You are currently logged-out. You can log-in or create an account to see more talks, save favorites, and more. more info

Awakening Through Interconnectedness in Zen

(AI Title)
00:00
00:00
Audio loading...
Serial: 
RA-01233

AI Suggested Keywords:

AI Summary: 

The central thesis of this talk explores the concept of "ultimate concern" within the context of Zen teachings, specifically focusing on the aspiration for all beings to be free from suffering. Enlightenment and suffering are seen through the lens of understanding the nature of the self and the delusion of separateness. This understanding is illustrated through the story of the Buddha's awakening and the teaching of Dependent Co-Arising (Pratityasamutpada). The talk emphasizes the practice of sitting upright as a means to transcend self-delusion, and explores the nuances of interconnectedness and the absence of self through narratives from Zen history and philosophy.

Referenced Texts and Concepts:

  • Dependent Co-Arising (Pratityasamutpada): Key Buddhist teaching about the interdependent nature of existence, used to illustrate the concept of how the self arises and dissolves.

  • Heart Sutra: A fundamental Buddhist text referenced in questioning the perception of form and emptiness, crucial to the discussion of understanding reality beyond dualities.

  • Avatamsaka Sutra: Mentioned in a context to emphasize the depth of Buddhist teachings, showcasing Zen practice's challenge to intellectual knowledge.

  • Book of Serenity: Referenced to highlight the transformation of understanding through Zen practice, suggesting the potential for ordinary deluded beings to become great sages.

  • Story of Su Dong Po: Used to illustrate how personal experiences and relationships within Zen teaching can lead to deeper understanding and realization.

  • The concept of "Uprightness": Emphasized as a state of being that transcends dualistic thinking and aligns with the Dharma, representing true selflessness and compassion.

  • "Tar Baby" Metaphor: Story used to depict the entanglement in ego and delusion, and the importance of not grasping onto pain or identity to experience liberation.

Through these references, the talk intertwines Zen philosophy and practice, inviting contemplation on how the teachings inform the perception of self and world.

AI Suggested Title: Awakening Through Interconnectedness in Zen

Is This AI Summary Helpful?
Your vote will be used to help train our summarizer!
Photos: 
AI Vision Notes: 

Side: A
Speaker: Tenshin Anderson
Possible Title: Sun. Dharma Talk
Additional text: MASTER

@AI-Vision_v003

Transcript: 

basic question to all of us, and that question is, what is your ultimate concern in this world of suffering? in this world of joy, what is your ultimate concern? It is in the context of that question that I speak. Or perhaps I should say, It is my vow to speak in the context of that question.

[01:02]

Sometimes I forget that question and speak anyway. That usually encourages me to go back to the question and speak from there. My ultimate concern I can say in many ways. One way is that I am ultimately concerned, and ultimate in the sense of in the end of my life and the beginning of my life, my concern is that all living beings will be free of suffering, will be happy and free. And me too. I hope that for me.

[02:06]

And to be free from suffering, one way, another way to put it is to not take oneself too seriously. The source of our suffering is taking ourselves too seriously. you could say, or not taking yourself seriously enough. But not taking yourself seriously enough is another way to take yourself too seriously. Another way to say this is that we suffer because we

[03:32]

we take our separation too seriously, or we believe in our separate existences. We think that's true. This is another way to talk about the fundamental delusion at the base of our suffering. So my ultimate concern is that I myself, with all beings, will not take myself too seriously, will not believe in our separation, will become free of the idea that we have separate existences. And again, another way to say it is, that freedom from suffering comes from understanding the way the self really exists or comes from understanding how we're really related.

[04:46]

Oh, and again, taking our separation too seriously is a fundamental delusion. but also to pretend as though we're not separated and there's nothing to that would also be too much. So I will speak of basically two steps in the process of liberation from suffering. The first step, actually both steps, can be seen in the story of Buddha's awakening. particularly the story of his awakening in one 24-hour period. Namely, one day he sat down. He sat still. He sat upright under a tree on the earth. And he vowed not to move until he understood the nature of the self

[05:56]

And when he finally was able to sit still, he entered into the world of Dharma where the appearance and disappearance, where the birth and death of the self appears, reveals itself. And he understood the self, how it comes to be born and dies, how it suffers, and he attained liberation from this cycle of misery, which is born of not understanding what the self is. By sitting upright and still, by standing upright and still, we are selfless.

[07:02]

it's a selfless act of faith in the Buddha's teaching. And by this kind of upright stillness and silence, we enter Buddha's realm. And therein, the Buddha's teaching is revealed to us. And the teaching that is revealed is, you know, the traditional word for it I almost choke on. It's called Dependent Co-Arising. In Sanskrit, it's Pratityasamutpada. This is the name that the Buddha gave to the way the self appears and disappears. I like to abbreviate it DCA. It's a little easier. By sitting upright, we enter the world of DCA. we enter the dependently co-arising world, the world of truth.

[08:16]

By sitting upright, we leave the world of self-delusion and enter the world of self-enlightenment. or enlightenment about what the self is. Sitting upright is a selfless act. It is a selfless practice. It means giving up all ideas of what sitting upright would mean. It means being balanced. And although it's a selfless act, we need actually to see not just selflessness, but we need to see how the self appears. We need not only to see that the self is empty, but that emptiness takes the form of a self.

[09:35]

Enlightenment is not a general phenomenon. It focuses on the self. Delusion is not a general phenomenon. It focuses on the self. So by sitting upright in the ordinary world of delusion, we're sitting in the world of where we carry around oneself we live in a world with the burden of oneself and we act upon with this carrying this self we act upon and witness all things in the world we witness all people all plants mountains and rivers, we witness them and act upon them while carrying the Self.

