This week I was planning on talking about the Bodhisattva vow. In the ceremony of receiving the Bodhisattva precepts, there's not...there's not a formal There's not a formal saying of the basic bodhisattva vow. There's the vows, the precept vows, but not what are sometimes considered to be specifically bodhisattva vows. So on this list of 16 bodhisattva precepts, You don't see, for example, the vow to realize Buddhahood for the sake of all living beings.

[01:11]

You don't see the vow to live for the welfare of all beings. or to help all beings realize freedom before yourself. This kind of selfless vows in that form you don't see on this list of sixteen bodhisattva precepts. And yet these precepts are precepts for bodhisattvas. And people who aren't necessarily bodhisattvas might want to practice not killing and not stealing. But these precepts are for anybody that wants them, but specifically they are precepts for bodhisattvas. So what is a bodhisattva? It is referring, the word bodhisattva refers to someone who

[02:15]

is basically motivated by great compassion. And great compassion means that they would like all living beings to be free of suffering and very happy and enlightened, which are kind of the same thing. And they're happy to or wish to work for that happiness of all beings, and that they have given rise to that deep wish which is sometimes called the, in Sanskrit, bodhicitta, in English sometimes the thought of enlightenment or the spirit of enlightenment. The spirit of enlightenment is wishing to attain enlightenment in order to help all beings do the same. To attain enlightenment in order to help all beings be completely free even before oneself.

[03:32]

It's kind of like, in a sense, a reverse Catcher in the Rye. You know how Catcher in the Rye is? You know that image of Catcher in the Rye? He had this image of himself in a field of rye with a bunch of kids, and he was standing at the edge of the field where there was a cliff. Is that right? You don't know the stories of that book so much? And he's standing at the edge of the cliff, and he stands at the edge of the cliff to protect the children so none of them fall over the cliff. He's the catcher in the rye. He catches the kids so they don't fall off the cliff. He had that image of... of what he wanted to be, to help the kids safely play in the rye field. Bodhisattvas are kind of like, they're pushing all the kids over the edge of the cliff into great happiness and freedom before themselves. So as I said, in the Bodhisattva precept ceremony, there isn't a statement of, you know, clearly, may I attain enlightenment for the welfare of all beings.

[04:51]

And other Bodhisattva vows are not specifically said in the ceremony, but it's understood in the ceremony that these are the precepts for one who has that vow. And in actual fact, I mean in actual practice, we at Zen Center anyway, and I think almost all other Buddhist centers, allow people to receive these 16 Bodhisattva precepts before perhaps this thought of wishing the welfare of all living beings before themselves, before they really want to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings, welfare, even before that wish arises, people can receive these precepts. But these are precepts for anyone who wants them, but particularly they're precepts for beings who have this bodhisattva spirit.

[06:01]

if someone has not yet felt great compassion. In other words, great compassion really means that you actually wish every single person you know to be happy. That's great compassion. It doesn't get called great compassion if you're leaving a few people off the list. Like, you know, wow, so-and-so really hurt me last week, so I don't know if I really want to work my tail off for their benefit and do anything that would help them. So that's not great compassion. Now if you'd like to help somebody, if you'd like to help somebody, if you wish somebody was free of suffering, that's compassion. And if you're willing to help them, that's even better. Great compassion is really you want to help everybody. And then from that compassion arises the wish to help them big time and to even do all the works necessary to become a Buddha in order to help them fully.

[07:16]

So again, you might say, I'm willing to help people as best I can. You know, I'm willing to help everybody as best I can. That's great. That's great compassion. But this even further thought is that I'll even get better at helping people than I am now in order to help them. I'll not just try to help them the way I am now, I'll try to help them, but I'll also train myself so that I can help them completely. So that thought arises from compassion. Last week we talked about renunciation, and renunciation, the wish, the mind of renunciation, in some sense is parallel to the wish to attain enlightenment for the welfare of others, the wish to drop all attachment.

[08:29]

is parallel to the wish to live for the welfare of all beings. And the actual dropping all attachments then is parallel to actually attaining Buddhahood so that you can help all beings. And the wish to drop all attachment arises when you sit in the middle of all suffering. In other words, you sit where you are. Because everybody is sitting in the middle of all suffering. And if you sit there patiently, not wiggling, not only staying at your seat all day long, wherever you are, but not wiggling, really having the capacity to see what it feels like to be where you are, that softens and tenderizes our body and mind until we can feel that deep Similarly, if you sit there and don't wiggle, the Great Compassion will also be born as you sit in the middle of all living beings and all Buddhas.

[09:53]

Great Compassion will rise in you. If you wiggle, again, the Great Compassion will rise in you. you may want to leave a few people out. You know, like, help that person. Oh, let me move a little bit to the left of that idea. Or help that person lean back from that idea. No. Just sit and you face all sentient beings. You see what it feels like. You feel the pain of the world. And you wish... you eventually wish for this. And then this thought of enlightenment will then come. So again, first of all you wish for beings to be free of suffering because you feel it. And then you wish to work for it and to train yourself to do the work.

