Back in April of 2015 I posted this lecture I gave the previous year in October 2014. One of the shortcomings of my English language videos is that it is difficult for foreign language speakers to understand what I am saying.
I am trying out a new application that creates text files of speech. For the first time I am using it on previously recorded materials. My thinking is that folks can then have Google Translate the text into their native language from the English text.
Now this won’t be perfect. Right now I can’t edit the text files, simply because I can’t see well enough and it is a bit labor intensive, not impossible but for now not easily accomplished. Perhaps at some point I will be able to do it or perhaps someone will volunteer to help clean up the text.
I was reading the text output as it was transcribing and it isn’t too terrible most of the time. I think it is adequate enough to get a general idea of what I am saying. For more technical materials such as sutra lecture or gosho lecture there will need to be some serious editing to fix the foreign words.
Here is the link to the video and if you haven’t watched it you might gain some benefit to spending some time doing so now. The text transcript is below. I would appreciate any comments about how this works out.
Text transcript of the video lecture without the question and answer portion at the end.
All part of figuring out this finding out what options are available. So I’m recording it tonight, to see how I can make that available to people who may not be able to join us on a particular evening and maybe we could have some sort of archives that up.
Or maybe you wanted to just hear something I can’t imagine why you’d want to listen to my voice again but maybe you’re a glutton for punishment and want to listen to it again and we’re going to find out how I store that where it goes. You know what kind of limits I have and that kind of stuff. So, that’s another reason why we’re kind of starting out slow, but let’s jump right into this.
Sean Are you hearing us All right.
Good. Okay, good. I see visual feedback from Yvonne and Greg because they’re nodding their heads and yawning and picking their nose, but I don’t I don’t see you so I don’t know. You know how you’re reacting to this so are you. Are you on an iPhone By any chance, Sean.
Yeah, my flow right. Okay. Are you seeing the slide.
Yes. Good. Good. That’s perfect.
That’s the way it’s supposed to be. So, how do we remain encouraged.
Or how do we keep practicing sometimes when we’re all alone, you know, many of you are affected every one of you except for Sean lives close to the temple and is just beginning his relationship with any of you, all of you practice by yourself or in places well, Yvonne practice with, you know, but those was Las Vegas champion. She has access to people who can encourage her but Greg Jensen.
Last week, caddy was here, and he lives in Virginia and, and she doesn’t, and Neil was on line. He said sometimes on Monday nights is going to be a little difficult because he’s got
children, and it’s challenging sometimes to get up to bed so the long as well, and. And there are others who from time to time may choice, choose to join us like Peter last time.
He also practices alone. So, how do we stay encouraged and and keep practicing.
It isn’t easy to hate the only person, you know, your daily environment, I’m just reading now, not a big fan of PowerPoint, but with this kind of setup we sort of have to use it to a certain degree. So, how it isn’t easy to be the only person, you know, in working in the environment who practices for this.
So I would like to provide you with some ideas, this is just my ideas on how other stakeholders to your path of enlightenment.
Okay.
Okay. No. So, first thing I recommend and basically this is what many professionals, motivation, peaceful people who give motivational speeches about how to stay motivated,
applying some of those same procedure so it’s not unique to me. Nor should original that creative when it comes to these kinds of things but this is kind of what I do.
And so, first off, and this call should be. So what is your goal. What’s your reason for practicing Buddhism, what are some things that you would like to accomplish in your life.
And these are. I think should be small picture items. So, instead of saying, Well, my goal of practicing Buddhism is to become enlightened. That’s a big picture.
What would you like to leave this year.
Is there something that you like to study is there some progress that you’d like to make in your faith, whether it be consistent regular practice or, you know, chanting consistently every day a certain amount or meditation or whatever but what is your would be a good realistic growth go for you, that relates to your business practice, and also wearables that would relate to your daily life, such as maybe learn something new, take up a new hobby or white paint or garden. Take a trip somewhere it could be anything. But you should have to five goals.
And these are things that you’re going to focus on for a year. And, I mean, you can do it longer term than that. But let’s just take it a year at a time. Here to temple on New Year’s Day One of the things that I do is I. The end of service. I pass out paper, blank paper to everyone who’s here, and invite those who would like to, to write down their goals for the year, their determination, their resolutions, if you will, for the new year.
