Abbot's Teaching
September 11 Terrorist Attack
by Michael Zenkai Taiun Elliston Sensei
September 16, 2001
I would like to read to you a couple f quick quotes from Buddha's teaching that I think have some bearing on these incidents that we have seen. I think it natural that we are shocked by this kind of event, hopefully shocked into an awareness of reality in the sense that Buddha taught. We can ask ourselves, "How would Buddha have reacted?" One thing probably is for sure, that Buddha would not have been surprised, or caught off-guard.
These are various quotes from different teachings of Buddha, which I feel address the question of "How could a person commit such an act?" - which is one of the first questions that naturally comes to everybody's mind, when we see atrocities or certain events of history that are very difficult for us to get our arms around.
Here (from "The Teaching of Buddha", Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai) Buddha says:
"Fundamentally everyone has a pure, clean mind. But, it is usually covered by defilement and dust of worldly desires, which have arisen from one's circumstances. This defiled mind is not I of the essence of one's nature. Something has been added, like an intruder, or even a guest, in a home, but not its host.
The moon is often hidden by clouds, but it is not moved by them, and its purity remains untarnished. Therefore, people must not be deluded into thinking that their defiled mind is their own true mind.
They must continually remind themselves of this fact by striving to awaken within themselves the pure, and unchanging, fundamental mind of enlightenment. Being caught by a changing, defiled mind, and being deluded by their own perverted ideas, they wander about in a world of delusion.
The disturbances and defilements of the human mind are aroused by greed, as well as by its reactions to the changing circumstances.
The mind that is not disturbed by things as they occur, that remains pure and tranquil under all circumstances, is the true mind, and should be the master.
We cannot stay that an inn disappears just because the guest is out of sight; neither can we say that the true self has disappeared when the defiled mind, which has been aroused by the changing circumstances of life, has disappeared. That which changes with changing conditions is not the true nature of mind."
"Pure" in Buddhism means "non-dual;" it doesn't mean moralistically pure, but non-dualistic. Fundamentally everybody has this balanced, or pure, clean mind. In other words, when the defiled mind disappears, we cannot say that the true self has disappeared. That is, the true self is not the defiled mind. From the same source:
"A man's nature…" - this is humankind's nature - "is like a dense thicket that has no entrance, and is difficult to penetrate. In comparison the nature of an animal is much easier to understand. Still, we can, in a general way, classify the nature of people according to four outstanding differences.
First there are those who, because of wrong teaching, have practiced austerities and caused themselves to suffer. Second, there are those who, by cruelty, by stealing, by killing, or by other unkind act, cause others to suffer. Third, there are those who cause other people to suffer along with themselves. And fourth, there are those who do not suffer themselves, and save others from suffering. These people of the last category, by following the teachings of Buddha, do not give way to greed, anger, or foolishness, but live peaceful lives of kindness and wisdom, without killing or stealing.
There are three kinds of people in the world. The first are those who are like letters carved in rock. They easily give way to anger, and retain their angry thoughts for a long time. The second are those who are like letters written in sand. They give way to anger also, but their angry thoughts quickly pass away. The third is those who are like letters written in running water; they do not retain their passing thoughts; they let abuse and uncomfortable gossip pass by unnoticed; their minds are always pure and undisturbed.
There are three other kinds of people. The first are those who are proud, act rashly, and are never satisfied. Their natures are easy to understand. There are those who are courteous, and always act after consideration. Their natures are hard to understand. Then there are those who have overcome desire completely. It is impossible to understand their natures.
Thus people can be classified in many different ways, but nevertheless, their natures are hard to understand. Only Buddha understands them and, by his wisdom, leads them through varied teachings."
Now, this Buddha that understands them is our nature - our original nature is this Buddha-nature. So we are not speaking only of the historical Buddha here. Then, when we consider how somebody could do something like this, these are some of Buddha's answers. But then, we think of the victims, and we think, how would we as victim react to this, and how will we, as victim when we die, react to the circumstances that are causing our death? We may suffer an unfair death, too - we may suffer a precipitous death. We may be killed by somebody else; we may simply die of old age in our sleep. We may get a sickness and die. Under any circumstances, the question arises, how then do I confront my own death. And here, Buddha refers to something that happened to him in a past life.