[10:54]

And this thought is not generated by yourself. You can't crank it out of yourself. And many Zen students tell me that they don't have that thought. They do have the thought that they'd like to liberate themselves from suffering, but they do not yet have the thought that they wish to liberate others. And also many Zen students, they're not particularly interested in becoming a Buddha. They tell me that either with some sense of shame or not. If they've heard about this bodhisattva stuff, they may be somewhat ashamed. But anyway, a lot of them admit they're actually not interested in enlightenment. They're not actually interested in becoming a Buddha. They have a lesser goal. They would like themselves to feel a little bit better or a lot better or, you know, just be completely free of suffering, but they're not yet really concerned with everybody else being free. they admit that.

[11:58]

But if they sit there with being the way they are long enough, it naturally happens that they'll start feeling compassion for others and that they'll wish to do what's necessary to help them. And it turns out that what's necessary to help them in the most effective way is to be a Buddha. Buddha means being most effective at helping people. So you want to be most effective at helping people. So it's like, geez, you got that problem, I wish I was a doctor. Gee, you got that problem, I wish I was a mechanic. You have that problem, I wish I was an investment counselor. You have that problem, I wish I knew about taking care of babies. You have that problem, I wish I was a psychologist. You want to be whatever, you want to know about whatever people need to help them. That's a Buddha. But again, you can't make yourself that way.

[13:04]

And again, I appreciate people that honestly admit, you know, I don't really feel that way. And maybe some of them say, I wish I did. But you can't really make yourself feel that way. It's something that... And also, Buddha can't make you feel that way. Otherwise, Buddha would just come and make everybody feel that way. But Buddha can't make it happen to you. You can't make it happen to yourself. How does it happen? Well, some people say it happens spontaneously, but I don't think it happens without a cause or without conditions because it doesn't happen to you if you're not sitting in your life. You've got to be present with your life. You can't be next door. So it requires that. That doesn't make it happen, but that's a condition for it. Dogen Zenji says, it happens through communion with Buddha.

[14:05]

Buddha doesn't make it happen. You don't make it happen. But when you're in communion with Buddha, and you means you, who you are, is in communion with Buddha, this thought arises. So again, it arises in a very similar situation where renunciation arises, namely being in your life. So this is very similar to the practice that gives rise to renunciation, but tonight I just put it this way, that what you do is you set aside some and gradually all of your addictions. And by addiction, I mean you set aside all the ways that you turn away from life. And by life, I mean my life, all the ways I turn away from my life, all the ways I distract myself from what it's like to be me and plunge into what it's like to be you with no

[15:27]

You know, with no addictions. With none of those things you do to turn away from what it is like to be you. All the ways you wiggle to get away from what it's like to be you. All the things you eat to distract yourself, all the things you think to distract yourself. Some people who use addictions to get away from their suffering get sick. And sometimes because they get sick they give up their addiction. And then when they give up their addiction they stop turning away from life. And looking back they often say, I'm so glad I got sick. Because if I hadn't got sick, I just would have continued indefinitely running away from what it's like to be alive.

[16:38]

Now somebody who is started to not run away from life, has started to face their life, has plunged into their life, might want to adapt. If you hear about the bodhisattva precepts, you might want to receive them. You might want to make a commitment to practice them. and you maybe try to practice them because you heard that they help... What? That they'll help you become a Buddha or help you realize Buddhahood. So I guess if the thought of enlightenment has arisen in you,

[17:57]

and you hear about the precepts, then you might want to receive them. If the thought of enlightenment has arisen in you, you still might want to receive them because you might also hear that they're good for you personally. Even if you're not interested in helping everyone, they'll be good for you. That they're the way of happiness for you as an individual too, which is said by many teachers. That happiness is to follow these precepts, practice these precepts, to learn how to practice them. It just turns out they're the same precepts for someone who's not just interested in their own personal happiness. Same precepts. Another way to talk about this is that you, by receiving these precepts, and trying to practice them in the midst of being in your life the way it actually feels, you start to see how you engage with the world.

[19:15]

You start to see how and where you're attached to the world. Or particularly when I say the world, I mean the world of bondage. You see how you get involved. Again, seeing how you get involved, that leads to what? Seeing how you get involved in the world of bondage, that gives rise to what? What? What? Buddha, but just a few steps before Buddha. What? Self-awareness, yes. What? It leads to getting free, but before getting free... It opens your heart, yes. But this also goes with wishing to renounce these attachments. So the mind of renunciation arises there when you see how you are attached...

[20:20]

Yes, there's self-awareness there, but in particular you also wish, that's where the wish to let go of this attachment arises, when you see how you're clinging. It's pretty hard to let go and pretty hard to, one, let go of your attachments if you're not seeing them. Because it's easy to continue being attached, because that's your habit, and that's your habit. But to let go of them, you kind of have to see how they're not really that good for you. You have to see how they work. Hearing about it from somebody else, that helps. But actually seeing for yourself how attachment is antithetical to your happiness, and the happiness of others, that supports your stronger and stronger willingness to let go.

