I thought it worked out quite well that I wanted to have a workshop on anxiety, some people did, and fear and anxiety, and I think that a little bit more work needs to be done on this, you know, not a little bit more, a lot more work needs to be done on the subtlety, the subtle difference between concentration practice and what we mean by zazen. But it's nice because this work of clarifying the relationship between concentration practice and zazen, in the process of doing that work, creates a lot of anxiety for people, I think. because a lot of people's idea of zazen, I think, is that it's concentration practice.

[01:06]

So, as we start to loosen some of our ideas about what zazen is, anxiety starts coming up for people. Does that make sense? And if I'm the one who's, you know, bringing up these ideas or these propositions with some background support from the lineage to encourage me and protect me, still I have some anxiety because I realize that the way I'm behaving gives you a chance to feel anxious. And I know that sometimes when a person does something that makes other people feel anxious other people sometimes don't like that person and even try to like get that person to stop behaving like that.

[02:09]

And would you please take back what you said and just let me go back to what I used to think I was and was and leave me alone. Because what you're saying after listening to you for a while I don't know what to do with my life anymore I can't hear We've had a nice quiet time in the mountains and now I don't know what's happening. And, you know, are you doing this on purpose? And also aside from the fact of any, you know, like even if you didn't have any ideas about what Zazen was, and even if you had no interest in concentration practice, still, if you came here and got instructions on just being upright, and if you applied those instructions, if you understood them and applied them properly, you would find yourself moving into a situation of being more and more yourself.

[03:21]

You know, being upright means you more and more occupy your body and mind. more and more thoroughly inhabit and feel yourself right out to the surface of your skin. And no more. Being upright doesn't mean you sort of like pop out of your skin, it comes right up to the surface. You don't over or underdo your body. You don't over or underdo your feelings. You add your feelings to the fullness of them and stop at the fullness. You don't overdo them or underdo them. and as you come out to be fully what you are, fully what you feel, fully what you think at that point you start to feel vulnerable and you are because you're right there and everybody can find you and if they touch you, they get you and you're totally exposed

[04:26]

and you're coming right up to the edge of yourself which means you're coming up to right where the other meets you so you're vulnerable you make yourself vulnerable you make yourself accessible and you start at that point where you reach the fullness of yourself of your individual self and your individual feelings and your individual expression at that surface where you meet that completely and you're thoroughly just being yourself That's where you feel anxiety. So being fully yourself and just yourself brings you in contact with, again, basically, you know, massive anxiety. And most people, as they even approach that place, think better of it and back off.

[05:30]

They say, okay, I didn't mean that, no way. Sorry, take it back, I'll be good. And we know how to do that pretty well. You know, we know how to back off of being ourselves. We've been doing that for quite a while. We're skillful at it. And a lot of people say, yeah, we do want you to back off. Back off. Don't be like that. This is too much for us. And also, if I'm not going to be able to be myself, you're not going to be able to be yourself, they say. Okay, let's both not be ourselves. We're both then invulnerable. And there's less anxiety, right? Well, there's more denial of anxiety. There's crawling back into yourself. just being less upright and blah, blah. Anxiety means to be choked or strangled.

[06:40]

Comes from the Greek root. Chah! Chah! It means to be choked or strangled. And where do you get strangled? get strangled at your neck, right around the edge of the neck. If you come up to the surface of your being all everything around you chokes you. You're choked by the other when you're full of yourself. When the individual feels her individuality then she feels this immense other all around her. the big, big other, which is your mother. But when you're an individual, you've got to be an individual, and when you're an individual, you're not necessarily saying, thank you mom, you're saying, I'm here, this is me.

[07:44]

And then you feel choked, there's anxiety there. This is part of the deal of being a person. And when you're upright, as you come into full uprightness and full being who you are, you start to meet that anxiety. And as I say, as you get close, you start to feel it and you usually will shrink back a little bit. We have been shrinking back for some time. Now we get encouragement, come on, stand up, sit up, be yourself, have your feelings, you know, take a stand, you're doing it anyway, why don't you admit it, take responsibility for it, being a person, be a person. This is new, this is a new message, you know, we weren't told that when we were kids, we're told, you know, we love you, would you please not be quite so much.

[08:50]

Now, the And again, me talking like this, it's a little anxiety producing for me because I know I'm pushing you towards being yourself by talking this way or at least contemplating going towards yourself which caused you to be anxious and then you might come at me because I'm sitting here fully expressing myself telling you to be yourself and those of you who don't want to do it may try to get me to shut up and maybe I will. and maybe I won't. We'll see. Anyway, this being yourself involves a retrieval of your self and wonderfully it involves a retrieval of your dependently co-arisen self. It involves a redemption.

[10:05]

You know, redemption means to buy back. Redeem means to buy back. To buy something back at a price for a sum. And the price is, you've got to face the anxiety. And also, as you approach the anxiety, One way is you approach the anxiety and as it starts to manifest life gets very intense and you shrink back. Another way is you approach the anxiety and jump ahead of it into the future and then become afraid. What will happen to me if I'm myself? What will they do to me? What did they do last time? Will they do that again? Being just yourself. just being upright and practicing zazen means you retrieve your true self, your radiant, unpredictable, what do you call it, vigorously jumping fish self, which is the spontaneous

[11:27]

production of the pinnacle arising. It is a spontaneous production of the support which all beings are giving each of us. This is a very alive, vigorously jumping fish. And again, we were told over and over again as we were growing up to stop jumping around and stop being such a vigorously jumping being. And we decided to abandon this spontaneous, vividly existing, unpredictable, radiant self. We decided to abandon it. We personally abandoned our own radiant self because we got anxious and we were afraid that certain people would stop loving us if we kept being ourself.