[10:44]

This is called, quotes, delusion. By being upright in this process of delusion, we promote a switch, a turn, a transformation, a conversion, from carrying oneself and doing things, from carrying oneself and acting upon and witnessing things to the Dharma world, where instead of acting upon things, we act upon the self. What self? the self which appears, which is born in the advent of all things. We switch from having a self and acting upon things.

[11:55]

We switch from having a self and seeing things to acting upon a self, which is simply nothing but the coming forth of all things. we switch to acting upon a self which is nothing but the world's child. We switch from us doing the thinking about the world to the world thinking through us. When the world thinks through us, we have right thought. We switch from we act upon the world to the world acts through us. When the world acts through us, our action is right action, and we have no idea of what is right action.

[13:02]

Welcome to Green Gulch. Witnessing and acting upon the self in the advent of all things is enlightenment. So we need to use our thinking in a reverse or opposite way. The first step in that is to be still, always, wherever we are, to not move. We're constantly going through change, but every moment we're present. And in that presence we enter the world where the world comes forth to create us. And it comes forth to create oneself.

[14:05]

All selves come forward to create oneself. All the other selves create oneself. And you can witness that and act from that self. you can trust deeply the Self which is born of all things. This is the Self which dependently co-arises, dependently with all things. But in both worlds of delusion and enlightenment there is one thing similar, and that is oneself. The difference between delusion and enlightenment, then, is that in the world of delusion we already have a self and go to work. And in the world of enlightenment there is no self, and then there is because of the world. Our acts in the world of Dharma are not our personal acts anymore, and yet they happen at a person.

[15:14]

It's the same person seen from two sides. It's the same world seen from two different ways. The funny thing is, not the funny thing, but one funny thing is that When we carry the self, we come to the world which is already finished, which is complete, which is, I would say, dead. But it actually wasn't there before we got there. Because we were already carrying the self, as soon as we meet the world, we make it our own. And as soon as we make it our own, it's done. But actually, the world isn't done. It's constantly being created.

[16:26]

And when you don't have a self there yet, the creative world, the world of creation is coming forth, and then there's a self. But when you already have a self, you keep meeting a dead world. Because you're done... You kill the world before you meet it. What we need to do is turn this process around and make the world undone. We need to make the world unfinished. So I I mentioned the other day this French artist, this man wrapped in the cloth of being French, who goes around and wraps things.

[17:35]

Like he started by wrapping that beautiful bridge in Paris with a big white piece of canvas. A living work of art that had become dead and he wrapped it again. He didn't remodel it, he wrapped it. He touched it again and made people wonder, what is under that cloth? What is that bridge anyway? Why is he wrapping it? Since we carry the self, we wrap everything with the self and smother it We smother everything because of the self we're carrying. We need to actively imagine and, again, wrap the world. We need to wrap the world to take off the wrapping. We need to wrap the world with the world coming forth to create itself, the world coming forth to create oneself.

[18:48]

We need to wrap the world with Buddha's teaching of dependent co-arising. Everything must be wrapped this way, must be clothed again with creativity. A creativity which touches but doesn't change, that doesn't harm, but brings the life of things back. Everything you meet, you wonder. You wrap it with, what is this? You don't know. It isn't done. With your own thinking, you wrap your own thinking with, what kind of thinking is this? You touch your own thinking again. without harming it.

[19:52]

You don't change it. You don't improve it. You don't squash it down or lift it up. You just wrap it again with, what is it? In other words, you don't do anything to your thinking, and you don't do anything to the bridge or anything to the mountains. You just wonder, what is it? How has the world come forth thus? What is it that thus comes? Now, before my eyes. Even though we've already decided before we asked that question, we know what it is, we've killed it already. Okay, fine. Now wrap it again with an open mind. And again, if you do this, if you do a thing called wrapping it, that's not an open mind.

[21:11]

You wrap it by simply being present and upright and wondering. You don't come to a conclusion. you act upon the self which is appearing moment by moment. You watch your own action from the stillness and you see that this actor has no power but to do as the world tells So we just finished five days of sitting and during that time we spent most of our time considering how to be upright.

[22:35]

And again, uprightness, this uprightness is not something you can do to yourself either. When you stop doing things to yourself, you're naturally upright. That's how to be upright. Just stop messing with yourself. You're already upright. And the way you already are, before you do anything, before you even have a self, this is the way you really are. And this is the self... which we call kanjizai, which is the bodhisattva of great compassion, which is the way the self really exists. It exists exactly in its uprightness.

[23:37]

It's never a little bit ahead or behind itself. It's never a little bit to the right or left of itself. And the fact that it's itself... The fact that the self is itself and nothing more or less is exactly the selflessness of it. You can use the self, but you cannot use the fact that the self is the self. You can conceive of the self, but the self being the self is inconceivable and always the same and has no abode. And because it has no abode, it can respond appropriately in each situation to teach all beings how to be free from taking themselves too seriously. So the way to lift this covering that we put over the world by projecting our finished self on the world and making the world a finished, already created place is to witness the advent of all things, is to think on the side of the creating world.

[25:35]

is to think on the side of the advent of all things, is to deal with the given world. In the given world, again, there is no alternative to it. To think you have an alternative to what's happening is to not receive the world gift. And to not receive the world's gift is not to witness the coming forth of everything in the world and to see the birth of the true Self, which is simply the coming forth of the whole world. Now sometimes we call that whole world nature. And it is. Nature is included in the world.