(It was said that Buddha developed the power of retro-cognition, which means being able to see the past. Now, we get this confused with reincarnation, and think that Buddha saw himself in prior lifetimes in prior lifetimes. But he didn't see himself, it wasn't "him;" it was that from which he was reborn, after so many lifetimes. This is a very long and involved discussion in itself, and we are not going to go into the difference here, between reincarnation and rebirth - but let's just accept the premise that Buddha is describing something that happened, and let's take it on faith that it was real.)
He discusses here how the victim of death relates to the event of death. This is out of the Diamond Sutra, with which some of you are familiar. This is the text on which I spoke in our recent six-day retreat (there are six Paramitas, so each day I spoke on a different Paramita). This is the one on practice of humility and patience, or kshanti, the Kshanti Paramita. Buddha here is saying to his disciple Subhuti (from "A Buddhist Bible"by Dwight Goddard):
"In what has been said in the foregoing about the third Paramita of patience, the Tathagata does not hold in his mind any arbitrary conceptions of the phenomena of patience. He merely refers to it as the third Paramita, and why? Because when, in a previous life, the Prince of Kalinga severed the flesh from my limbs and my body, even then, I was free from any ideas such as my own self, other selves, living beings, or a universal self. Because if, at the time of my suffering, I had cherished any of these arbitrary ideas, inevitably I would have fallen into impatience and hatred."
("Tathagata" means one who apprehends "suchness", or comes and goes from suchness, a title given to Buddha during his lifetime. He apprehended reality: Tathagata.) Arbitrary conceptions of phenomena - such as my own self, other selves, living beings and a universal self - from Buddha's point of view are arbitrary conceptions.
Now, if everyone acceded to the understanding of Buddha, we could see what we think of as world peace - where mutually inflicted and self-inflicted suffering can come to an end. This is the meaning of the line in the (Heart of Wisdom) Sutra. "no suffering, no end of suffering." However, the "no end of suffering" means that natural suffering - sickness, old age, and death - does not come to an end. Now Buddhism holds out the hope, and the possibility, that through your own awakening, even sickness, old age and death can be seen, by you, to actually not be suffering, in the way that we think of it now. But nonetheless, this mutually inflicted and self-inflicted suffering that we see humankind inflicting on humankind again and again and again - it comes from this kind of confusion that was outlined in Buddha's so many kinds of people.
Another text that we used at the retreat was Dr. Irvin Yalom's "Existential Psychotherapy." There he said that one of the major causes of neurosis is people coming to a sense of meaninglessness - aimlessness in life - meaninglessness. And they have various strategies that they can resort to, to confront this and work it out. One of them is to retreat into a kind of "cosmic vision" of existence, where you have a religious construct, or a philosophical construct, that you retreat into in the face of meaninglessness that you apprehend in life. This is not the same as Buddha's cosmic vision, which comes from an experience. This is a conceptual cosmic vision. And then, in a sense, you force all of reality into that mold, and you have to see the world that way. So this is the basis of fanaticism. It has both a psychotherapeutic side, and it has a religious or philosophical, or "meaningful" side, in the sense of Buddhism.
So, when we try to grasp these events that happen, Buddhism does not take the conventional view. And even in Buddha's time, he recognized that his teaching would be against the current, and unpopular. There was the doctrine of the "Atman" in the Hindu system at the time. This is an ongoing soul that survives death - which is much to be desired - and puts on a body in the next life, much as we put on a change of clothes. Buddha said he found no evidence of this, and taught the doctrine of "anatta" - meaning there is no such "self." If there is no such self, there can be no such "soul" that continues after death. Nobody wants to hear this. It is not popular.