And then I asked people have fold them up, put them in an envelope. And we seal the envelope, and then they wrote their address on the outside of the under.
And then I keep hearing the temple and place them on the altar and chant over them and, and people come here, the ultra simple they may not realize are also changing with those goals on the altar, and then, July, 1, or July 31 tune of 31. Okay, so 31st I collect them and.
So, about mid year.
Folks who do this get a reminder of what they had written down on the first year, I’ve gotten some feedback and some of the feedback.
They forgotten what they wrote.
They had gotten off track. Some, some people got one person who I’m hoping sometime, be able to join us who practices in Wilmington, and he’s very dedicated about it. He actually towards it for himself and so he frequently says okay. When he gets to stations I accomplish this and I got that done and a half way to this and, you know, very, very organized and efficient person much more organized them much more efficient than I am, but write down your goals. Okay. So think about them consider them.
You know, it should be some faith related items, personal growth items. Okay.
Girl they change over time and. And actually that’s kind of the way it should be you. You think of something today and you think you’d like to work on that and accomplish it and in the middle of working on it you realize that’s just that’s just not my thing or.
It’s not working out the way I thought it would. And maybe I need to make an adjustment.
And again, when thinking of your goal. Look closer, rather than far.
And I think this is really important here be as clear as possible, and precise. Avoid Vegas. If you can’t room it, then odds are won’t happen. So, you know, they sounding things Oh I’d like to improve my life. What does that. What does it mean when somebody says, Oh, I’d like to improve my life.
You know, as a chaplain we become very good at challenging people on on very vague statements you know people in the hospital and you know they’re suffering from a crisis and they really need to do some inner exploration and.
But that’s hard to do and, and we don’t have a lot of practice doing it so part of me, one of the things that we use chaplains do is, is we help people get deeper into their lives explore their lives so when we say something.
What is it that we’re really saying when you, when you talk about your goals so be as specific as clear as possible.
if you’re if you’re vague on it, then chances are you have no idea what you’re asking what you’re looking for anyway and so it’s not going to happen. And that becomes discouraging whether you realize it or not. Many of us quit setting goals because, because we fall short. And we’re discouraged and we say what’s the point I never, I never reached my goals anyway.
Well, step back for a moment and think about some concrete specific things that you would like to do and say the next three or four months of this year. Okay, what, three months of the year, tomorrow, next day, October 1. So we’ll have three months left in the year. Think of something that the next three months you would like to do, maybe it’s just read two books. Maybe it’s to develop a habit of studying Buddhism, 20 minutes a day.
I’m a big fan of 20 minutes of study of Buddhism a day. When I first began practicing Buddhism, way back when I was 19. I didn’t know diddly squat about Buddhism. I thought I knew something about it, but in reality when I actually rubbed up against Real Buddhist, and people who are practicing Buddhism, I realized I don’t know anything. I know some college textbook information that is so chit general and so vague and so nonspecific that really is meaningless. So, I realized I didn’t know anything about Buddhism Well, I needed to correct that.
And in order to be a good Buddhist, I need to know what Buddhism pot and what it stood for and what it’s all about.
Because maybe if I studied it I’m, I might not want to be a Buddhist might be something I disagree with. So, at that particular time I was encouraged to study, 20 minutes a day. Now, I was 19 years old in the Marine Corps.
I was incredibly busy.
You know I remember once going to one of my leaders and say, you know, you know, my goal was to chant, an hour old DeMarco to morning and evening ground.
