I'd like to begin with a background question. Actually, maybe a foreground question first. Can you hear me in the back? Can you hear me now? How about now? How about now? Now? How about now? Is that about right? A little louder. How's that? So I was going to ask a background question, and then I brought up this foreground question about whether the people could hear me.

[01:22]

Right? And unintentionally, as we went back and forth trying to understand each other and hear each other, when we finished I thought, well, that's about it. There's nothing much more to it than that. Just back and forth, back and forth until we understand how loud it should be. The background question I was going to ask is, background in the sense of I offer this question to you to think about during this morning's talk, and for the rest of your life if you wish. My background question is, what are you totally devoted to?

[02:33]

What is it that you're totally devoted to? Is there something like that in your life Kind of a topic within this basic issue of our life and just going back and forth with all beings is the relationship between the sixteen precepts of an enlightening being the relationship between that and what we could say between that and Zen practice or Zen meditation.

[03:50]

And we can also say the relationship between these 16 precepts and daily life. Between these 16 precepts and just interacting with each other interacting with all beings? What's the relationship between interacting with all beings and Zen practice and Zen meditation? Various ways to say that. That's what I wanted to talk about. It's a big topic and I don't know how far I'll get in a reasonable time this morning. We'll see. There is a kind of a ritual or a ceremony in a way for entering into the way of the Buddha.

[05:00]

which I'd like to tell you about. And that is consisting of, first of all, what we call repentance. Next, receiving refuge in the triple treasure of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And then receiving and vowing to practice the three pure precepts, and the ten grave precepts. So those three refuges, those three pure precepts, and ten grave precepts add up to sixteen. Those are the sixteen bodhisattva precepts that are transmitted in the Zen school of enlightening beings. And this repentance, which means basically that you open your heart to all beings and then go for refuge in the triple treasure and receive these precepts, this is a way to enter into the Buddha way, a nice simple way to enter.

[06:26]

So this morning I'm going to not spend so much time talking about the heart-opening side, the repentant side. I allude to that or I point that out by my initial question and of what you are totally devoted to and then also the initial interaction which happened here. This kind of willingness to embrace whatever comes up with people and perhaps be totally devoted to that. The refuge is in the Triple Treasure. When I first heard about this Triple Treasure, this Buddha Dharma Sangha, it was after I had been practicing Zen meditation for quite a long time.

[07:39]

And when I first heard about taking refuge in this way, it didn't strike me as something relevant. It sounded a little bit sectarian, even, to me. It wasn't, this kind of talk was not what attracted me to the Zen path. But as time has gone on, I've realized how useful taking refuge is. And so I'd like to talk a little bit about what taking refuge is, but also what this triple treasure is. Triple treasure of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

[08:40]

So before I get into a little bit about what the triple treasure is or what refuge is, I would like to make it really simple at the beginning and just say that what this Triple Treasure is about is just what's happening as it is. These Triple Treasure are just what we actually are. They are just we ourselves. Is that simple? No? Yes? So going for refuge means returning to what we actually are. to who we actually are, to how we actually are, to where we actually are.

[10:05]

Hearing myself put it that way, I think, well what else could there be? This must be necessary. And yet, when we hear about Buddha and the enlightened one, or enlightenment itself, when we hear about Dharma, the truth, or the teaching about the truth, and so on, and we hear about the Sangha, the community, our mind maybe says, that's something over there, or something other than me. And what comes to my mind when I think that way now is, yes, it is something over there, but over there tells me actually what I really am.

[11:18]

Over there is not separate from what I really am. So the over there part of it is not exactly right but not exactly wrong. It's just pointing to a fuller understanding of what I really am. What I really am is not over here or over there or in between. But if it had to be One of the three, I guess it would be more in between than either of those extremes. So we ourselves through practicing pure sitting meditation are the triple treasures.

[12:39]

We ourselves. We ourselves completely being ourselves which is completely including all beings that is the triple treasure. And that is what we go for refuge. We sometimes use the word take refuge, but again, take sounds like, again, reaching out there, receiving refuge or going for refuge. And again, I've said this many times, refuge, the English word refuge, is a very nice translation of a kind of Sanskrit word, saranan. Saranan means refuge. It's translated refuge. And the English word refuge means something like a support or, not a support, but a shelter or a place of protection or safety.