[26:38]

Mountains, hills, valleys, oceans, sky, birds and trees. But the world also includes tires, hubcaps, gasoline, rice, wristwatches, recycling, pollution, All these things are coming forth to create our Self. We need to witness that our Self is the advent of all these things, that all these are the world, all these are the universe. We are great artists, but we're artists of such high speed and such great skill that we act and create before we even notice what we're doing.

[27:41]

We need to catch ourselves in the act of creating the world. We need to turn around and watch the process of creation. Last night at dinner, a friend told me a quote from Christopher Marlowe. Just a little snippet from a poem called, I think, The Garden. Annihilating all that's made to a green thought in a green glade.

[28:42]

Wrap the world that's made. Wrap the world that's already done. Wrap it. Clothe it. And in a way, annihilate what's made already. Don't worry. Start with something like a rock that you're not worried about. Wrap it again. You think a rock is done? Wrap it again. And gradually work yourself up to, with lots of endowments and grants, wrapping mountains. Wrap the sky. Wrap the moon. Wrap it again in a way that doesn't harm it. Touch it. Touch it again in a way that brings it back to life. Touch it in a way that brings a green thought in a green shade.

[29:53]

Under the Elmwood tree with Christopher Marlowe and Bill Shakespeare. Enter their world. They were wrapping things again all the time. Since we're wrapping things, let's wrap again. We wrap everything with the self. Now, wrap it again with the coming forth of all things. They're right there. All you've got to do is sit still and keep your eyes open, and the wrapping will unfold right before you. we need to switch, make the big switch from me first, world second, to world first, me second.

[31:14]

Well, already world's me's first and world's second, so we got that down. Don't worry, you won't forget how to do it. And from that world, now, Let's do a world first, me second. With your own thinking, when you're meditating, your own thinking. First of all, usually it's me thinks. And I, conscious being, think of something. And what I think of must be done, otherwise I can't think of it. I can only think of these finished objects. And I can think of finished objects. And this is the world of birth and death and misery. Now, what we need to do is think of the activity of thought. The activity of thought is not mine or yours.

[32:30]

The activity of thought, the ability to think, is the action of the world. When you think of objects, you think of finished objects. Because if they're unfinished, you can't think of them. But if you think of your ability to think, your ability to think is always unfinished. And your ability to think is the action of the world. Excuse me for saying it's a world-class act. It's going on all the time. The whole world supports your ability to think, and it even lets you think of things that are finished, that are dead. We'll continue to do that. In other words, have a self that thinks of things, but you can turn around and look at the ability to think, and the ability to think is the coming forth of all things.

[33:31]

Thinking of the coming forth of all things is called thinking of not thinking. All the things that come forth are not thinking. Think of the world coming forth. It's the same as thinking, what is this? Who is this that I see now before me? What is it that thus comes? And asking this question in uprightness, Not leaning forward and trying to answer the question and get a hold of what it is. Who is this? Oh, I gotcha. Or who is it? And it's not that. Couldn't be that. No, it's not rejected or concluded. It could be anything moment by moment. Always open to be surprised. So in the book of Serenity it says something like, one touch and lead turns into gold.

[35:16]

One word and an ordinary deluded person turns into a great sage. When you know that there's really no difference between an ordinary person and a sage, that they're fundamentally the same, and that lead and gold are really not two, when you understand that, then what need do you have of a touch or a word? Well, you don't. When you understand that gold and lead are not two, you don't need to re-wrap the world anymore. You see, you don't need to. The wrapped world, in the wrapped world, lead is wrapped in the lead package and gold is wrapped in the gold package.

[36:25]

And because they're wrapped that way, you cannot understand that they're not two. You need to wrap them again. Wrap them in the same wrapper. When you understand that they're not two, when you wrap them in the one wrap, then you don't need to touch the lead to make it into gold. When you wrap the Buddhas and the deluded people together, you don't need to say anything. So when you know that, you don't need to worry about the touch. But if you don't know that, then I say, what touch is it that causes this transformation, which leads you to see that they're the same? What is that touch? And that touch is the touch that all the Buddhas have done to all the living beings that are suffering.

[37:38]

The touching they've been doing for quite a long time. That touch, that word, is the word which Buddhas have uttered to help us wake up. To wake up. to the fact that we're the same as the Buddhas and don't need to be touched and don't need any words. But what word is that? What touch is that? How do you re-wrap? How do you clothe the world with your words and your body, your hands? How do you do it? What kind of touch is this? This is the question which you ask from being upright. You wonder. So here's a story about some touches. It's about a Chinese poet.

[38:44]

One of the greatest. His name was Su Dong Po. Su Dong Po. He was not only a great poet, but he was kind of smart, too. Not all poets, I guess, are necessarily smart, but he was smart. And one of the things he did when he was a little boy was he memorized the entire Buddhist canon. And when he became an official and had what we call the privilege of traveling around, visiting various institutions around the countryside, he would visit Buddhist monasteries and he would ask the monks questions to entertain himself with their inability to answer. Like he would go up to a monk and say, do you know the Avatamsaka Sutra? Do you people know the Avatamsaka Sutra? Well, those monks did. Do you know the Heart Sutra?

[39:48]

You don't even know that. Well, they knew that too. So he would ask them about something they knew about. And then he would say, Avatamsaka Sutra is a very big sutra, thousands of pages long. And he would say to them something like, well, what is the teaching expounded in the last five paragraphs of chapter 43? And most monks, not having memorized the entire canon, would not be able to answer. And he, because of his superior intelligence, considered them to be lazy, incompetent practitioners and gradually got disinterested in Buddhism and disgusted with the monks. And one day one of his friends told him that there was a monastery called Jade Springs and there was a teacher there a Zen teacher there that was very learned and probably could answer any questions he asked. So he went to the monastery.