[12:35]

Now you might think we're afraid they're going to hit us, but that wasn't what we were afraid of. Because if they hit us and stayed close to us, we didn't care too much, we'd hold tighter. But if they gave us the message, you know, I'm going to be gone, I'm going to withdraw, you're going to lose me, Then we made a deal and we said, okay, I'll do whatever you want. Just don't withdraw the love. The irony here is that the love which we saw in our parents' faces and other people's faces, the love we saw was the love which made us this kind of being in the first place. It was the love that came to us, that gave us this life. But then people, you know, put it a different way. They said, now that we've made you, don't be that way. And are you going to fall for this? And sure enough, being children, we did fall for it. Now it's time to stand up and be yourself.

[13:41]

And people will say pretty much the same things they said last time. You should understand that's not what they mean. They don't mean don't be yourself. They mean, are you serious about this? Are you really care that much about being yourself and you'll do it even though it's making me nervous? I'm going to tell you just I don't want you to be that way then. To see if you really will stand up for yourself. And if you will, even though I'm telling you not, maybe I can be. But first I'm going to do a test on you rather than So, I say retrieval or redemption because we have abandoned this self for smaller scale interests. For, you know, certain kinds of love, which weren't really love, and certain kind of, well, power.

[14:45]

Went for power, manipulation, rather than just, you know, this vivid expression in being upright is the practice of this retrieval. And it puts you right up against anxiety. Now, once you're anxious or even sort of... I don't know what... Let's not even talk about being up against big anxiety, but just little anxieties, you know. The little anxiety that still come up when you're sort of like way back, you know, from your skin. you're all curled up in a little tiny version of yourself, you're still nervous and still anxious, okay? Still uncomfortable, and you're vaguely aware of it, and then you hear about, I don't know, what? Zen, or meditation, or bliss, or whatever, and you start practicing concentration and you get pretty comfy.

[15:50]

Because again, among all practices that you can do in the world, the thing that makes you most comfortable, the thing that gives you the greatest pleasure is concentration. It produces the highest states of worldly experience I mean there's concentration practices which take you into like feelings of being totally in a rapture and then totally the highest state of pleasure and then beyond pleasure into equanimity which is like not only if I have great great pleasure but I'm even cool about it and then beyond that that's what you know concentration can offer you So Buddhist monks have often done that kind of stuff. But the Buddha again found that that was not liberation. And Buddhist teachers warn over and over again to people, don't attach to these states. But also they don't like forbid them to go into them because, you know, they're just going to something else.

[16:55]

They're no worse than anything else, it's just a little bit more dangerous in terms of getting attached. But again, we're anxious because, you know, because we're individual selves, we're anxious. And we're, to some extent, aware of that anxiety. And so it's nice to get a little break by practicing concentration. Or you might say, it's nice to go into a bomb shelter for a little while. Okay? Just a little relief from the slings and arrows, outrageous fortune, which is our interpretation of support which we're receiving from all beings. So go into the bomb shelter and then you feel good but after a while it gets stuffy down there and after not only that but the air raid is over.

[17:57]

So after a while you should be coaxed out and come out into open space and face the situation and face the anxiety which again come from your interpretation of the love that you're getting. And the way you face that more and more is to more and more just stand and sit and walk where you are and feel what you feel and think what you think and say what you have to say. No more, no less. It's hard to get the hang of it, but that's the practice of being upright. If it gets to be too much, fine, go back in the bomb shelter, no problem. Just, you know, withdraw, curl up, go back down into concentration, heal yourself with all that nice, warm, foozy stuff, and when you have enough, come back out. It's okay. Or play golf, same thing. Or go swimming. Have a nice lunch. Get a massage.

[18:58]

Go in the baths. Take a walk. Anything. Fine. Make yourself comfortable. It's not a problem. And you can also practice uprightness while you're doing those things. Those don't have to be like recovery modes. They can be something you do for fun. And another thing is that people have heard, you know, about Buddhist practice. They've heard, you know, about, what is it, Samatha Vipassana? Perfectly decent practices. They're kind of what we call remedial practices. We've got a wrecked person, right? Somebody who's deluded and anxious but doesn't even know they're anxious because of course when you're deluded you don't know you're anxious. Or you're deluded, you think, well I'm anxious and I think this is how anxious I am. You're deluding yourself into how anxious you are. You don't know how anxious you are. Anyway, you've got a deluded person who's not a Buddha, right?

[20:01]

So they should do some practice so they can be a Buddha. This is not Buddhism, this is not what Buddha says. Buddha doesn't say, you people are wrecks, you've got to, you know, you've got to become Buddhists. Buddha says, you're Buddhists and you don't believe this. Okay, if you don't believe it, okay, we'll have a course, a remedial course for people who don't believe that they're Buddhists. So the course is, hmm, concentration, first thing, which is good, makes you feel good, calm, and gradually you start feeling what you're feeling. And then they have, going with the calm, is you have insight practice. So after you're calm, you can start, you know, the dust settles, you die in the bomb shelter, you know, things are pretty simple down there, you know, think about flying at you from 15 directions at once, and, you know, you kind of like put one thing in front of yourself and say, oh, it's an apple, wow! You know? It's a nice little apple, not hurting me. I'm not scared of the apple. I can face an apple, look.