[13:42]

But also its root is rifuge. And fuge means to fly. So rifuge, refuge, means to fly back. Refuge is the return flight. So there's an element of returning, but also of relying. You can depend on where you came from. Before our human psyche took us away from our true home, that was fine. It was actually undisturbed serene, boundless interconnectedness of all being, which we can think of being someplace else from. Refuge is to go back there into this great mind of Buddha.

[14:47]

To go back again and again, every moment if possible. So if we go back every moment, we also can go away from it every moment. And in fact, part of repentance is to realize that the human mind almost constantly goes away from its home so that it can celebrate return, which is called refuge. I'm going to try to give you some, in a way, a teaching about the three treasures, which will, I think, be a little difficult for you to grasp with your intellectual mind, even though it's going to come through that door. But just let it come in and sink down.

[15:56]

I've had a hard time observing this teaching, but it's a teaching about three kinds of triple treasure. So I'll just tell you. And if you have questions, then question and answer, you can ask. So there's three kinds of triple treasure. One kind is called the one-body triple treasure. The next kind is called the manifest triple treasure. The next kind is called the abiding and maintaining triple treasure. So that's kind of like nine treasures. But I'll say again, these nine treasures are just what we actually are. So don't worry now that there's more. So the one body triple treasure

[17:03]

From that looking at the triple treasure through this point of view, the one body also sometimes translated or not translated but spoken of as the indivisible triple treasure. The triple treasure which is really just one thing but looks like three. Or three that looks like one. So under this view, The first treasure, Buddha, is simply complete, correct, unsurpassable awakening. That's the Buddha under this heading. The Dharma under this heading or footing is the purity of this awakening. the purity and complete freedom from any dust of this awakening.

[18:16]

And dust in this case means freedom from any objects. It's an awakening that is completely free of any objects, completely pure. And this means, this purity means that there's no way to start it or stop it. It reaches completely everywhere. There's no place that's outside of it or inside of it. It is actually the awakened nature of everything in the universe. And the third jewel, which we call the Sangha, is the harmony between the awakening and its purity. That this purity is in perfect harmony with the awakening.

[19:24]

There may be certain awakenings which don't have this purity, which have some kind of object that reaches it or goes to or that has some limit. This awakening, being complete and correct and unsurpassed, is completely pure and free. No limit on it. And there's nothing you can say about it, and there's nothing you can't say about it. No matter what you say or don't say, it doesn't matter. No matter what you say or don't say, it's always your friend. It reaches you by your actual life. That's the purity of this awakening. And the harmony between those two is called Sangha. So these three cannot be separated. The harmony between the purity and the awakening cannot be separated from the purity and the awakening. The awakening cannot be separated from its purity and the harmony between its purity and itself, and so on.

[20:31]

But somehow, even though it's one thing, it's really just one jewel, one body, It's helpful to look at these three aspects of this one body. It helps you understand what this one jewel, which seems to be three, is. And again, one can go home to this. This jewel is perfectly, serenely installed at the center of our life. pulsing with and living with every change, never the slightest distance away. Our mind, of course, can't imagine something other than this, and therefore we return to this as a practice, which again is to return to what we are. The second kind of triple jewel is called the manifest Triple Jewel or, yeah, manifesting or appearing Triple Jewel.

[21:37]

So this means under the Buddha heading that it's the Buddha that appears that we can see. It's like this Buddha that lived thousands of years ago and we celebrated the day of his entry into Nirvana, Pari-Nirvana yesterday. This Buddha called Shakyamuni Buddha appeared in the world. Something happened in history, and you could see it. What happened to him and how it happened, that's manifesting this awakening. That's the manifest Buddha, Triple Jewel. And what he found out that made him this Buddha, is called the Manifest Dharma.

