Again, in order to protect you from becoming jaded, rather than telling you something interesting or new, I'll tell you something I said before, by repeating myself over and over again, you won't become jaded. By avoiding telling you something interesting, and then telling you something more interesting, and then telling you something more interesting even than that, although you'd be entertained, I would tail you out, and then when you walk out of here, if I were able to do such a thing, you might not find the Blue Jays interesting, or the Dirt interesting, but hopefully if I repeat myself enough, you'll find the Dirt fascinating.

[01:00]

You might even find sitting quietly in this room really interesting, after listening to my talk over and over. So, as I said before, our sitting practice is basically to settle the body-mind through the body-mind, using your ordinary experience for the great purpose of having ordinary experience. Settling into ordinary experience until you have finally settled into ordinary experience.

[02:03]

The great Buddhas are those who are able to finally reach ordinary experience. They have the faith, they have enough faith to reach the conventional world, and sit there unmoving, settling the self on the self, through the self, by the self, for the self, and then becoming really familiar with what the self is, what the body-mind is, and then finally forgetting the self, and therefore being awakened by everything that happens, and dropping the

[03:14]

body and mind, tracelessly. Now, this sitting still, that the Buddhas are doing all the time, is something that really doesn't need to be prepared for, because you're already doing it. Just you, as you already are, is exactly sitting still. Again, as Manjushri says, for a living being, to be awake is just not to move.

[04:31]

And the condition, the precise moment-by-moment condition of being a living being, is exactly what we mean by awakening. So, this kind of practice is very sudden, very effortless, maybe I shouldn't even say very, just sudden and effortless is such a practice of not moving, and simply being a living being, and simply being awake. This is the practice of the Buddhas, and we say, if you want to practice like the Buddhas, then you should do it, without delay. If you want to practice suchness, you should practice suchness without delay.

[05:56]

If you want to practice like a Buddha, you should do so without delay. At the same time, life is really very dynamic, and everything is changing all the time. So, although the Buddhas are sitting still, this stillness is changing. This is a dynamic stillness. They're always doing it, and yet true eternity still flows, true serenity flows. The total working of the Buddhas, of the Buddha way, the total working of the life, is in

[07:03]

one sense that it's unmoving, and in another sense it's very dynamic. So the Buddhas are sitting still, but the Bodhisattvas are flying around them at high speed, the speed of light. The Bodhisattvas acting out, representing the fact that the Buddhas, although they don't move, they still are nothing more than the appropriate response to people's needs. But this sitting still is also perfect teaching for each person's needs. The Bodhisattvas act this out so you can see the Buddhas' skillful help in the world. Without preparing for zazen, without preparing to sit still,

[08:34]

we have some things that are called preparations for sitting still. But when we do these preparations for sitting still, we need not understand them as preparations. In other words, they are immediately doing the sitting. If you feel that you need no preparations for sitting still, if you feel you need no preparations for realizing Buddha directly, then go right ahead. But if you notice that you overshoot or undershoot the mark, then these so-called preparatory practices of purification and accumulation of wholesome energy, these preparatory practices may help you aim without aiming more accurately. They may help you settle precisely onto the place you are and the time you are.

[09:52]

So in one sense they're preparations for reaching the spot of here, in another sense they're antidotes for being a little off and not quite being able to settle right here. The act of sitting still is an act of faith. It's an act of devotion and self-surrender. Devotion and self-surrender mutually support each other.

[11:07]

Not moving is devotion and self-surrender. It is possible to devote oneself to sitting still and still not surrender the self. I think it is possible to, or maybe considered, it may be possible to devote oneself to opening one's heart and yet still not surrender self.

