I want to say before I start making an agreement that I will not try to talk about everything I want to talk about. So I'm going to stop before I'm done. I want to make an agreement at the beginning so you know, you can remind me of this in case I get carried away, that I am not going to talk about everything that I want to talk about today. I'm going to stop before I'm done. Can you hear that? Is that all right in the back? Okay. Because I want to talk about a lot of things. Maybe I can continue in question and answer. And then after that too, but I'm going to stop. Remember that?

[01:04]

Yes. So the topic I want to talk about has this awesome title, Truth. I want to talk about truth. And to quote that saying which many of you have heard, the truth shall set us free. Deep in my heart, I do believe the truth shall set me free. The truth shall set us free. It's very basic. What is very basic to the Buddha way is the assertion of truths.

[02:05]

And these truths, when seen and practiced, lead to liberation. And that's a truth, too, that's asserted. The truth that is particularly crucial to Buddhist practice is a truth which sets us free from delusion about what we are. A truth that sets us free from self-delusion. So one of the basic truths of the founder of Buddhism is that the suffering, the universal suffering among human beings, the suffering which we all share, is a suffering due to self-clinging, due to selfishness.

[03:14]

And self-clinging is based on belief in an independent self-existence. There's many other pains and sufferings which we experience in life, but they vary from person to person. But we all share this basic problem of believing in the reality of our individuality. There is a truth which will set us free from that belief and therefore free from the suffering from the universal suffering and the basically endless suffering that comes from selfishness. Is that clear so far? So the Buddha proposed that it is part of human nature to see ourselves as separate individuals, existing

[04:28]

independent of each other. And that's our struggle, is to become free of that view. And depending on whether one is free of that view or not, the world, life provides, you know, two basic modes of existence. One is called samsara, which means going round and round and round in suffering. And the other is called Nirvana, which means, literally it means snuffed out. But what it means is that your belief in your independent self, your belief is snuffed out, your ignorance is snuffed out. Samsara and nirvana are kind of like what in the West we call hell and heaven respectively. But in Buddhism there's hells and heavens, but even the heavens are not nirvana in the Buddhist treatment.

[05:36]

But there's a story which I think many of you have heard about what heaven and hell are like, which I think is interesting. is something about what samsara and nirvana are like. So basically samsara is endless, unbounded misery. And it's endless because of the habit which keeps generating it and turning it around and around. And nirvana is endless, unbounded peace and harmony among all beings. Those are the kind of short expressions about what those are like. And so the story I heard about what heaven and hell are like is that in hell there are lots of beautiful people, beautiful humans, beautiful non-humans.

[06:42]

They're all sitting at a big table together, huge table. And there's wonderful things to eat there too. And there's plenty for everybody. And then heaven, in heaven there are also the same people at the same table. And the food is just as good and no better. And the people are just as good and no better. The thing is that everybody is supplied with a set of 11-foot chopsticks with which to feed yourself in hell. So hell is where there's things you want, And you're concerned with feeding yourself, and you can't, really.

[07:47]

You try, but it's basically very frustrating, and you can't use your hands. You've got to use these chopsticks. If you try to use your hands, I guess they stop you and punish you. But it's okay to try to feed yourself with the chopsticks. Heaven is basically the same situation. You got the food, the people, and you got these big long chopsticks. But in heaven, the thing is that you're concerned with feeding the other people. And these big long chopsticks are perfect for that because it's a big table. And so you can feed people around the table with your long chopsticks. So heaven is a place of the extreme joy of feeding others. And not only that, but them feeding you. You're not at all concerned with feeding yourself. You're just ecstatic about feeding others, and there's wonderful people to feed and wonderful things to feed to them, and you've got nice tools to do so.

[08:49]

Not only that, but incidentally, they all feed you. And not just one of them, but they all feed you, and you feed all of them. That's like, what do you call it? That's like being freed of belief in individual self. So that's kind of like nirvana and samsara. And that's pretty much it as far as Buddhism goes. That's like the point of it all is to be living in the world where you basically are enjoying helping others and noticing that they're helping you and noticing that they're helping you help them and that you're helping them help you and so on. So why don't we just do that? Well, the reason is because we actually think that we live independently of the other people at the table, and we're actually worried that they won't feed us or something like that.

[10:06]

We don't actually understand that everybody is feeding us already. And then because we don't see that they're helping us and feeding us, we naturally, of course, feel kind of... unhappy about them being so selfish and worried about whether we're going to get fed and, well, you know, how it goes sometimes. So in order to actually enact nirvana, we have to change our vision. We have to become free of the view of self so we can see the truth of the self, of the person, who is right here and everywhere else, the person who is being born and living through the kindness and support of all other beings, all other people, all other animals, all plants, the mountains, the rivers, the sky, the earth.

[11:08]

Everybody is helping you. We have to open our eyes to that world. Okay? That's the truth we need to see which will set us free. Is this clear so far, whether you believe it or not? You don't need to believe it, but is it clear what I'm proposing? Okay, well, so then the thing is, how do you open your eyes to see this truth? So that's the eye-opening kind of practice. So the first phase I talked about a couple weeks ago, and I went into some detail, too much actually, and talked too long, and unfortunately it didn't get taped very well. So all that information is all kind of like, I'll have to give a lecture again sometime, probably in two parts. But basically what I talked about last time is the first step in eye-opening. The eye-opening basically, for simplicity's sake, has three phases.

[12:17]

For complexity's sake, it has innumerable phases. But basically, for simplicity, three phases. And the three phases match three kinds of coverings of the truth which sets us free. The three kinds of covering of the truth are the covering due to past action, called karma avarana, the covering due to affliction or disturbing conceptions called klesha avarana, and the covering or obscuration due to the fact that we know things, nyaya avarana in Sanskrit. These are three kinds of coverings of the truth. The first one's the most gross, next one more subtle, and next one most subtle. So the practice which I spoke of last time, which removes and lets us through the first kind of covering of the truth, the grossest covering of the truth, is the practice of believing.