So, again, when it comes to events like this, Buddha's teaching is very unpopular. Sokei-An was an early teacher in the 1930s, who in 1937 founded the New York Zen Institute. When the Titanic went down, he was giving a series of talks, and they published his talks in the newspaper. When the titanic went down, he made the point that everybody who had died on the Titanic was at least fifty-percent responsible for their own deaths. Meanwhile, all the headhunters were trying to find who is responsible, who can we blame, how can we prevent this, and so on. He was saying, it's at least fifty-percent their fault.
In the case of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center buildings, we all want to demonize the perpetrators, and we want to sanctify the victims. But actually, the victims were fifty-percent responsible for their own deaths - because they are responsible for their own life in Buddhism. In Buddhism, we are here because we want to be here. So whatever life deals us, that's what we asked for; that's what we got. It doesn't relieve the perpetrators of the karmic consequences of this action. They have this cosmic, mystical view of the meaning of the act in their own minds, but in Buddhism, the consequences are in the act. The sin, or the crime, is in ignorance that precedes the act. By the time the act is committed, it's way too late.
So now I'd like to make this a dialog. I don't know that we can go around the room, with so many here. We'd have to go around several times. Let's start with those who would like to say something. I'd like to get your questions or comments, and we'll try to respond to them. I'll ask the disciples present, who've had some training in these Buddhist teaching matters, and those of you who've been around for a while, if you'd like to respond to anything anybody says, please do so. If not, I will respond if it seems called for. Who would like to start?
Well, I've got two comments. The first is I guess I'll never make a good Buddhist, I don't agree with your last statement about the passengers being fifty-percent at fault.
Not for the event, but for their death.
Not even for their death. I'm sorry if I raise my tone of voice on this, I don't see how it's possible - oh well, on that one I guess I'll cede it…
Let me give you an example. If somebody is executed for a crime, they may be innocent. They go to the electric chair, whatever, we say the warden or the person who throws the switch is responsible. We even set up systems whereby the person who throws the switch isn't identifiable, because we have three switches, and we don't know who - it's a way of kind of side-stepping the issue, you know. So who killed him? Who has the karmic consequences? Well, we don't know - because we don't know doesn't mean that one of those people didn't throw the switch that killed the person. The person who died is responsible fifty-percent for his own death because he is responsible for his own birth. We come into this world out of desire, in Buddhism. So however we die, we're responsible. We are not responsible in the sense that the person who threw the switch was responsible. But the death itself is not the punishment. Death cannot be the punishment, because we all die - everything dies. Death cannot be punishment. The punishment is controlling the event, where I decide when you die. That's the punishment.
My second comment is that even though this event angers me, something angers me even more. Our little buddy Pat Robertson, and Gerry Falwell…they made an announcement on their radio program that even though, while Buddhists are excepted from this, everybody else who does not agree with their little plan is responsible for lifting God's grace on America…oh, boy.
In Buddhism, we don't discount the concept of "God;" we just say that it cannot be defined, and it cannot be differentiated. So that if anything is God, all is God. It's just that God does not have a human face. We like to think that we are created in the image of God, and from a Buddhist point of view this is just human arrogance. So when God "creates an earthquake" and kills five thousand people, it's an "act of God" - then it's okay.
Most of the history of Buddhism has been celibate. So it's very difficult to find a defense for the "survival of the species" based on Buddhism, because the quickest way to stop the species, is - everybody doesn't have the next generation - it's over. We don't know what the long-term survival of the species is going to be, but one day the sun may go nova, and we may not have made it out to the other habitable solar systems, so the human race may be over. It may happen much sooner that that, we may destroy ourselves. If so, this is the act of God - God does not have a human face. The survival of the human species is not necessarily part of the plan, if there is a plan.
So that's the way I interpret Falwell. Yes, we wish it were that way - I wish that God was helping me make that touchdown, you know - but I don't think so. (laughter)
I can see our next dokusan will be a long one. (laughter)
Come Saturday morning then - we won't bother anybody else. Lucy?
From a Buddhist point-of-view, would this be considered an act of evil?