[22:38]

And what he taught his disciples that he found out is the Manifest Dharma. And the people who heard him and decided to study both his awakening and what he found out That's the manifest Sangha, the manifest community. That's the manifest triple jewel. Suzuki Roshi said, well, what Buddha found out was who he was. So when he found out what he was, he became Buddha, and what he found out was the Dharma. By finding out what you are, you're a Buddha, and what you find out about yourself is the Dharma. And the people who are interested in studying that self are the Sangha. So in that way you can see that under this manifest heading, in some ways what Buddha taught was about what people are like.

[23:50]

And when people understand what people are like, people become Buddhas. And then when people become Buddhas, they see that everybody else is Buddha. And they also see that other people don't think they are. This is the manifest realm. Then the next realm is the abiding and maintaining kind of triple treasure. And that's... What's that like? That's like... Under the Buddha heading, it is that humans, and excuse me for saying so, celestial beings are converted. It is the actual conversion of these beings.

[24:54]

that is the abiding and maintaining of the Buddha jewel down through time. It's not like there's this Buddha jewel which then makes people be converted. It's the actual conversion of the beings that's the Buddha jewel under the abiding and maintaining. As time changes, or as people change and beings change through time, The constant conversion of them back to what they are is the Buddha jewel. And then it says, I think it says, in vast openness of being and in the world of dust. I think that's what it says. under this heading. In other words, this conversion can happen in vast openness of being.

[26:00]

And then, maybe it's easier to say the other one first, or it can happen in the realm of dust. In other words, it can happen in the realm of where you can see objects. In other words, where you can see yourself or other beings being converted. But it can also happen in a vast openness of being where you don't necessarily see objectively this conversion going on. So these two levels of conversion and restoration are occurring to abide and maintain the Buddha jewel. The next one, the Dharma jewel is that it is transformed, that this teaching, that this truth, that what Buddha found out, the complete purity of awakening gets transformed into, for example, scriptures and gardens and meditation halls and pathways and robes and haircuts and

[27:19]

Buddhist statues and various things. It gets converted into these forms in the world. And the Sangha jewel under this heading is that beings are released from suffering. That's the Sangha jewel under this third heading. So this one was, I had some trouble, most trouble understanding myself. Abiding and maintaining is one translation, but you could also push a little bit and say abiding and protecting. This first, if you look at the first, the jewel under the first heading, this really has, I mean, you know, human life is included in the big picture, but The big picture in some sense doesn't have, it's way beyond human agendas and human conception and human everything.

[28:25]

Our true nature is, you know, fortunately, not something we can mess with. We can't improve it, we can't scratch it. When this inconceivably, whatever you want to say about it, radiance of our being manifests, when it actually manifests, before anybody has anything to say about it, it's not necessarily what people are expecting. The way Buddha looks in the world is not necessarily what people wanted or expected. And what Buddha teaches is not necessarily what people wanted or expected. Sometimes Buddha says things which are rather shocking to people. Like Buddha might say, with all gentleness and compassion, Buddha might say, we human beings are entirely, completely misdirected.

[29:37]

we are going completely in the wrong direction towards happiness. In the process of teaching the truth, the Buddha may say things which are really shocking to the established understanding of things. And people might get quite upset with the appearance of an awakened one or the teaching of an awakened one. People don't get upset so much with the in the one body triple treasure. They just run away from it or return to it. But the manifest one, what Buddha found out when they hear about that or what Buddha became, they maybe get kind of excited about that one way or another. So the third one protects. How does it protect? It protects by converting beings, by providing written and visual aids And basically it protects by showing, look, this teaching may be weird, this teaching may be shocking and outrageous and frightening, but look what it does to these people.

[30:50]

It releases them from suffering, makes them peaceful and kind. So you see, although it's rather far out, radical and shocking, it has this good effect. So please don't hurt it. So you can see why we protect it. Can't you? And then if the person can appreciate both the effect and the teaching, then they become converted and they also protect it, even though it's not necessarily what they would like it to be either. So these are the three different layers of three treasures, each layer of which is really, I propose to you, what we are. And again, I'm not telling you that you are totally devoted to what you really are. It wouldn't be useful for me to tell you that. But if I think about it, I would think, wouldn't people be totally dedicated to what they really are?