You know study 20 minutes a day, and go to activities of the organization that I was practicing with at the time at nightly activities and I was on the East Coast, North Carolina and the nearest meetings were like two hours away and means for two hours so you know that’s six hours of activity at night and so I went to one of my leaders, one of my teachers and I said, You know, I don’t have time. How do I get this done. And he said, Well, what’s the first thing you do when you get back to the barracks after your work day in so I said well you know I sit down on my Foot Locker and you know should open squad Bay barracks and this is back in, you know, 1969 1970 and. And I said, Well, first thing I do is I come back to the barracks and sit down on my Foot Locker and a smoke a couple of cigarettes and, you know, take my boots off and kind of slowly get out of my uniform and, yeah, get trashed and head on over to the chow hall and he says, Okay, what would happen if instead of putting cigarettes first or, you know, just relaxing first if instead of putting that as your first goal, why not put your Buddhist practice as your first goal, and then let the other stuff find its time in your life. So, I didn’t quit smoking then but you know I did quit smoking. When I first got home, or got back to the barracks and I began to just apply that. So, you know, first thing I would do I want to get back to the barracks is I would sit down and I chant. You know what, I began to see that I really had time to get all that in that I wanted all the important stuff that I wanted john. I had to know what my important stuff was, and I had to know what’s interfering with my employees so some of this Greg May May kind of pick up on some of the things, you know, in our exchanges as you’re learning to practice Buddhism and in some of my conversations. I’m really, I really kind of encourage everybody to pick at your life, dig a little deeper look at work is holding you back from doing the things you want to do, and really dig and find out what it is that’s holding you back, maybe, maybe you’re not as committed to your goals because maybe you don’t know what your goals are or maybe you’re afraid. Or maybe you might just be like I was and that’s just lazy, so I’m not gonna call anybody names except myself. I know at that particular time. I was young, you know, I was lazy, but I began to change. And so, study of 20 minutes a day let’s think about that for a minute so if you studied Buddhism for 20 minutes a day. It doesn’t sound like much does it.
20 minutes, it’s like what can you accomplish in 20 minutes, and yet. If you think about it, 20 minutes over the course of the year.
So, you know, if you just take 300 days in the year which is kind of us around figure, some days you might not study 20 minutes some days you may study more, but if you average 20 minutes a day over a year of 300 days.
That’s 100 hours, hundred hours of studying Buddhism. That’s pretty intense. Now, how many of us today could set aside a block of 100 hours and study Buddhism, 400 hours, non stop, I would venture to say that there’s not a one of us could spend 100 hours. Practice studying Buddhism and yet. You can over a year’s time with 20 minutes a day. To this day, I still.
I’m not quite as strict as I was packed in, but I still average about 20 minutes a day, you know, and no over 4546 47 years.
That’s quite a lot of study. And there’s a lot more to study. There’s a lot more to read somebody asked me once. How many times have you read the Lotus Sutra, I have no idea how many times I’ve read the Lotus Sutra.
Some parts I would be more frequently than other parts. But, you know, it’s 20 minutes a day. So, every, every big dream, every big goal, or even the small goals have little teeny tiny solutions sometimes we just opened our self up to it. So, all right.
Name it, you don’t name it, it’s not going to happen odds are, and also pick. Don’t pick any don’t do any more than five, and no less than three.
You know, you can have more goals. It’s okay. I’m not saying don’t have more than five, but you want to have your top five. Okay, so if you’ve got 10 things you want to accomplish in the next three months, that’s great. But prioritize them pick five, or three, whatever, as your top goals. These are the ones that come heck or High Water.
Unless something, something happens.
You’re just bound and determined, these are priority to that you want to accomplish. Okay. So, goals.
Next, write it down. This may sound silly, but just you know gets back to what I do here at a triple A New Year’s Day is if people write it down. Not everybody writes it down. But generally speaking, the people who write it down. Get it done.
So write goals down.
That’s important. If you don’t write them down.
I can almost guarantee you a week from now, you will not be able to recite back what you made as your determination tonight.
It’s just the way our lives go, our lives get filled up with so much stuff and maybe in a week, you have a vague idea of what it was in two weeks it becomes more and more vague in three weeks. You’re way off topic. So, you know, write it down. It doesn’t have to be a big long thing you know just a little sentence.
And then after you write it down. You got to put it everywhere, put it in as many places around you. As you will see, so the mirror, you know for makeup, people and for shaving people put it on the mirror and further actually take time to read it. Yes, you know what it says, you’ve read it every day for the past month, but keep reading. Because this triggers something in your mind, it triggers something in your life that says, Well, I keep getting that message, your mind, your subconscious keep saying I keep getting that message. And there’s something nagging at me and I’ve got to do it and it’s you, reading to your subconscious every day. And the more places you put it, the better on your altar, or sacred space, put it there, put it on your mirror, put it on your steering wheel column, put it on your iPhone.
