And this section, this is on the Endeavor of the Way, is a longer work. This is the section on the Self-Fulfilling Samadhi. Now all ancestors and all Buddhas who uphold Buddha Dharma had made it the true path of enlightenment, to sit upright, practicing in the midst of self-filling samadhi. Those who attained enlightenment in India and China followed this way. It was done so because teachers and disciples personally transmitted this excellent method as the essence of the teaching. In the authentic tradition of our teaching, it is said that this directly transmitted, straightforward Buddhadharma is the unsurpassable of the unsurpassable. From the first time you meet a master, without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, repentance, or reading scriptures, you should just wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind.

[01:10]

When even for a moment you express the Buddha's seal in the three actions by sitting upright in samadhi, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's seal and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. Because of this, all Buddha Tathagatas, as their original source, renew their magnificence in the awakening of the way. all beings in the ten directions and the six realms, including the three lower realms, at once obtain pure body and mind, realize the state of great emancipation, and manifest the original face. At this time all things realize correct awakening, myriad objects partake of the Buddha body, and sitting upright under the Bodhi tree, you immediately leap beyond the boundary of awakening.

[02:12]

At this moment, you turn the unsurpassably great Dharma wheel and expound the profound wisdom, ultimate and unconditioned. Because such broad awakening resonates back to you and helps you inconceivably, you will in Zazen unmistakably drop away body and mind, cutting off the various defiled thoughts from the past and realize essential Buddha Dharma. you will raise up Buddha activity at innumerable practice places everywhere, and cause everyone to have the opportunity for ongoing Buddhahood and vigorously uplift the ongoing Buddha Dharma. Because earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles and pebbles all engage in Buddha activity, those who receive the benefit of wind and water caused by them are inconceivably helped by the Buddha's guidance, splendid and unthinkable, and awaken intimately to themselves.

[03:20]

Those who receive these water and fire benefits spread the Buddha's guidance based on original awakening. Because of this, all those who live with you and speak with you will obtain endless Buddha virtue and will unroll widely inside and outside of the entire universe the endless, unremitting, unthinkable, unnameable Buddhadharma. All this, however, does not appear within perception because it is unconstructedness in stillness. It is immediate realization. If practice and realization were two things as it appears to an ordinary person, each would be recognized separately. But what can be met with recognition is not realization itself, because realization is not reached by the deluded mind. In stillness, mind and object merge in realization and go beyond enlightenment.

[04:25]

Nevertheless, because you are in a state of self-fulfilling samadhi, without disturbing its quality or moving a particle of dust, you extend the... ...excellently profound and subtle teaching. Grass, trees and lands which are embraced by this teaching together radiate a great light and endlessly expound the inconceivable profound dharma. Grass, trees, and walls bring forth the teaching for all beings, common people as well as sages, and they in accord extend this dharma for the sake of grass, trees, and walls. Thus the realm of self-awakening and awakening others invariably holds the mark of realization with nothing lacking. and realization itself is manifested without ceasing for a moment. This being so, the zazen of even one person at one moment imperceptibly accords with all things and resonates through all time.

[05:33]

Thus, in the past, future and present of the limitless universe, this zazen carries on the Buddha's teaching endlessly. Each moment of zazen is equally wholeness of practice, equally wholeness of realization. This is not only practice while sitting. It is like hammer striking emptiness. Before and after, its exquisite feel permeates everywhere. How can it be limited to this moment? Hundreds of things all manifest the original practice from the original face. It is impossible to measure. Know that even if all the Buddhas in ten directions, as innumerable as the sands of the Ganges, exert their strength and with the Buddha's wisdom try to measure the merit of one person's Zazen, they will not be able to fully comprehend it. Also, some people didn't get this chart of the different levels of samadhi.

[06:42]

So who needs one? Why don't you come and get it? You want one? Try just to start with the question that Fran raised at the end of the last class. We can start with her question. We're coming, Fran. What was your question? The question was... Okay. So her question is if you're involved in some task like trying to figure out how to prepare a meal,

[07:46]

What would be the difference between being involved in that activity with discursive thought versus concursive thought? In discursive thought, there is usually a sense of...the word discursive means to run back and forth. It has the words dis and course. Course is like the run, the flow, and dis means like back and forth or separate. And discursive thought is also sometimes what we usually consider sequential thought. It's good in situations where, or I should say good, it's appropriate in situations where all the variables are set, like in a math problem. But also discursive thought usually involves the assumption of an actor separate from the thought, or an actor who is doing the thought, which is another kind of going back and forth between the actor and the thought.