[31:58]

Wouldn't they be totally dedicated to being one with this perfect, complete, correct, unsurpassable awakening and that purity of it, wouldn't they be devoted to manifesting this in the world and showing what it was they found out? Wouldn't they want to protect it and help people take care of it and help people be free from suffering and be converted from their Fixed views? I think, well, maybe they would. But anyway, I think it's better to ask you to look to see what is it. And for me to look to see, am I really dedicated to it? And sometimes I think, yes, but that might mean I might have to let go of something. Do I really care that much? That's the question.

[33:01]

So there's three kinds of three treasures. And again, we ourselves, through the practice of pure zazen, are exactly these three kinds of three treasures. Now I'd like to bring up some other aspects of this taking refuge in the triple treasure. Here's just an example that came up recently. Someone came to talk to me, maybe to see me, anyway, to be in the same room with me. And it was a formal meeting, so the person was sitting out here in the hall. And I ring a bell in the room there.

[34:04]

And the usual way is they respond by ringing a bell twice. So I rang the bell and I didn't, I don't remember exactly, I was maybe slightly distracted, but anyway, I didn't hear. It was clearly that they responded with the two hits. So when the person came in the room and sat down, I think he said right away something like, well, I'm glad to be here in this room with you. I think that's maybe what he said. And then he said, when I was outside waiting, And when I rang the bell, the first time I rang the bell, before I rang the bell, I was wanting to ring the bell. I think I actually had the intention to make a nice, clear sound with the bell. But when I hit it, I couldn't hear it. I didn't hit it in such a way as to produce the nice, clear tone that I wanted.

[35:09]

It was... I almost didn't hear it. And then she thought... And she wasn't sure whether she should try then to make the next one different. And so she just hit the next one sort of and also could hardly hear that one either. And she told me that. So I guess I felt when she said that like she was saying, well, I really kind of, I wasn't quite there, you know, but I wasn't sure whether I should kind of push myself to be more there. She was kind of unclear about that. Then she said, now that I'm in the room, I feel too big for the room. Now I feel too big before I felt too small. Now I feel like a bull in a china shop. And when she said that, I could feel that she was a little bit too big for the room.

[36:16]

Not that she, I mean, I could see she felt too big for the room, and I could feel her bigness in the room. So there she was, caught between being too small and too big, and not sharing whether she should herd herself into a different size. And she said, And I'm confused, she said. And then she said, and I'm glad to be confused. And then I heard a bell. And then she went on to make various judgments about elephants and her confusion and things like that. And I, she didn't go on too long before I said, before you go on much longer, I just wanna say that a little while ago, I felt you were very, very close to yourself.

[37:35]

And I, when you said, and I said, I can't remember exactly what you said, but when you said, I'm happy or glad to be confused. At that time I felt, I really felt you were right close at that moment. And she didn't remember saying it. And I think that we often don't notice when we're completely at home. And when we're actually not only at home, but happy being home. We notice the struggle, the back and forth and running away and thinking we're here and there and too big and too small and too good and too bad. And then when we notice we're confused, we're starting to come home.

[38:38]

And then to be happy to be there, that's pretty close to all the way. That's pretty close to taking refuge in the triple treasure. But you may not even notice it. But someone else may notice it. If Buddha was confused, Buddha would be confused. And Buddha, confused Buddha, being confused Buddha is happy Buddha. You don't have to add the joy on top of it. It just comes automatically with complete acceptance of how it is.

[39:41]

That's taking refuge in Buddha. That's being ourselves. And of course, the other aspect that comes up is it's very ordinary. It's ordinary to be confused. It's ordinary not to notice that you're confused. But within ordinariness, sometimes people notice that they're confused. It's a wonderful kind of ordinariness. And to be overjoyed at realizing that you're just confused is quite ordinary, although it is maybe not so common. But she didn't notice it. So I propose to you that actually, even though most of the time we don't notice in our confusion, but still someone is actually there being confused and totally enjoying it.