[13:26]

It's one of the things that Buddha asked you to believe, believing in cause and effect, believing in the laws of karma. That's the practice which removes the covering due to action, due to karma. Okay, now hold back, boy, you can't talk too much about this. As some of you know, I'm kind of like a mushroom. Did you know about that? I'm a fun guy. That's not true.

[14:35]

I'm not a fun guy. Okay, so if you believe in cause and effect, that means that you believe in the basic teaching that doing things harmful to anything, animate or inanimate, being harmful to a person, a plant, a rock, a Toyota, But being disrespectful, unkind and uncareful in any way will bring you what you don't want. It'll bring you unfortunate consequences. Also, being kind and careful and respectful of anything will bring you fortunate consequences.

[15:42]

wholesome, happy results. Now it turns out that there's a hierarchy there, that it actually is more important to be kind to living creatures than to tires. Or rather, it's not so much more important, but the benefit of being kind to a living being is greater than the benefit of being kind to a rock. And the harm or the lack of benefit and misfortune that comes to you from being unkind to living beings is much greater than the misfortune of being disrespectful of Greece. Okay? Does that make sense, at least as a proposal? That's a law in short form of cause and effect. So if you believe that, and you sort of have to believe it before you're enlightened, because you actually have to open your other two eyes before you can actually see this law.

[16:48]

So given that our eyes are somewhat obscured, our vision of the truth is somewhat obscured, you kind of have to believe this, which all the leaders, all the wise people in history, as far as I know, of the humans who have been able to see, have said that this is so. And you kind of know it so already, don't you? It's just you don't know the full and awesome extent of it and how tremendously important it is to believe this and not only believe it or accept it, but accommodate and modify your behavior in accord with this. So it isn't just you believe that doing good is really good and doing bad is really bad, but you actually start to try to do good and refrain from harmfulness. Okay? That kind of practice removes the first gross level of obscuration of the truth. That kind of practice is not easy.

[17:53]

It requires that you pay attention to where you are, how you feel, what you're doing, what you think, what you say, and what you do with your body. It means you pay close attention to that thing, and you're very... If you really align yourself with this teaching, you become very careful. This practice does not do the whole job of opening your eyes completely to the truth, but it is an essential first step. That's the proposal. It takes not only carefulness, it takes courage. And it takes gentleness and tenderness and alertness. It takes a lot to do this basic practice. For example, it finally leads to something like that you would rather die than harm something.

[18:56]

you get to that point when your practice is all the way, that you actually come down to the point, and think about this, that you get to the point where you'd rather die than harm someone, because you understand how harmful it is to harm. You'd give up your breath rather than harm someone. Also, you'd give up your breath in order to help someone. You give up your blood, you give up your life if you felt it would help someone because you see, you just see that it makes sense. So, for example, today we're having a vigil, which you're all welcome to attend at the West Gate of San Quentin. I'm going there to say, basically, I... would rather die than kill someone else. Even if this person is a convicted murderer, I still would not harm him.

[20:02]

I'd rather die than do that. So I'm going to say that. That's why I'm going there. I do not want to cooperate with the execution of human beings. That's how I feel. So I'm going to go there and do that, go there and just pretty much be quiet, because if somebody asks me how I feel, I'll say, but I'm basically just going to go be there. And I think people probably get the idea that I want to go there and stand for gentleness and kindness. So I will go try to practice that, even though that might be difficult for me. I will try. because the state is contemplating giving a person a lethal injection next Friday morning at our local execution center over in San Quentin.

[21:06]

You know, here we are in the Bay Area, right? We're the kind of place that the Bay Area is, but Bay Area is also where people get executed. So it's right under our nose this is happening. So if you want to come today, there's going to be a Buddhist vigil from 2 to 3. You can come and quietly witness and express from your heart where you feel about this, whatever it is. But anyway, this first practice of belief and accommodating to the laws of cause and effect, as I said, we could go into great detail about it, and it's a very detailed practice which we practice by gentleness and so on throughout the day, throughout our life.

[22:12]

And the only difference between the beginning and the end of the practice is at the beginning you kind of believe it, and at the end you can see it. So in the end, because you can see it, you can let go of your belief and just act according to what you see. Namely, that every living being, you know, is your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your lover, your children, your best friend. And therefore, of course, you would only be kind to them. And they are not only all those people to you, but they are all those people in their best form to you. So that's that. Now I practically have time to stop, but I want to go on to the next one, the practice which addresses and removes the next obscuration, the obscuration of emotional conflict and disturbing conceptions that create all kinds of

[23:30]

disturbance and confusion and greed and hate. And when those things are going on, it's hard for us to see the truth of the self. Again, the first practice of being careful of everything you do, what it does basically is it takes away the obscuration so you can start to see yourself. By being careful of everything you do, by realizing that everything you do has big consequences, maybe not right now, but eventually, big consequences. By being careful in this way, you come back to yourself because you come back to the person who you think does these things. So these practices bring you back to yourself, and as you come back to yourself, you start to get a feeling for who you are or who you think you are, who you think is doing these good things or these unwholesome things.

[24:33]

Then once you're back with yourself and can see yourself a little bit or pretty well, that first obscuration is removed. You can see yourself now, the self, the self is starting to come into view. The process of self revelation is moving forward by being careful of every action. Now the self starts to appear. And when the self starts to appear, then we run into a new difficulty. We continue to have the difficulty of being very careful of everything we do. But now we have a new difficulty, which is the difficulty of facing up to, of settling into and facing up to ourself. And when you settle into and face up to what yourself is and don't run away from it, you start to experience usually quite a bit of pain and anxiety.