[40:51]

And usually in China and India, in the Buddhist tradition and most other traditions of study of the self, when you come to the monastery you hit a wooden plaque and the guest prefect comes out and escorts you into the receiving hall, and you meet the teacher or teachers. Sudham Pole, the great scholar, poet, and official, just rode right in to the monastery, rode up to the main hall, like this hall here, walked in, walked up to the Buddhist statue, sat with his back to the Buddhist statue and waited to see who would come. And after a little while, the master of the temple came and bowed reverently to the great official and said, Your Honor, we are greatly pleased to receive the visit of such a high official.

[42:08]

May I ask, humbly, what is your name? And Su Dengpo said, my name is Mr. Scales. And the Zen teacher said, oh, that's an unusual name. How did you get that? And Su said, I got that name because I weigh all the eminent teachers in China the humble monk gave off, from his body and mind, an ear-splitting yell, which I won't reenact for you because I have an amplifier and could split your ears. But anyway, that's what he did at that time. And Suryongpo was speechless, and his arrogance

[43:16]

temporarily crumbled. And he thought again, maybe there's something to Buddhism after all. Because this yell was not in any of the scriptures. There is no scripture that had that yell. At least he hadn't read that. Actually, be careful because some of those scriptures, if you open them, might happen. This is called a special transmission outside the scriptures, which is characteristic of the Zen school. So he was somewhat encouraged, and then he got transferred to another part of China, and he made friends with another Zen teacher named Foyin, which means Buddha's words or Buddha's voice. And they became very close.

[44:18]

People said they were like brothers. And they studied the Dharma together happily for quite a while. One day, the great official came to visit his friends in his ceremonial official robes. They were magnificent. blue and green silk with gold thread. And he wore his official jade belt, you know, with pieces of jade like about the size of pieces of toast. And his friend and teacher said, oh, venerable official, I'm so sorry we don't have adequate seating for you. All I have is this simple cushion on the bare floor. And Su said, It's okay.

[45:23]

I'll sit on you. And Fo Yin said, Okay, I'll make you a deal. I'll ask you a question. If you can answer it well, You can use me as a chair. If not, give me your belt. I can use that to rebuild a meditation hall. So Su said, okay, ask your question. And his friend Foyin said, you know the Heart Sutra? Of course, Sudompo did. He said, yeah. Yeah. So in there it says that form is not different from emptiness, and emptiness is not different from form. Right? Right. Well, in that case, if you use me as a chair, wouldn't you be clinging to the form side and forgetting about the emptiness, the essential truth of emptiness?

[46:29]

But if you consider the emptiness, what will you sit on? but will hold your august body up." Su was stumped. Foy Yun said, may I have my belt? After that, Su started studying even more intensely, meditating all the time, always being present and upright, studying the scriptures even more. He really got serious. And he went to visit another teacher who he heard was very compassionate. This teacher lived in the temple, the monastery of the ascending dragon.

[47:31]

The teacher was Jung Tzu, and Tzu came to him and said, I beg you, Master, please enlighten this ignorant man. And this compassionate being started yelling at Tzu, saying, how dare you come and ask me for dead words? I can do nothing for a person like you who knows so much about Zen. You should go study nature and learn to hear the teaching of rocks and grass and walls and tires, which they'll invent soon. Get out. Su was shaken deeply and staggered out of the hall, got on his horse, and just let his horse take him home.

[48:41]

As he traveled through the woods and the mountains, he came to a waterfall. he heard the sound of the crashing water striking his ear. And he finally understood the teachings of the Buddha. He finally witnessed the Sioux in the advent of all things. he witnessed the Tsu Dung Po that is born in the coming forth of all the things of nature. And he woke up. And that night, acting upon this self which he witnessed, he wrote a famous poem.

[49:58]

It goes, the sound of the valley stream is the Buddha's golden tongue. The colors of the mountains are all the luminous pure body. Tomorrow, how can I recite the 84,000 verses that stream through me tonight? the old-time Buddhas past eons living in the mountains and the forests, being educated by the coming forth of all things, watching themselves appear and disappear in the advent of the world.

[51:06]

Only then did they unite with the way And they could use the mountains and the rivers for their tongue. And they could use the rain and the wind for their words to expound the great void. What touch is this? What word is this? please clearly observe the coming forth of this world as one self. If you're quiet and still, you will see. You will see yourself wrapping the world again without harming it.

[52:12]

Now, just so that I don't and you don't, so I don't take myself too seriously and you don't take me too seriously, of course I want to end with a silly song. This song was taught to me recently by a woman who may be in the audience. Una. Una, come on. Klaus, could you give me that mat, please? Yeah, could you put it over here, please? How does it look out there?

[53:44]

Oh shit. It looks like an ocean? Yeah. Okay. So should I start like we practiced? I'll do and then you do and then we do it together. Okay. Want to do it that way? Yeah. Or do you want to do it together and then... Let's do it that other way. I'll do it first and you do it first. Okay. She said we had to find the right note. Is that a good one? Why don't you do it? All right. I don't want to start too low. No, you don't want to start too low.