You know, Greg. You and I are using Evernote and you know I have a special notebook and note in Evernote that has my, what I call my daily Phil, and this has my goals in it it has my five year plan as my three year plan it has, you know what I want to accomplish this quarter this year.
You know, so, and I’ll get to what else it has in a moment so actually take time to read them so you wrote it down, you put it everywhere.
Don’t forget it, read it. Okay, this house. So what is this got to do with your Buddhist practice Well, you’ve made some Buddhist practice goals, and you’re actually going to remind yourself every day that you want to do this and you’re going to be your own cheerleader. Okay, so keep a journal. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, it can be just an Excel spreadsheet, but I recommend at least every week, reviewing your goals, taking a moment.
Doesn’t have to be a long period time 1015 minutes.
And, you know, if you’re like me and the young marine time, we waste under 15 minutes and take nothing of it, but take a few moments to write in your journal, what you did this last week. any progress you made or lack of progress, dig down to find out what’s working and what’s not working, you know if you, if we don’t do this on a daily basis on a fairly regular basis at least weekly. If we don’t do this, then we never really find out what you know what’s working and what’s not working. And if we don’t know what’s working and what’s not working, we kind of just are wandering around. So, you’re doing, you’re doing your daily practice and, and it’s really irregular and it’s hard to get it done in the morning or maybe you know some morning together some mornings you don’t have some mornings it’s 10 minutes and some mornings it’s 20 minutes and some mornings, it’s just jumping out of bed and rushing out the door. All right.
So, your daily practice isn’t working.
Why is it works. Well, you know, each of you have to we have to answer a question why it isn’t working, but if we don’t ask, then we just keep running around and eventually maybe we may get discouraged, we may say oh it’s too hard to do by myself.
I can’t do it by myself. I don’t have anybody who encouraged me know you don’t accept yourself. Sometimes that’s all we have, you know, I’m here at just temple, but who keeps me going.
There’s no one here to hold me accountable to my practice. There’s no one here to cheer me on. There’s no one here to, you know, comment say how’s your practice going has your, you know, how’s your chanting, and has your faith.
So, you know, really fundamentally we’re all alone. Okay. When it comes to enlightenment. You’re on your own. We walk the path together to me at times work side by side, and other times our paths may Veer. But fundamentally, we each have to walk that path ourselves. Okay, so keep a journal, find out what’s working, maybe, maybe you have some ridiculous amount perhaps for your life maybe you’ve said, Oh, my goal is to is to 45 minutes ago in the morning, including chanting and Churchill reciting, and you’re just all over the place, and maybe 45 minutes is not realistic. This is adjusting your goal, saying, Okay, well, you know right now. My life hasn’t settled down. I’m just not, I’m not there yet and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I’m a terrible person, it doesn’t mean I’m a weak person. It just means I’m not ready for 45 minutes of practice every day. It’s just not working. So, back up, change your role. See if 30 minutes work or she have 20 minutes work. Or maybe it’s 10 minutes, maybe 10 minutes is where you settled down, and you can to 10 minutes every day, six months, 10 minutes a day. Wow. That is fantastic, that’s better than a real hit and miss practice. 10 minutes a day. First phenomenal. You know, especially when you compare that to maybe what you were doing before which was three days out of five you’re doing anything. Some days, one day you might do 45 minutes and then two days in a row you might do five minutes over the place. Something consistent. It’s hard to change your life. If there’s no consistent persistent regular all those kind of words, effort, and so 10 minutes a day is wonderful. If you can do 10 minutes a day.
24:19
Wow. You know 10 minutes a day over a year’s time, somebody’s doing math real quick. Anyway, you get the idea. It’s a lot.
24:28
And, you know, every habit starts out small, or most lot of habits start out small. But over time, we can make change. You know, Greg you’re taking night classes I Yvonne I don’t not sure what you’re doing but, you know, move on you’ve raised children. And Greg you raise children and Sean I I don’t know where you are, but, you know, when you raise children, you don’t, all of a sudden ways, a 17 year old kid.
25:02
That’s 17 year old kid or 17 year old child becomes a 17 year old child because every day, day by day.