[25:39]

It was there before, but it was covered up to some extent. Or you felt pain and anxiety, but now you realize that the pain and anxiety is focused on the self, which you believe in as existing by itself. Once you are in the place where you see the anxiety and pain and fear are focused, again, you might want to Stop being careful so that you won't see it. And in fact, once you start seeing yourself and the turmoil and anxiety that surrounds yourself, a lot of people then want to take a vacation from that place. And the best way to take a vacation is just eat a lot of sugar, be mean to people, and so on. This will distract you from yourself fairly quickly. And then you'll have other problems other than the problem of noticing all the pressure that's on this individual self.

[26:47]

So I'd like to start now by talking basically about how difficult it is to be oneself. Now again, just so you know beforehand, the reason for being oneself is because the proposal is that if you can be yourself fully, you will transcend yourself. And I would also propose that human beings, it is our nature as human beings that we, on one side, we very much want to maintain and affirm and protect and preserve ourself, and we also deeply want to transcend and become free of it. Because the self-protection, maintenance, and preservation is endless pain, and self-transcendence is happiness.

[27:52]

But we have to do both. But again, self-transcendence is not hard at all. It's actually spontaneous. The hard work is the work of settling into and admitting and accepting and participating in our ongoing maintenance projects of our self. The self... the self is difficult to settle into. At least initially, when we settle into our self and assert our being, we feel some resistance around us, some pressure from something which we sense is other,

[28:58]

we experience this pressure or this resistance to us being ourself objectively as fear. And we also experience it in an objectless way, in an imageless way, as anxiety. We feel pressure, resistance, and challenge to us being ourself. We sense either we can almost hear the words, You cannot be yourself. You cannot be like this. You should be some other way. We hear this. Or we see it. We see a sign that says it. Or we see a face that looks like it means that. Our hands seem to be pushing us away from ourself. But sometimes we sense it and there's not even a word for it. We don't even hear the word saying, you can't be yourself. And we feel it. without even having an object.

[30:05]

That means it doesn't have a location. That means it's from all over. And you can't even call it unknown. We feel choked, smothered, and challenged. So I propose that we have to go and meet Whatever it is that says you can't fully be yourself, we have to go and meet this, even meet it if we can see it and imagine it, and meet it even if we can't imagine it. If we can go and meet what says you can't be yourself, we can be ourself fully. And if we can be ourself fully, we can become free of ourself. and be in the land where we only enjoy helping others and where everyone helps us. We must go forward and meet what obstructs and resists us in order to express our living self.

[31:17]

And then we will be aware of ourself and fulfilled and transcended. And when we go to meet what's resisting us, what's challenging us to be ourself, we do it lovingly and courageously. We don't fight this thing. This pressure, this challenge is helping us. We don't understand that yet, but we should act not as though we did, but we should act kindly towards it and gently towards it. it is actually like forcing us to really, you know, be ourselves fully. If there's no resistance, if we can't go and meet the other and push back pretty much, not push back gently, but gently means, you know, pushing back gently means you push back basically to meet

[32:34]

If the person's pushing hard, you push back hard but gently, and gently so that you can feel just how hard to push back. You meet. If there's no resistance, our self can't express itself. we depend on meeting the other for our wholeness. And in particular, most of all, we depend on meeting the face of the other. So in Zen we speak of face-to-face transmission of the truth which sets us free. face. As human beings, faces are very important to us. We have one, and we're very concerned with what's other people's face.

[33:38]

I guess, if I think about it, most of us do not have trouble looking intently into the back of somebody else's head. But to meet their face... is something which is very dynamic and important for us. Someone told me that they've done research now and they found out that certain people who have, what, some kind of neurological disorder where they have almost no short-term memory, they can remember what happened a long time ago maybe, so they can speak English or whatever, but they can't remember what happened a few minutes ago. So this one guy, he can remember what was going on in the 60s, and he actually liked The Grateful Dead. And so if you play The Grateful Dead to him, he remembers it, he knows the tunes, and he loves them.

[34:50]

If you play the new Grateful Dead to them, he thinks, oh, how strange. This is The Grateful Dead. He can hardly believe it. If you introduce him to some new person, if you give him some new information in some other dimension, he can't remember it. But if you give him new music, even though he never heard it before, he thinks, even though he has, he can remember the new music. So the proposal is that when music comes into us, it goes deep into us to a place that's deeper than short-term memory. So even though we can't remember other things that happened recently, we could remember music that we heard, even music that maybe we don't particularly care for yet.

[35:55]

And when this person told me that, I said, oh, you know what else is like that? People's faces. Even though you may not have very good short-term memory, you can sometimes learn a person's face, get long-term memory of a person's face like that. If you look at it... But we don't tend to have such long-term memory for the back of people's heads. But faces somehow, a lot of us, even those who don't have very good memory, say, I never forget a face or... I can remember a face, maybe not a name, but a face. To me, I think the face is down there very deep in us, maybe where music is. And the person said, yes, that's right. He could remember the face of people he had just recently met, this guy who couldn't remember anything else except music. There's something about expressing yourself, which has a face, which you can't see, to another who has a face that you can see.

[37:04]

And looking into that face to see if that face will let you be the face you are. This is very deep. We have to feel acceptance of our face in the other face. And the face that we most want, the face that we most value, of the being we think is the greatest, is the face that we most want recognition from. It's the face that we most want to be told You can be yourself. And not only can you be yourself, but I'm rooting for you to be yourself. I want you to be yourself. And most important thing about you that I want you to be is yourself. More than anything else, that's what I want from you. I want you most of all to be your face. And this face is saying that to you.

[38:05]

And that very face that you most want to say you can be that face, that's the face you most are afraid to go and look at. So in Zen, there's many stories of monks traveling by foot hundreds of miles to meet a face that will look in their face and say, you have realized your face. And they're terrified to go see that face when they actually get close to it. It's very difficult to be yourself and to express your face to another face that you really care about. And express your face means really show it. Not necessarily take off the makeup, but really show your face. And you can bring your face also to things which aren't living, too.