[09:03]

As we just read in the first paragraph, it says that the true path of enlightenment is to sit upright in the midst of this self-fulfilling samadhi. And self-fulfilling samadhi is one way to express this, to translate this samadhi. Another way to translate this samadhi is self-receiving and employing samadhi. The samadhi or the awareness of receiving the self and employing the self. In the case where you, well, I don't know you, but in the case where there is a sense of receiving yourself as you receive your situation, for example, if you're in a dinner preparation setting,

[10:08]

The time of dinner is approaching. Some of the ingredients or all the ingredients are accessible. Cooking equipment is available or not. And when all these phenomena arise, there's a sense that all these things are coming together to make it possible for you to be a cook. Seems like you and all the ingredients are coming together, are being led together to, for example, the function, the activity of cooking. That would be the concursive way of seeing the dinner preparation. All the same ingredients are there, it's just in one case there's you and them and you running back and forth to them. You will get the pepper. You will get the bowl. You will get the spoon. You go turn the heat on.

[11:10]

You think of what to do next for this. You look for that. You think about this. You plan that rather than all these things are there, and then there's a cook. Go ahead. Okay, I'm thinking more of that. I'm thinking more of that. There you go. There's too much. Now if you want to make another example called making decisions, that's another example. How do decisions get made discursively? Change the topic, fine. I've mentioned this a number of times. It's one of the most difficult things for people to change their attitude about. But generally speaking, people think that they make decisions. This is a discursive way to approach it. I make the decision. And when people think that way, they suffer.

[12:12]

And so a great deal of what I meet in people is anxious and miserable people who are in the process of thinking that they have to make a decision discursively. They have to choose what to buy at the supermarkets. and they do it by themselves, so the responsibility is going to be on them alone. Not to mention what they're going to do with it when they get home. Another kind of decision-making process. But anyway, that attitude is unhappiness. And people are anxious about making decisions themselves because they want to make the right one. They want to make the one that will lead to success. Happiness. But the attitude of me making the decision is the attitude not of the circumstances of some activity like shopping and then there's me, the shopper.

[13:15]

No. I'm there before the supermarket. I'm there before. I walk into the supermarket and now I'm going to choose what to buy rather than the supermarket appears in all of its splendor, and then I'm there. And I'm there. I'm born of the advent of all these products. And I'm born, perhaps, as a shopper now. Now, the samadhi I'm talking about is a samadhi where you see yourself born when you arrive at the supermarket. You see yourself born. You receive. You receive. All the stuff in the store, okay, comes to you. This is like in this text, you know, Dogen wasn't taught, the person who wrote this, Dogen, he wasn't big on supermarkets. You know, they had markets in those days, but he didn't go shopping much.

[14:19]

People brought food to his monastery. So he's talking about the earth and the grass and the trees and stuff. The earth and the grass and the trees come and you receive them. And in the awareness of the receiving of them, you receive yourself. But if you're in the marketplace, in the awareness of all these market equipment, all these market facilities, as they arise, you witness, you're aware of your birth. You're aware of yourself being born because of all these things being given to you. So you're kind of like receiving this stuff. And when you have that view, when you have that awareness of receiving your function, then it turns the other way. And then you give it back. So first you receive, and then you employ. Or first you receive yourself, and then you're employed. so like it says below the wind and water elements made back to you you receive them and then you turn around and go up you know go out to them so you're working you're working here you're helping all the products and all the products are helping you but if you're there before the products

[15:46]

there before the commodities, before the shopping items, if you're there before, then you usually... then you practice shopping on this stuff. And then you decide what to do. Rather than all this stuff telling you what to do. It's a different view. And it can be seen that way. That when you see certain stuff, it tells you what to do as a shopper. you buy me it says don't buy me the things are helping you become a shopper and when you see how the things are helping you become a shopper okay this is the samadhi and then when you see that then it's not you shopping anymore it's the person that's made by the whole situation now helping the situation which made her This samadhi is also, it also says that to enter that, in some sense, to enter this samadhi, or to be in this samadhi, is to sit upright.

[16:50]

Sit upright is to drop off body and mind. Oh, hardly sit and drop away body and mind. What does that mean? It means that you enter the situation, but I should say... You're in the situation, but you don't bring yourself to the situation. You're in the parking lot. You're in your car. You're in your house. You're in your house, you're in your car, you're in the parking lot, you're in the store. But each situation you're in, your body and mind drops off. Body and mind drop off by you simply sitting. How do you simply sit? What does that mean? You give up discursive thought. You get to give up discursive thought because everything helps you give up discursive thought. If you don't see that everything's helping you give up discursive thought, then you hold on to discursive thought, which means you hold on to your body and mind, which means your body and mind doesn't drop off, which means you're sitting, but you're not wholeheartedly sitting.