[21:02]

There you are. Right? No problem. No problem. Here we are. It's nice to have an apple on a bomb shelter anyway. But I'm meditating, so I'm not going to eat it. I'll just be meditating. You know, no bombs flying over my head, no bullets, you know. There aren't even any kind of like The crooks down there are stealing apples from you. It's really nice. You know? If you need to be in a situation like that, fine. Let's go there. And we'll bring you apples. And you can study them. And if you get bored with that, eat them. We'll bring you some more apples. When you've had enough to eat, you start studying the food. As you study it for a while, however, you start to notice that the apple's got something to do with you. Well, if it's either you or it's not you. You start to realize there is a you in the bomb shelter with the apple. At first you just wanted to like get away from the problem.

[22:03]

You need not even be aware that there was a you. That's even too much to face. After a while you feel more comfortable. Yeah, well there is somebody down here. And then there's apples and walls and they're not me. As you start to recognize that the apples aren't you and there's some relationship between you and the apples and what the apples are is something to do with you and blah, blah, blah, you start to spontaneously come out of the bomb shelter, because that's what you're hiding from down in the bomb shelter, you're hiding from this dynamic relationship between yourself and apples, and between yourself and oranges, and yourself and orange trees, and yourself and trees, and yourself and people, and yourself and dog, you're hiding from that because it's gotten to be too much. Because a long time ago, you did this thing, this terrible thing, But anyway, now you've got to recover.

[23:07]

So gradually you come out and start facing the problems of having a self. And in short, the problem of having a self is anxiety. Everybody who's got a self is anxious. And you start to face the anxiety, you start to surface it. And if you're calm, you can start to study the anxiety. What's it from, you know? And you start to develop insight into that The anxiety is coming from the relationship between the other. You think the other is going to stop loving you, or it's going to kill you, or it's going to choke you, or it's going to overwhelm you, or you're going to overwhelm it, and then it won't be there, and then if it isn't there, you won't be there. And it's really a dynamic situation. And you start to open up to that. And the more you open up, open up, open up, you start to see how it all works. And after a while, you start to feel a little bit more comfortable. You start to get more fluent and familiar with how this all happens. The insight gets more and more developed. And as the insides get more developed, you get more relaxed. And as you get more relaxed, you open up to more of the data.

[24:10]

And you even realize, hey, I'm even more anxious than I thought. This is even more dynamic, and it's even more dangerous than I thought. And more and more, you open up more and more, and you get to know more and more how it works. Until finally you realize this wonderful thing, which is called that self and other are not really separate. And the whole thing drops away, and your, you know, the anxiety drops. Because you realize that the other actually is your mother. The other, you know, you finally trust it. You finally realize that all other beings are giving you life, that you have no life, absolutely no life other than their love for you. And then you're a happy camper. And then, you're practicing Zazen. You're a happy camper. Happy camper, Zazen, same thing. Zazen, I'm speaking of is not the bomb shelter, Zazen I'm speaking of is happy camper.

[25:11]

It's a Dharmagate to repose in bliss, Dharmagate to happy camping. That's it. And it is the happy camping. It's totally culminated resolution of your relationship with all beings. That's what it is. That's what Zazen is. And then once you've done that, guess what you can do if you want to? You can practice Zazen, you can practice Kinki, you can practice Concentration. And you can practice Insight. They're perfectly good things to do. But you practice Concentration when you're doing everything. You go into Zen Dojo and practice Concentration. You've got a body, well you pay attention to it because you've got it, you're supposed to take care of it because you've got it. So you take care of it. You're just walking around, you've got a body, brush your teeth, sit right there. Take care of your burritos, you know. Take care of your seat, wash your shoes, wash your clothes, you know. Put your shoes in there, you know. Blah, blah. But this is like happy camping to do this stuff.

[26:16]

It's not like you do this stuff so that... blah, blah, blah. It's just what you do. And you only do it because it's what you've got on your hands. You just take... this is called genjokon. You just take care of what comes into your hands. Got these hands, you take care of these hands. Give me a new set. Where'd I get these gorilla hands? Well, take care of them. Whatever they are. But if you do concentration as a salve, as a balm to help you relax, you should realize that that's what you're doing it for. You're helping yourself calm down a little bit. That's not the same as being a happy camper. You're an unhappy camper. And you want to relax a little bit and get yourself able to come down to the ground. Well, fine. That's what it is, though. You still don't really trust yourself. You still don't think you can be yourself.

[27:18]

You still haven't faced your anxiety. But some people have to calm way down before they're even going to admit they have any. They're so blown out. by denial of anxiety, but they're just puppets of anxiety, so they have to be more comfortable before they can admit how bad the situation is. When you start to admit how bad the situation is, you're on your road to redemption of yourself. The price you have to pay to get back to your original self, your dependently co-arisen, intolerably beautiful self, almost intolerably beautiful self, the price you have to pay It walks into all this anxiety, and being upright brings you right up to it. It both takes care of you, it takes care of you in two senses. One sense it takes care of you by getting you to face the anxiety that is already there, and also it takes care full-scale anxiety, and then when you have full-scale anxiety, you have full-scale support.