Yes, in Buddhism, evil is ignorance. We can create harm, and we do, but we do it out of ignorance. If we weren't ignorant of the true condition of things, we couldn't create harm. Being completely awakened to the true condition of things means it's really impossible for us to create harm. Now, you say, "Well, you keep breathing, and with every breath we kill millions of microbes." But in Buddhism, that's not "harm" - harm is when you deny something its Buddha-nature, when you deny the other human beings their humanity in common with you. In Buddhism, Buddha-nature goes even deeper, where the cats and the dogs and the cows and the chickens, and the trees and the rocks and the stones all share this Buddha-nature. So it's ignorance of that, and when we awake to that, we have everything we want, and so it's very difficult to create harm, because we don't need or want anything.
I read a story somewhere about the Buddha, and please correct me if I get the details wrong, I'm sure I will. He was traveling by ship, I think, and one of the passengers became violent, and actually killed some of the other passengers. And Buddha killed this passenger, in part to prevent further death, and also in part to stop him from worsening his own karmic condition. What is the Buddha's response to an action like this? Is war justified if it means stopping further deeds such as this?
Difficult question. Would anybody like to handle that? (laughter)
I'm just going to sort of share
my own feelings about some of this, and it has to do with what you're saying.
As all of us have had, I've had a spectrum of emotions, starting Tuesday, and
it just kind of gets worse as we go along. What I've noticed is that I've got
a variety of selves, sort of sources of feelings. I'll give you an example.
One part of me, initially, as I recovered from the shock, thought, you know
these high-jackers at one time were children. These were little boys. They were
three, four, five years old, seven years old, just like my kid. Wanted to play,
wanted to be loved, wanted to be understood, wanted their dads and moms to delight
in what they were doing, showing off. Whatever causes and conditions existed
for them came together to create something like this, beyond my understanding.
So on the one hand, I felt for them, and felt that in some way, we in the United
States have something to do with this - in terms of our policies, our presence
in the world, our foreign policy in support of oil, this power we wield - we
have something to do with this. I'm not saying responsible for it; we don't
deserve it.
In a previous life, back in the seventies and early eighties, I was in a fighter
squadron, and I was involved after the marines got bombed, in the air strikes
in support of that action, suppressing some of the factions that were doing
some of that stuff over in Lebanon. That part of me I haven't heard from in
a while emerged. I wanted to re-enlist, and, you know, get back. You
know, sort of "join up" and "get back" at these guys. This
surge of patriotism and nationalism that came up - that was another component,
another element, of my experience.
So it was complex. Which one is right? From which place should I act? I'm not
sure, in our practice, that there's any place to come from. I think in our practice
as Buddhists, we have to come from a place that's separate from that, that has
nothing to do with attachment, nothing to do with any of this. But a place that
responds appropriately to the causes and conditions, to what is happening.
The Buddha did, I think. He wasn't angry at the guy, I don't believe. He may
have experienced anger as a human being, but that didn't drive him, that didn't
motivate him. He was motivated to action out of something like bodhi.
Rick, I want to ask you to give us a five-minute warning bell.
It seems to me…one of the
things I've been thinking about is the "three pillars" - the great
faith, the great doubt, and the great determination. I guess that faith, that
idea that there's this Budha-nature everywhere - but it has the capacity for
both great evil and great compassion - the key for me is that sense that what
is couldn't be otherwise. And I guess what I want to say by that, is that sense
that: we got here by all the steps that we got here; we can change the very
next thing that we do, but not all the things that came up to that.
And the same is true within this "How do we respond?" sort of thing.
We have a huge array of ways to respond, and those, too, are going to take all
different kinds of ways. But it's how individually we recognize that Buddha-nature,
that ability to accept what we have now, and not have this dream that we can
make things otherwise, that what our experience is now…you know, it's like
"holding out."
Part of it is the way that I grew up, in that sense that you kind of hold out
for this "greater good" later on. Like what we got here isn't really
the real story, the real story is something that'll happen next, you know, in
some other lifetime. But there isn't that other lifetime. The only lifetime
is this very moment that we're here, the next breath that we take, and when
we realize we can think in those terms and take that into faith, that this
is the really now, this is what is worthwhile to die for. It's worthwhile
to die for, not the next thing, but it's worthwhile to die for this,
right now, this breath that we take.