25:13
You taught them. You were their model, their teacher. Sometimes their adversary. But you got them to 17 years old, one day at a time. And our lives the same way. So keep a journal of what’s working and what’s not working and the things that are working. Keep doing them. You don’t have to go crazy and say wow that’s working, let’s, let’s do even more might not work. Slow and Steady is much better than all over the place so that gets into be willing to adjust. All right. So, you gotta go. Write it down.
25:58
Now, this is important. And this is something that we don’t do often, and that is why it was that goal important to you. So, don’t just think of the goal, but think of why you want to do that goal. So what are some positive outcomes that will result from your goal.
26:18
Maybe your goal is one of the sequence. So, the reason why you want to accomplish this goal is so that you can move on to another goal.
26:27
Make this why, as meaningful to you as possible and you can be as vague and it’s nebulous and is flowery as you want to be as long as it’s meaningful to you. Okay, so why is your goal important. Write that down to and review it frequently. And my Evernote, one of the, one of the low notes is my goals and my wise. Why, why, why, why do I do what I do, you know, why do I go to the hospital, every day or three days a week and visit sick people.
27:09
What, why did I start doing that. Why is that important to me. If I don’t know why it’s important to me then. It’s really easy for it to just become some other task, some other burden. Why do I practice Buddhism, you know, so I write down why I practice Buddhism, what is it that that when I started, and to this day. What is it that I find is important to me and practicing Buddhism, what motivates me. What is meaningful in this process.
27:46
So, again, the end these are can be, I recommend them being small picture items but they can be big picture items. You know, there’s different opinions on that. But I do think and most people say that a girl, without a reason is easy to abandon, because sometimes this is where you get to be your own cheerleader. This is where daily or at least weekly you’re reminding yourself of how you get up in the morning and do the things you do.
28:25
Yeah, some of us we get up in the morning we do the things we do because we need to support a family, or, we’ve got rent to pay.
28:34
But he’s there’s something more to that. Why is it that you do, what it is you do to pay your rent. What, what, you know, Greg you’re in the Navy AND and OR Air Force I’m sorry and and you know you’ve got 17 years in this business. So, you know, maybe one of the reasons why you do what you do is so you don’t waste your 17 years and in three years time you will have something phenomenal, you will just have a walk to the bank, every month, and you get that little check.
29:08
You know, that, that may be, and maybe there’s something behind that, maybe it’s so that you can accomplish your goal of being an arborist or whatever it is that you plan on doing articles for us horticulturist Yes Sorry, sorry about that. You know, you know, for me okay I’m retired.
29:31
I’m a rhino I’m retired in name only.
29:35
But most people apply that to Republican in name only but I’m a, I’m a Ryusho I’m a retired in name only. So, but I started girls, there’s two things I want to accomplish. Now, you know they are some books talk about aging and aging aging and different stages in our life and I know Greg and Shawn y’all are young and Yvonne I’m not sure your age.
30:04
But I’m retired. Okay, you voluntary tired. So, you know, at this stage in my life and maybe Vons life as well.
30:15
We still want to accomplish things, but it’s not.
30:20
It’s not quite the same ambition ambition level, as someone who’s in their 40s 30s 20s, who is essentially trying to accomplish something for a career for a lifetime of work. Whereas, you know, for people who are retired, a lot of times it’s consolidating all the things that we’ve accomplished our lives, and learning how to shift it all together and and extract the wisdoms.
30:53
So, you know, when you’re in your retirement age it’s not so much about checking off boxes, as it is.
31:02
Putting all those boxes together and making a complete picture.
31:06
That’s some theorists ideas and understanding of but about how to age gracefully and how to age meaningfully, but for a young person. It is truly about checking off boxes. I mean, that is the time of your life.
31:26
You know, you’re studying you’re, you know, making your place in the world. And so she your activities your motivations are different than a person who’s retired, but yet you still have things that are important to us so write them down and review it frequently How am I doing on time. Oh, I’ve got about 15 minutes left okay so I didn’t rehearse this.
31:53
I just love to talk so bear with me.
31:58
It’s fun for me. Hopefully it’s not torture for you.
32:01
Alright, so daily ritual.