[17:53]

You're half-heartedly sitting and almost wholeheartedly holding on to the discursive position, but not even wholeheartedly discursively thinking, really. You're kind of half-heartedly practicing if you want to practice and half-heartedly shopping and half-heartedly discursive thinking. You're still holding on to that position. Rana said to me outside, she said, well, if you just sit and thus drop away body and mind, then you wouldn't really, it wouldn't really necessarily have to be sitting. Can you say something like that? Right. It wouldn't be sitting, necessarily, because you drop away the posture. You're not holding to the posture. So upright sitting doesn't really have anything to do with sitting. What we mean by sitting, this is difficult, I know, but what we mean by sitting is dropping off body and mind, or body and mind dropping off is what we mean by just sitting.

[19:00]

sitting which most people do and then they're just sitting which the buddhas do and just sitting means there's just sitting it isn't in other words they're just sitting and there is just sitting in the midst of the awareness that this sitting is given by all the things around it if you're sitting in the woods then the leaves and the branches and the bark and the earth and the sky and the birds and the gorillas, they all are coming together, and then there's you sitting by all that. There's not you doing the sitting in just sitting. There's just sitting. Or if you're in a supermarket, the just sitting is all the things there are coming forth, including your body and mind. It's coming forth. When your body and mind comes forth, That's it. That's it. Not you bringing it forth.

[20:04]

Not you holding it away. Just your body is there with everything else. That's just sitting. And then you've given up discursive thought. And that way of just sitting, that body, is body and mind dropped off. Doesn't have to be. the sitting posture though but we but in this particular school they make a little difficult by saying what they mean by just sitting is body and mind dropping off so what they mean by just sitting has nothing to do with sitting but they use sitting as a symbol or as an image that just sitting they use that image of dropping off body and mind they use a body image as a symbol for dropping off body and mind makes it a little tricky And that way of sitting is the situation in which you can most easily see your self-born aisles of the supermarket. Now, if you got into the supermarket discursively, then after you penetrate into the inner realm of the supermarket, you can stop and just stand there with up-discursive thought.

[21:18]

And you might try this on a day when you really don't have to come out of the supermarket with anything. When you really feel, okay, now I can go in the supermarket, and if I don't get anything, it won't be the end of the world. So just go in there. And then, San, go penetrate deeply into the supermarket. And maybe some aisle where nobody else is around, just stop and stand there. And just stand there. And just standing means not even, I should say practice just standing there, not even you doing the just standing. And you will, without fail, receive help and thus drop away body and mind. You will receive help from the linoleum and the stuff on both sides of you and the fluorescent lights. The whole situation will come to you, up you, Realize this samadhi. The second sentence in the second paragraph said, from the first time you meet a master without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, repentance, or reading scriptures, you should just wholeheartedly sit.

[22:34]

And that's drop-away body and mind. I was talking to some people about this this morning, and they said, well, does that mean that... You're not supposed to do these practices. The person who wrote this, you know, taught other, in other chapters of his works, he taught how to do incense offering, taught how to do bowing, how to do repentance, taught the importance of repentance. Saying not to do those practices? Well, obviously not. Translation is, he's just saying these practices are not essential. So, Just one way to say it would be that these practices aren't essential. What's essential? Just sitting in the midst of the samadhi. That's what's essential. Or another way to put it is you don't have to be engaging in these other practices. All you got to do is just sitting in the samadhi.

[23:36]

That's all you have to do. But another way to put it is that when you're doing these practices, You must be doing this just sitting. So while you're bowing, you must be doing just sitting. While you're offering incense, you must be doing just sitting. While you're shopping, you must be doing just sitting. While you're tap dancing, you must be doing just sitting. When you're smashed on the sidewalk with a broken leg, you must be doing just sitting. When you're having an operation, you practice just sitting. you're being born you practice just sitting and when you die you practice just sitting you practice just sitting you are aware of being born and how are you born you're born by everything that's everything that's happening and everything that's happening is enlightenment coming to you through everything And you're receiving Buddha's enlightenment through everything, which is the same as you receive your life through everything.

[24:39]

And then, once you receive it, then you employ it. Once it's given to you, you give it away. Or, once it's received, it's given away. You're there. The person is there. There is a person there. But this person is never before what happens or after. Samadhi. Anyway, who goes into the supermarket, walks down the aisle, stops and exhales? Who does that? Well, you do that. Do you notice when you're exhaling in a supermarket? Most people don't. Most people don't just like... Most people go in and out of supermarkets without having one good exhale. Like, you know, one well-attended exhale. Like, okay, here I am. Yes. And inhale. most people go in the store already born before they get there and they're just this person's already been born doesn't die during the whole time at the supermarket doesn't get born during the whole time at the supermarket so even if it's a supermarket that has just what you need and you do really well and get just what you wanted you thought and everybody says you're a great shopper still that practice of shopping is not essential essential what's essential is that you

[26:06]

wholeheartedly sit and drop away body and mind in the shopping practice. You do, then you'll be able to see, then you'll be able to have this awareness of being born in the advent of everything in the moment. Wherever you are, however you are in this samadhi, of the samadhi, that all the buddhas say is the way to enter enlightenment and that's what this is about it's about the samadhi he goes on to talk about more in more detail about how everything helps and how you help everything in order to enter into the realm of understanding how everything's helping you and how you're helping everything we must give up discursive thought we must give up grasping and seeking.