[12:28]

A flower, perhaps a flower in the early morning or in the night, is devoted to opening its petals to the sun, but if it tries to open its petals without the sun, it may not be able to. I don't think it will be able to. It must hold itself up. It must have the strength to hold itself up and be ready to have its petals closed

[13:55]

until the right moment when the sun comes. And then, because of its self-surrender in the sense of being willing to wait, and not wait passively but wait erect, holding itself up, holding its petals closed because it's not time, doing that work, then the opening of the petals can happen, but very much because of the strength of everything else it's doing. So, this example, I don't know if it's a good one, but it may be that if I can see

[15:06]

that it's maybe not usually, we don't usually think of the flower's work to hold itself upright through the night. We don't usually think about that, maybe, in terms of a cause, a necessary cause for being able to open the petals. This is a somewhat different way to think about petals opening. For a human body, my body, the heart is located somewhere around the heart, and for this heart to open, I cannot voluntarily open this heart, even though I might want to.

[16:15]

I cannot voluntarily surrender myself. I can want to, and wanting to is one of the causes. The fact that it's opened before is one of the causes for opening again. The fact of a lineage of flowers opening is part of the cause of the flower opening again. But a person or a flower cannot open by themselves. They need the sun, and not just the sun, but all other sentient beings. However, this is still not a passive thing. So, how can I work to open my heart? One thing I can do, which I do do, is I bend over backwards.

[17:21]

I reverse the way I usually sit and stand. I bend my body backwards. Sometimes I wash my running shoes. They get wet, of course, when I wash them. In order to squeeze the water out of them, I bend them backwards. The rubber sole can be bent backwards. Then the inner sole, the rubber sole that you run on, then the padding that soaks up the water, gets stretched and the water gets squeezed out. Around in the heart area of most people, as they live their life,

[18:30]

it tends to get hard and to start to constrict. And as we grow older, a lot of us tend to go like this. Our shoulders and back go like this. Until we get more and more of a shell-like back and a caved-in chest. And the chest gets hard and the heart gets squashed. And inside, there is a little voice, a little voice that wants to open this out, that wants to reach out through this caved-in area and say hello to all sentient beings. And to surrender, wants to surrender this fortress.

[19:34]

And then corresponding to this caved-in dead area here, the back muscles get hard and bulge out. So, very clearly what needs to be done is the body needs to be soaked in water. And this backside needs to be bent back. And this part needs to get stretched out. And then all of the juice comes squirting out. But, it's not so easy to do that to somebody. Because the tread in the back has become hard. And the stuff in the front may not be soft enough. Actually, this part here, although it's hard, is not the problem area. The hard part actually can take being cracked open. The ironic thing is that the softer areas are the ones that will get hurt

[20:46]

if you just stretch the hard areas. Just like with a flower, if you try to force it open, the places that will get hurt are not the parts that are holding shut, but the soft parts. The hard parts will break later, probably. So what you need to do in order to bend backwards is you need to develop areas that aren't the problem. You need to develop your butt, your buttocks muscles, and your thighs and hips in order to open your heart. Developing your thighs and your hips and your butt,

[21:50]

and loosening the front of your groin and your shoulders, does not open your heart. What opens your heart is to bend backwards. However, if you don't do those other things, you can't bend backwards. So although they don't do it, they make it possible. They provide the strength. Which will protect you when you bend backwards. They will provide the flexibility, which will allow the softer areas of your body to bend,

[22:59]

so that the pressure will come down on the hard area, which is choking your heart. So I'm telling you this partly a literal story. And also I'm trying to point out that in order to practice self-surrender, self-surrender will be practiced probably in the reverse way from what you think you would do. Of course, if you can go out and surrender yourself somehow to everybody, that's fine, no problem, if you can do that. But it's pretty hard to do that, because it's just your idea of self-surrender right now. You can't, I mean, you can say,

[24:01]

