recognize our own art in, you know, the inclusivity of all American citizens and all world citizens, all beings, not just people, you know, we're representing, uh, the Bodhisattvas represent also animals and trees and flowers. And, um, I'm down here in, uh, in the Chicago area. So there's a real great lake near me, and I see Rae Wynn is in Milwaukee, and that same lake is near her. And so we're all connected in so many ways. This is part of this reality, to see how we are connected. And how we respect each other and care for each other, express compassion, has to do with that. So Nizamana Dalai Lama totally expresses that, but many people we know express bodhisattva values.

[32:51]

And all of our practice and all of our sanghas and all of our different communities of practice, which we can see more or less widely, how do we support them? How do we encourage compassion in all people? So thank you for the witness of so-and-so Dalai Lama. Other comments, questions, responses, please. Rob? On a more mundane and practical level, those of us who are going to be walking around today and knocking on doors... most of the time we're going to be encountering either nobody, which is pretty, pretty common. We just come to a door and there's no answer. We leave literature. Um, but when the door is open, most of the people are going to be, um, of our same persuasion because we have a list that we're working from, but not always.

[33:59]

And, um, Occasionally we'll encounter somebody who has really divergent views from us. And there's a tendency to engage in polemic and argumentation and sometimes it gets heated. And I think one thing to remember is that It's a rare occurrence, if it happens at all, that somebody's mind is changed in one of these encounters. That argumentation or persuasion is usually not at all effective. And you can just thank the person and leave, especially if it gets really heated and you feel threatened. there's actually an opportunity for some connection and relation when you're face-to-face. And this goes to the question or the tool of listening.

[35:05]

I've found that the most powerful thing to do, and historically when I've walked precincts in Nevada, I'll run into a person here or there, that will come out in their front yard and they'll talk to me about their views very strongly. And I try and do a little Aikido where I just shunt them aside on those things and try and ask them about what their deepest concerns are and what is their hope for their family or what is their vision. And try and do it in a way that they can actually kind of drop the gladiatorial approach that they have and connect with something that's deeper and more personal and maybe a little more tender. And I've seen this happen. I went to a door once in Nevada.

[36:13]

The woman who was on the list came to the door and then a guy who lived in an ADU behind came forward and he said that he was never going to vote. He was so disappointed and disgusted with the system and I just started to ask him about why that was and what his experiences were. Instead of arguing with him about it, it became, share it with me and express yourself. It was quite extraordinary how much he softened and at the end of that conversation it almost sounded like he was reconsidering his... I didn't try and persuade him of anything. It was just trying to bring him out. So if you're able to do that sort of thing, if you're able to try and connect with people that way, it might result in a vote.

[37:15]

It probably won't result in a vote, but it's certainly a much richer experience in your encounter with the person. I think they probably came away from it with a much different view of their enemy or their other. And the softening and the opening is really worth it. If you do encounter somebody who doesn't agree with you, try and start a conversation where you can share something or where you can find common ground or where they can open up to you. So that would be my suggestion for anyone who's going out. It can be kind of terrifying. I'm going out and I don't have any armor on and I don't have any weapons and, you know... But it turns out that listening is much more than a passive activity. It can be very active. So that's my suggestion for our canvassers.

[38:20]

Thank you. Thank you so much, Rob. That's really good. Example of skillful means, to put it that way, that to approach each person with respect, not combativeness, especially when they disagree with us, when they feel combative, just to listen with respect, to really feel respect and appreciation for that person. And yeah, if you can start a dialogue where you share some of your perspectives, that's fine. But first you have to just listen to what are your concerns? What are your fears? What are your viewpoints? And that, you know, those viewpoints can be informative to our own perspective sometimes. And again, as Rob said, it's not a matter of persuading or converting somebody from some perspective to another to have to be open with respect to another person. That in itself can be

[39:23]

transform the situation. Maybe transform that person. But you're not trying to convert them. That gets in the way. So thank you, Rob. Yes, Rayren. Thank you very much for that talk. That was beautiful. And also, Rob, yeah, I totally agree with you. And I think Also, persuasion would not be democratic. You know, I mean, we don't want somebody to tell us how we should vote. That would be, you know, a different country. I think for democracy, it's necessary that there are different viewpoints and that they have to be able to express, be expressed. You know, and of course, we would like ours to rule, right? But that may not happen. because we are in a democracy.

[40:26]

So we have to accept that. And that's hard, as we saw in the last election, that people, they could not step down when it was clear that they had lost. So this is a really difficult thing. And in a democracy, it needs to be understood that a different viewpoint may be ruling. So I think we need to remember that, too. But, yeah, thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you, Raven. Yes, bodhisattva values are, I would say, democratic values, small d, democratic, and including all beings. That's so important that it's not just our group. You know, it's not that we want to... you know, expel all people who disagree with us. Some people may feel that way, but we have to honor and respect the range of viewpoints.

[41:30]

So, yeah, how do we include everyone equally, justice equally under the law and so forth and respect the rule of law? It's difficult. We're living in a really difficult, this is a really difficult election. I just want to say that again. Again, and we all know that. And it's really important to do whatever you can to help support people to vote. And so thank you all very much for what you're doing. Maybe that's time, Rob. I don't know if there's somebody else who wants to say something. But thank you all. I really appreciate this. Thank you, Taggart. How do we close? Beings are numberless. Ah, yes. Okay. Here we go. Beings are numberless.

[42:34]

I vow to change them. Beings are numberless. I vow to cut through them. The gates are boundless. I vow to enter in. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Collusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dine against our malice. I vow to make them. The dead is weighed and he is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Beings are numberless.

[43:39]

I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them God's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Thank you very much. We'll see you. This is our first day of canvassing, so we'll report back on how we do. And we'll see you tomorrow, Taigen. Thank you again. Very welcome. Thank you all for all you're doing.

[44:29]

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