Anybody else on that? We'll entertain some more questions, but I think that Buddha would probably, would undoubtedly come down on the side of not retaliating. The reason being all the things that people are pointing out. Our remembrance ceremony which will follow this talk is not just for the victims. Our remembrance is also for the perpetrators. They are raised perhaps in ignorance, as Larry's pointing out. It's not that we forgive them - there's no forgiveness in Buddhism. That is, karma is what is operative in Buddhism. Our forgiveness doesn't mean diddly. It doesn't change anything. The people who perpetrated this are facing their own karmic consequences from it - it's inevitable.
Buddha taught that it all begins with the "self." Even the smallest, trivial conflicts we have with each other are all based on this idea of self. I'm different from you, you're different from me. My family are my loved ones, but your family are not my loved ones. My neighborhood is my neighborhood, and those are my neighbors, but you're not my neighbor. My town - I root for the Braves, because they're my team, but I'm against the Yankees, because they're not my team. You know? I'm an Atlantan, I'm a Georgian, I'm an American. By extension. This is just extension of the self. So when it comes to rallying the troops, and getting everybody up and going, we're gonna go get them - as Larry was ready to do - it's just an extension of the self. World war is an extension of the self. So Buddha said this is where it all starts. He said this is the root of the problem. If everybody got past that root of this delusional self, then you wouldn't have these things escalate to this point.
They say that this is a squabble between cousins in the Middle East (someone says "brothers"). Brothers - but let's just say "cousins." Devadatta was Buddha's cousin. Devadatta was jealous of Buddha and tried to have him assassinated. Buddha predicted that Devadatta would be come a fully enlightened Buddha in the future. So, when it comes home to roost, that's when our Buddhism is tested.
The victims on these planes - some of them were very courageous and heroic, and they tried to stop what was happening. So we can't separate them from Buddhism, and say, well they were some crazy Christian fanatics who were trying to save everybody for Jesus. They were just reacting naturally, and doing what they had to do in the circumstance. Like Buddha did. Or like the samurais did when it was necessary to kill. If Buddha were on the plane, chances are he would have attacked the attackers. But if Buddha were sitting here today he would counsel non-retaliation.
Somebody has to stop. In a marriage, for instance. One of our members is a psychiatrist who specializes in marital counseling. He says there are circles that people get on, and they don't know they are on the circle. So when he does this, she does that. He wants her to know how much he loves her, so in public he approaches her and does things, is very demonstrative; she is very shy and retiring, she doesn't like that, and it pushes her away so he thinks he has to try harder. Circles like that. What he does as a therapist is try to show the couple the circle they are on, so that they can see it coming around. When you see it coming around, and "I always do this." Now I have a chance of not reacting, because I can see it coming.
In Zen, we develop this kind of awareness of time and patience, so we can see anger arising, we can see it coming. So we're not caught up in it, we don't have to do the knee-jerk reaction that we always do. Buddha would try to illustrate where we are in the cycle here. And what we always do is this. And it always leads to this. So if we can just see that, and see the folly of it, then we have the opportunity of maybe doing something different. Something that's going to work.
I agree that Buddha would come down on the side of non-retaliation. I just wanted to pose the question, "What does that mean?" Because retaliation is label that we place on actions - military actions - and non-retaliation doesn't necessarily mean non-action; it just means clear action without being colored by the feelings of retaliating, where we're arbitrarily placing some concept on what we're doing. And if there is a point of clear action that may, in some peoples' minds, takes on the context of retaliation, and in others takes on the context of non-retaliation…
Non-retaliation doesn't mean just passive acceptance.
Exactly. It could be that the most compassionate thing to do is to prevent future events from happening, but we have to act clearly and in a non-retaliatory manner. Unfortunately it's probably pretty close to impossible for our military to act in that way. But do they necessarily have to know how they're acting?
