The mind is a garden. If we tend it, there will be fruit. No need to 
add any thing but seeds. Goodness is the fertilizer. We must do good 
deeds. The finest loam topsoil will grow weeds if it is not tended. 

Yang bu jyau, fu jr gwo;
Jyau bu yen, shr jr duo;
Gou bu 
You bu sywe, lau he wei?

If the child is not taught, the father is to blame;
If the classes are not strict, the teacher takes the fault.
But if the child won't study, the fault is all his own.
A child who does not study comes to nothing when he's grown.

Surely the purpose of life is to do righteous deeds. Our lives 
become what we do. We are ever advancing from the results of our 
deeds. We are gardeners of our own lives, and the growing season 
goes on from life to life. 

Prize of a book from University after ten years. Story of the 
hospitalier, the lawyer, and the hermit. Both thought service was 
the road, without examining the mind. Both burned out, after 
learning the bitter lesson of the pettiness and greed of the human 
animal.
 
They went to seek out the hermit for advice. 

"Look within! There is no sweeter sound than the sound of your own 
mind, there is no higher truth than the truth of self-knowledge. 
When you find your own stillness, all of Nature comes home. If you 
look outside, there is no day when you find your safe refuge. Look 
into your own mind, there you will discover the source of your true 
service to the world."


II.

Tell the story of the poor woodcutter, who got fed up with the 
suffering of life and decided he wanted out. Stop the world! I want 
to get off! Too much trouble. He threw his load of wood to the 
ground.

So he called for death to come take him away. Death did! "What did 
you call me for?!" Uh, nothing! Just help me pick up this load of 
wood, it won't take you a minute, and you can be on your way!"

The old man, like all of us, is attached to life. 
"Le trepas tout guerir, mais nous bougeons d'ou nous sommes. Plutot 
souffrir qu'ue mourir, c'est la devise des hommes."

Humanity is in touch with the misery and the fragility of life. It 
comes as a gift, it is taken away like a breath of wind. It lasts as 
long as a tomato in the garden. It goes and leaves no trace. What is 
there to hang on to? What is there to rely on? 

An eleven year old knifes to death a forty-year old father of two 
just for sport; he has seen thousands of murders on television. He 
was well-rehearsed for his act. He had learned his lessons well on 
the t.v. We become what we observe. My friends do not own a 
television; their daughter listens to her parents read at night from 
the Sutras; she listens to the lectures at the CTTB. This is 
goodness. Her garden is being fertilized with wholesome seeds.

Read to children. Give your life to goodness. This man has sent two 
children to the Sangha. THey became monks and nuns  before they 
reached puberty. They have a chance to grow the most rare of good 
gardens. This man teaches for no salary at a Buddhist free school. 
His efforts at gardening till others soil. His seeds will bring in 
more than one harvest. The joy of teaching young minds is 
incomparable. One true act will echo for years in the lives of young 
people.

A teacher who made a difference to you. A coach, a volunteer mom.
Life is precious. Space is black and cold and empty. Life has the 
qualities of the sun, radiant, nurturing, and expansive. The mind 
can bring joy to life. Or it can bring disaster. The mind is the 
same garden. It depends on how we use it. 


Pumpkin story.

Society tell us we should all fight for the very best,for the top 
spot, for number one. How many people can cram into that tiny 
corner, the tip of the pyramid? How many others must settle 
unhappily for the second and third and so forth rewards? Is this a 
sensible goal? Is it a false goal? Is it worth pursuing? The 
sickness of our world is the head-long rush for affluent 
consumer-hood. The gets and the haves are the only winners in this 
society, and they are miserable! Tbe winners have to trade their 
hearts and veins for the cow bodies they feed on; they have to give 
up their families for the job hours they work to earn enough to 
support the two cars, three t.v.s., four insurance policies, and ,
five credit cards they own. They give up their personal safety for 
the fancy goods they buy and then have to protect with locks, 
electronic alarms, and handguns. They give up the clean air and 
water they share for the lethal automobiles we drive, they trade 
their marriage vows for quick thrills in the name of emotional 
expression and growth.

The image is of a fish biting a worm, and taking a fly. He doesn't 
know that it hides a hook, and the hook bites deep in his mouth, it 
will be his death. We look at magazine ads with the eyes of trout, 
the eyes of salmon. 

Doug discussed Kearns' book, Winning the Brain Race

Why can't we teach morality in the schools?

Discussed causality as a secular teaching, not tied to religious 
dogma or faith.  The Buddha introduced causality scientifically, 
experientially, not religiously. This is the starting point for 
entry into rational, unsuperstitious cultivation of the mind. 

Only because religion came under fire from science and economics, 
did its moral aspect also come under fire and get torn out of the 
textbooks.

Buddhism teaches morality as the problem of causation. No values 
implied.  It is universal, and practical. It is the starting point 
for deeper entrance to principles of the mind. 

Desire is the main cause of affliction, and any avoidance of desire 
is considered in the West as repression and unhealthy. The taboo 
against disciplining the lower urges.