32:04
set a morning ritual define it. And what it will be. All right, and write down your daily ritual. So, one of my tabs and my Evernote notebook is totally want to do in the morning, one of the things I want to make sure I go in, it’s going to sound silly but you know you jump out of bed you’re in a hurry and you forget things so I have as part of my daily ritual. Want to take time to put my dog.
32:32
I want to eat a healthy breakfast.
32:35
Now that one kind of slips on the side sometimes because I might have cake or Diet Coke for breakfast but I try to eat reasonably healthy. Okay, so um you know cake and Diet Coke, that’s a balanced diet, sugar and sugar, you know, that’s kind of how I look at it so. So, I have that as my one of my ritual, a ritual. I want to do my morning long do.
33:00
Okay. Why do we have to remind myself, because sometimes I just am just, you know, it just.
33:08
You think you remember, and you don’t, I don’t know about any of y’all, maybe you’re not like me, but sometimes I have the best intentions but I forget things life gets in the way. You know, like this morning, I woke up at 130 in the morning and wasn’t able to get back to sleep so you know I took advantage and I’m very generous with myself and when I can’t fall back asleep when I can’t get back to sleep right away after waking up to go the bathroom then I just allow myself to get up and I don’t stress over it and I write, I write until I’m tired and maybe I can go back to sleep again. Well this morning I wasn’t able to go back to sleep and I felt okay so.
33:53
Oh, no, I just went on to work, and I was tired when I got home, took a nap. But, you know, sometimes life gets in the way sometimes. I’m just really groggy and I’m tired. And even though I slept for nine or 10 hours.
34:12
You know, I’ve got some health issues and so sometimes I just I get drained and maybe sometimes work myself I don’t know, but I have fun. So, as long as I’m having fun It’s okay, but in the process of having fun. I forget things. So, I write it down. And I tried to redo it every morning now, am I perfect No, I won’t stand here and lecture to you and say, I do this every morning, but most mornings nine mornings out of 10, yes I do it. I’m really very.
34:42
What’s the word anal retentive about reading my daily goals, reading my daily ritual, reminding myself. Go pet the dog. Take a few moments just sit down and cut the dog, let her know that, you know, she’s important in my life.
34:59
And just spend a few moments, besides petting a dog is very therapeutic. So, Set your daily ritual doesn’t have to be long does have to be complicated but just think about some things that are very meaningful to you that are important to you that help you feel like you’re setting up your day off to a good start. Now follow it actually do it. Okay. And, again, review what works and what doesn’t. Be willing to make changes. You know, I’m, I’m venturing to say that most people if you wrote down your goal, you are not using up the last sheet of paper in the world. Okay, there’s another sheet of paper someplace else, or the backside of it. The point is is just because you write it down. We’re not writing in stones.
35:50
Okay. But writing on disposable paper and ink. So, if it doesn’t work, crumple it up, throw it away, right something else down, you know, be willing to, to, you know, this is fluid. This is.
36:05
You’re not locked into this. All right. So, what motivates you, this gets back into why you want to accomplish your goal so why, why do you want, why is that goal that you set important to you. Now, what motivates you identify the things that motivate you and kind of kind of got a little bit blurry here but or little bit kind of mixed up but but what motivates you identify the things that motivate you. So, for me, My Buddhist practice. How can I help Can I enable other people to learn about the Dharma to stay encouraged to attain their own enlightenment.
36:48
Why do I do my chaplain wars, what motivates me about my chaplain was the ability to sit with a sick person or a dying person, and be witness to their life, and let them know that their life matters. Not everybody dies with family, not everybody gets sick with support.
37:11
But to just be with him, spend the time with him smile at them hold their hand, or just breathe with them. So, write down the things that motivate you come if you are constantly. And whereas, why your goals are important, or specific because they are dealing with your goals and goals are smell picture items. What motivates you are really big picture items. Okay. So, these are the grand scheme. These are your, your best moments. Okay. All right. So that concludes my little presentation.
37:57
Okay, how about.
37:59
Let me get back to screen people’s faces. Okay, well we’re we’re wait. All right. Wonderful.
This transcript was generated by https://otter.ai
With Gassho,
Kansho Shonin