OK, I'll surrender myself, here I am, I surrender to you, or I surrender to Galy. Well, we may say, well, that's nice of you, but that's not self-surrender, that's just your idea of self-surrender. Well, you might say, well, what is self-surrender? Well, we'll tell you later, when we feel like it. Just follow the schedule. Wait a minute, I wanted to do some self-surrender. No, follow the schedule. No, no, I'm going to do self-surrender. Follow the schedule. No, I don't want to. I've got a different idea of what self-surrender is, and I want to do it right now. It's this. No, we're telling you now to follow the schedule. That will be, for you, self-surrender. Oh, I get it. You mean, do what I'm already doing, self-surrender? Yeah. But, let's do it now, really do it,

[25:01]

and don't just sort of pretend to do it. And, when we say self-surrender, we think we're supposed to do something different. Following the schedule, exactly. Not even according to your idea of following the schedule, but following the schedule the way other people want you to follow it. That's self-surrender. And the way they want you to follow it is basically, I'll give you some cue hints. They don't want you to get to the Zen Do, too far ahead of them. They also do not want you to get to the Zen Do too far behind them. They want you to arrive here approximately on time, but sort of average, kind of like an average person. That's the way everybody kind of wants you to follow the schedule. They want you to follow the schedule as much as possible, like everybody else is. That's an example of self-surrender. But that may not be your idea of self-surrender before I tell you now. Now you know.

[26:02]

There's many other kinds of self-surrender, too. For example, when people ask you for something. Give. Not that you decide what you're going to give them, and then you go tell them, this is what I'm going to give you as an act of self-surrender. No, just the little things they ask of you. Like, could you help me do this? Or, could you follow the schedule? But the key point you see here is that you've got to be strong to practice self-surrender. And you've got to be flexible to practice self-surrender. So practicing self-surrender partly means that you make yourself strong and flexible. So when people ask you to do things, you can do them without hurting yourself. If people ask you to do things,

[27:15]

and you just do them without being strong, you'll do them in such a way that you'll hurt yourself, and you'll say, well, I'll never do that again. You might not say that. You might say, well, I'll try again. That hurt. I got kind of wrecked, trashed by that one. They asked me to do this, and I did it, and they asked me to do that, and I did it, and pretty soon I felt really abused. I was practicing self-surrender, but after a while I felt used. Well, this is like doing a backbend without having a strong enough butt. So you don't take it in the back, you don't take it in the surrender part, you take it in some part where those need to be surrendered. You take it in some flexible part. So it doesn't really stretch the hard part,

[28:16]

it stretches the soft part, which didn't need to get stretched and got overstretched and left the hard part untouched because you weren't really working your butt. So in the practice of self-surrender, you have to surrender You have to surrender before anybody even talks to you so that when you talk to you, you've already surrendered and you can just say yes. You're already surrendering, so this isn't like new news to you. I mean, you're surrendering in your thinking before anybody asks you. So self-surrender is something you can do when somebody asks you, like, follow schedule or give me a dollar. Self-surrender is also the way you think. Self-surrender is the way you think, like, for example, you think

[29:16]

I should strengthen my butt so that I can stretch my back so that I can open my heart. That's a way to think. That's a way to think that will lead you to self-surrender. Not only think that way, but then actually do it to actually strengthen your butt so that you can open your heart. That's actually self-surrender. Now again, it's not maybe your idea of what self-surrender is, right? Perhaps no one has thought of it. The self-surrender is to strengthen your butt. Some of you already have strong butts, so you don't have to do much more work in that area. You just have to keep them strong. And they don't have to get super strong, like, you know, as strong as somebody else, necessarily, but they have to be strong

[30:16]

relative to your attachments. They have to be strong enough to balance how hard you're holding on in the part of your back opposite your heart. That's how strong they need to get. No stronger. Our antidotal muscles have to be as strong as our cleaning muscles. Something like that. Another way to put this is we have to reverse our thinking. We have to think the opposite way from the way we usually think. If you think the ordinary way and then you go out and try to do self-sacrificing, that won't necessarily work. You have to sacrifice your way of thinking, too.