[40:47]

All the time somebody's calmly sitting there being completely confused and joyful. This person is very quiet because they're not doing anything other than what's happening. Somebody else, as I say, after she rang the bell perfectly, somebody else started jabbering away. You could see it was there. Also, while she was talking to me, something happened to me. I don't know what happened exactly, but she says, she told me later about this, she said this person that looked like I had some sacroiliac problem. For the last three or four days I have had a lot of pain over my left side around, right above my hip bone.

[41:51]

And she saw me yesterday. But before she said that she had seen me, while she was talking, while we were talking together, while she was talking, I felt that pain, which I had been feeling for days, and I, we, somehow, us, it, settled into the pain. Somehow there was a settling right into the pain. There was this kind of like coming into focus with the pain. And I was, you know, semi-flooded with bliss. Not only was I much more comfortable having settled into this pain, But what I saw was I remembered, it seemed like I remembered what pain is here for.

[43:03]

That pain was a door into my life. I suddenly, through that pain and through finally somehow accidentally while she was talking, settling into it, I somehow saw this pain was a door into my life. And at the end of the conversation, he said, could I ask you about yourself? Do you have some pain in your back? And I said, yeah. She said, yesterday I saw you, blah-de-blah. And she said, I would recommend that you be more gentle with it. You seem to be like trying to stretch it yesterday, trying to stretch out of it or into it or do something with it. She said, but I think this particular kind of thing is better if you just sort of be gentle with it. And then I told her what had just happened. And I said, I will, I'll try to be more gentle with it. Now that I understand what it is, it will be easier. So she told me then what I sort of had experienced. Which is another characteristic of the bell ringing is it often happens in both directions.

[44:15]

You know, it's not the same thing, but it happens back and forth. Her ringing her bell, although she didn't notice it necessarily at the time, rang my bell. And I found my way to my pain. And I learned something. And so this is about taking refuge. So the other very important part of taking refuge... maybe, well, it's sort of the same thing, is that this wonderful thing that these treasures are really what we actually are. And after saying that, then we also have to remember that this is very common, very ordinary. And common in one sense is common like common to all Buddhists. All Buddhists have this triple treasure.

[45:20]

There's a Zen school which sometimes is... I don't know, sometimes people think Zen is really neat. They hear about what some of these Zen people have done and they think, boy, that's really a wonderful story. These people are kind of able to do unexpected and surprising things. And not only that, but the story says that it was very helpful. That's great. And then there's other forms of Buddhism too that just you hear these fantastic stories or these... amazing realizations that have occurred in the different schools of Buddhism. Each school having its own kind of beauty. But at the same time all the different schools share this one thing, this triple treasure. So to me in a way this is kind of not very interesting. So it is very common I mean, so as a Buddhist it's very important to accept these triple treasures and not forget how important they are, which is very common.

[46:25]

This is the point. And I'll just read you something Suzuki Roshi said about this. Again, after telling us that these three kinds of three treasures are just us, That's what I told you. It is also very common, nothing interesting. And why it is necessary then to accept these three treasures? There is some big reason. You say it is very common, but You know how important it is to do things that are very common and to be interested in something very usual. And now I'm drinking water.

[47:29]

But it is not sweet. It's very plain. No taste at all. But why I drink it is because something's wrong with me. My throat is not so good. I had a throat problem at that time, coughing all the time. So when I am very thirsty, to drink something very common is very meaningful. So for us, you know, human beings who are very egotistical, is necessary to have very common liquids like this. This is Buddhism. Before Buddha, actually people were interested in something unusual, unusual power, magical power.

[48:35]

mystic being. And more and more they lost the ground where they were standing. As someone said, religion in this sense is opium. This is very true. But another way to say what he said was, instead of saying before Buddha people actually were interested, actually were interested in something unusual, you could say before Buddha people actually are interested in something unusual, something special and interesting. After Buddha arrives, we are able and willing to be interested in ordinary things. Or the other way around, if you can be interested in ordinary things, Buddha arrives. But before Buddha arrives, it's hard for us to be interested in very common, ordinary things.

[49:39]

And again, if we get involved in special stuff, we get very confused. Because we, well I should say positively, unless we are very sincere about our life, it is rather difficult to be devoted to something which is very common. And again, to be devoted to something which is very common to all human beings, namely what they are, is a way to be sincere about what life is. Common, common, very common.