[28:34]

When you feel totally attacked, that gets to turn into totally supported. When you're partially attacked, then you're partially supported. I mean, if you're partially open to what's coming at you, Now, this remedial course in Buddhism of taking a sentient being and getting him to be a Buddha is concentration, insight, non-duality, non-dual wisdom. The Zen approach, the approach of Zazen is, you don't go concentration, insight, non-duality, you go non-duality. Concentration, insight, non-duality.

[29:38]

It's a cycle. You start as a Buddha. And then you do whatever you want. And I recommend, since you're a buddha, to take care of your buddha body. Take care of your buddha teeth, your buddha eyes, your buddha face. Take care of it. Put it on every morning. Put it on your buddha robes. Put it on your buddha bowl. Do all that stuff, you know. And if you want to practice concentration and insight, well do it. Buddha likes to do that. That's not all the time. Sometimes Buddha doesn't want to practice concentration. Sometimes Buddha just wants to sit there in his beams and be out in the coffee tea area with the people. Not really particularly concentrate on anything in particular other than what's coming out of her mouth at this moment. What's going into her nose. But it's not that she's meditating on the breath entering her nose in order to be a Buddha. She's doing that just because that's what's happening. So again, you've heard these stories.

[30:42]

Zen monk sitting Zazen, sitting Zazen. Teacher says, what are you doing? He says, I'm sitting Zazen to be a Buddha. And the teacher goes and picks up a brick and starts polishing. He said, what are you doing? He said, I'm polishing this brick to make it into a mirror. He said, how are you going to make a mirror out of that brick? Zazen is not to make people into Buddhas. Zazen is Buddha. That's it. Now, if you're practicing that way, you've got the problem of being Buddha. You don't have the problem of being a sentient being who wants to be a Buddha. But if you want to be a sentient being who wants to be a Buddha, fine, but don't call that Zazen. Call it a sentient being on a track to be Buddha. And that path is okay in Buddhism. It's okay even in the Zen school. It's just the unofficial path. back door. The front door is start with Buddha and then deal with the problems of Buddha.

[31:46]

What are the problems that Buddha has? The problem that Buddha has is what? The problem that Buddha has is the problem of all sentient beings. That's the Buddha's problem. The problem of how to love, how to give love from all beings and receive It's just as hard as the other one, and actually not any harder. We have one of not being Buddha and trying to get to be Buddha so that then you would have Buddha's problems. Pretty much, they're both difficult paths. But Soto Zen is, start with Buddha's problems right now, and then, you know, have Buddha's problems. Forever, until everybody has Buddha's problems. So, The Lotus Sutra, which you're all memorizing, some of you are memorizing, has a wonderful story in there of the kids in the house, right? The house is burning, they've got these really nice toys, and their mom's outside, their dad's outside.

[32:49]

Come on out, this house is on fire, come on out. Kids are really having a good time with their toys. They're oblivious to the fact that they have a short term on this plate, and they better get out. Hey, you guys, I got these really neat toys out here. I got these like, you know, Honda motorcycles out here or whatever. I have these goat carts and deer carts and horse carts. And I mean, not only are these good-looking horses, deer and goats, but these carts are really neat, you know. They have these really neat wheels and all these kinds of things. They have, like, these stereo systems and all this stuff. Come on out. So the kids come out. They come out. And there aren't goat carts, and deer carts, and horse carts. There's just one cart. It's a big, white, bull cart.

[33:53]

It's actually a nice cart, but it's not the cart that they were interested in. It's the cart of Big Buddha. It's Buddha. They wouldn't come out for that one, so he had this other one. And they said, boy, is Buddha lying? He said, I wasn't lying. I just wanted to get you out of the house. Some people won't come out of the house unless you tell them that you've given this remedial course where they'll be able to improve in 30 days significantly. Then after that, after completing that course, there'll be a three-month course, the Tassajara, and they'll be even further improved. Basically, they'll feel like they have a built-in high-quality stereo set. Good music all the time. That's the promise. And they won't come out of the house unless you tell them that. So, you tell them that. If you're kind, you'll do that. Do anything to get them out of the house. And once they're out of the house, you say, sorry.

[34:54]

Actually, all I have for you is Zazen. upon arrival, this is what I have for you, I have this actual practice, a Buddhist practice, which is where you want to go anyway, you just don't believe you can do it that sort of became Zen school. Zen school did not name itself, it was the media that named it Zen school. Similarly, one time Dogen was being interviewed for the newspaper and they asked Dogen what he taught and he said, well I just tell people to not move.

[35:57]

So, you can practice concentration and not move. When you're not moving you can do anything. or put it the other way, no matter what you're doing, you cannot move. In the presence of chopping vegetables, in the presence of doing plumbing, in the presence of having a conversation, in the presence of a class, in the presence of chanting, in the presence of bowing, in the presence of sitting zazen, in the presence of being very aware of your posture and breathing, totally engaged and mindful of your posture and breathing, and even feeling bliss of being so collected. In the middle of that, you can still not move. In other words, you can be yourself even if you're concentrated. Even if you're practicing concentration, you can still be yourself. You can be yourself no matter what. And you are.