Another question?
I guess the biggest sense I've been getting all week, especially during your talk is how clearly this demonstrates the sort-of wrongness of the thought that, as you said, that this is America and that is bad, looking at the kinds of causes and conditions that created this. "Self and other," in other words, seems to me to be a very major cause and condition that helped create this envy. The reaction is "Everybody fly your flag." Well, okay, what flag should I fly, because I need to fly the "everybody" flag. I want to fly the flag that says "We're all in this together, guys" - it's not "us and them" - us and them is what got us into this mess.
Other comments?
I want to comment on what Cherry said because that was exactly what you were just talking about, or some of the emotions I that was feeling. My initial reaction of course was sadness, and not exactly surprise, but I was a little taken aback by all of this hype for war, and the flag, and us against them, and I think that's one of the things that has disturbed me, just speaking from an honest point of view. And my feeling is that I don't want to think in terms of duality. Now if we retaliate without - the powers that be retaliate without thinking it through, without clear action, it's just more innocent lives will be killed, and it doesn't matter what race or what religion they are.
To my way of thinking, you know we're getting into the geopolitical aspects of it, and beyond our competency in many ways to debate these details, but this surely was meant to cause this kind of reaction. Those of us who are from other parts of the world probably could tell us more about the international viewpoint toward the United States, and how these people would commit this act and what they would predict was going to happen next. So if we react in the way that we always react, then that is exactly what they want to have happen, I would guess. Sandra, you had something?
What this is all coming down to
in the past few days and in the time ahead is basically an exercise in kin-hin,
taking one step at a time in whatever circumstances we are in, and dealing with
what we have to deal with. The hugeness of this really isn't large at all, it
boils down to basic things. We have been endangered; we have had loss. We have
to overcome the danger; we have to grieve the loss. It's basic steps that each
one of us has to go through.
Right now, my main focus in my circumstances is a friend of mine who buried
her husband two weeks ago. His birthday was September eleventh. She's lost eleven
friends at the Pentagon and one friend at the World Trade Center, and she works
for the government. She's the reason I asked if anybody speaks Arabic or Farsi
because she's trying to find ways to translate different recordings - everything
they are working with. She's in investigations for the government.
So I've decided, in my space, this is the focus I can have - to help her in
some way get through this tremendous burden she has on herself now. So if each
of us can take it one step at a time, and when things start clouding our judgment,
whether it be anger or grief, or whatever it is, if we can start being mindful
- of our situation and what we are doing, just that one step at a time.
(Name) I'd like to say something from a different perspective. I am from the Middle East, and for me, holding the American flag today is being on the side of the inner truth. Tomorrow it can be a Canadian flag, or a Dutch flag - it's not the flag, it's the side of truth. It's not being attached to "this flag is always right, and this flag is always wrong." It's being in that clear-mind place, the pure action, that meets the situation regardless of what flag is standing behind one. Action.
So you would put up all the flags.
Right. So today, American flags, because that's the side of action. And separate it from pain and fear. And it's also the difference between murder and killing, force and violence.
Killing is natural, inevitable. But murder is man-made.
(Larry) We're reminded again this week that human beings are capable of tremendous destruction, capable of propagating tremendous suffering. We had Hitler in World War II, and so forth - figures throughout history. It's a real, visceral reminder about what tremendous destruction we're capable of, and I think a reminder that that seethes in every one of us. This wasn't just some crazy guys over there that did this, or Hitler was some crazy man. Certainly, that level of destruction is beyond measure, but it exists in every one of us. And what a wonderful reminder to calm down, and really be mindful of our selves…
The Buddhist attitude or explanation for early death like a crib death, an infant dies, or somebody's killed by accident - premature death - is that they are Bodhisattvas. They are Bodhisattvas in that they are illustrating the impermanence of existence for the rest of us.