[21:27]

So not only do you see how it happens, but also you see where it happens, and you kind of get a feeling for how it might happen that you would let go. You see where you're attached, it's the same place you let go. So the mind of renunciation arises there and And when you study the world, when you study the ways in which you attach to things, you get grounded in the conventional world of where there's you and things and where you attach to things. You get grounded in that. You get familiar with that world, how it works. And the precepts, trying to practice the precepts, helps you understand that world better. As you try to practice, for example, not being possessive, that helps you see that you're possessive and where you're holding.

[22:28]

If you practice, try to practice the precept of not lying, you notice how hard that is. And the reason why it's hard is usually because of attaching to something. being concerned about something for yourself or for somebody else, and you're holding to that concern, and that sometimes makes it harder to tell the truth. Whereas if you let go, you can see, if I let go, I'd be able to tell the truth. Vice versa, trying to tell the truth shows you that you're holding on. So trying to tell the truth helps you understand how you're holding on to the world. Trying to not steal shows you how you're holding on. Trying not to kill shows you how you're trying to hold on. All these precepts show you where you're holding. So they also contribute to developing the wish to let go. And basically they help you get more and more intimate with the world of self and other, of attachment and suffering.

[23:32]

And when you're very well grounded in this world, you could say then maybe you not only want to let go, but you maybe really can let go. And then the bodhisattva vow, in a sense, moves into a deeper dimension where still you're willing to live in the world, But now you're willing to live in the world without attachment, and in particular without attachment to even knowing how to practice the precepts, or even knowing what the path is. So now you're practicing, you continue to practice the precepts, but you open up to the non-duality. of the situation. You're trying to practice the precepts, but you're no longer sure what they are.

[24:41]

Before you knew better what they are because before you had to be attached to some meaning. Now because you understand that being attached to the meaning of the precepts causes you problems in the practice of them, You continue to try to practice them, but you open up to that maybe you don't know what they are. As you get more and more intimate with the precepts, it doesn't make you less and less interested in practicing them. It actually makes you more and more interested in practicing them. You more and more appreciate them. And the more intimate you are with them, and the more you appreciate them, the more you can let go of knowing what they are. You still think they're this or that, just like you did before, but you're not attached to your view of what they mean. And this intimacy with the precepts

[25:58]

And the intimacy with all beings come along together. If you know what the precepts are, then you tend to know what certain people are. If you know what certain people are, you think you know what the precepts are. When you're intimate with people and you're intimate with the precepts, You can live with being intimate, which is the same as you don't know. You live with the precepts. You live with people without prejudice. You meet the person and you don't think, oh, that's Margaret. She's nice.

[27:01]

That's Carlos. He's better. That's Joel. He's no good. You don't have prejudices. You don't know who Margaret is. You don't know who Carlos is. You don't know who Joel is. Why? How? Because you're intimate with them. How come you're willing to be intimate with them? Because you've seen the pain of not being intimate with them. You plunged into the world and you saw how uncomfortable it is to not be intimate with people, which means to know who people are. It doesn't mean you don't have an idea about the person, it's just you don't attach to it, because you've seen that attaching to it is antithetical

[28:07]

to happiness and goes along with anxiety and violating the precepts. So there's the precept. One of the bodhisattva vows that we do at Zen Center is we say, sentient beings, living beings, are numberless. I vow to save them. So if you take that vow, if you feel that vow, if you want to do that vow, and you get into that vow, eventually you can say that what that vow means is that there are no sentient beings to save.

[29:16]

In other words, I don't know who the sentient beings are. I used to know who they are, were, but I let go of knowing who they are. It doesn't mean that there aren't people there. It just means that I don't know who they are. Well, what are they if I don't know what they are? Well, I don't know. Am I intimate with them? Yes. What are they? I don't know. Is this intimacy? I say yes. Does this save them? This kind of intimacy where you don't know who they are? Yes. It saves them.

[30:20]

It saves you. It saves everybody. But there's nobody to save because you can't say who it is. You look really uncomfortable hearing this. And it is uncomfortable to hear this until you're intimate with all sentient beings. The bodhisattva vow is to be so intimate with everybody that you save them all. And when you save them all, because you're so intimate, you don't know who they are, which means you don't know if they're you or not you. You don't know if they're Buddhas or not Buddhas. You still have perceptions because you're still alive and you still have brain and so on, but you do not attach to your perceptions.

[31:24]

Why don't you attach? Because you let go a while ago. Why did you let go? Because you saw yourself attaching to your perceptions for a long time. And you saw how you're comfortable in a way doing that because you know how, but you're uncomfortable because it's unhappiness to attach to them, just like it's unhappiness to violate the precepts. And you violate the precepts when you attach to them as meaning what you think they mean. I just told you the whole thing, but maybe you're not in the place yet where you're ready to practice the precepts at the level of where the bodhisattva vow is being practiced and the level of where you are intimate with the precepts and intimate with living beings.