[50:43]

So common what we are. Always there, always the same. How boring. You have to really be sincere to be interested in what's happening without jazzing it up the slightest bit. Sometimes we say really stupid. So stupid you couldn't imagine anything other than this. So this being willing to remain very ordinary and very ordinary means I'm too big for this room or I'm too small for this room. Very ordinary means I'm confused. Very ordinary means I'm angry. It's not good to be angry and confused. They're not good.

[51:46]

But that's what happens sometimes. And being willing to be what's happening is the door to life. And what's happening actually before you do anything is always quite ordinary. So remaining very ordinary and common, I have been using the expression, is what we call, no shopping. And that's taking refuge is no shopping. And then after I said that, Wendy Johnson made a beautiful poster showing a Safeway shopping cart with one of those, the red circle with the red cross.

[52:49]

And I think it was an empty shopping cart with maybe one balloon hanging, one helium balloon attached to it, and nobody around. So that's one image of what it's like when you're on no shopping. When there's no shopping, there's just like utter silence. utter, utter, utter, like a udder, you know, like you're on one udder. Utter, absolute, complete confusion, if that's what's happening. There's nobody around. There's nobody going anyplace. There's nothing in the confusion. It's just confusion, just a vast confusion, or just pain. Whatever it is, no shopping. You remain simply, ordinarily a confused person. ignorant being. But on the back side of the poster she made was the same shopping cart, but it had, I think, a woman pushing it with kids hanging all over her and dogs and various kinds of other animals crawling and jumping alongside.

[54:03]

And there was lots of balloons and it said, shopping with all beings. Laughter Shopping with all beings is the same as no shopping. Usually when you go shopping, you go shopping where you want to go shopping. Or maybe you go shopping where your kids want to go shopping. But that's still, you know, if you're going away from anything, that's what we mean by shopping. To shop with all beings is total, you know, that's shopping, real shopping. I mean, that's the true meaning of no shopping. So the question is, are you flinching from your ordinariness when you go shopping? Each of us has to be honest about that. So for me, I have my ways of going shopping, which I try not to do.

[55:05]

But for me, ordinary shopping is not shopping. For me, ordinary shopping is very much taking refuge in Buddha. particularly if I go shopping at a women's clothing store. I have several stories about these experiences there and now I have a new one. No shopping equals shopping with all beings, and for men to go shopping in a women's clothing store is pretty much the same as shopping with all beings. When a man, or not all men, but when some men, for example, when I go in a women's clothing store, I am with a lot of different kinds of beings there. Other kinds of beings are there, which we call women shoppers.

[56:09]

And... Women, women salespersons, right? These are other beings from my point of view. And some other men feel that way too. Not all, no. Some men, I didn't say I didn't love it. I'm just saying that when we start shopping with all beings, what sometimes happens to us at the gate, at the entryway to shopping with all beings, we're entering another realm of being. We're entering, we're going for refuge actually, back to our true original mind beyond our limited ideas.

[57:09]

And so they have in these women's stores, they have chairs, nice chairs for the men to sit in as they enter that realm because they become, you become dizzy as you enter, as you go from your little world of being a whatever kind of man you are into this bigger world of all these other beings, these female shoppers. your mind expands and you have trouble keeping track of the rest of your body because your energy has changed radically. You no longer have this nice little masculine package anymore. You have no longer your ordinary man's body from which you operate. You have a new body and therefore you have new legs and new arms and it's nice to sit down. and try to figure out, now, where is my energy? Where is my life? Sometimes if you have your usual idea, you've lost your usual life.

[58:15]

But the funny thing is that this entry into this space is exactly no shopping, because what happens to the person in that space often is they become extremely aware of what they are. Before they walk in, they think, well, I'm this. And they get in the store and suddenly they find out much more, they become much more aware of what they are. And when you start to become very aware of what you are, you can barely stand up anymore. It's overwhelming when you find out what you are. So this particular shopping thing I'm telling you, my experience, this is going to be a success story. This was on Valentine's Day. So I was, I was, I was, what do you call it? What do they call it when you sort of? Stoked.