[27:10]

We must just stand or just sit or just breathe. As long as we're holding on to any kind of sense of controlling what's happening, that blocks our opening to the samadhi. Even when we open to the samadhi and understand it, it's still not something, as the scripture says, it's still not something which is perceptible. This whole process that we're talking about here, that you can enter into, by which you are by everything, this process by which you are realized by everything, this process by which you are born and realized by everything in each moment and by which everything is realized by you, this process is inconceivable. What? Even though it's inconceivable, this person is talking to you about it. You're about an inconceivable realm that you can enter and live in.

[28:19]

freely and fully. And again, in that realm, it will be now a matter of your life will be receiving and giving. It will no longer be having already and losing or giving away. You don't have anything already. You give up everything you have and then you receive. And that receiving also is giving. It then goes on to say, when even for a moment, when even for a moment you express the Buddhist seal. Now what's the Buddhist seal? It's a sitting posture? No. It's dropping on body and mind. The Buddhist seal is seeing, is the awareness, is being settled and certain of life being born of the advent of everything that's coming.

[29:28]

That's a Buddhist seal. You express the Buddhist seal even for a moment in your three activities, in your three actions. The three actions are body, speech, and thought. So while you're talking, express the Buddhist seal. How do you express the Buddhist seal while you're talking? How do you do it? Or rather, how is it expressed while you're talking? I'm talking now. How is the Buddhist seal expressed while this speech is going on? What? That would be it, like to... To let everything that's around me, let the arrival of everything around me be my speech. Not I'm sitting over here talking to you and I'm making this talk happen, but I let all of you and everything be the birth of my speech.

[30:33]

Then the Buddha seals on my speech. My posture too is not something that I have and then I now reenact over and over. discursive posture. That's the posture which is not just sitting. That's the posture which I do. Only, yes. Let's move on. We're on speech and body now, okay? There's three, right? Can you wait for the third one? So the next one is your posture. When your posture is not you doing it, but just your posture. When your posture is just your posture, when you give up discoursing on your posture, running back and forth between you and your posture, when there's just a posture, then you see that this posture is born of all things. And then your posture has the Buddhist seal. You all got postures all day long.

[31:36]

We have to renounce or give up the usual approach to our posture. I do the posture. this deluded approach of, I make this posture, and I'm scared of how well I did this posture, if I made the right posture. No. It doesn't matter what the posture is, really. Whatever posture it is, is coming from the advent of all things, and that posture is the Buddhist seal, has the Buddhist seal on it. And then one more, we're going to have the Buddhist seal on all of our thoughts, all of our mental phenomena. Now, some people think, I thought that, I felt that. Now, a lot of people know that they really don't go around, I'm going to now feel happy. I'm going to now stop hating this person. A lot of times people say, I hate that person or I like that person, but a lot of people can see that when they like somebody, it's not something they actually do. They're not in control of that, but they still go around not noticing that and think, okay, I'm going back and forth between liking you and not liking you.

[32:42]

Earlier today I like you, now I don't like you. You can still sort of be that foolish, right? And think that you actually are doing this liking and disliking. You can't not like certain things. I mean, you know, certain things come up to you and boom, you just like them. You just cannot stop yourself. In the advent of certain things, you are a liking person. In other situations, in the advent of certain things, you are now born as somebody who dislikes. You're not in charge. of your mind. Your mind is something that's born in the advent of everything at that moment that you have a particular mind. When you see that, when you appreciate that, or even when you don't appreciate that, but that way of being, of living in the advent of all things, the mind born that way is the mind that has the Buddhist seal. And by the Buddhist seal, also another translation of this is Buddha mudra. Whatever posture the Buddha's in, this posture is born of all things. So when the Buddhist seal is expressed in body, speech, and thought, then what happens?

[33:53]

The whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddhist seal. But that's quite logical that that would happen, you see, because what's happening here, it's everything, the entire phenomenal world is coming, is arising now. And that entire phenomenal world that's arising is giving birth to your body, your speech, and your thoughts. And the awareness of that and the imprint of that is is exactly now all the things which gave birth to this, now the same thing happens to them. Buddha's seal happening on your body, and when the Buddha's seal happens on your body, it resonates back to everything that gave your body birth. So your body, together with all the other bodies, now makes every other body. So in all bodies, the entire world gets marked by this same thing.