[39:45]

You can bring them to marble, canvas and paint, gardens, mountains. But the most important is to bring it to another human face. And among the human faces, the most important face to bring it to is Buddha's face. And Buddha's face is deep, deep in us. And our face, just exactly the way it is, is an expression of this deep Buddha face. But can we, moment by moment, put this face out there in the world. This face belongs to us.

[40:47]

But unless we take this face out into the world that does not belong to us, will this face really belong to us? If we take this face roughly and force it on the world and stick it in the world's face, then the world will say, yes, it's true, we do not want this face. If you shrink back and hide this face and keep it away from the world, you won't feel like it's yours. It's your face, but it won't belong to you until you go on the great adventure of bringing it out into the world that does not belong to you. And the world that does not belong to you says, yes, that is your face. Of course, you know that, but the world has to say it back to you. You have to find a way to present it such that the world can say, yes, and you know it's yours.

[41:51]

It's not yours until what is not yours tells you it's yours. If you don't think it's yours already, you don't have to go out in the world yet. When you think it's yours, when you think you've got a face, then bring it out and get confirmation. When you bring your face out this way, your face out this way, you realize that your face is not an independent thing. That in order to have your face, you can only have your face with the help of the other. It is not yours until the other gives it to you. Therefore, at that time, you become free of belief in the independent existence of your own face.

[42:53]

And it is now finally really yours. But what is yours is a face that is not independent. And you're free of self-clinging. And everyone else's face is your life. And you feed them. You primarily feed them, first of all, before you get to them, before you reach them, before you offer them any food, the first way you reach them is with your face. and you bring your face just as it is. You don't bring more of your face or less than your face. You gently, accurately, thoroughly be yourself and bring that person face first into the meeting with the other. And then you give form and reality to yourself. And you give life and vitality to the other.

[43:59]

In this way the student brings the teacher alive. before the student presents her face, the teacher's dead. Dead to the student, and dead as a teacher. If you don't really bring yourself forward, the others are dead. They just stay over there being the way you've already decided they are. They're done for. Or they're dead. Or you could say they're finished. They're finished creations. They're finished creations. And therefore, they're not creation anymore. When you bring your face forward, the other comes alive. And that's why you want to run away. It's so intense. And maybe the way they come alive is saying, you can't be you.

[45:05]

Even though the reason why they're saying you can't be you is because you are you. They wouldn't say that if you weren't. As you might imagine, this morning, as usual, it has been and continues to be difficult for me to be myself. in your face. But that's what I'm really trying to do. And that's what I believe will set me free from being concerned with this person first. In order to be myself I have to command myself to be myself.

[46:40]

In order to follow the command to be myself I have to obey myself. In order to be myself I have to obey the other. and I have to command the other to look at me. And I have to command the other to be herself. And I have to command gently and patiently and lovingly and courageously each person to be themselves and obey each person who's asking me to recognize them and affirm them the way they are right now. And the way I might affirm somebody the way they are right now is to say, I feel like you're backing off being yourself.

[47:52]

Please come forward. Please come closer. That's too close. In order to be myself, I have to listen to every other person, to look at every other face, to recognize and affirm every other face in order to affirm myself, in order to be affirmed, both. This kind of work removes the second covering of the truth and liberates us from self-clinging and the pain of self-clinging, liberates us from the belief of our independent face, of one face alone, unsupported by all other beings.

[48:58]

At this point, one is actually liberated from suffering, but not completely, but definitely liberated from the first level or the second level of obscuration. And the next time I talk, I'll talk about the third level, which is more subtle. but then completely clears our eyes to see the truth. So again, as a kind of summary of this kind of work of affirming of being oneself is that first of all you do it just with yourself in terms of feeling like you're present with the self you are and you're expressing yourself as you are to the best of your ability and then you go and take this self

[50:22]

out on the adventure of meeting another self who you really think is a self and who has eyes and a face to look back at you. And when you go to see that person, the very fact that you're going to see them is an affirmation of them. And so this person means something to you by the very fact that you're going to talk to them and look at them and then enter into the face-to-face conversation through which you will realize who you are. They will realize who they are. You'll both realize that neither one of you are independent of each other. You're both giving each other life. And again, this is very difficult to go into this realm This realm's called the Green Dragon Cave. We name Green Gulch after this place. The Green Dragon Cave, the place you go into where you bring your being to meet another being, and together, together, you realize the truth, the truth that you're not separate from each other, that neither one of us can be fully ourself without the other.

[51:47]

And our practices of sitting and being aware of our posture and breathing are to help us settle into the body, mind, breath, being that goes into this meeting. because we must be calm, stable, courageous, gentle, alert, patient, kind, and all these things in order to go into this place and be able to sit there for a while. If we rush in, we'll rush out. You have to very carefully set yourself into this living realm. Okay? Is that clear? Okay, I'm going to stop now before I've finished. I'll bring it up a little bit, yeah.

[53:15]

Thanks. Yes, please. So, what is your name? Judith asked about the third covering. And the third covering is that once we experience liberation from our self-concern, then because to whatever extent we are aware of our liberation, to whatever extent we know about it,

[54:36]

there's a kind of covering because by knowing something about our freedom or our liberation we cover it you know just the fact of having it be something we know we make it into something we can grasp and that way we we cover the truth we make we we kind of cash in on our liberation. So, once liberated, to then see how the liberation itself also is not something by itself, then we don't, then we can't make the liberation into an object of knowledge. But because we can even convert our freedom into something we know about, like, oh, now I feel free, whereas Before I didn't feel free, and my freedom is different from my bondage.