[59:19]

I was stoked up. I was stoked up. I was totally dedicated to going shopping and really being there for the shopping, you know? So the wife that I was with said, you can stay in the car, it's okay. I said, no, I'm going to go in there. She said, I don't want to torture you. I said, it's not going to be torture. I'm going to stay alert. And I did a, you know, I did a very good job. I really was interested in the fabrics and I watched you put the stuff on. I was having a great time looking at myself in the mirror. They had Valentine cookies. This is a true story.

[60:24]

This happened in Mill Valley. And I really did actually, you know, I actually looked at some dresses and I said, I don't like that one. I do like that one. I think that fits funny in the shoulders. This one does fit better. I did that. I was interested. And this was not shopping. This was shopping with all beings. Anyway, still, there was this chair there. It was a nice gray stuffed chair. And still, even though I was doing so well, I thought it still would be nice to sit down because I had this sacroiliac thing, right? So I was kind of standing on one leg doing all this. If it wasn't for my sacroiliac problem, I probably wouldn't have sat down. But still, I thought, I'll sit down. So I sat down. And I watched.

[61:35]

And I watched these beings walk around the store. And I saw great dignity in the bodies of these women. And I thought about how beautifully they live. and take care of each other. And I thought we men and women but anyway I thought of we men are not always so so kind to women. We have many of us on many occasions done unkind things and been impatient and weak. And I just thought, but these women... I didn't so much say that.

[62:48]

I just felt really grateful that these women in the store and women all over the world have... not gotten more angry than they have at our stupidity. And not only that, but conducted their lives so well even under these conditions and even been devoted to and stayed in relationship with us. That's what I felt sitting in that chair. I was very happy and very grateful to all women in this world. And I also felt, when I saw one woman walk by with very nice posture, I also felt, this woman hasn't always been a woman. And I haven't always been a man.

[63:49]

But still, in this world of women who are alive now, I feel grateful to them all for their kindness and the way they live and the way they take care of clothing stores and the way they shop. It's really, it's very inspiring. And this sounds a little bit like congratulating myself, but this is what happens when you forget yourself. And for a man, a good place to forget himself is in a women's clothing store. Women, I don't know what's a good place for you guys. I think Zendo's are good. It's kind of a man scene in a way. They designed those rectangular spaces with those things all lined up and stuff in black.

[64:56]

So it's getting kind of late, so I won't talk about the other thirteen precepts. I'll just, I don't even, I don't even know this. I just know that part of this song is called, what does it go? You gotta accentuate the positive. Is it going? The affirmative and don't mess with Mr. Inbetween. You gotta... May we are in... Can you explain everything you talked about earlier today? No favorites? Okay, there was one thing that kept running through my mind is when you were telling the story about the person that rang the bell and then came in and spoke with you.

[66:17]

Sometimes that person was a he and sometimes that person was a she. I assume there's a point to that. Well, yeah, I kind of, I thought it makes it slightly more ambiguous about whether it's a man or a woman, right? So the person probably feels somewhat more anonymous that way. I didn't ask this person if I could tell the story. I didn't mention the person's name. But I just did it in case the person felt any discomfort at telling the story about our interaction. I thought it would make it a little bit more confusing and ambiguous about who this person was or who this person could be. I just didn't want it to seem like this was a man's thing or a woman's thing. And oftentimes when I'm reading scriptures I do that. Usually scripture says, he, but I often switch it to she or go back and forth between he and she. Just somehow I understand some people that if the woman's listening to he, he, he, it makes a difference.

[67:28]

When she hears she, it somehow makes her feel, yeah, somehow, maybe that's me. So I do that back and forth. But I don't want to leave the men out either. Part of my confusion. What else? There's a great deal of confusion in my mind. about the three and the nine and the eight precepts and the 16 precepts. These numbers, I'm trying to, I guess, bring it all down and unify it into something called a whole. And the divisions I find extremely confusing. Well, the whole, I mean, all the precepts are just

[68:29]

One. And the one is Buddha's mind. That's the whole. And Buddha's mind is the mind of all sentient beings, of all living beings. It's Buddha's mind. So the whole is, in fact, the whole. Everything. All life is what we're talking about. And these precepts are ways for us to understand through the world of illusion how we enter that mind, that whole mind, that mind of complete awakening and compassion for all beings. Compassion for all beings isn't some kind of like a favor that somebody does for other people. Compassion is actually the mind which understands that all beings are one.