[31:19]

You don't just sacrifice some stuff. You sacrifice the self. You sacrifice all your usual modes of thinking. And not by trashing anything, but by trying on a new style. Leave the old ones alone. You know how to trash them already. But develop a new way of thinking, which is actually quite wholesome and fresh and vital and strong and will provide a situation in which you will be able to eventually perform acts of self-sacrifice and they won't be acts of self-sacrifice at that time because you already will be thinking in a different way such that the self will already have been sacrificed

[32:20]

and they'll be easy to do and you can do them joyously. Just like you can do a backbend joyously when the sun comes up and your butt is strong and you don't hurt yourself and you don't regret it. So, just like if you want to open up here, you have to strengthen yourself back here. In the same way, if you want to change the way you think and become free of your self-clinging, you've got to develop a thinking which is kind of someplace else. It's not like just turn this around, but you have to develop that other kind of thinking. Where is that kind of thinking? Well, it's not located exactly like in your butt, but, in fact, by working on this actual butt, by actually strengthening those muscles and working those muscles in preparation

[33:22]

for opening your heart, you actually are working on your mind in the same way. So you can actually work on it directly physically if you want to. But also, just in your thinking, to think new ways. Now, again, if you can practice suchness without delay, we'll go right ahead. That's called self. Then you can do self-sacrifice and devotion right now. That's fine. But as a preparation for it, you might actually do some of these exercises and I will be willing to show you these exercises if you want to. In other classes and lectures, we talk a lot about no self, not being able to find the self, and yet we speak of self-sacrifice. If there is no self, what is it?

[34:24]

There is nothing really to sacrifice. Self-sacrifice really means that you are willing to let the self... It's not that there is no self, it's rather that the self is nothing you can get a hold of. So self-sacrifice means that you stop holding on to it. You can't really hold on to it anyway. But holding on to your self is what we mean by a hard heart. Holding on to this thing which can't be held on to makes your heart hard. It makes you crust over your heart by holding on to the self. And then your back reflects that, and your back gets hard too because of trying to hold on to something which is changing all the time. So self-sacrifice means let go of it. But since you can't really let go of it because it's such a deeply ingrained habit,

[35:28]

you can't directly let go of it, what you do is, indirectly, you reverse the way of thinking, and that will indirectly let go of it. Or you reverse the way of using your body. For example, instead of using your body to move, use your body to sit still. Instead of thinking of objects, you think of that there aren't any objects. Instead of thinking of yourself, you think of others. Instead of thinking that the self is a permanent thing, you investigate it and try to find out what it is, and so on. These are various ways of self-sacrifice. Okay? Yes? It seems like some other ways of thinking, like, you know, when you think of an object,

[36:28]

and the objects, you know, there are no objects, is some of these other practices, like, well, I'm finding, like, doing, it's crazy enough, like, bringing my mind into sewing, or bringing my mind into memorization, is like a mental exercise, that actually really feels like an antidote to egotistical thinking. Somehow, you know, it takes my mind to another area that involves a discipline, and that seems to be in the same category. Yes. And that kind of exercise can be used in the service of a major reversal. That in itself could, those kinds of exercises can be co-opted by self-cleaning. For example, you can start memorizing with a sense of, I'm going to get it from me,

[37:30]

you know, I'm going to be more educated after I memorize this, or I'm going to have a nice robe when I finish sewing. But you can also, by, you can also take that activity which will concentrate you, and understand it in such a way that it will be an implement to reversing your thinking, or letting go of something. So, for example, in one of these purification and accumulation practices, the next one is confession and repentance, or exposure of non-virtue. Because of our clinging in the past,

[38:31]

we have done non-virtue, there have been non-virtuous actions done by us in the past. As a result of these non-virtuous actions, we have some difficulty in being devoted, and in practicing self-sacrifice, or in practicing an entirely new way of thinking. We have some trouble because of our past actions. Just like we have a problem doing a backbend because we've been lazy with how we've been using our butt. Because we've been inattentive and greedily running around, we haven't been working those muscles which we haven't been needing in order to realize our greedy goals. So now those muscles are weak. So part of our non-virtue is that we haven't been using muscles