[37:06]

So that's what Dogen taught. Don't move, be yourself. Same thing. And that is precisely what the Buddha means, or what Manjushri taught. That is precisely what we mean by Buddha. Buddha is when you are exactly who you are. That's Buddha. The condition of being what you are is Buddha. Buddha is not you being different from what you are. Buddha is not Buddha. simply illusion, that's all. The universe has not made any mistakes here. You are who you are and if you don't move from who you are you will be liberated from who you are. Being who you are can be a trap if you move around a little bit. And not moving is entirely on human agency, there's no activity there. The inactivity of your being is your liberation. So you have to enact away from that.

[38:19]

Anyway, that's what Dogen taught. Have you heard about that? He said, total dedication, total devotion to immobile sitting. But he means total devotion to immobile being. In every moment, in every situation, in every religious and non-religious practice. Flat out, absolutely not kidding, and I'm very happy So the newspaper reporter says to Dorgan, well, how about koan practice? Or various other gradual approaches to liberation. He said, well, koans are great. The newspaper reporter says, well, I thought you just said that just moving was all you taught and that that's all you recommend to your students. And that's right. So why do you say that koans are good? He said, because some people won't sit still and they'll say, But if you sit and do a koan, you'll go to sit still.

[39:24]

It's the sitting still or being still that does the work of liberation. It's the being who you are that liberates you from who you are. It's not anything else. It's what's happening. It's suchness that liberates us. Not some human trip that we get involved in, but the suchness of our said in this newspaper in the year. The price, however, of this redemption, the price of redeeming yourself, your liberated, your dependently coerced self, your liberated self, same thing, the price of that is usually anxiety. Because as you approach being this immobile person, everything in the universe starts doing its thing to you, and from the point of view of self, which we have, it looks like it's doing it to us and we feel threatened.

[40:34]

We are trying to work with it rather than realizing it's giving us life, but you have to be there to make this reversal to realize everything's supporting you, everything's co-arising you. Again, you know, it's in the movies now. It's very clear what happened to the Buddha when the Buddha tried to sit still. Buddha tried various things. Buddha tried various things. He tried starving himself, he tried eating dirt, he tried standing on his head on top of the tallest mountain, and he got very good at yoga, went to the highest heavens, he tried everything, he did this, he moved that, just like Hamlet, right? He didn't kill anybody, but, you know, try this, try that, try not doing something, try this, blah, [...] blah. And in the end, he reached the same thing that Hamlet reached. The readiness is all. Just be ready. Just be present. Don't move.

[41:37]

And then when that happens, that's not the end of the story. Then you get tested. And they come flying at you. You think you're going to get by like this, you know? Blah, blah, blah, blah. This is all stuff in our own mind which says, no, no, you can't be yourself. It's echoes of those voices which you've heard for eons. You can't be yourself. You can't. That would be totally arrogant and selfish and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. That's what you get. Everybody gets slightly a different version, patterns. Some people get a lot of, that's arrogant. Some people get blah blah blah blah blah. But anyway, it comes at you and it tests you. You know, like somebody told me, he feels encouraged by people to be himself. Everybody said, come on, be yourself, Pierre. Be yourself, be yourself. But he senses that if he was, they wouldn't like him. very like yourself. So the funny thing is we encourage, I encourage people too, to be themselves, knowing that it's going to be hard for me when they are. But I want them to be, most of all I want them to be, even though I won't like them as much as I do now. Some people are very sweet the way they are now.

[42:38]

Kind of like all, you know. And when I get them up there, you know, God, it's going to be, I don't know what, I don't know what, these vigorously jumping fish. I don't know what kind of fish, either splashing, I don't know what, all over the place. It's going to be, I don't know what. It won't necessarily be a mess. If we knew it was going to be a mess, we could just get our rain gear on and have it be a mess. But we don't even know if it's going to be a mess. We don't know what it's going to be. So why don't you all just forget what I said and go up and practice concentration and be happy. Don't bother anybody by being yourself. We'll get through this practice period somehow. So that's it. Yes? I was sort of wondering about something that I thought about, and that is that concentration practice eventually gets a bit boring. And I wondered if that was kind of what the Buddha might have experienced, is that, well, so what?

[43:46]

Poor guy couldn't speak English. But basically that's where it comes down to is that actually this is not what I'm looking for in books. And I told the story, I did this, I did it, you know, I wouldn't say world-class, but anyway, over in that old zendo there, I disciplined myself. I had a fascist program here. Nobody knew about it, nobody stopped me. I got pretty heavy and I got myself concentrated. And I think Buddha on a higher level said, this is not the point. This is, you know, I guess it's something or whatever, but this is not what I came here for. And I told you about this person who told me about going these two ways. One way, kind of fuzzy and nice, but kind of like, it's not that vital. Concentration is swell, but it turns into a dead pit.

[44:57]

And sometimes, again, people look at Soto Zen, you know, just like they looked at Bodhidharma and they thought he's practicing concentration. Sometimes people look at Soto Zen I'd say, those people are like going just in... they're also just going into some kind of like, quietistic trance, you know? They're just like, making themselves feel good with all this stuff about being Buddha. You know? So they want to like, stick us with a cattle project. And maybe they're right, maybe that's what we're doing. Who knows? But in fact, even if they don't get stuck by somebody outside, inside you feel like, this is dead, this is not... this is just a stage, and you should... but... proper concentration, naturally, And the nice thing about concentration is it naturally starts to make you feel more relaxed and you start opening up. And then stuff starts coming in, and then you start doing the dance, you know. The insight practice starts to develop. You start to notice this relationship between yourself and the apple. And then things get jazzed up a little bit. And if you go too far the other way, then you lose your concentration, also can't see straight.