[34:57]

entire sky turns into enlightenment. Everything turns into enlightenment. At this place, at this posture, at this breath, at this voice, at this thought, there's this enlightenment. Maybe I should stop for a little while to see if you have any comments or questions or something about this. Before I do, I just want to mention that down below it says, remember it says, it goes into more of this wild mutual assistance that's going on here, this incredible beneficial resonance between you and enlightenment. And not just you and enlightenment, but you and the enlightenment of all things. It's not just between you and the enlightenment of a Buddha. It's between you and the enlightenment of everything.

[36:00]

And that means the enlightenment of everything means like how everything is your enlightenment, but also the enlightenment of every little particle, every little part of everything, too. That resonance is discussed here. And then it says, but all this does not appear within perception. This is not something you're thinking about. This is inconceivable. So we're talking now about the inconceivable samadhi, which makes the inconceivable liberation. But it includes, you may be happy to hear, all kinds of conceivable liberations. And all the conceivable liberations is also part of the phenomenal world that gives birth to you. But some of those conceivable liberations exclude this inconceivable. They can't encompass this inconceivable process. And what enlightenment really is, is not me being enlightened or you being enlightened. Enlightenment is how all of you enlighten me and how that enlightenment, which is all of you enlightening me, resonates back to all of you.

[37:04]

This way that we're mutually helping each other is enlightenment itself. But we can't see. We can have some story about it, but I can't keep track of how you're all helping me and how I'm helping you all and how you're helping each other. I can't keep track of that, but that intensely thorough bond between us all is enlightenment. And this samadhi is about that enlightenment, this awareness of that kind of enlightenment. So this is a samadhi of an inconceivable enlightening process. Was there a comment or question? Edmund? Edwin? You're in the aisle? Okay. Is Nigga the only one in the aisle? You and the tuna fish? It's a person there, okay? So you could say the person is inhaling and exhaling, but then it sounds like the person is doing the inhaling and exhaling.

[38:26]

So when you say, who is inhaling and exhaling, you might want two ways to hear that. One way would be, you know, where is the inhaling and exhaling happening? The other way to hear it is, who's in charge? Who's making the inhaling and exhaling happen? Obviously, you know, The person doesn't make inhaling and exhaling happen. Obviously, you have to have something around you for that to occur. You can't inhale in a vacuum. So, actually, you know, who is inhaling and exhaling? Inhaling and exhaling. Well, again, if you say, I'm inhaling and exhaling, that's sort of the discursive understanding of inhaling and exhaling, okay? But if you go back to your first question, who is inhaling and exhaling? We just stay there for a second. We say to answer that question will come when there's just inhaling and exhaling.

[39:29]

When there's just inhaling and exhaling, okay, that's like just sitting. And that will be the way to enter into the samadhi where there will be awareness of how this person is born of inhaling and exhaling. It's not that you're doing the inhaling and exhaling, but rather in the advent of an inhale, you're born. To switch from... Not so much to switch from the question of who is inhaling and exhaling. That's a perfectly good question. It doesn't necessarily mean we're already answering the question of, you know, I'm inhaling and exhaling. We're actually sincerely asking, who is inhaling and exhaling? Now, we may in the background think the answer to this question is going to be like some person's inhaling and exhaling. Somebody may, that may be in the background of that question. They're like, which person is inhaling and exhaling? Maybe you're just really just asking who is inhaling and exhaling like you don't think necessarily it's a person that who is not necessarily a person.

[40:31]

I'm saying the answer to the question who is inhaling and exhaling will be in just inhaling. In just inhaling we may see that we are inhaled or we are exhaled. Air and the earth uses us to exhale. We are exhaling resources for the world and inhaling resources for the world. Just like we actually are able to think of trees as doing us a favor, right? We think that the trees inhale for us. They inhale our carbon dioxide and then they exhale oxygen for us. They do that for us. for the trees and exhale for the trees? I would say yes.

[41:35]

Do we appreciate that? I would say I don't know. Depends on the person. So who gets to decide whether they appreciate that or not? I would say, again, that in the In just appreciating it or in just asking the question, there's a dropping off of body and mind. If you're trying to figure it out, if you are trying to figure out the answer to this question, that's not just asking it. Then you're shifting back into discursive thought again. I'm going to figure out the answer to that question. Ask the question, or I hear you ask the question, can I hear that question as hearing the question? And the answer is yes, sometimes I can. You don't have the question. You don't have anything to say yet. First of all, you're hearing. You don't have any smart thing to answer. You're just hearing. And that's okay with you. And when you can hear something, period, mind can drop off.

[42:43]

Our body-mind is dropping off. And then you can see. You can understand. Rather, not so much you understand, but the person who is this way, the person who is just sitting, this just sitting person. The just sitting person is the person who has given up discursive thought. This person will understand, can understand, can start to see being given an inhale and given an exhale. Given an inhale and then given exhale. Given an inhale by all of you And now I give you all an exhale. I'm giving an inhale by all of you and all the trees and all the flowers. I'm giving an inhale and now I give an exhale. See how that exhale, I can see, I understand how the exhale helps you all. Giving a vision of how I'm giving everything. Giving a vision of enlightenment, of how I'm born, of everything I'm given.