[39:34]

that aren't necessary for our own selfish desires. And we need to develop those muscles which aren't necessary for our own selfish desires. But developing them will be difficult because they're weak and we don't like to work on weak muscles. We want to work on strong muscles because we feel good when we use strong muscles and we feel weak and we feel frustrated when we use our weak muscles. Which again, you see, is part of the non-virtuous background. So we need to generate, we need to overcome the hindrance of our flabby butts and our tight muscles. And ironically or paradoxically, one of the main things that helps us overcome the effects of this non-virtuous activity

[40:40]

is the exposure of the non-virtuous activity and its results. So in this case, exposing your flabby butt to yourself not necessarily to others will help you overcome the harmful effects of having a flabby butt because you will recognize the problem and may realize you need to go to work on it. So the first step in overcoming non-virtue is to expose it or declare it, confess it. That's the first step in counteracting the harmful effects. Through repeated and continuous reflection

[41:53]

on the non-virtue on a flabby butt, you will gradually experience a growth in regret over your lack of proper exercise. You will develop a sense of regret over your non-virtuous actions. And it keeps growing. The more you think about it, the more you regret it. Or I should say, keep thinking about it in such a way that your regret grows so the regret gets stronger and stronger through a certain way of thinking about what you've done. And again, thinking in physical terms,

[42:57]

by continuously reflecting on how wonderful it would be to stretch this area of my body and open my heart, and by opening this part of my body, actually be able to see how wonderful other people are. Literally, by opening this part of your body, you can appreciate other people more. And seeing how a flabby, unused part of my body is preventing me from being able to do that safely, more and more I realize, more and more I regret that that part of my body is old, old ahead of the rest of my body, old ahead of my heart, that I have a young heart. And because of laziness, part of my body is interfering with my youthful, loving heart coming out in the world. Youthful, at least in comparison

[44:01]

to the lazy parts of the body. The parts of the body that I don't have to work to get by. The parts of my body that I only have to work in order to more fully use, to more fully release certain other parts of my body which are trapped as a result of my laziness. So there is, I believe, within each of us an indescribably radiant, compassionate heart that is trapped because of various kinds of indulgences in this world. It can bring it out into the world It can roll it out among other sentient beings

[45:01]

and let it function safely. And the kind of thinking that protects it has one aspect of exposing non-virtue. Exposing non-virtue is part of the protection of this boundless, beneficent mind. Again, doesn't that seem a little surprising? It does to me that this great, loving mind, this great, beneficent mind, that one of the ways to protect it and to bring it out into the world is for the living being in whom it lives,

[46:02]

for that living being to admit its past non-virtue will protect this heart. Isn't that a little bit surprising? Isn't that a surprising way to think? But if you think about it a little bit more it might not surprise you. Part, I think, of the problem of bringing out your heart is thinking that the person who's bringing it out is some kind of, you know, innocent being. The heart itself is quite innocent. It's willing to open up to anything and be hurt. But there's other parts of our background which are not willing and not innocent.

[47:05]

And these un-innocent actions, these harmful actions, if they are admitted then you'll know that this heart is being brought out in the context of lots of un-virtuous activity and then the situation is a little different. Then you might say, well, maybe I should wait a little bit to bring this heart out. As a matter of fact, maybe you would say, yeah, this heart isn't going to come out until this stuff's admitted. We've got to get this stuff out here. So like having a conversation with somebody or several people getting together, if there's all kinds of non-virtuous background in the people plus non-virtuous thoughts in the present or in the near past or in the near future probably, if they don't get this stuff out, who would dare to bring it out? What heart would dare to open in such a situation? In response to Brian,

[48:13]