[45:57]

So then you get into this Samatha Vipassana thing, which is a good practice, and again, no problem in it, as long as You don't confuse that with something else, namely Zazen. We have this practice called Zazen, which is already being Buddha, you do those practices. If you're Buddha, you can do shamatha, vipassana practice. It's okay. one must... to its meaning. In the midst of life, if you practice concentrating yourself in order to develop insight into the meaning of life, if you've already basically trashed yourself, and not loved yourself in all your... loved your life, then even though you see the meaning, it won't console you.

[47:07]

yourself. It isn't like you've got to give yourself all kinds of huge awards and stuff, and consolation prizes. That's not the point. You don't give yourself consolation prizes, you give yourself THE prize. The most important prize is you give yourself to be yourself. And that's very interesting, and not boring at all. As a matter of fact, it is terrifyingly anxious. And Buddha, I believe Buddha was an anxious fellow. Big time anxious. But he did not run away from his anxiety. And he was liberated from it. And he recommended that to others if they want to know how to be liberated from being a self, from being a person. We are people. We are persons. And it is not by being more, it is not by more person trips. It doesn't mean you don't do them, it means you let go of them.

[48:36]

And letting go of personal trips means you're just a person. Practice is just being a person. That's not a trip. And that's very interesting. Interesting is not the word. You know what it's like when you're yourself. It is extremely vital and can be terrifying or anxious producing. And you've got to absorb yourself in that state of being yourself with all your pain on being on the verge all the time of being ripped to shreds, which means you're on the verge of changing all the time, which means you're on the verge of enlightenment all the time. But basically with the basic, what do you call it, license of being yourself, basic license of Buddha's way of being yourself, sitting in a place It's okay to practice concentration under those circumstances because you have loved your life starting out, so now you can go look for the meaning of it.

[49:40]

But if you abandon yourself, first of all, you might still be able to work back to the meaning, but it's kind of confusing. If you come out of the house and get on these horse carts and stuff, it gets confusing to change from the horse cart to the bull cart. You get all these complications, you know, so you think it's simpler just to come out of the house and get on a bull cart, then you can stay on that one forever, you know, because it's nothing, you know, other than being yourself, moment after moment, which is not anything but Well, those are good ideas.

[50:52]

Those are ideas, but they're good ideas. I don't see how you cannot be yourself in ways. Oh, you don't see how? I don't see how either. A delusion isn't real. What are we talking about? Huh? What are we talking about? Yeah. What are we talking about? I don't know. I don't know what we're talking about. Do you know what we're talking about? Well, I don't know what not being yourself is. You don't know what it is? I don't know what it is either. I don't know what being yourself is either. I don't know what those things are. you don't know and you're like me, I don't know. Well, it sounds like you're saying there's a how of not being yourself. Oh yeah, there is a how of not being yourself, that's right, there is a how of not being yourself, that's right. Do you know what that is? Well, it's kind of like, um, you know, like you have something to say, okay, and you feel like, well, if you say that, uh, you know, people might not like it, so you don't say it. And then after a while, since it's kind of inconvenient to go around thinking of something to say and not being able to say it, then you start to forget that you have to say it.

[51:55]

And you actually do this thing called putting what you have to say in a hidden place, because it's more convenient than remembering it all the time and feeling bad about not being able to say it. So you hide it from yourself. You put it in a hiding place. That's how you hide from being, that's how you hide do that because we have imaginations. However, you're completely that person, you know, and everybody watches you, they say, they say, oh look at that guy going over and hiding himself over there in the corner. You know, you think you're being successful because, you know, but everybody sees you, you're just hiding over the corner. You say, I'm hiding here, and then, and you say, at first when you're hiding there, you say, I'm hiding, and they can see me hiding, and after a while that gets embarrassing, so you're going to forget what you're doing, and you think you're sitting over the corner like being a normal person. But you just gradually delude yourself and delude yourself. Now, that's how you do it. There's many, many ways, but that's one example. Or like, you know, like I mentioned to some people in Cho-San the other day, when I was a young person after... Actually, I did like girls from early on.

[53:01]

From birth, I liked girls. That's part of how I got to be a boy, I think, according to Abhidharmakosha. And I liked my mom, my grandma, my sisters. Anyway, in my teenage years, liking girls was kind of like, became this social thing. Before that, it was just me and girls. And there was no intervening, boys weren't involved in my liking of girls. But after a while, liking girls became something we did with the boys. The boys liked, we liked girls in groups, we liked girls, you know? It became something to discuss, you know? So, you know, I like girls, I had my own interest in girls, and there were some things, but, you know, all boys, I think, have slightly different interests in girls. So then there's nothing much to talk about, right? So, like, what they do is they tend to, like, agree on certain things to like about girls, and they talk about those things, so they have something in common. They can all say, oh yeah, well, blah, blah, you know, oh yeah, blah, blah, oh yeah, blah, [...] blah. No, not blah, blah.