[43:48]

And then I immediately Give it back. It resonates back. Back and forth, back and forth. Automatically go back into discursive thought and try to express it? No. This is a big, you know, to give the, I don't know if it's skillful to give this answer, but I would say that in this realm you understand that this realm is inexpressible. However, you do speak. But what you speak, you don't think is expressed in the realm. What you speak is... What are you going to speak? In this realm, what are you going to speak? Huh? You're going to speak... Your speech is going to have a Buddhist seal. So what does that mean, your speech? How will you speak when your speech has a Buddhist seal? Huh? Yeah, concursively...

[44:49]

That's where you always are, actually, and when somehow you give up the discursive and sort of enjoy and realize the concursive, or concursive, and there's no such word yet, but anyway, when you realize that, then your speech comes out, but you don't think you're expressing the samadhi. express the samadhi and you understand you can't express the samadhi so all you're doing is just being a vehicle for this whatever speech comes that everybody's assisting you and you realize that that in some sense that speech is just something that everybody wants you to say so you say something but it's it's not like this is the samadhi because we just said you know before we sort of said this incense offering bowing chanting Buddha's name, talking, shopping, these things are not essential.

[45:56]

So whatever you're saying is actually born concursively, but nothing you say and nothing you do is itself essential. It's just everything is an opportunity to express the Buddha seal. Understand that? So what you're saying... Something needs to be said. Something will be said. And also sometimes there will be silence. Sometimes there will be a thought and sometimes there will not. But whatever it is, as this seal, it will be an opportunity for this mutual, for this resonance. And all the kinds of things will happen. But each one will be an opportunity for this samadhi. If we give up, discursive and again i say give up the discursive but if the discursive is given up and how the discursive is given up in wholeheartedly sitting but also wholeheartedly anything but we we're using sitting as as the main symbol of just doing something so fully that you're not doing it anymore it's just happening so

[47:12]

And that is due to everything, not just you. Speech may come. The whole world may collude in the creation of speech. And this speech will not express it. And they will be understanding that speech does not express it. Speech cannot express it, just like perception cannot get it. But there is this speech about how perception can't get it. well established that that's the story but that speech does not express it it just warns us away from trying to grasp what can't be grasped and it also brings our attention to how grasping does work so that we can look at it and honor it and let grasping just be grasping and when grasping is just grasping

[48:14]

then we have just grasping, and just grasping is body and mind dropping off. So when there's just grasping, period, there's giving up discursive thought, and you enter the samadhi. Rana? Yes. Samadhi is like love, yeah? Yeah, samadhi is like love, yeah. Enlightenment is like love. Yeah? Yeah, right. And all that that you just talked about, when it's really thorough, is inconceivable directions means throughout throughout space uh... six realms means the various kinds of situations that beings get into so like a little further down it says after we got this part about you know when the buddhist seals impressed on your on the three act actions of body speech and mind the entire phenomenal world joins in that so like again

[49:42]

The Buddhist seal on your speech is the entire world coming together. The Buddhist seal on your speech is how your speech is born of the entire world. The whole world comes together and makes your speech. So the way the whole world makes your speech is the way your speech makes the whole world. And when there's an understanding of how the whole world makes your speech, that understanding resonates back to everything that made it. So the entire phenomenal world joins that enlightenment. And again, that enlightenment is not just everything coming together and enlightening you. It's the resonance back from you being enlightened to everything that enlightened you being enlightened. It's the bond. It's this mutual assistance that's the enlightenment. Then it says, after that, Because of this, all Buddha Tathagatas as the original source, so they get to be the original source of this samadhi, okay?

[50:46]

Increase their dharma bliss. Somebody asked me about that too today. What does that mean? Can dharma bliss increase? Well, it's kind of like there's a certain amount of dharma bliss now, and then whenever anybody learns... Whenever the Buddha seal is expressed by your speech, that makes the Buddhas not exactly more happy, but there's a new variety of happiness. When Buddha sees you learning to speak and appreciate the Buddha seal on your speech, that's a happiness for the Buddha. It's like seeing a kid learn something. So it does sort of increase the Buddha's bliss for you to learn the samadhi. And then also, it renews their magnificence in the awakening of the way. So what's the Buddha's magnificence? The magnificence of the Buddha is beings awakening to the way.

[51:52]

That's what makes Buddha's magnificent. So when your speech is like this, when your speech is not you speaking, you speaking or you singing when it turns around it's not you doing anymore but the whole world coming forth and realizing your speech when it's like that the entire world is enlightened and all the buddhas get happy and this is the magnificence of the buddhas is that you your speech expresses the buddha seal that's that's the magnificence of the buddhas now some people think buddhas are pretty cute you know, golden and all that, stuff like that. But the real magnificence of the Buddha is that your body, your voice, and your thought would express the Buddha seal. That's the happiness of the Buddha. That's the diamond bliss of the Buddha. That's the magnificence of the Buddha.