[54:54]

Okay, I'll just try. Oh, I got plenty of nothing. and nothing's plenty for me. Okay? Oh, I got plenty and nothing, and nothing's plenty for me. I got the song. No, excuse me. Sorry, sorry. Oh, I got plenty of nothing, and nothing's plenty for me. Got my song, got my Lord, got heaven the whole day through. Is that too low? It's okay? Is that okay? Okay. Okay. Oh, I got plenty of nothing, and nothing's plenty for me.

[55:57]

Got my song, got my Lord, got heaven the whole day long. Oh, folks with plenty of plenty. Gotta lock on the door. Afraid somebody's gonna rob them while they're out making more. More. What for? I got no lock on the door, that's no way to be. They can steal the rug from the floor, that's okay with me. Cause I think that I'm prized like the stars in the sky, all free. I got plenty of nothing. Uh-oh, that's too high. Okay, we'll try it. I got plenty of nothing, and nothing's plenty for me. I got the sun, got the moon, got the deep blue sea.

[57:04]

Old folks with plenty of plenty got to pray all the day. Seems with plenty you sure got to worry how to keep the devil away. away i ain't frightened about hell till the time arrives never worried long as i'm well never want to strive to be good to be bad what the hell i'm glad i'm alive Oh, I got plenty of nothing, and nothing's plenty for me. I got my Lord, got my Lord in heaven the whole day long. Got my man, got my love, got my song. Got plenty, got plenty, got plenty of nothing.

[58:06]

Do you have any questions? Thank you. Thank you. We have to find that out somehow. Somebody find that out, please. You know? Janet? The one thing that's similar about all different situations is uprightness. All situations

[59:09]

that you're in are never other than what they are. No experience is ever ahead of itself or behind itself. So if you're watching television and you're there that's the uprightness of the moment. You have to tell me whether you're appreciating the fact that you're there or not. I've been working on that, being really, like, saying, well, this is where I am, I'm watching television, and today it's more hours than is considered acceptable. LAUGHTER And I'm being afraid about it. LAUGHTER Uprightness means, you know, is the selflessness of each moment

[60:56]

It's the balance of each moment. Each moment is balanced. And to discover that balance in that presence and to, you know, actualize it is called being upright. And in that presence the world comes forth to create you. But it means you have to give up all alternatives to what's happening. You have to be in the world of no alternatives. And then you go forward in uprightness. If you think there's an alternative, then you're in the world of basically complaining. And uprightness is not complaining.

[62:05]

However, the fact that complaining is complaining is uprightness. So they say, you know, should you smoke while you're praying? No. Should you pray while you're smoking? Yes. Is uprightness integrity? Yes. It's integrity which has no It's not some fixed idea of integrity. It's the integrity of the moment. It's not your integrity from yesterday. It's not your idea of your integrity. It's who you are at this moment.

[63:07]

And no one knows what that is, including you. Yes? Would you please say more about your alternatives? It means not moving. It's the complete stillness and composure. without using anything or knowing anything about who you are or where you are.

[64:12]

It's using no justification for where you are. And yet everything supports you there. So the thing that everything supports is your uprightness. and your uprightness is to appreciate that everything's supporting you. But of course you can't think that as an object. You can't get a hold of everything. So that's why we say, think of what is not thinking. Think of everything coming forth, you can't think of that because that's your ability to think. So think of the fact that you have the ability to think. Then you tune into how everything supports your life moment by moment. But that's not something you can perceive, because you can only perceive things when you make them into little bite-sized limited packages, which you will continue to do.

[65:25]

Simultaneously, your ability to do that is given to you by all creation. and is in complete resonance with all creation and constantly sets you free from the fact that you're operating in a limited way with conceivable, graspable things. So you don't have to stop being a person who's going around grabbing things because your license and ability to do that is your uprightness and your integrity and your total your total empowerment by the world to be a limited person. You're allowed to be limited. You're allowed to think of yourself as a limited thing who thinks of limited things. That's compassion. You get to be you all the time. But if you don't feel like you're allowed to be you, then you don't accept compassion.

[66:31]

But when you feel like you're allowed to be like you are completely, then compassion is alive in you. Rick, could you talk more about stillness, touching on how the stillness you're talking about, I assume, is you can experience in activity, and also it's a stillness which allows you to be fluid. Yeah. Okay. So you said it. Well, I want more. That's just as far as I got. Thanks. Yeah, real stillness is a stillness of activity.

[67:38]

First time I understood what stillness was, was when I was, I went like this. It was in motion that I realized stillness. Before that, I would like, I would be sitting, and feel the stillness. And then I would get up from my sitting and feel like I was disturbed. So that was, that was a kind of stillness and it was really nice, you know. It was kind of green too and luscious and wonderful. But when I got up it got, it went poof. And it was there, it wasn't wrong and it was there but the way I thought about it got disturbed by my movement. And then one time I went like this I was moving, but every… all the way through it there wasn't… there was stillness, and I… it was in movement that I understood what stillness was. As a kind of… as presence? Well, that's the thing about it is it wasn't anything, you know, it's just I knew I was still.

[68:49]

I knew that all this wasn't really moving anything. But if there's any way by which you determine, you know, by this, by presence, by absence, by good, by... If there's anything that it depends on, then that stillness can be disturbed when you take that whatever it depends on away. So there's a mind, which we say that the bodhisattva has to have. It's a mind of no abode. So that you can go into any situation, it's the same mind. It's a changeless, unsupported, what do you say, a mind of no address. Because it's a mind of no address, it can be in any address. It can be in all these addresses. If it has an address, then there's some places it can't go. The mind of compassion has to be able to go everywhere. So it doesn't depend on this or that. And yet, it is the way we really are. It is kanji zai. It is the contemplation, the awareness of the way we really are.