I thought, I touched on something which is very important, which is the motivation. How am I doing this? Do I think I will end up more educated? And I think it's possible that reversing ways of thinking might include saying, well, I do think I'm going to get something out of this. And I'm going to have to trust that. I'm going to have to act even though I do think I might somehow end up using these practices. You mean, if a person never could think that way, they could never think, I might get something out of this, that they should think this way? If in your history you always negate activity by trying to think too subtly about

[49:18]

the history, then a reverse habit might be to say, well, I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to try anyway, even though, based according to what I read and hear, it's kind of... Well, I would change that a little bit. Rather than... See, I think there you mix in something you already know how to do with a reverse. Namely, to admit that you do things in order to get something out of them. And if you usually don't admit that, then that should be admitted. And partly it should be admitted because you don't usually think that you do that. That's the thing about... That's a non-virtuous thought that you're going to get something out of it. That's a case where you should admit it, but you shouldn't act on it. That's not necessary. You usually do act on it, but you don't act on it

[50:19]

after admitting it. People do things for themselves in order to get things out of them for themselves. People do that all the time. But rarely do people admit that they're doing something to get something out of it for themselves. Most of the time, they just do things for themselves. So, to admit that you're doing this, especially for someone who very rarely ever does admit that they do things for themselves to get something for themselves, such a person would do well to think a new way, a reversed way, namely, oh, I'm doing this for me. They should think that. But not just think it, which they're already doing, but notice that they're thinking it and then admit it. Expose that type of thinking. That's very good. That's the next step that I find difficult. Yeah, next step. You shouldn't then take the next step. Okay? The next step, people are already doing that.

[51:22]

Everybody's going around doing things for themselves. That's quite common. But not very often do people... A lot of people who never say that they're doing things for themselves are doing things for themselves all the time. And one of the things they do for themselves is they don't admit that they're doing things for themselves because they think it'll be easier to do what they think is good for them if they don't admit it. Because if they noticed that they were doing it for themselves, they would be too ashamed. So they don't even notice it. So they reach in and take things for themselves without even noticing at their usual way. So the new way of saying, Oh, I'm doing these things for myself. This would be very good for that person to admit. But then to go ahead and do it some more, that's not... That's a different thing. That's acting out. They already are doing it. They already have been doing it for a long time. They should admit that they have been rather than do it some more. And admitting that they have been

[52:25]

is a new thing. It's very fresh and the reverse of what they usually do. They usually deny they're doing it. Now they should admit they're doing it. This is the reverse. Part of the reverse way of doing this is that you actually are fundamentally doing all this stuff for the sake of others. The whole thing. Everything I'm talking about here. Sitting still. Settling the Self in the Self. All this is done for others. First. Take refuge in the Buddha for others first. Admit. Confess. Expose the innumerable actions which we did not do for others. Expose all the things we do for ourselves. And that exposure is done for the sake of others.

[53:27]

We cannot be useful to others if we don't admit the innumerable and particular things which we have done just for ourselves. And also then to notice all the terrible effects or not so terrible effects just slightly terrible effects that being selfish which have caused us. And how all the selfish things I've done in the past make my body such that even if I wanted to do something for someone else my body won't let me. Because of all the things I've done in the past my body is somewhat wrecked. And my body won't let me then open my heart. But if I admit all the un... if I admit the unwholesome things I've done in the past that begins the turnaround of this body to make this body a body that could possibly open itself

[54:30]

to another living being or many living beings. But I do that. I expose my body and my mind for the sake of others so that the body then will be a body which will be more useful to others. And by exposing my body and mind I can more clearly see what exercises I need to do in order to make my body more able to be open to other people. Yes? I wonder why this is the fourth and first for you to establish your faith and then you say you have to have that faith in question and just, oh I did this and I'm bad rather than that you can say to me I've done this and I'm good.