[52:53]

And then it says, furthermore, all beings in ten directions in six realms, including the three lower realms, Okay? So the three lower realms are beings that are in, basically, hell. Beings that are super, super miserable and scared, overwhelmed by anxiety and fear and craving, insatiable desires, and driven, driven, driven, driven to make themselves even more and more insatiable and terribly torment. Beings in those states, including them, Okay? Including them, they obtain a pure body and mind and realize the state of great emancipation. Because in the samadhi, you are born, your speech, your thought, your body is born of all miserable beings. Nobody's excluded. There's nothing in the world that doesn't contribute to your birth. And when there's an understanding of it, this resonates back to all beings who contributed to you.

[53:57]

everything gives you life and when there's understanding of that that enlightens everything that helps you everything helps you when you understand that assistance that helping becomes mutual and it is the mutuality that is the enlightenment when everything helps you but you don't help everything that's not the broad awakening that's not anuttara samyak sambodhi that's not the supreme complete authentic enlightenment complete enlightenment is everything helps you and you help everything you understand you live the life of everything giving you life not just helps you but just gives you your life you live that you're in that samadhi and that samadhi then resonates back to all beings who help you including beings who are totally miserable who are totally miserable are helped to be that way You who are perhaps less miserable are helped to be that way.

[55:01]

But if you're less miserable and you don't realize the Buddhist seal, you're basically still miserable, relatively to what you would be when you understand how everybody helps you be sort of miserable. Everybody helps you practice discursive thought. Everybody supports you to practice discursive thought. You understand how everybody helps you practice discursive thought. You're not practicing discursive thought anymore. Or rather, the Buddhist seal is on your discursive thought because while you're practicing discursive thought, you've also given it up. So just like you can practice incense, bow, chant Buddha's name, practice repentance, shop, cook dinner, and also discursively think, you can do all those activities, all those activities, and the Buddhist seal can be on anything. So it can be on anything you can do. It can be on anything anybody does. And what the person may be doing is discursively thinking in hell.

[56:03]

How can I get out of this joint? That's how you get in hell, by the way. So that's the six realms are these lower realms, the three lower realms, and the three upper realms are human realm, divine realm, and semi-divine realm. These are six realms that You know, inferred like a summary or a simple summary of categories of existence, you have six. So all these beings are included in the samadhi. Nobody is excluded. Maybe some questions? Diego and Maya and Mary and Gloria. That should do it. Diego? What I don't quite understand is how a sense of self gets into this mode of being when you're in this samadhi. Can there be a sense of self when you're in this samadhi?

[57:10]

Yes. And the sense of self is one of the phenomena that comes forth And in the advent of the coming forth of a sense of self, you are born. If that sense of self changes, there may not be a sense that self keeps going. The sense of self may change, but there also may be a sense at a given moment, a sense of a self that doesn't change. Many people have a sense of a self that doesn't change. And that sense of a self that doesn't change often arrives in, you know, for human persons, a sense of a self that doesn't change is quite a common occurrence. Rather than fight it, if you can appreciate how this is one of the things that comes is a sense of self

[58:14]

that doesn't change. And also, either as part of that same sense of self, or you could have an auxiliary sense of self, a sense of self as being independent, and that the sense of self is not just a sense of self, but that there is a self, and that the self controls your thoughts and behaviors. All this is quite common phenomena for human persons, right? These are various phenomena which are part of our life. That isn't the perspective of these things coming and then me being born, the person being born and the arrival of these things. No, it's more like we already got these things and we're using these things and holding these things to live our life. That's the usual perspective. But it isn't that these things get eliminated. It's just that you no longer see them in this isolated way which drives craving and seeking and thirst. perspective on these things, but most of them can still be there.

[59:20]

Their harmful function is lost in the samadhi. Samadhi is also the understanding of how harmful functions are born, how harmful functions are given, not how you create them yourself, or how they come by your actual independent activity, but rather how they come through the illusion of your independent activity. So if you have the illusion of independent activity, you have misery. There is not really independent activity, so there is not really misery. So there can be an end to misery, just like there can be an end to the independently existent person. The same person which you think is independently existing can appear. It's just that now we see that that person is not independent, but it's born of the arrival of all things. Same person, just different view of the same person. In one case, you see how it's made. In the other case, you think it's already made.