[69:52]

In every moment... You are the way you are. And you are an aware being. So the conjunction of your awareness, your life, and the way you are, it's ungraspable, it's inconceivable, it's indestructible. Whatever comes up, it comes up with it, and when it goes down, it goes down with it. It doesn't depend on anything. It's just the nature of what's happening. And that doesn't move. And it tells you, you're not moving, even though you're shaking your head, you're not moving. Somebody's never moving. And because she's never moving, she goes with you everywhere. She never abandons you, and she never comes to you. She's just the way things are.

[70:54]

And no matter what happens, there's no way for her to leave us. She's too stupid to go away. Has no idea of how to get away. Or how to come. So she's just always here. So it's a changeless, a dressless... unsupported by anything in particular. It's the one who doesn't wish for anything other than this. And yet, this one heals the dead world and brings it back to life. Is this an attitude of mind? I still don't understand. I'm listening to you. It's an attitude of mind. I'm still groping. Well, you can go right ahead and grope. Okay. No problem. And the thing you're groping for is with you every step of the grope. It doesn't get more or less present no matter what you do. So what is it that's always with you even while you're thinking you understand or thinking you don't understand?

[72:00]

What is that? What about that? What about neither this or that? What about that? Can't say anything and yet we ask about it. What about this touch? This art that doesn't harm you at all You know, innocent means not harming, no harm. You don't do anything to what's happening. What is that? There's nothing you can say about it, but you can say whatever you want about it. So green's a nice thing to say about it. Because there's something about green which is kind of like, it's something to do with green. But it doesn't depend on green. It also can be red or purple. because it's not red or purple or green we can say it's green and really feel yeah we can also say nothing and say yeah we can say emptiness and people break into tears why we can say emptiness and they say yuck

[73:10]

So keep groping, no problem. Thanks. In the green shade. Yeah. Anything else today? Yes? And yet... And yet... I'm finding it's possible to have an awareness of what you're speaking of. Yes? And to lose the awareness. Yes. And it's a very painful process. Yes. I've been dancing with the tar being, like I got reacquainted with... Dancing with what? It's like dancing with the tar being. You end up getting all stuck on this thing, which is the self, the personality, and you have had it out here for a few minutes back. Do you have any advice on how to just be with that pain? How to be with that pain? Now, the pain that you're with is the pain that you got into by trying to grab it.

[74:21]

You know Tar Baby? Do you know Tar Baby? You know the Tar Baby? No? You don't know. You're not nodding your head. You don't know Tar Baby? I forgot your name. What's your name? My name? No, your name. So, my name? Joyce. Joyce. Do you know what the Tar Baby is? A tar baby is referring to a story. Do you know the story? You don't know the story? It's a story about a bear and a fox and a rabbit. And the bear and the fox are trying to catch the rabbit. But the rabbit's very smart. So they get a good idea of making a little tar baby. A piece of tar is shaped like a person. So the rabbit comes by and says hello to the tar baby.

[75:22]

But, of course, tar babies don't talk. So the tar baby doesn't say anything. And the rabbit says, I said hello to you. The tar baby doesn't answer. So he pokes the tar baby, gets his hand stuck in the tar. and then he tries to get his hand out of the tar by pushing on the tar baby to pull his hand out so he gets both hands in the tar then he tries to push with his feet to push out of the tar baby and then his feet are stuck and then he tries to use his head to get out so pretty soon he's all stuck in the tar baby that's the tar baby that he's talking about so now you're stuck in the tar he says that's a painful situation and you say what do you do then? is that what you said? What do you do with the pain of being stuck in the tar? Well, you do what you didn't do before. You do what you didn't do before. What didn't you do before? You don't touch it. If you don't touch it, it can't get you. But we're good at touching.

[76:26]

That's what makes us humans, right? That posable thumb. It's great. These are great things. So we want to touch and grab and massage and shape. We want to do that, right? Okay, fine. Keep doing it. Now you've been doing it, so here you are. Stuck in the tar. Now, don't touch it. Don't touch the pain. But don't touch the pain means just be stuck in the pain. You're touching it enough. Don't try to get away from the pain. So actually, touch the pain because you're touching the pain. Only because you're touching the pain, touch the pain. If you aren't touching the pain, don't touch it. But if you are touching the pain, then just touch it like you're touching it. And the touching of the pain, just like you're touching it, will release you from the pain. If you don't touch the pain, if you don't grab the pain, the pain can't grab you. But we want to grab the pain because we feel nervous if we don't grab it. So you grab the pain, the pain grabs you.

[77:29]

You grab death, death grabs you. You grab an address, death will find you. If you don't grab anything, nobody can find you. And there's something about you that doesn't grab anything. And that one's always quiet and still and not doing anything and has no death. Your life, life does not grab anything. Life does not grab. Life just lives. That's all it does. It lives only, and because it lives, it always transcends itself. It's always liberating itself. It's always fully itself. When it grabs something, it's like there's something other than itself. But there's nothing other than life. Life is infinite. It doesn't end. We die, but when we die, life doesn't die. But there's death. Death is also infinite. They both exist.

[78:30]

They play on each other. There's not one without the other. But they're both infinite. And neither one of them does anything. But if you try to use life to grasp, you kill life. Of course you can't, but you make it dead. You wrap it. You wrap it because you want to get a hold of it. So if you don't touch life... If you don't use light to grab things, then things won't grab you. So if you're in pain and you don't grab the pain, you just have the pain you have, touch the pain, just touch it enough to have it to the extent that it is there, then it won't get you anymore. But to touch the pain, just the right amount of touch, just touch that much, and not more or less, is the world of no alternative. And we... We have to give up the world of alternative to just touch that much, to meet another person and not lean into her or him or shrink back and just meet.