[55:43]

And you can know it and actually have a feeling for it, like you are free, you're a different person, you're freer, you're happier, you're not so concerned with yourself, you're a happy camper. But then to camp out is what we call Zen sickness. You can't get Zen sickness until you're kind of enlightened. But when you make your enlightenment and your freedom into something, then that's the covering. Of course, already, even before attaining enlightenment or even attaining freedom, we already have that covering over freedom. We already have some idea of what freedom is before we even arrive. When you arrive, you might find out it's not even what you thought it was, but it's something. And to the extent that it's anything, you cover it, you wrap it, you package it. But that packaging, if you then enter into the same kind of conversation with that packaging of how you think that freedom is different from bondage and how you think freedom from suffering is different from suffering, if you enter into that dialogue, pretty soon you become free of freedom.

[56:59]

You let go of freedom. In other words, you let go of the self of the freedom. And you realize that freedom has no self independent of everything else, too. Just as we, as individuals, dependently co-arise with all other beings, freedom dependently co-arises with all other beings, too. So freedom also is something that cannot be categorized or boxed. So then you're really free, and then you can go back and be just a normal, you know, whatever you want to call it. you can go back to your little grass shack and be completely normal and be free of your ordinary attachment but also be free of your freedom. So you have even now totally unafraid to plunge back into ordinary existence with all beings.

[58:02]

And then also, as I say, your final layer of of obscuration due to categorizing things and attributing self-existence to things is removed. So now you can also see the laws of cause and effect. So you're just like everybody else. You reach for the cup just like everybody else would reach for a cup. And you try to do good just like everybody else tries to do good. Not everybody, but a lot of people do. But you would do it now because you see there's no other way. Whereas before maybe a little bit weren't sure of what you really do kind of down deep know. So as a result of all this training you do, you can do what you already know you should do. Like we already know it would be really wonderful to, you know, love everybody else just like they were us. But somehow we have trouble implementing that.

[59:05]

Now you have no trouble implementing it. But the way you'd implement it would be the same way everybody else would implement it, if they could. You know? Just like you go up and love someone, just like you now would go up and love someone, it's the same thing. It's just that now you can do it with everybody and everything. But it's the same basic thing. It's just that, you know, there's no problems anymore with it. Because you're not fooled by... what you think is true. OK, that's a little bit about it, but it's a, you know. Linda? Well, I enjoyed it. I appreciated your talk. Can you hear your butt coming out? I can feel it here, too. But it was also a little bit lofty, and it seemed a little out of reach.

[60:15]

For those moments when we're in some kind of suffering, that's pretty... Yes, so... The suffering is dense, did you say? Yeah, I said that. I'll just ask the question now. So a person, you know, when we're feeling a lot of... helplessness, self-hate. If we hear stuff about how wonderful it is to feed other people all the time, but we don't really realize or believe that we deserve to be fed, for example, then we could get confused by that kind of advice. And I don't know if that lofty talk about the kind of freedom from the three coverings can get through when we're suffering a lot at that level.

[61:17]

Well, like I said, I stopped before I was finished, right? So this is a very good question. So I would say, I think what she said was, this teaching about removing these three covers is, she felt, was somewhat lofty. The way you put it was so good, maybe you should just say it again. I kind of lost it. Let me try to say it. She was feeling like, oh, I guess she said, when you're feeling like you actually don't particularly feel up to, like, you don't really believe that either you're worthy of being fed by everyone or that everyone is feeding you and you're not really sure that you really want to feed everyone else and that's really the way you want to go. Or maybe you want to feed everyone else and you have some big ideals about it that make you even more confused, but meanwhile... Yes, so you're confused about all those. So how do you... But again, I wasn't exactly teaching today that you should feed other people. I wasn't saying that.

[62:19]

I was saying that when you are feeding other people, okay, when you're in the realm where that's what you're doing, and when you're realizing that they're feeding you, that's heaven. That's all I'm saying, that that is the definition of happiness. I'm not saying you should be that way. But actually what I was saying was, even though, even if you did understand that that would be bliss, we can't do that. And the reason why we can't do that is because of these coverings over our heart. So my teaching today was saying how you remove the coverings which make it so you're too confused, because of the coverings, we're too confused about what to do. When you remove the coverings, there's no confusion anymore. You know what to do. It's very clear. But before the obscurations are removed, then even if you hear about this, and even if you see a movie which shows how wonderful it is, as soon as you walk out of the theater, you get confused again. What if somebody thought, I'm so confused, messed up, and unworthy, how could I ever remove the coverings?

[63:28]

What if they thought that? Yeah. Well, let's just say, I'm talking to somebody who says that, okay? First thing I would do, what I would address them to the removal of the first covering. I would say, well, let's start work, you're confused and so on, but let's start working with your level of confusion and even though you're confused, still you have some sense of what would be helpful and what wouldn't be. You may be confused about it, but still, within your confusion, you do think, for example, that such and such would be harmful and such and such would be helpful. If the person couldn't even see that, I'd just keep working until they had some sense of something that would be more harmful than something else then. Or, you know, until they had some sense of like, you know, for example, poking my eyes out would be harmful to me, okay, got that? And I just keep working at that until they got some basic things like that. You know. And I would work with them and work with them until they had a sense of being aware of what they're doing. And then taking on the belief that it would be good to be aware of what you're doing and to be careful.

[64:36]

And I just work with the person on that until they start to be able to do that. And as they start to be able to do that, they would get in touch with this confused person. As they become more in touch with this confused person, they start to become more in touch with who this person is. As they become more in touch with who this person is, they start to maybe feel even more confusion. But also, although they maybe feel more confusion or become more aware of the confusion, they notice the confusion has something to do with the self. the stuff starts to gradually come into view. They notice, for example, I am confused about this. Things are getting clearer. For people who can say that they're confused are clearer than people who are not able to say they're confused. A lot of Zen students can say they're confused. They're much clearer than people who can't say that. Some Zen students, when they first arrive at Zen Center, they don't even know they're confused. And we don't tell them they're confused. We just say, well, let's, you know, like just go into the room and sit down, you know, and try to be on time.