[60:22]

And now this thing that's already made, you see what it does to the world. You don't see how the world makes it. You see how it messes with the world after it's already made. But you skipped over its birth. For now? Maya? Her question is about directly transmitted between teacher and disciple. Is that transmission of the state? It's not so much transmission of the state, like the teacher has the state and hands it over to the student, but rather the student-teacher have a relationship. And in that relationship, they realize the state. So the relationship, the teacher-to-student relationship in a sense, the relationship transmits the state. But it isn't that the relationship transmits the state from one to the other. It's that the way that they help each other is the state.

[61:23]

And when they're helping each other, then the state is being transmitted because the state is alive. So it's transmitted because now, in this moment, we have a moment of two people helping each other be enlightened. And both of them are born of each other. The teacher is born of the student, the student is born of the teacher. This kind of intimacy is the transmission of this teaching. This teaching is transmitted by a relationship which is just like the samadhi. So you have a student-teacher relationship which is the samadhi, and in that sense the samadhi is transmitted. Or you could say manifested and transmitted is the same thing. It's not going anyplace. It's been transmitted because it's been going on forever, and now it's happening now, too. So it seems to be transmitted. OK? Gloria? Pardon?

[62:24]

But it's the natural state of all. of everything already. So we already are experiencing the mind right now. The difference is that we don't realize it. We don't realize it. Right. So what is, how do we know we realize it? What is, what is that, it would seem to me that if, that what we're talking about is really the interdependent thing, being the object, everything. That's sort of like the science of ecology in a way. Yeah. And so it would seem to me, if I were in a state, if I were in a real life state of mind, that I would feel supported by all that I perceive and may perceive. And that of all, let's call it all being, maybe not human beings or things. So I'm supported by all these things. At the same time, I'm also part of that support because if I'm being supported, I'm obviously supporting everything else as well.

[63:35]

So I want to know, with that realization, with that place, it would seem to me that I would be in a great state of relaxation because there would be no tension. There'd be no, you know, this kind of negative or positive. I mean, I would not anymore feel Correct. You're right. You'd be very relaxed, and you wouldn't be anxious anymore. At that moment, anyway, of being like that, you wouldn't be anxious. You'd be very relaxed. And that brings me to that second question. Do people slip in and out of that state? Or is that something that people... I mean, I know that there are... I mean, I understand. I've heard that there are some beings that are there permanently. But, I mean, you wouldn't be holding this clap if you didn't think this was possible. But you can't... Right? I mean... I'm trying to... I'm trying to present this incredible, inconceivable liberation as something in such a way as to be accessible to you people. And going back to your original thing of this sounds like ecology to you, and basically we're starting by thinking about this teaching that sounds like ecology.

[64:50]

difference between this and ecology not necessarily a difference in this ecology but the emphasis here is to by yogic practice of samadhi which is where we already are anyway but somehow celebrating yogically celebrating and practicing with this teaching about how we're all ecologically together in the same household, we're going to shift gradually. We're going to think in such a way as to shift from just thinking about this interdependence to becoming interdependence. And it's true that when you become interdependence, you're really relaxed. However, you also said, how do you know? And when you're really relaxed, you don't worry about that anymore. When you're not relaxed, you want to know how you'd know if you were relaxed. this might be a fake relaxed you know i mean i mean i might be just kidding myself that i'm relaxed you know just i feel relaxed but i you know i'm worried that this isn't real who can tell me whether i'm really relaxed would somebody tell me and the buddha says yes you are really relaxed well you know i don't believe it well then you haven't become this teaching you haven't become ecology you haven't become interdependence you're still thinking about it so this samadhi is about how to train yourself to actually go from thinking about

[66:09]

how we're helping each other to be how we're helping each other. And when we're being how we help each other, you are relaxed, but you don't care if you're relaxed. That's real relaxation. You are relaxed, but you're not worried about how long it's going to last. You are relaxed, but you're not worried about whether you're going to tap into or fall out of it. You're really relaxed. You're so relaxed that you forget about time. So you don't worry about whether this is temporary. And this relaxation, as it says at the end of this, doesn't just happen when you're relaxed. It happens before and after you're relaxed. So when you're concerned for how long it'll last or who's there and who's not, this is not real relaxation. Real relaxation is everybody's there already and there's no beginning or end to this. This is beginningless enlightenment, endless beginningless helping each other. And now the question is how to become that.

[67:10]

And do I think people can become that? Well, yes, we can become it because we already are. And do I think that we can become what we already are? That's what we're here for, is to become what we really are already by this practice. Okay? Now, Gloria, since you so kindly postponed your thinking, can you wait till next week? You can? So we'll start with Gloria. Will you come next week? You will? I hope so, because we're waiting for you. I looked around the room, and I didn't see Fran. I thought, oh, no, she didn't come. We're going to start with her question. So thanks for coming, Fran, and thanks, Gloria, for coming to ask your question, okay? So we'll continue this next week to try to integrate the realm of inconceivable enlightenment with the realm of conceivable Berkeley.

[68:02]

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