[32:39]

So maybe you have to... Be in the world means plunge into the world where you still know who people are, where you still think you know who people are, where you're not intimate with people, and where you're anxious and comfortable in a way being anxious because you know everything. You know who people are. You have that comfort. and you have that discomfort. So I'm not suggesting you jump over being who you are. I'm saying be who you are, be how you are, and if you don't feel intimate with people, then that's where you work. Feeling what it's like not to feel intimate with some people, which usually means with all people. Because it kind of works out

[33:42]

Almost like when you're intimate with one person, you're intimate with everybody. Because in fact, you are intimate with one person and you are intimate with everybody. If you don't realize that yet, then you don't. When you do, you do. But it isn't like one person at a time, it's like everybody. all at once, because that's really what the Buddha sees. The Buddha is intimate with everybody all at once. And in order to save all sentient beings, you have to realize that you're intimate with everybody all at once. But if we're not there yet, we have to admit that we're not there. I'm not intimate with everybody all at once, therefore I'm a little bit or very anxious and a little bit or very afraid of these people I'm not intimate with.

[34:50]

But even though I'm not intimate with them, I do have the saving grace of knowing who they are. At least I've got that. So knowing who people are, in other words, attaching to what I think they are, that's nice, right? But that goes with not being intimate and, you know, being afraid and not being able to help them as fully as you could if you were intimate with them. So once again, the Bodhisattva vow is ultimately to save all sentient beings by understanding that all sentient beings are intimate that you're intimate with them and you're willing to walk along the path of saving all beings without actually knowing who they are.

[35:55]

In other words, without actually having any beings to save. And yet you're completely devoted to saving them. So one story to end is that a person who was a great Zen master, his name was Fa Yan. And he had a teacher who, of course, also was a great Zen master named Di Zang. After studying with Di Zang for a long time, Fa Yan decided to go on a little hike on a pilgrimage. And the definition of pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place. journey to a sacred place. He was going to go to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion. So he said, teacher, I'm going to go on pilgrimage.

[36:59]

And the teacher said, what is the purpose of going on pilgrimage? And this great Zen master, who of course was a bodhisattva, who of course was living completely for the welfare of all beings. His only agenda in life was to save all beings and so on. So here he goes on his pilgrimage. What's the purpose? He said, I don't know. After training for many years, becoming very nicely enlightened, as he goes about his work of traveling around the world helping people his teacher asks him what's the purpose he doesn't know teacher says not knowing is most intimate here goes my wonderful enlightened disciple off to save the world he doesn't know what the purpose of his trip is or who he's going to save

[38:02]

or what saving is. And so he goes off and saved many, many people. He was a big savior. But he didn't know, he didn't know anything. That's how he saved people. And if you look at the stories, we're studying a story about him now at Green Gulch, right now. If you look at the way he worked with people, he worked with people very subtly and very intimately. And I'm saying that in this subtle, intimate work, he didn't know. He had perceptions. He could see his hands, I think. If you ask him what day it was, he could tell you. Say, what's this person's name? He would know. Where's your left foot? He would know. You know, in the sense of being able to perceive that stuff. But he wouldn't really know what his foot was or who you are. Because He didn't grasp.

[39:06]

He had dunnu attachment. He was so close he couldn't hold on. So once again bodhisattva vow entails when you hear about it that the bodhisattvas receive these precepts, it usually involves that you receive these precepts and try to practice them. And trying to practice them helps you get more intimate with the conventional world where you're holding on, gets you more intimate with every place that you're holding, shows you the consequences of holding, helps you generate the interest in letting go. And when you let go, you enter into a new way of practicing the precepts with no attachment. with no prejudice. And you don't even practice them by yourself anymore. You do them together with everybody. Which is another reason why if you're practicing the precepts together with everybody, you wouldn't know what the precepts were or how to practice it when you're doing it together with everybody.

[40:20]

Because the way you practice the precepts and the way you practice the precepts and the way you practice the precepts and the way I practice the precepts doesn't look the same. So what does it mean to practice the precepts if we're practicing together? Well, I don't know. But that's the intimate way for us all to practice them together, is to practice them together. But what is that? Well, it's right here. This is what it is. It's like this. It's exactly like this. It's right under our nose right now. So that was a lot. So I'll stop now. One of the precepts talks about letting go of sexuality. Did you say it says letting go of sexuality?

[41:25]

Well, that's a nice interpretation. It says... Yeah, well, it says not misusing sexuality. Right, okay. But that's right. If you let go of sexuality, you won't misuse it. How do you let go of it? How do you let go of it? Well, many ways. One way is, if you didn't know what it was, you'd let go of it. That's one way. And how do you get to a place where you don't know what something is? What did I say? What? Keep looking at it. Looking at it to the point where? Renounce. But when you renounce it and when you let go of it, kind of the same thing. Okay? How do you get from looking at it to letting go of it?

[42:26]

You say looking at it, and then there's looking at it. When does letting go happen in the process of looking at it? When you realize... when you realize what it is. Right. And what's it like when you realize what it really is? I don't know. It gets scary. Just before you realize what it is, it's scary. Or quite a while, for a long time before you realize what it is, it's scary. A lot of people are scared of sex, right? Maybe nobody in this room, but I've met some people who are. It's kind of a scary topic. I mean, not just a topic, but an actual practice. The practice of sexuality is scary for a lot of people. Now, instead of turning away from that sexuality, if you turn towards it, because it's part of your life, and look at it, and not necessarily lean into it, but just keep looking at it, what I was driving at was you gradually become more and more intimate with it.