[65:45]

And when the period's over, leave. And, you know, wash dishes now and blah, blah, blah. And then confused people start, by taking care of these details, confused people start usually to realize they're confused. Once you start realizing you're confused, you're basically starting to wake up. The more you realize how confused you are, the more you realize who the you is that's confused. You start to notice the confusion has something to do with actually fundamentally connected to who you think you are. And you start to notice stuff like, I don't think I'm worthy even to wash dishes. I don't even think people would let me wash dishes the way I would really like to wash dishes. If I really washed dishes the way I like to wash dishes, people would, you know, run me out of town. LAUGHTER So you start to notice, and you start to notice that actually you're very anxious while you're washing dishes. You wonder, you know, will the Zen teacher come in and criticize your dishwashing? So maybe you shouldn't wash dishes the way you really would like to. So you then back off your dishwashing activities, you know, your real true expression of your dishwashing. You know, you back away, and you notice how that doesn't work.

[66:48]

Because then you stop again, you're not being careful. So then you come forward, you be careful. So being careful then becomes more and more careful about what you think is the best way to wash your dishes. But then also your self-expression comes into play. But as your self-expression comes into play and you start to see yourself more clearly, you feel more like, they won't let me do this. But as you feel this more, then you come back and meet this they. And little by little, you enter this dance, you become more and more yourself. And you become more and more yourself. The voice that says you can't be that gets stronger. So until ultimately you get to the point of Shakyamuni Buddha, who sat down and said, I'm going to be myself. I'm not going to move until I settle this. And then Maharaj says, oh yeah? And we have big time challenge, you know? Big time saying, you can't be yourself. And he doesn't fight back Maharaj, he just says, I hear you. I got it. You're impressing me, believe me. I got it. I'm listening, but I actually am not going to move. That's where it's at.

[67:49]

I'm going to be myself, and I'm going to keep doing it, and I'm going to keep meeting you face to face. And when Mara realized that Buddha was not going to back down, or Shakyamuni was not going to back down, Mara split. And then Buddha could get into the more subtle work of looking. Now he's not challenged anymore by this external thing, this external face, and now the Buddha face came to meet him. And that's even more subtle, and also in some ways more terrifying, but more subtle. And then he got into that, and finally he was just completely himself, and he realized he was the stars, he was all beings. So it is very difficult work. I'm encouraging you to do this work of being yourself. And then, after you do that work, you enter this realm where everybody's feeding you and you're feeding everybody. This is like the goal. But I'm not telling you to try to pretend that's where you're at. Where you're at is you're having trouble, all of us are having trouble being ourself. And if you're yourself, people will resist you. Like, you know, today, emphasizing this point, someone who always loves my lectures came and said, you know, I really resisted what you're saying.

[68:54]

I really felt like, no, no, I don't have to do that. I don't have to, like, come in there and put myself and put my face out there to meet people. I said, well, in a way, this is terrific, you know, this is... The fact of everybody resisting my talk is exactly what I said would happen if I expressed myself. And I did express myself, so... And since that talk, you know, one person didn't even know I gave the talk, I had my hat on, he didn't know I talked, but I was looking at him and said, hey, you're practicing the lecture. And then he realized that really I was just doing what I said. See, I don't have that much resistance to what I'm saying. But really I do. I really do. I have resistance to being myself because others have resistance to me being myself. And the resistance that others have towards me being myself is exactly what gives me life. I cannot have life without you resisting me.

[69:58]

Thank you. And sometimes I do feel like curling up on a ball and going hiding. I do sometimes. Yes, Carla? Well, I want to know about when you put your face out there and someone, you know, is it very nice? Because I put my face out there a lot. Yeah. And I have in the past. Yes. And I... It's a very dangerous thing to do. Yes, it is dangerous. And so what do you do then to stand them? I mean, if the sample of Mara and Buddha, you know, she just didn't move. Right. That's what you do. You don't move. But that can take years. I mean, years with some people to not move. Yes, yes. And then it's always a fight. And I don't like to fight, necessarily. It's not always a fight. No, it's not always a fight.

[71:00]

Well, it feels like a fight. Well, Buddha didn't fight Mara. It felt like a fight. It felt like a fight. It felt like part of a fight. Part of a fight is they come running at you. They come and say, you can't be this way. You're no good. You're arrogant to even try to be yourself. Who do you think you are taking up all that space? Et cetera. That seems like a fight, but actually you're sitting there going, Yeah, this is what happens, you know, when I'm myself. This is what happens when I'm honest. This is my reward for being honest. So, I guess I should be dishonest. No, no, no. I guess I should realize this is the way it is when you express yourself, that the world comes to you and says, no, you can't. And then you don't say, yes, I can. You don't necessarily say that. You say, oh, is that what you're saying? And you say, are you saying I can't be myself? And then the world maybe says, yeah, that's right, that's what we're saying. So what does that mean? And then maybe the world says something different, something surprising, like, well, that's a good question.

[72:06]

Or maybe you can be yourself after all. Maybe I can be myself if you can. You know, things start moving. You know, things start coming alive. But it looks like a fight, but it's not a fight. It's actually giving you life. If you respond as though it's a fight, then basically you back away from being yourself. See, the fighting is not, the self-expression is not a fight. The self-expression is just that you just are yourself in the face of this turmoil and resistance. That's all it is. The fight is a distraction. The giving in, the backing away is a distraction, and the pushing forward is a distraction. And things seem to be pushing on you, but actually they're giving you something to come up against. Like I used the example the other night of like a tire, you know. without any air in it. You start putting air in it, air presses against the tire, the tire becomes, you know, comes up to a certain size.