[79:35]

Very difficult because we think we have an alternative to just meeting. And if there's a little bit of pain, we think, well, maybe if I leaned a little bit, that would take the pain away. No. That will cause more. Just to feel the pain of being with another person and not try to fix it, not run away from it, That's enough. And there's no alternative to that when you're that way. So if you're stuck in a tar baby and you don't, you hold still, of course there's various stories, but basically what will happen is the tar will melt off you. If the tar baby wasn't soft, you wouldn't have been able to get in there. It's warm, it's a warm, hot day in Mississippi. It's 106 degrees. It's July 10th. and you will be released from the tar. It will melt away if you just hold still and honor the fact that you're stuck.

[80:38]

I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner. All the way to the tip of my fingers, I'm a sinner. And you're released. The tar will melt. And then, then the bear and the rabbit and the bear and the fox will try to cook you. But you say, okay man, cook me, cook me, cook me. Please cook me, I'd love to be cooked. Just don't throw me in the briar patch. And if you don't want to get thrown in the briar patch, they throw you in the briar patch. But you think of that clever trick because you're willing to be burned. You're willing to be burned, you're willing to be released. If you're willing to be where you are, then you're able to stand freedom. If you're not willing to be where you are, you won't be able to stand freedom. If you're not willing to be where you are, if you get released, you'll crawl back in. You've got to have the courage to live in order to be able to die.

[81:43]

And vice versa. If you're afraid of death, you can't live. If you're afraid of life, you can't die. Of course, you can't live either. How do you be not afraid? Not by being kind of like, oh, I'm not afraid. That's too much. Just, here we are. And that's it. And nobody knows what that is. We'd like to, and when we do, we stick our hand in the tar, baby. But to live here not knowing who we are or what we are and not move, that's called uprightness. And if you happen to be in tar, then I'm in tar, but I don't know what tar is or where the tar is or who I am in the tar, and the tar will melt. That's simple, but I never say it's easy. But I say it so easily that it may sound easy. It's not easy, though. But I'll tell you, it's guaranteed to work.

[82:45]

You try it, it doesn't work? Please show me. Nobody ever has. If some people don't want to try it, And that's fine too. This offer is what we call guaranteed for happiness if you try it, but if you don't want to use it, we give you your misery back. Anytime you want it, you can have it back very easily. Just the slightest deliberation, the slightest doubt, the slightest reservation, and you'll be all set. Hi, Misty. Are you all set now? Ready to suffer? Yes? I want you to keep on asking what is your ultimate concern because it always reminds me that I haven't answered the question yet for fear of the consequences of the answer. Good for you. If my ultimate concern is, as you stated, yours to be, which I suspect that it would be if I let myself.

[83:55]

It might be. Then it seems there are so many consequences. That's right. And then I think, but is that taking myself too seriously? And do you see the... I do. I do. But you do. Yeah. Are you willing to talk about that a little more? Sure. So she rightfully observed that if she would happen to discover her ultimate concern, that she'd be on the spot. Once you find your ultimate concern, then that's ultimate, and there aren't two ultimates. There aren't two fundamentals. Once you see that that's ultimate, then everything else drops away. Then everything else would be given up for that one. If you think universal compassion is the most important thing in your life, then everything else has to serve that. And if action X doesn't go with your ultimate concern, well, what do you do with that? Action X gets put in subordination to what's ultimate.

[84:59]

which means if it doesn't serve it, you drop it. Or you may not drop it, but if you drop it, you realize that's a big mistake, given my ultimate concern. That's not what I want to do. I feel bad. You feel the pain of not fulfilling what you clarified as your ultimate concern. So if you're vague about your ultimate concern, if you're not clear about it, you can do a lot of stuff, and you just feel vaguely uncomfortable. Like, I don't know if that was in line with my ultimate concern, because I'm not sure what my ultimate concern is. Maybe it was all right. But as your ultimate concern gets clearer and clearer, then if something doesn't go with it, it's pretty clear. So once your ultimate concern is, I like to say it this way, okay, ultimate concern, because when I say faith, people get confused. But that's what faith is, is your ultimate concern. That's the way I use the word faith. So the Buddha's faith is ultimate concern is the welfare of all beings.

[86:00]

That's our faith. But we don't exactly believe in that. That's what we're thinking about. That's what we're always concerned about. We're always thinking about how could people wake up and be free. We're always thinking about everything should serve people being free and happy. That's the ultimate. That's the end. At the end of your life, what would you want? Wouldn't you want everyone to be happy? Wouldn't you want everyone to be at peace? At the beginning of your life, isn't that what you wanted? Didn't you want everybody to be happy? Wasn't that why you came here in the first place? Of course. I mean, maybe. You check it out. You find out. Discover it, clarify it, deepen it, and then there's consequences. And one of the consequences, you might say, would be to take yourself seriously, too seriously. Well, that's part of it. Then, when your ultimate concern is like what I said, then taking yourself seriously will hurt. It already hurts, but it'll hurt more clearly. It'll be sharper and clearer.