[43:29]

When you're completely intimate with your sexuality, you let go of it. Just like when you become intimate with another person, you let go of her. When you let go of your sexuality, your sexuality no longer can be misconduct. but it's very difficult for us to be intimate with sexuality because sexuality is such a hot topic that we tend to stay a little bit away from it or stick our head in it. We tend to close our eyes and dive into it or run away from it. But to come, not even come, but just be with it and see what what enhances a deeper and deeper intimacy with it which means in this moment with these sexual feelings what does it mean to be intimate with them not what does it mean to act on them or distract myself from them when i let go of it there will be no sexual misconduct there will just be sexuality happening happening happening as it always has been as it always does happen

[44:50]

But if we're separate from sexuality, we're anxious about it, just like we're anxious about anything that we're separate from. But sexuality, we're very powerful in creating in our life. If we feel separate from it, we can't help but like grasping it or running away from it. The closer we get, in some sense, the more frightened we get until we really find out that it's none other than ourself. It's really what we are. Our sexuality is us. So what do you mean by sexual misconduct? Well, sexual misconduct would be, for example, let's say I was close to somebody. Let's say I got physically close to someone and I started to feel something, some feeling, like maybe some sexual feeling. And then often feeling some sexual feeling, oftentimes people feel some kind of anxiety around that.

[45:52]

Like, should I do something about this? Should I move my hand one way or another? Would this be good or not? This kind of thought makes people feel anxious. These kinds of thoughts around sexuality make people feel anxious. Or should I stay here while that person is looking at me and maybe they're going to touch me? Should I get away or should I say okay? These kinds of thoughts. To be present with those thoughts and see what they feel like and to become intimate with them. That's not sexual misconduct. But to reach over and touch the person, to distract myself from my anxiety, to use this action and this person touching this person as a way to disperse my anxiety that's sexual misconduct because I'm losing intimacy with my feelings at that time or even to talk to the person about my feelings but with the intention to manipulate them and distract myself from them then this is an addictive process I'm turning away from the life by using my talk to turn away from the almost unbearable

[47:24]

vitality of what I'm feeling. And not do anything about it. Not make anything of it. Not elaborate it. But just feel it. And you might say helplessly, but actually you're like really alive. Your sexuality is like practically, you know, incandescent. But you're not doing anything about it. to, in some ways, try to do something with it, that's misconduct. With yourself, even if no one else is around, to do with yourself would be the same. It would be misusing your sexuality from the point of view of getting intimate with yourself so that your sexuality can be part of helping all beings. Our sexual life is part of the way we help people because it's part of what we are as a being. But to be with sexuality and not mess with it at all is a really new way.

[48:36]

And how do we find that way? By feeling, first of all, by feeling it what it's like and leaving it alone, or if we do mess with it, to see what trouble that causes, to see how it's a betrayal of something very true and pure about us. Sexuality is actually an innocent thing by itself. it's a very living thing but to mess with it because you don't want to be really intimate with it that's a shortcut and a kind of betrayal and that's misconduct that's the essence of it then it ramifies into look at the other precepts are you taking something that's not given are you lying Lying off and accompanying sexual misconduct. Misrepresenting the situation. Are you intoxicating yourself with the sexuality or in conjunction with the sexuality?

[49:39]

Are you being possessive? But even if you can't see that you're being dishonest, there's some, this more subtle aspect is the core. And if you look at that, there is a kind of dishonesty there. try to manipulate it, you're not really saying to yourself, I can't stand this. Help me. I don't want to like cheapen this thing. So there's still a little dishonesty about not saying the truth about what's going on, even in this very subtle level. And there's a kind of killing, killing of the sexuality. And there's a kind of stealing. Bodhisattva vow is, I vow to save all sentient beings means I vow to become intimate with my own sexuality.

[50:46]

And becoming intimate with my own sexuality is what it's like to become intimate with another person too. Because everybody's got sexuality, I become intimate with my own, I become intimate with other people's. I don't have their feelings, I don't know what their feelings are, but I'm intimate with them because I'm intimate with myself. Intimacy can be very hard. Intimacy can be very hard. It can be hard to stay with it. Nothing is harder than intimacy.

[52:04]

It is the ultimate challenge of human life. It is very difficult because we think we have an alternative. Since everything else is easier, takes less attention, less effort, less mindfulness, less love, less courage. Plus we also already have a set of habits that we just plug in to do it, non-intimacy. To switch over to intimacy is very difficult. That's why if you pay attention to the way you are now and the way other people are now, you see how the conventional world of non-intimacy works. you'll see how much pain there is in it that will encourage you to move towards intimacy we need all that encouragement to see how unfortunate it is to miss out on life life is intimacy to miss out on that we need that encouragement to do the hard work it is very hard So you're saying a certain amount of distraction is inevitable.

[53:28]

Well, you're saying it's inevitable, but let's also say it's already going on. So since it's already going on, it's fairly likely it's going to happen again. To think that we would have this long habit of distracting ourselves from our sexuality... of not facing it sort of like in a balanced way, to think that we would suddenly stop there entirely and reach perfect balance and stay balanced forever, that is unlikely. So probably even if we had a moment of balance in our sexuality, the next moment we'd slip back into our habit of, boy, that was great, now what should we do? Sometimes actually that happens, you know. You meet someone or you're with yourself and you're actually there in a moment of intimacy where you're not messing around. You just feel what's happening. It's so clear and lively that you just stand for a moment in awe of this manifestation of life.