I just had a comment, that the events we've seen, people are doing acts of violence…they're actually trying to destroy the destructive force which is attacking their own culture, and the very core of their faith. So we should stay at that point of analysis…
The kind of ignorance that I speak of is different from that. Cultural ignorance is one thing. Buddha, in his life, was very accepting of every other form of practice. He had criticisms where he thought that it was the "blind leading the blind," in that the people didn't have any real experience. But he encouraged everybody to continue in their own practice, their own belief system, and so on. If there was any discussion at all, he did not debate these issues. So he was not imposing different cultural belief system, saying that anybody other than us is ignorant.
He was pointing out the ignorance that is the basic, primordial pool out of which we come into existence. It's a kind of ignorance that is pre-existent, that leads us into this because we think this is what we want. When we get it, we learn what it really is. So the kind of ignorance that Buddhism is talking about is not this cultural-differences ignorance: they're ignorant; we have the right way, we Americans have the right way, and everybody else is ignorant; we Palestinians have the right way, and we understand what's going on. That's all cultural and conventional - circumstantial.
Buddha's ignorance has to do with: we don't even know what this is (indicating the floor). We don't have a direct experience of this reality, right here. So if we overcome that kind of ignorance, and so-to-say, "come home, " when we find ourselves at home, then we can share everything with everybody. We don't have to fight somebody for territory. We have everything, so we don't have to fight for anything.
Now there are cultural conditions where I have seen my child killed, I've seen people starving, I've seen these political powers that are creating this kind of chaos and suffering, that I have to do something about it. And they are pushed to the extreme, I suppose, of having to do these kinds of acts to get attention. We see this in every dimension of life, where people are desperate, and they are pressed to extreme acts, because nothing else has worked. So we give them the benefit of a doubt. We don't understand their circumstances from our side.
This is why I think Buddha would counsel not retaliation, but rapprochement, or containment, to keep more harm from being done. But certainly try to get at the root cause of the problem. From Buddha's point of view, the root cause is on an individual, personal basis, this attachment to "self," this concept of self. We don't proselytize for that reason, because it's arrogant to proselytize. And yet we feel that everybody needs to understand what Buddha understood, for there to be real world peace.
The thing is that you can't teach anyone that, that comes out of their own experience.
They have to want it first.
One of the things you've taught
me that is so helpful is that sense of understanding the kind of faith where,
you know, my faith depends on you believing the same thing I believe, and if
you don't I'm going to have to strangle you - rather than it being a faith in
myself, in my own Buddha-nature, and recognizing that in everyone - if the only
way that I can have faith is by being sure that everyone else in the room thinks
exactly the same way I do… It's almost like we need to help ourselves understand
how to have a much deeper faith that says that what I understand is something
that other people can also understand, but I don't require your understanding
to have my own.
And that's one of the sad things that I've always felt within the Christianity
kind of doctrine, is that so much of it requires other people also believing
the same thing I do. Clearly that's a part of Islam. And yet you can't teach
anyone this. I guess the other side is that it's not that we can now go out
and proselytize, and get everyone to believe what we believe because they'll
feel better. It's seeing it within yourself, and taking it all within yourself,
both parts, so there's not a separation...
Axel has something?
We need to come back on the fifty-percent of responsibility for their own death. It reminded me of the discussion in Buddhism about absolute truth and relative truth. And if you take the relative notion of what caused all these deaths, you come to a zero responsibility for what happened. But if we take the absolute way of looking at this, they are one hundred percent responsible. The problem is making an average is tricky.
The important thing to understand in Buddhism is that we don't use Buddhism to criticize others. And so Buddhism is not used to say "Those people were fifty-percent responsible for their own death." Sokei-an was talking about himself. He was saying, "I am fifty-percent responsible for my own death, no matter how it happens." As a figure of speech, you say "those people" you know, so it sounds like you are using Buddhism to criticize somebody's idea, or somebody else's belief, but Buddhism has never been used for that and was not intended forthat.