[55:30]

There's a... I was thinking about it in this lecture that you mentioned being your fourth and then I kept thinking about it. In one lecture you mentioned Martin Luther which is more about the truth. And I thought about how much faith he must have had. Yep. All the faith he had and all the strength he got from it. He got so much strength from admitting his non-virtue that he could wear out an ordinary priest who probably wasn't getting as much strength from admitting his non-virtue to other priests. So you can't just sit and listen to other people's confessions for very long. You have to spend part of your time admitting your own non-virtue otherwise you're just going to collapse there in the booth. You get strength

[56:34]

and energy from admitting your non-virtue to your non-virtue. When you admit your non-virtue you start to see how beautiful other people are. That's your reward. By admitting your non-virtue your heart opens. Admitting your non-virtue is like working your flabby butt muscles. You don't like to work your flabby muscles. It's painful to work them. They haven't been worked for 27 years. They haven't been worked since you were a little girl in ballet class. You don't want to work those muscles anymore. They don't work anymore. And they're ugly. Just let them die. Forget it. Let's concentrate on something we're good at like talking or eating or watching TV. We're good at that stuff. It doesn't take any butt muscle either. So we don't want to deal with that stuff.

[57:37]

But that stuff is admitting our non-virtue. We have a non-virtuous butt. Some of us do. Not all of us. Some of you have pretty good butts out there. But I have a butt which is a result of non-virtue. I have to work on it. It's a butt of a 95-year-old person because it's dead. Because it's dead to some extent my heart is dead. I have to keep exposing and confessing my laziness that has allowed me to walk around and not exercise certain parts of my body because I was too busy doing other greedy things. Admitting that lazy butt makes me more want to work that lazy butt and working that lazy butt leads to being able to fulfill my real desire which is to think and act just like a Buddha

[58:44]

and be beneficial to all living beings including me. But I've got some confessing to do and the confessing I have to do is not necessarily using the confessing I've already done. Maybe some different kinds than I was expecting but anyway to bring it all up and bring up particulars too like lazy physical habits that are ongoing unwholesome things and also sometimes some are the result of past unwholesome things. Lazy habits of body, lazy habits of using my body, of using only parts of it and therefore not other parts and therefore some parts are dying. Lazy habits of speech, speech that I'm not thinking about, not careful about, whether it's kind, whether it's true,

[59:46]

whether I know what I'm talking about. Lazy habits of speech, unkind habits of speech and ways of thinking. Selfish, lazy, uncareful ways of thinking. All these three kinds of non-virtuous actions I have done and if I admit them, if I expose them to myself and expose them to myself before in front of the Buddha that I align myself with this gives me energy, positive energy with which to work for the benefit of all beings and it also purifies me of the obstructions of these past actions. If they're unadmitted, they are blocks. If they are admitted, they are removed and energy comes forth

[60:47]

from behind each block. So first step is exposure, confession, declaration of body, speech and mind actions and then there's more to this process of repentance and confession but we'll continue with that later because there's quite a bit more to it so I won't be able to possibly finish today but I will continue to work on this one in the next talk. So this is the process of this kind of thing, this kind of practice is done to make possible this fantastic thing called just sitting still because sitting still is

[61:50]

having an open heart to say the least and we really can't sit still if we haven't exposed our non-virtue. We have to realize the totality and the specificness of our non-virtue in order to be able to sit still but if you sit still you also realize your non-virtue so go right ahead and sit still if you can. Please do. But even if you can, please expose your non-virtue back and forth just like the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. The Bodhisattva will do this confessing work which all Buddhas have done confession so you do the confession and you also do the sitting still so you're both Buddha and Bodhisattva.

[62:54]

You're both the Buddha and you're the Buddha's child. As Buddha's child you have the work of homage, offering, praising, confession, rejoicing in the merits of others, asking the Buddha to teach and so on. You have all these practices to do as Bodhisattvas at the same time you are a Buddha. You are even Buddha's teacher. And you're a Buddha's child.

[63:58]

Manjushri is Buddha's child, Samantabhadra is Buddha's child, Avalokiteshvara is Buddha's child. And all Buddhas have acted like those children. And those children act like all Buddhas have all acted in their training. . [...]

[65:03]

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