[54:30]

And the next moment you say, what should we do about this? Let's do this again, you know. Maybe no gross sexual acts are even near, but there's a sense of we've got to cash in on this thing. We can't just let this go. You've just violated something which you just thought was so great, right? And so now let's package this and let's try to do it again. Whereas you didn't do it in the first place. It just like, it was a gift. There you were, you know. two living beings together, feeling what it's like to be alive together, and then, well now, let's make this like everything else. And then it's, it's a, you know, a subtle but root example of sexual misconduct, of turning away from life.

[55:35]

The bodhisattva vow is to face that manifestation of life which you're feeling now of being you in the presence of another person. Face it. Don't run away from it. Don't give yourself a distance from it. Don't distract yourself from it. That's the vow. Now, part of the vow is to forgive yourself when you run away and say, well, there I didn't blew it again. How long is it going to be before I'm going to be able to get that close to my life? Well, we'll see. Let's try to go back now. Take refuge in Buddha again. In intimacy you don't have control. And the two of you or three of you don't have control either. Nobody's in control. it's all of you together that's making the event. Nobody's in control.

[56:37]

Everybody's alive. Nobody's harming anybody. You know? Everybody's free. And then they can't stand it, so they go back to, let's go get somebody to get control here, and then you're in bondage again. By studying how we do that and how that makes us get entangled in the world, we start to see Well, next time that happens, maybe I'll try to wait a little longer before I slip over into, I'm going to get control of this, or let somebody else be in control and I'll be controlled. I'm going to take turns, split off the function, then you be the deluded one and I'll be passive. There's another deal you can make to distract yourself. This is supposed to sound familiar because we're talking about something very familiar, right? Rana? Sometimes what?

[57:47]

Yes. Yes. Yes. So, you know, if you want to be truthful to not knowing then you're going to cause killing. It's a very... Well, you don't necessarily cause killing. You don't know what's going to happen. But you think that if you tell them, that might be a condition for harm to someone. So then you think, well, maybe I shouldn't say that because, you know, that might be harmful, right?

[58:48]

Right? You don't want to harm someone by saying something, right? Yeah. Well, let's... Okay, we can add torture in this, but let's just say before you got tortured, they're asking you to tell them something about where somebody is, and you think if you tell them, that might lead to harm to someone, right? So then you say, but what about lying? Is it a lie to not answer a question? No, I don't think so. If someone says, you know, where is so-and-so I can say, tell the truth and say, I'm not going to tell you. That's not a lie. That's a truth, isn't it? And you say, what if they torture me? Well, then maybe I have more trouble saying, you know, I'm not going to tell you. But I'm just saying you don't have to tell a lie in that case. Okay? Okay? But what if they start torturing you?

[59:53]

Then what are you going to do? You better get to be a Buddha fast. Because Buddhas can get tortured. And it's not that they don't hurt, it's that even when they're tortured, they won't hurt anybody. And Buddha can feel big pain. If you slug a Buddha, at least a lot of Buddhas I know, if you slug them, it hurts. They don't have armor on. So if someone's torturing you and they say they'll keep torturing you unless you tell them certain things, that would be a very difficult situation, right? So you'd need to be able to practice patience with that. It doesn't mean you wouldn't feel the pain, but you have to practice patience so that you can help the people who are torturing you, right? That's what Bodhisattva wants to do. Bodhisattva wants to help the people who are torturing her, wants to save those people, right?

[60:58]

So telling them, answering their question is one thing, but you not only have to deal with that, but you have to figure out your answer is how will your answer help them? So someone can say, where does so-and-so live? And maybe you say, I love you. But maybe that's not skillful. But the bodhisattva actually, in the situation of being tortured, wants to help the person who's torturing them. Not to mention any other people around, but they want to help that person right there. They want to wish happiness and work for the happiness of the person who's hurting them. So how do you help that person? How are you going to help that person? By what you say, by what you think, by what you do with your body. How will you help that person? How can you be intimate with someone who's torturing you? It's very difficult, huh?

[62:03]

Yeah. So, you know, as soon as possible, start becoming intimate with people who aren't torturing you. It is possible, we're proposing that if you can become intimate with people who aren't torturing you, you can actually be intimate with people who are torturing you. And if you can be intimate with someone who's torturing you, you can save that person. We're proposing that you can become so skillful in this process that if someone's torturing you, forget about telling them information, that you can convert this person, that you can save this person from the delusion that they're operating under such that they're hurting another person. We're actually proposing, and what does it take to do that? You have to be a Buddha. A Buddha can actually stop somebody who's torturing them and turn them around and make them into a good person. Not make them into a good person, but wake them up and they become a good person. This is the Bodhisattva vow. The Bodhisattva vow, the vow is to become a Buddha so you can help everybody, including somebody who's torturing you or somebody who's torturing somebody else, that you can get in there between the people, between the torturer and the torturer, you can get in there and give such love and such skill and such intimacy that the person is broken down by the love.