I was going to say that, after the anger and fear and the numbness, which for me was a kind of - even though I needed to withdraw, and even move to the mountains and put in a year's supply of food, and - I realized that acting on that would be the same thing that the terrorists were doing. And that motivation we have to be careful of, because the opposite of it is: I need to know who the people are around me, know my neighbors and for whom I'm leaving. Near people, instead of withdrawing and just living with people that are like me. There is a real strong sense that the people who did this thing are not like us, people not like us.
Under the same circumstances, you might do the same thing.
Let's take a break now and we will begin the memorial ceremony in a few minutes. We will form a circle around the room standing, chanting the memorial verses. At the end we'll all come forward individually and offer a pinch of incense.
SPECIAL REMEMBRANCE SERVICE
Order of the Ceremony
Incense Dedication
Heart of Wisdom Sutra
In Memoriam
Oh A-wa-kened and En-light-ened Ones a-bi-ding in all di-rec-tions
en-dowed with great com-pas-sion en-dowed with love
af-ford-ing pro-tec-tion to sen-ti-ent be-ings
Con-sent through the po-wer of your great com-pas-sion to come forth
Oh Com-pas-sion-ate Ones you who pos-sess the wis-dom of un-der-stan-ding
the love of com-passion the po-wer of pro-tec-ting in in-com-pre-hen-si-ble
mea-sure
You who have per-ished you are pass-ing from this world to the next
the light of this world has fad-ed for you
you have en-tered so-li-tude with your kar-mic for-ces you have gone in-to a
vast Si-lence you are borne a-way by the Great O-cean of birth and death
Oh Com-pas-sion-ate Ones pro-tect our loved ones who are de-fense-less
be like a mo-ther and fa-ther
Oh Com-pas-sion-ate Ones let not the force of your com-pas-sion
be weak but aid and com-fort our loved ones
For-get not your an-cient vows
Great Compassionate Dharani
A-do-ra-tion to the Three Trea-sures A-do-ra-tion to the all-see-ing all-hear-ing
One
the One who over-comes all fear and suf-fer-ing A-do-ring the One of Great Com-pas-sion
we now re-cite this glo-ri-ous dha-ra-ni which pu-ri-fies all sen-tient be-ings
which ful-fills the wis-hes of all be-ings
Hail to the En-light-ened the Com-pas-sion-ate One who em-bod-ies the Three
Bod-ies
and has the tran-scen-den-tal Wis-dom
Hail to the En-light-ened the Com-pas-sion-ate One
who saves all be-ings with-out dis-crim-i-nation
Hail to the En-light-ened the Com-pas-sion-ate One
who sus-tains the high-est Wis-dom and is free from all ob-sta-cles
Hail to the En-light-ened the Com-pas-sion-ate One
whose deeds re-veal the pu-ri-ty of all be-ings
Hail to the En-light-ened the Com-pas-sion-ate One
who wipes a-way the three de-lu-sions
Quick, quick - Come, come - Hear, hear A pri-mal joy springs up in us
O En-light-ened O Com-pas-sion-ate One help us en-ter great rea-li-za-tion
O En-light-ened O Com-pas-sion-ate One guide us to spir-i-tual con-tent-ment
Tes-ti-fy-ing to the free-dom and com-pas-sion of the Mind of the Com-pas-sion-ate
One
Pu-ri-fy-ing our own mind and bod-y Be-com-ing as brave as a li-on
Man-i-fes-ting in-to all be-ings At-tain-ing the Wheel of the Law and the Lo-tus
Blos-som
we can save all be-ings with-out hin-drance
May un-der-stand-ing of the mys-ter-i-ous na-ture
of the Com-pas-sion-ate One pre-vail for-e-ver
A-do-ra-tion to the Three Trea-sures
A-do-ra-tion to the all-see-ing all-hear-ing One
May this dha-ra-ni be heard
Remembrance Incense Dedication
(All Individually)
Kannon Sutra
Kanze-on
Praise to Buddha
All are one with Buddha
All awake to Buddha
Buddha Dharma San-gha
E-ternal joyous selfless pure
Through the day Kanze-on
Through the night Kanze-on
This moment arises from Mind
This moment itself is Mind
(All Repeat During Incense Dedication)