[73:09]

It can get too big or whatever, but anyway, it needs, you need that pressure from both sides of the tire for the tire to become a tire. You can turn that into a fight if you want to, but it also is just self-expression. And there's pressure on the tire all the time, you know, from inside and outside, unless there's nothing inside. And then there's just despair. Because you feel like, I cannot, myself cannot affirm itself without a fight. That's why you have to be gentle when you do this. You can't rush into it, you have to gently fit into it and get feedback as you're doing this. Don't rush in, you know. This is about opening your eyes. So again, it's like commanding yourself and obeying yourself listening to yourself and obeying yourself command yourself to listen to yourself command yourself to listen to others listen to others command them to express themselves command yourself to recognize others this dynamic this is how you gradually become skillful and you can finally be yourself under all that pressure and then when you're fully yourself with all that support

[74:26]

the whole thing turns around, or I should say, with all that challenge, the whole thing turns around from challenge to support. So rather than, see, this is a big shift. The shift is, there are two shifts. One shift is a shift from feeding yourself and worrying about yourself to expressing yourself. That's the difference, you see. It's not just like continuing to be concerned with yourself, it's expressing yourself, perhaps expressing yourself being concerned with yourself. At the limit of full expression, in the face of the other, you feel this challenge of your self-expression. But you're not any longer operating primarily to do something for yourself. You're operating to express yourself, to be yourself. That's not doing something for yourself. You might be doing something for yourself. You might be doing something for somebody else. But you can do things for yourself and do things for other people without expressing yourself.

[75:30]

Like you can eat your lunch without expressing yourself. Eat your lunch, go eat your lunch now at Green Gulch Farm. But don't eat your lunch as an expression of yourself. Because if you eat your lunch as an expression of yourself, you'll feel like everybody in the dining room doesn't want you to eat your lunch that way. Because if what you're doing in your eating lunch is not just feeding yourself to get food for you, but you're expressing yourself through your eating your lunch. And you're expressing yourself to realize yourself and to liberate yourself and to liberate all beings. Now, if you eat your lunch that way, it's an act of art, and you're pressured. The whole world's saying, who do you think you are eating that way? And it's not any longer, you're not eating primarily to feed yourself, you're eating yourself to free yourself. To free yourself so that you can really go to work and love all being. As long as you're trapped in yourself, you can't help other people fully.

[76:35]

So that's the shift. The first shift is from doing things to expressing whatever you're doing. You're still doing things, but you shift from doing them to expressing yourself as you do them. Then you get challenged. And then a second switch happens when the challenge turns to support. But we do feel challenged. That's why we usually do not express ourselves in the face of the other. We feel like the other will not let us express ourselves. So we're basically backing off or overdoing it. Our overdoing it and backing off are expressions of fighting back what says you can't be yourself or backing away from what's strong enough so you can't, you know, you give in. But to actually be out there and be yourself is what's necessary in order to feel that what's pushing on you is actually feeding you. What's challenging you is confirming you. But if you go too far, that's not you. And in fact, you get in trouble if you're not you by going too far.

[77:39]

If you don't go far enough, that's not you, and you get in trouble for that too. You get in real trouble. If you're yourself, instead of being in trouble, you're going to be threatened with trouble. Not in trouble at all, but threatened with it. It never will happen to you, because the threat, when you're yourself, is actually not a threat, but a support. It's actually telling you, yes, you finally arrived. Now realize that what we're doing is supporting you. This is love. But to get to that place and to balance at that place and stay present in that dynamic of yourself does take years of practice. Shakyamuni Buddha tried a lot of stuff before he finally, you know, he worked real hard, you know. He worked real hard. I mean, like, he was a hard-working guy. He was a fun guy, too. No, he wasn't a fun guy. He was just a hard-working, suffering, anxious guy.

[78:41]

And finally he said, I'm not going to let my anxiety stop me. I'm going to finally settle down, and I'm not going to move until I settle it. He was walking along, and he put a bowl in the river, or somebody put a bowl in the river, and it went upstream. And he said, oh, I get it. The bowl in the river that goes upstream is you being yourself. You go against the current, the current of, you know, don't be yourself. You're not supported in this world. The world's against you. You go against that, and you say, I'm just going to be myself and see what happens. And then the big test comes, and if you just stay there gently, lovingly, courageously adjusting and listening to what people are saying, listening to what they're saying, listening to what they're saying, who knows what they mean? You just listen. And when you listen, you change. You're in a responsive relationship with them. That's who you are. You're not a fixed thing. You're responding.

[79:44]

You're not just like going... You're out there listening, adjusting. You're constantly changing in dynamic relationship to everything that's challenging you. But you don't back off being yourself. And then... the challenge turns to sport. Yes? Does this presuppose that being yourself is good, that you yourself are always good? It presupposes that being yourself is good. Your virtue is being yourself. That is your virtue. That is your virtue. That is your virtue. Your virtue is being yourself. You have no other real virtue. Of course. Being not yourself is not your virtue. Being not yourself is cowardice. Being not yourself is an enactment of self-accusation. It's an enactment of your own criticism of yourself. Not just in the being of yourself, but yourself is good. No, not yourself is not good or bad. Being yourself is good.

[80:45]

Your virtue is to be yourself. Buddha is you being you. That's what Buddha is. Buddha is not me being you. Buddha is you being you. Buddha is... Did you say devoid of being good or bad? Well, in the midst of good and bad are all around Buddha. You know? Whatever it is, we got it. Okay? This is like a fully equipped universe. Buddha is that the person... The person is, the living person is precisely that and not the least bit more and not the least bit less. That's what Buddha was. He was himself, flat out, not the slightest bit more, not the slightest bit less. And when you're yourself completely, that's Buddha. Would it be possible to be yourself and hurt others? No. I don't answer white questions. Try another way. Hitler being himself no Hitler was a coward mostly Occasionally he was himself.