[63:31]

They drop. their cruelty, and will start doing their own practice. So if you resort to an extreme example like that, we need to bring a Buddha in. This is a job for Buddha. If it's a milder example, then you can do it. If it's just like, you know, being able to tolerate listening to me, for example, that you can maybe get intimate with. If you can get intimate with the experience of listening to me talk without running away or running towards, or if you can't, if you can notice what it's like to have any grasping while you're talking to me and to see how that interferes with your happiness and drop the attachment and then have a conversation with me where you can be intimate with me while we're talking and to see that that is happiness for you and to see that the precepts are being realized in the intimacy in our conversation.

[64:33]

And if we can both experience that intimacy, we both realize these precepts. And then maybe we work with some more difficult situation and more difficult situation until finally we can actually become so skillful that we can help in these most extreme cases. How are you doing? You're smiling. Is that a real smile? You're not just trying to please me, are you? It's okay to try to please somebody if it's really, you know, if you're being yourself. Don't you think? That's intimacy. I think of Jimmy and then Anya Lika. I'm having a hard time with the word or the expression. I think it was not knowing anymore.

[65:39]

Not knowing anymore? What does anymore mean? Once someone drops their attachment to something like sexuality, then they really understand it for what it is. Yeah. And they really know it very well. All right. And they become intimate with it. Can I say something? Also, you can reverse it and say, once they know what it is, they drop their attachment to it. So if you... Once they know what it is. Once you know what sexuality is, you realize it's not something you can attach to. Or the other way is, if you let go of it, you know what it is. So it goes either way. So then after that... Yeah. Then... Yes. They no longer know what it is. That's right. They don't. And actually nobody knows what it is, to tell you the truth. Nobody knows what sex is. Everybody's got a feeling about it. But nobody knows what it is.

[66:41]

It wasn't a whole lot of time between really knowing what it is and not knowing what it is. When you really know what it is, in other words, when you really know what it is, when you understand it, You don't know it anymore as an object, as a limited thing. You don't know it as a limited thing. Yeah. You can't make it into... You know what it is, though. Well, you know what it is, but it's a sense of knowing what it is where you can't grasp it. You can't see it as anything separate from the rest. You don't see it like starting and stopping someplace. It has no independent existence from the entire cosmos. you see it rising up out of the earth sex is coming up out of the earth all over the place through people through what do you call it coral coral are very sexy things you know bacteria sex is all over the planet coming up you know all over the place nobody knows what it is but if you understand it you realize actually that it's unknowable

[67:47]

unknowable in terms of you can't know the bounds of it. You can't know the bounds of it, right. And therefore you can't grasp it. But you can enjoy it. Because you can enjoy life. Like somebody said to me, he was an Austrian guy, and we were eating these pastries, and he said, in Austria we have this certain pastry. He says, I can't tell you what it is, but I can taste it. So you can taste life, you can taste sex, but when you're intimate with it, you don't know what it is. And you can enjoy yourself. You can enjoy being with another person. But when you're really intimate, you don't... You know, you can't grasp it. So not grasping goes with really understanding, and really understanding goes with not grasping. And understanding goes with happiness. Non-grasping, understanding, and happiness are a little package.

[68:54]

Grasping goes with not understanding, goes with unhappiness. If you can realize intimacy, you can convey it and teach it. by your loving way of being with other beings who you feel intimate with, who you feel very dear and close to, and who you're not attached to. If you get to the point where you become intimate with something that's more of a sexuality thing, so let's say I become intimate with sexuality, I understand. what it really is, and I understand what it is inside myself. Yes. Is it that I no longer know the bounds of my sexuality? Is it okay for me to talk about my sexuality with others? Or is talking about it somehow putting a name on it or trying to bound it? Once you're intimate with something, although you can't grasp it, words about it can arise from you, which usually comes in the form of poetry.

[70:02]

But it could be in prose. you can talk, you can move your arms and legs, your whole body and mind become then a blossoming of your understanding of X, of sexuality in this case. When you understand sexuality, you become, you know, that understanding blossoms as your speech, as your thinking, and as the way you use your body. You use your body, speech, and mind in a beneficent educational way, when you then teach others how to also become intimate and thus liberated. So bodhisattvas vow to save beings means they vow to be intimate with beings, but that means they're intimate with themselves too. You don't skip over yourself. You start with yourself, of course. But if you're only intimate with something for two percent of the time, is that a step in the right direction? Yeah. It's a step in the right direction.

[71:05]

Yes. Yes. Somehow I can't really translate this being intimate to my own language. I have this feeling I don't quite understand what it really means. Could you sort of give paraphrases for it? Because becoming intimate with something... Intimate means like you don't... Intimate means you don't identify... or separate. It's like you don't touch it or turn away. It's like you walk around it, maybe. But this to me actually would not mean being intimate. Being intimate is really get close and touch it and do it. But maybe I'm just translating into only if you're like sitting now six feet away from me, okay? So you think if you come closer to me you'd be more intimate? Is that what you're saying?

