https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NVeSM0hYRROT_y17nmWU4IWosImLB7nd/view
We begin this awakening period of late summer, of the third year of training. At this monastic organization for awakening and kindness, we dedicate ourselves to making the best possible use of this rare opportunity to realize that which we wish to offer the world. To actually realize it. So that we know for ourselves what it is, so we can judge for ourselves whether that truth, that unconditional kindness, is being offered to all beings.
As many of you know, when I was a child, I was concerned about the destruction of life on Earth, and I held a certain utilitarian philosophy in which I considered: what is it that one might do that would benefit the greatest number in the greatest way? What would that be? I had great love for all living things, great compassion. And that compassion was the primary ruling force in my life, and so I asked through this lens, how might I totally give life to the great compassion for all living things? What would it be that would allow life to flourish most fully?
And the answer was quite clear, and I came to this conclusion quite young. My early teens, I realized that the best possible thing that one might do to benefit all living things was to kill the human beings. By simply eliminating one species, all others could flourish. By allowing that one species to continue, terrible destruction was guaranteed. And so, out of deep compassion, I set forth in a dedicated effort to kill all of the many billions of humans. This was the clear life purpose for me for a number of years.
Good news is that I was basing my life on true love. Bad news is that I would have to be the last one to go. That was the hardest part of it for me. It'd be so sad to have finished and be alone. And it was very sad to not even have started and be alone. I was concerned about offering this solution to the world in such a way that all the other people would die first.
Eventually, I shifted, realized that that solution, that strategy, was based on good intentions, but it just didn't go far enough. It just wasn't extreme enough. It wasn't sufficiently radical. It wasn't effective. That something even more extreme would be needed. And as I came to know that new solution, dedicated myself to that, which is what I now teach, it was quite relieving to know that at the very least, rather than being the last person who would experience the consequences of that strategy, in this case, I would have to be the first person who would experience the consequences of that strategy. This made a great deal more sense to me.
We here, we offer the world a solution. We claim that we have an answer, a strategy, a realization, a purification, an awakening, an enlightenment that can guide the world. That's our claim. That's how we present ourselves. That's how the organization presents itself. That's how each of us presents ourselves. We seem to be monastics, and that's what we claim to be. And yet, do we have this realization? Do we have the thing that we're offering to the world? If not, well then, in a certain way, to a certain extent, we must admit that we are hypocrites.
It's the reason I brought up this point about light colors. We claim to have rules, yes? We claim to say that we don't wear white, for example, in the zendo. And yet, there it is. Well, if you don't want to follow that rule because you think it's a bad rule, then you should change it. You shouldn't just ignore it. Our integrity is crucial. Our integrity matters.
We claim to be monastics. We claim to offer a mind that can guide the world. It's our job to realize that, to know what it is that we're talking about, to directly know it, to at the very least have glimpsed it, so that we have confidence that it is real, even if we don't know it well enough to live by it. Even that, even that is enough to not be a hypocrite. Of course, once we realize that, we want to know more in order to be able to live by it because we see its benefit.
But at least we have paid off our debt to those who have supported us. At least we've gotten to the point when the people of the world could give us support of any kind, and we wouldn't be wrong for taking it. As they say, until we've achieved awakening, as long as we're receiving offerings from those who trust in our training, we're going into debt. It's like a debt. We've taken out a debt. When we achieve awakening, we have paid off that debt. And then we become, as is said, the unsurpassed field of merit, field of blessings, field of benefit for the world.
That's why we wear these shawls. These shawls are a representation of this unsurpassed field of merit, field of goodness for the world. We wear the shawl in order to demonstrate our commitment to cultivating our minds for the benefit of all beings. That commitment must be brought to fruition in order to actually benefit the world with this awakened mind. We must commit to realizing it first.
Beyond that, death, being killed for the benefit of the world, is suffering. We don't want to do it. When I was young, thirteen, fourteen years old, I would tell people, first for a short time, I don't remember exactly what age I was, but I told people, "Good news. I figured it out. I know how to be of great benefit." And I would tell them, rejoicing, "It's so wonderful that we know such an easy solution to solving all of the major problems on this planet. You just kill everyone. That's it. It's so easy. It's so straightforward." And they would recoil because they could see in my eyes that I meant it. I want to kill you and your family. And they would become afraid and begin to defend themselves and think, "Ah, maybe we have to imprison this person."
I could see how scared they were of dying, which surprised me, since the benefit seemed so great. It seemed like such a small price to pay for the benefit of so many.
Well, you could say, of course, that there's a great price to be paid here as well. There's a price that we have to pay for awakening. And what is that price? That price is suffering. You have to give up all of your suffering. You have to let go of it, throw it away, relinquish it, abandon it. That's what you have to let go of in this case. You don't have to be put through something that is suffering. On the contrary, you have to be completely happy. That's what we go through on this path.
On this path, we say, "Ah, our goal is that all people will be completely happy. All the humans will be totally happy without suffering." And we must be the first ones to experience the fruit of this path. We're the ones who, for the benefit of the world, will relinquish our suffering, experience joy beyond our comprehension. There are those here who have tasted this at one level or another, have meditated, and have realized a wonder, a clarity, a love beyond comprehension that once it's seen cannot be denied. And we know with certainty this is the point. This is it. This is the point. This is what matters. The whole world that we thought was so real is seen for the husk, the shriveled, tattered bag that it always was, and our minds burst forth from that. We realize happiness that is unconditional, and yet isn't averse to love for the conditional, to compassion for all beings. Instead, it's capable of leaping forth into that for the first time, completely filled with compassion for all beings.
Beyond that, we need not do it alone. This was the hardest thing for me as a teenager, to be completely alone, to realize no human being can be trusted. They're all against me. They're all against the benefit of all beings. Their goal is the destruction of all that is beautiful, to fulfill their own mere desires, desires which will not even give them happiness, much less anyone else. These selfish beings cannot be trusted. If I tell them my aims, if I let them know how compassionate I am, they won't trust me. They'll lock me up. Perhaps they'll kill me, preventing this wonderful solution from coming about on this planet, because they're insane. That loneliness was very difficult. To live in that loneliness for those years was very hard.