[54:02]

Concentrate, you know, on these certain topics so they can have more fun. And certain things that they were interested in, that they talked with their instinct, I was not interested in. They were not an issue for me. It was not interesting or attractive or anything. It just wasn't an issue. But in order to, you know, be one of the guys, you start talking about this stuff, and pretty soon you're talking about baseball and these things, about girls and blah blah. After a while, you start thinking you like it. And you start denying this part of this guy that was interested in this other stuff, because nobody wants to talk about that. As a matter of fact, if you start talking about it, it's not that they don't want to talk about it, but they think you're kind of like, you know, I don't know what they would be interested in baseball, you know, like... At a certain point, if a boy dances with girls, he's like, it's not good. You shouldn't be interested in even dancing with them. Even though they kind of want, let's dance. The cool guys do not dance with them. The ones who dance with them are kind of stupid. So if you want those guys to like you and be your pal, you kind of got to not do some things you might want to do, like dance or maybe, who knows, write a poem or read a poem or say that you like something.

[55:10]

Yeah, I like your dress. Do not talk like that. Yeah, I like your hair, you know, you smell good, or whatever, you know, you don't talk like that at a certain time, that's not, you say other things. And then the guys say, that was cool, you know. We boys also sometimes like, we like boys too, right? We want their approval too. So we start to deny ourselves and we wind up to be this kind of phony version of ourselves. We deny ourselves, we trash ourselves, we reject ourselves, we hate ourselves. And then after we hate ourselves, are you following this at all? This is how you do it. I can go on, but we have the whole practice period for me to draw out the full scale horror of what we do to ourselves, and what we do to get back at ourselves for what we did to ourselves, and what we do to get back at anybody out there who reminds us of what we did to ourselves, which is the real horror of what we do to others. When we project out what we've done to ourselves onto them, and we say what they're doing,

[56:13]

then we really get monstrous. That's why it is essential that we go back and be ourselves for the sake of others, so we'll be kind. Because until we redeem ourself, and redemption of ourself is the only repayment for what we've done against ourselves, that's the only way you can... All this other stuff is consolation. But to get to be back to be yourself, to get back to be a vigorously jumping weirdo, that's what you want, you know, that's your life. And when you get that, then you won't be cruel to other people. You'll want them to be able to be themselves too. Even though, if you think about it, you'd be scared to death. So you don't think about it. That's part of what you do. You don't think about it. You just say, come on, be yourself and don't look. And after they're themselves, you look and say, okay, I'm right. That's it. You got it. It's not boring. If such a person wants to practice concentration, such a person, whatever you want, because you've got everybody supporting you now.

[57:26]

It's no longer that you're being hassled by everything, you're getting supported by everything to be yourself. You really believe that. And then you can do all kinds of wonderful things. Just like you could do before, except before you were doing them under insult to yourself, and they would never console you. They'll never console you because you don't love your life. So even great meaning will not work, although it's It is a nice constellation for us. Yes? I have this idea that if a person is truly his or herself then there's just this process of dependent co-arising going on that doesn't have any center. There's no like ... There's no center. But there is a way to call it a nexus. A nexus. A nexus, you know. There's like in the huge infinite pattern of cause and effect in the universe, there's these next scenes, which make manifestations. So like a person appears, but there's no center, it's just a bunch of causes and conditions.

[58:30]

And when you take away the causes and conditions, there's nothing left. So what's getting, like you said, when a person is truly itself or herself, they're going to get tested. So what's actually getting tested there? How can something be tested if it doesn't have a center? I think the expression of dependent co-arising is getting tested. And the person, part of what it produces is a being that is this being, form of being, which doesn't have a center, but which has, for example, the power of choice. So it can choose to be that, or it can choose to be something other than itself. It's ridiculous, but it can do that. And that's part of the way that the being can say, hey, I can choose to be something else. I mean, I can get involved in that, but I don't. I love this, I'm so appreciative of this opportunity. I'm going to be this even though I'm being tested this way.

[59:33]

Because I think this is the only way to help people. Because if I don't take care of myself I'm going to become a negative, I'm going to become a liability to all the beings who've given me support. Not to mention it's going to be very painful around here and not very interesting. But there's no center. But when you say no center, it doesn't mean that the center doesn't exist. That would be insulting the situation by underestimation. To say that the center exists is called slandering the self by exaggeration. To say that the center doesn't exist is non-existent. That would be underestimation. There is an inherent manifestation here. unpredictable, and it's alive. It is alive. It is eternally, eternally alive. It is infinitely alive. It never dies.

[60:34]

Never. There is death, and death is all around it all the time, around this being. Death is part of what creates this thing. Death is in perfect harmony with this life. They're not conflicted. They are Killing is, you kill yourself when you say, I can't be me, I've got to be less than this. You don't respect and appreciate your life, you kill yourself, you reject yourself, you abandon yourself. And then, if you don't respect yourself, well then you won't respect other life forms either. If you really respect yourself, you respect flies, raccoons, dogs chasing raccoons. Last night was my turn. I was at the center of the merry-go-round. It's so cute. On and on, all life forms will be respected when you respect yourself, and if you respect yourself 90%, then you respect other beings 90%.