[82:00]

I suppose I wasn't there but from what I can tell he was not himself and When you're yourself, you're Buddha. Not so much you are Buddha when you're yourself, but the fact of you being yourself is Buddha. And that is never cruel. That is always kind. That is your great virtue. But yourself is just this constantly changing thing. Buddha is not a fixed thing. Buddha is that things are the way they are. And in particular, it's that a living being is precisely what it is. That's Buddha. Because when living being is precisely what it is, initially, when you finally arrive at that place, the whole universe comes to you and says, oh yeah? And you just, you don't fight back, you don't give in, you just do what you always have been doing and can't do anything other than that but be yourself. In other words, you're not a coward, you're just a courageous person, and you be that person, and then the self-attachment drops off, and then you're just a person.

[83:04]

When you have no self-attachment, you never will be cruel. You'll always be kind and helpful. A free person is a happy person, is a kind person. A free person naturally adjusts in a harmonious relationship with other beings because a free person is not holding on to any agendas. A free person's hands are open. to receive others' hands and respond appropriately. When you're not free, even if you had a glimpse of how wonderful it would be to be kind, because you're not free, your hands are like this, you can't help. You have to open up your hands. But opening up your hands means you have to be willing to have these hands. If you're willing to have hands like these, that's called opening your hands. You can feel this and accept this, your hands open. But it's hard to feel this and feel all that's around this. It's difficult. It's difficult to be yourself. Nothing is harder. But it is absolutely, of course, of course it's necessary.

[84:08]

You can't avoid it. There's no choice, but we think there is. And so we shrink back from or overdo this wonderful living being. Right? And then, of course, we can't do what we think is good because we're not home. we're off in some kind of like ghost land, which is a lot easier, a lot easier to be in ghost land, or to be a ghost, or to be a demon, is a lot easier than to be yourself. And when you come back home, when you arrive, the anxiety starts to manifest, the fear starts to manifest, the pain starts to manifest, because you don't understand properly yet. You think you're really independent. How about owning up to that you think you're independent? How about me owning up to that I think I'm independent? Okay? I do. I should take responsibility for that. Taking responsibility for that means to feel pain, to feel isolation, to feel alienation, to feel anxiety, and to feel fear.

[85:10]

That's what owning up to being an individual person is about. But if I can do that, like Buddha did, I believe, and I have experienced, that there's liberation from that. But it's hard. And then it's not that I... Then you don't have to do these wonderful things. They just come off the free person. The goal is realized. It's no longer effortful. The effort is not to be good at that point. The effort is always to be yourself and thereby transcend yourself. Transcendence is automatic. It's a gift. It comes to people who are willing to be themselves. Truly. not approximately, but truly right in the mark themselves. Okay? You understand? I don't know who's next. Who's next? Who is next? Could you speak up, please, sir?

[86:14]

Oh, before I ask my question, could I ask if we could have a little more... Is that okay with you, that window? So, you're talking about the behavior... Is that enough windows open? Yes. Being yourself again. Good. Keep it up. Yes? You're talking about the behavior of a free person. Yes. That is in this dynamic contact with himself and others. Yes. But don't we all, when I'm talking about myself, Yes. have some kind of a very fixed idea of who we are or what we should be. Yes. And the moment something arises that seems, to use a psychological term, ego-dystonic, that seems to negate that shape, that form that we believe to be... He lost me.

[87:20]

Can I go back one step? Yes. He said, don't we have some fixed idea of ourself? Yes. What don't you say? Yes, we do. That's the point. Having a fixed idea of yourself is called self-clinging. Because you think... It's not just that we have a fixed idea of ourself, we believe it. We have a fixed idea, that's not so bad. But we think it's true. Okay, now we got problems. And now what's your next question? So, if that, under those circumstances... Ego-dystonic things happen all the time. So the minute something arises in us that may actually be freedom-producing, but the ego does not recognize it as part of me, it immediately says, no, you should not behave this way, this is not you, instantly. And you see yourself cowering in a way to being and responding in exactly the same way you always are in response. Yes, uh-huh.

[88:22]

Okay. So, that is a very difficult... Yes. ...decision. Yes, very difficult, yes. So, what about this freedom, this freedom to be... The freedom will come... ...the self-claiming... The freedom of self-claiming will come to the person who will gently, Tenderly, courageously settle into that difficulty which you just so eloquently described. If you practice Zen, and, you know, Zen yourself right into that person, like Buddha would. Buddha would, like, be totally, totally say, okay, Elena has set the situation up, now... Let's sit there. Let's not move until we settle the great matter. That's what you do. And then the freedom through self-clinging will be given to the person who has the courage to be herself in that situation which you have so nicely described.

[89:24]

That's how it works. So simple, so incredibly difficult. Not incredibly, but credibly difficult. What's incredible, what's incredible is is what we already give credit to. What's credible, what's credible is the emptiness of your independent self. And we give credit to our independent self because we put our heart into the independence of ourself. Our heart is always in pain because we make our heart too little. It wants to bust out of this cage and spread throughout the universe, which is its true nature. But because we give credit to being little and limited, we experience pain. If you can experience that pain, you'll understand why you have pain, because that's not really your heart. Your heart is actually connected to all beings. But in order to understand that, you have to feel the pain of the heart which is limited.

[90:25]

And that's what our practice is about, is to teach us and encourage us to settle into this person who is in pain because she feels limited. but she has the courage to feel the pain of thinking that she's limited. If she doesn't have the courage, then again, you're in ghost land. And just, you know, your true nature is like patiently waiting for you to come home so you can be liberated. So we walk around and around our true nature, year after year, wondering when we will go in. Like people walk around, people say, I walk around Zen Center for many years waiting to go into the Zendo. Then they get in the Zendo and they walk around and around themselves for many years waiting to go into themselves. It's hard. It's painful work. It takes courage. It takes faith in the teaching that what you need to do is settle yourself on yourself completely and then yourself will drop off spontaneously. So simple, so difficult. But you're understanding now, aren't you?

[91:27]

Yes, Holly? Can you talk to us about how one coexists with negative emotions or what we think of negative emotions, anger, frustration, things like that, without coming to the point where you think it is yourself? How do you coexist with...

[91:42]

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