[87:02]

So the clearer you get about your ultimate concern, everything else will get clearer too. So just try to discover whatever thread you can have now, get it out there and say it and then get some reflection on it and it'll start to get clear and probably, you know, whatever you say won't be too far different from what it is. But you can hone it down and get it sharper and clearer and then deepen it and deepen it and bring it more and more into your body and mind and then everything will gradually start to line up with that. And a lot of stuff won't drop away, but it'll come into the priority system of what's number one. There are so many imperatives, though. If my ultimate concern is, as you stated, yours to be, then my resistance has to do with the fear of being overwhelmed by how much there is to be done. Yeah, well, one of the things that your ultimate concern, if it's like what you're talking about, would be you have to drop fear.

[88:05]

That's one of the things you have to put sort of like as not so important. What I mean is that there's so many different ways to be saving people from suffering or trying to. Yes. That that's overwhelming. I don't know, man. What's overwhelming? There are so many, there are just so many important things to do in the world. Yes. To help alleviate suffering. Yes. That it's just exhausting to even think about trying to have to make choices. It's exhausting to think about making choices. Right. I mean, it's overwhelming. That's right. And if you think about making choices, a lot of choices like that, you'll be overwhelmed. That's right. That's right, you see, that's right. So you see that. So you're going to have, you need something in order to, in order to, in order to carry out this path of the welfare of all beings, you're going to need something that you haven't mentioned so far.

[89:11]

You're going to need, what do you need? You're overwhelmed by all the choices. What do you need? You need, you need to, huh? What? You need alternatives. No alternatives? You need to enter a realm where there's no choice. So in the regular world where I do things, if I say, okay, I'm in the world where I do things and my ultimate concern is to make some money for myself, well, that's a limited number of decisions there, maybe. But if I'm dedicated to the welfare of all beings and becoming enlightened, then there seems to be more choices and more responsibility, right? So in that world of I choose... obviously that world is not going to work. So I need to turn around and enter a world where there's no choices, no alternatives. I need that world. In that world, I just go straight ahead on this path. You need a mind which has no abode. You need to enter into the realm of not doing anything, of non-doing.

[90:14]

From that world, you just do your one thing after another, boom, [...] which is what you do anyway. But now you're not overwhelmed by it, it just rolls off your hands. So part of what you need to do then is you can't just go around helping people, you also have to develop your ability to be, rather than a chooser, which you already know how to do, But there's a limit of how much choosing you can stand to do without blowing your circuits. You need to turn around from the world where you're the chooser and enter the world where you're the chosen. If I choose you to do the job, I'm choosing you. You don't have to choose anymore. We choose you. Now go do this. Okay, here I go. Okay, thank you. Now do that. In the realm of the chosen, you don't get overwhelmed. You're not God anymore in the realm of the chosen. But in the ordinary world, we're God. We choose. We choose to disperse beneficence on the people. But then different people are asking at the same time, so how do you decide? Like when I was a kid, I couldn't understand how Santa Claus could do that.

[91:20]

How could you Santa Claus get down all those chimneys in one night? Just take your stopwatch and figure out how long it takes to get down. Even if it only took a, even if he went down, boom, boom, put the packages out and got back up in a second, that wouldn't make it. But it would take longer than that, wouldn't it, to come down, fat guy to come down the chimney, pull stuff out of the bag, set him out, get back up. It just seems impossible. But that's not how he does it. He doesn't do it that way, huh? How does he do it? He gets all the kids to say what they want. Okay? That's what he does. And then they get what they want because they get to say whatever they want, they get. He doesn't have to move. He just sits still in the night hall. And the kids just want what they want and the world brings forth to each kid what it wants. Now, if the kids don't believe in Santa Claus, then it doesn't come.

[92:23]

In other words, if you believe in Santa Claus, whatever comes is your gift. The given world is your gift. So you have to be like Santa Claus. You have to sit still. And some kids have trouble with that so that they don't get what they want. Even though they get thousands of presents, they get miserable. You know? You ever seen a kid who gets solace as a presence? They're totally depressed because they just got everything they could possibly think of. And they're still greedy for more. If you give them less than what they want, they're miserable too. But they don't think that they're miserable because they got what they wanted and that didn't do it. They think they're miserable because they got a little bit more. They'd be happy. It's much less depressing. We did that with our daughter. We gave her everything she wanted, and she was totally miserable and cruel after she got all those presents. We just stopped doing that, and we started giving her a reasonable number of presents.

[93:28]

And she was fine. A little sad, you know? Not to get what some of her friends got. But all her other friends are on drugs. Because obviously, you know... Obviously, this world is totally screwed up because they get all these presents far even beyond what they could imagine, and it doesn't work. So, if you believe in Santa Claus, you believe that what is given is your gift, and that Santa Claus doesn't have to move. So, you're Santa Claus, each of us is Santa Claus, and we have to sit there at the North Pole and experience the suffering of benefiting the whole world and not move. and we will have various assignments. Answer a few letters today, you know, and you will be chosen, the world will choose you to answer this letter, then that letter. And it's very difficult though because we think again, we get back to the world, I'm gonna choose which letter to write, okay? You gotta stop and stand still in your room and wait until you're chosen to write the letter

[94:39]

And when you're chosen to write the letter, write that letter. Not seven letters. Not all the other ones. Write the one that you've just been chosen to do. And write it all the way to the end. And don't get distracted. And write it with your whole heart. Because you've been chosen. If you choose it, and you think, well, halfway through, you think, well, I choose to write a different letter. That was a mistake. Or, you know... You disperse your energies when you're in charge. But when you're acting on behalf of the universe, you can't turn back on your assignment. But it's hard to stop. In an ordinary situation in your own home, it's hard to stop and stand still and feel chosen. It's hard to feel the gravity of your next action. What's it going to be? Going to write a letter?

[95:34]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_90.04