[61:44]

Sometimes what you do is you just take 90% of people and then every 10% you trash, or sometimes you just spread it out and respect 90% of all the people. And as long as they keep on the 90% side you respect, fine. As soon as they move into the 10%, you have ways of dealing with them. But if you respect yourself 100%, you respect other beings 100%. And the way to respect other beings 100% is to raise your respect for yourself. And the way you test to see if you respect yourself is whether you are willing to be and have the experience, which is called zazen. It's called just being yourself, not any more, not any less. Then that's how I've ended the Course. You're not going to get it for that. There's going to be problems when you do that. Even if you try 90% or 60% or even if you try 2%, during the 2% time you're going to get it for that. But if you get up to 90%, 95%, 99%, 100%, you're going to get up a lot. You're going to get it like a lot.

[62:45]

is going to be very expensive, but it's worth it, according to the Buddha. Buddha said, you people are worth it. You're worth it. You deserve this kind of attention. And what do you pay attention to? You pay attention to everything, but particularly, you pay attention to the part of yourself that you abandon. Of course, you can't see it, special attention in a way. It's when you're sitting and trying to be yourself, the part of you that comes that you don't want, that you're uncomfortable with, and particularly try to develop a presence with that and let that one in. That's your growing. That's your redemption. And that's where your fear and anxiety. So this is a recommendation for the diversity training. This will be a two days when you can like work at, you know, being yourself with other people being different from you. Everybody the same as you is not anxiety.

[63:55]

In our situations where you temporarily are with people that aren't just like you, I mean, they're pretty comfortable. Of course, you have to be just like them if you try to, you know, like, if you're with the boys, if you're just like them, it's pretty comfy. Just don't talk about girls in that way and you'll be fine. But not to be in a situation where there isn't any group, you know, of guys or gals to hang out with, then it's going to be just anxiety all over the place. But if we can all experience the anxiety of us being different, you know, I think that's a good thing. By the way, I want to mention that I think girls do the same thing, that some girls are interested in things about boys that other girls aren't. You know, some girls like the fact that boys are, you know, certain ways that other girls don't like. Like I said, maybe some girls like that boys work on cars or something, and other girls aren't interested in that. So if they want to talk to their girlfriends about the boy, they don't talk about, you know, auto mechanics, maybe.

[64:56]

They talk about certain other aspects which most girls are interested in. So, you know, girls too, kind of like, what we call the canalized, you know, get certain ruts about how they talk about boys, and after a while, I mean, that's what they like. So they also deny some of their interests too. So we all do that in many dimensions. We put ourselves in these ruts for some course the reason why we're yearning is because although rejected it's still there right nearby it's calling out to us please listen listen to those calls So what's the importance of following the schedule?

[66:11]

Well, it's just something that you want to do. What if you find that you don't want to do it? If you wanted to follow the schedule, you all told me that. I already went through this one other practice period. Because I'm here to respect you for what you are. So I just happened to pre-selected a group of people that wanted to do the schedule. Because there's another group who don't want to do the schedule. people just happen to want to do the same thing. We're pretty nice. That's all. But what if I wasn't myself when I told you that I wanted to talk to you about it? Now, I'm myself. Well, then that would be wonderful.

[67:12]

But I think most, you know, I personally, I also would like to talk to you about because you think it's supposed to be because some daddy or mommy told you to do it. I don't want to be sitting in a room with people who are, you know, deaf. I want to be sitting with people who want to be up there. So if you don't want to be there, you know, don't come. It's fine. No problem. Do something you really want to do. And it turns out a lot of people came in the practice period thinking that somebody was forcing them to do the practice. I just want, I ask you, love doing Zazen. If you love doing Zazen, well, great. Now, unfortunately, I told you it's not what you thought. So, but you can still go and practice what you thought it was. I'll just be myself, which is going to cause you some anxiety. And you're going to cause me anxiety by, you know, going deep into these Samadhis and not wanting to come out.

[68:25]

The funny thing is, you know, when I just say Zazen is just what's happening, You know, that puts somebody into a Samadhi instantly. Okay. You can't stop these Samadhi things from happening. It's okay. And it was very blissful and comfortable and encouraging and vital and all that. And it was put in by the Zazen instruction, you fell into that. That happens. All right. The thing about Zazen is though, when the bell rings, you get up. The way you perfect schedule and it gets greater and greater and greater and the more you let and if you let go of a greater Samadhi you get even more bliss until finally you get real bliss which is the bliss of all beings which is why you feel blissful because all beings love you and so on.

[69:26]

I asked you if you loved it you said yes so I thought we were doing it right? But if you change your mind this would be a great great breakthrough And, you know, we all enjoyed somebody being himself in a way that we didn't plan on. But we did sort of like, you know, try to get a group of people here that wanted to do that, so we wouldn't have to, you know, go looking for people to figure out when to play, you know. So we kind of were kind of together here, which is, I think, very beneficial. Because the more people you're with, the more you sense that mutual and even sort of dramatize our mutual support. Anxiety. Anxiety, right, exactly. The more beings you're in the presence of, the more you can be yourself. And also the more anxiety, the more anxiety you can experience, the more you can be yourself. yourself you know they can't find you so you're safe but somebody's really pissed off that you did that and that person is right nearby and it's going to get you for it but unfortunately the way they're going to get you terrible things is the way they're going to get you is by picking on somebody weaker than you it's really horrible so

[71:02]

admitting that you don't want to practice here in the face of beings you really respect, that will be practicing here. You say, I do not want to practice here. If that's what you're feeling, I encourage you, even though I don't want to hear it, I encourage you to say it. I won't like it.

[71:27]

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