[72:07]

In the German translation, yeah, that's what it means. Most people in English would say that too. You'd be more intimate if you're closer physically, right? So that's the way it seems. But also if you get closer, you start maybe to feel some anxiety. Don't you think you would if you came up here and sat real close to me in front of everybody? Don't you think you'd feel some anxiety? And if you stayed here with me and then you left, if everybody left and you stayed here in the room real close to me, don't you think you'd feel some anxiety? Don't you think you would? I would, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you feel some anxiety like, well, how long should we stay here?

[73:10]

I mean, now we're here, we're all close like this, you know, your nose is almost touching my nose, okay? Wouldn't you feel some anxiety like, how long should this nose touch? Should we do this for five minutes or, you know, haven't we done this long enough? I mean, you know, do you have to go somewhere? I have to go somewhere, but would I hurt your feelings if I moved my nose away from yours now? Isn't there some feeling like that? Okay? The anxiety, right? And you're feeling the anxiety. Okay? And just feeling it without doing something about it, without making some arrangements or anything, that's kind of like intimacy, right? Okay? Does that seem like intimate to you? If we were real close and feeling the anxiety? I would express it, but at least you'd talk about something else.

[74:12]

No, no, no. This is getting intimate. I would say if you got really close to me like that and you're feeling anxiety, but I think you would feel anxiety. I think so. Wouldn't you? I think so. Probably. The anxiety, there's still not real intimacy though because you still feel separate from me. you still think, I'm not you. And you're pretty sure, actually. So you feel anxious, right? That's getting closer, but not necessarily more intimate. But maybe you're starting to feel, on the way to feeling intimate, you have to get closer to the fact that you don't feel intimate. And one of the signs of not feeling intimate is anxiety. anxieties, you feel something over there, something threatening you perhaps. Maybe not me, but what do other people think of us, you know, or something like that. Or, you know, I'm married. Maybe my wife doesn't like this. Maybe you're hurting my family or, you know, or maybe your boyfriend or I don't know what. You know, it's various things you could think of that make, that are part of what you have to face in order to get intimate.

[75:17]

But if we stayed close like that or even just at a distance like this, we would feel the anxiety by feeling the anxiety and becoming more and more intimate with what it feels like to feel separate. And if we didn't do something to distract ourself, we would start feeling more and more intimate. And finally, there wouldn't be no feeling of separation. I mean, we would see through it. We would see that there's another way to see it. Without us disappearing, to see that there's another way to see it, that we're not separate, and the anxiety would go away. That would be intimacy. And if we were like very close physically, it could happen then. But if we could get close physically and we could get in touch with the anxiety and then we move away from each other, we could still feel it. Okay? We could even feel it all the way across the room. Once you get in touch with the anxiety you feel, you can feel it across the room. And maybe it changes if you come close. Maybe not.

[76:21]

But there is anxiety between you and me, as long as we're not intimate. And there's anxiety between me and everybody until we're intimate, I'm saying. What it takes to get close and find that intimacy, many different ways to get to that point. But at the intimest point, you no longer are so sure I'm not you. And you're not sure of what's going on anymore. You don't grasp. And because you don't grasp, you're not anxious. That's what I'm saying. And it can be applied to your own feelings or your relationship with others. And at that point, all the precepts are upheld. There's no stealing at that point. You can't steal. You can't kill. You can't lie. You don't need to lie to someone when you don't really... when you really are pretty sure that you don't know who they are.

[77:27]

There's no point in lying to them yet. You don't even know what kind of lie would be appropriate since you don't know who they are. You don't know, you know, which lie would be the one to tell to the person. Because, you know, by telling him he's a nice man, you know, that's because I think he's a man, I tell him that. But if I'm not sure what he would like, I don't know. I have to find out. This is hard, huh? This is pretty confusing. For me, it's very confusing because maybe I understand it as a theory, intellectually, but I cannot really fathom it, I cannot really picture it, or I cannot really... You know what I mean? I understand you perfectly. So that's why I gave that example of... Because for me, feeling anxiety between myself and other people, if I feel that and don't run away from that, I start to become more intimate with them. That's the path which is again that I don't turn away from what it feels like to be with somebody.

[78:33]

If I keep facing what it feels like to be with them, then I don't get into sexual misconduct. If I try to do something to make the feeling go away, That often is what starts sexual misconduct, is to turn away from a feeling or to try to hold on to a feeling. That leads to not intimacy, but control and using each other around some feeling. So is it actually possible that there are moments when you are enlightened in a certain way because you understand and then it disappears? Sometimes you really understand all that, what you're saying right now, but it's maybe just for a fraction of a second and then it goes back to you. The truth is always there. The truth is that we are already intimate. That's already going on. It is possible to have a peek at it, and then lose it.

[79:35]

It is possible. It's possible to have a peak but not be convinced. It's possible to have a peak that you're not separate from somebody and have the anxiety drop but not be convinced. So the next moment you shift back to thinking that they're separate, feeling the anxiety and manipulating the situation. What we need to do is become intimate long enough to be convinced of intimacy. That's what the bodhisattvas work towards, to really see what that's like to be convinced. Then you change permanently. So we have glimmerings, but we need to settle with that glimmering until we're convinced. But it's getting late.

[80:33]

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