[69:31]

So when you understand that all beings are one, it's not like a favor that you help other people. It's just like life helping life. Like the word kindness. Sometimes we have various ideas for what kindness means. But one meaning of kindness is of a kind-ness. is, in fact, kindness is what this same thing does to itself. We're all one kind, we're all in the same boat. And what you do with people that you realise you have the same destiny as, what you do with people who you realise your survival is their survival, their survival is your survival, their happiness is your happiness, your happiness is their happiness, what you do from that mind of one kindness is kindness. And that kindness or compassion and that oneness of all beings is the whole unifying thing. We call it Buddha.

[70:34]

But in order to help people, we sometimes break Buddha up into three. Buddha, the awakenedness, what the awakenedness is about, and the unity of what it's about and what it is. Or Buddha, the enlightened being, and the teaching of the enlightened being, and those who study it. They're actually one thing. There's no, like, an enlightening being over here, and, like, some teaching over there, and then... like some people over there. They're not really three different things, but since we see the world that way, you can talk about it that way. There really isn't like Buddha coming and living beings go to Buddha to find out. It's not really that way, but because of compassion this drama occurs so that people can hook into it.

[71:41]

So these 16 precepts are ways to enter Buddha's mind. Or not Buddha's mind, but enter Buddha mind, not like somebody else's mind. Or they're ways to enter your own mind. So if you can just enter by one precept, namely just Buddha, if that's enough for you, enter there. But if these other precepts help you understand how to enter your own true nature, then use them at however you wish. And I think they do, if you study them, I think you can see that sometimes they do help. But at this point in your practice it may be that they're a little bit confusing, so maybe you can just listen and absorb it for a few years. And these three kinds of three treasures, I've been trying to teach that for years, and that's quite somehow difficult. for people, for me and other people to understand what they are.

[72:45]

But I'm just going over and over because I feel like it's an important teaching. And I, I know that, I, I, I know it's fairly challenging to learn three things which are one thing and three ways of looking at three things which are one thing. But that kind of back and forth kind of mind, that, that, that very dynamic mind rather than like, I am learning about that that mind is difficult for us to get used to. But it's our true dynamic nature. It's shopping with all beings. When you first enter this teaching, it's like me going into a women's clothing store. You might feel kind of like confused and don't understand the rules here, the language here. But if you can just keep studying it over the years, I've been, for myself, doing this, I've been practicing for almost 18 years of this, going shopping in women's clothing stores.

[73:46]

I'm just now getting the hang of it. For 18 years I've been walking into those places or also waiting in the car or whatever. And the last few years I've been having a few days or a few moments where I've been able to actually stay present in this other realm. So this realm of Buddha's teaching, for many of us, is a new realm. It's teaching a totally different way of seeing the universe and your life in it. And when you first go in there, it's kind of like, one way to put it is, when you enter Buddha's world you find out how disoriented you are. It's not that it disorients you, it's just that by entering Buddha's mind you can realize that you're confused. Buddha's teaching doesn't confuse you, we've already become confused. But by receiving Buddha's teaching and trusting Buddha's teaching, we can dare to admit that we're confused beings.

[74:46]

And if you can completely admit you're a confused being, you will wake up, because Buddhas always wake up in confusion. That's where they wake up. I'm a real right candidate. You're the kind of things that become Buddha. Oh, here it comes. Here it comes. Yes. I heard you talk about enlightening beings, and usually I hear it referred to enlightened one. So are you using that term on purpose, or is it a different term? Enlightening being? Buddha is often translated as enlightened, enlightened being. Bodhisattva is, I'm translating as enlightening being, enlightenment worker, sometimes I say. The enlightenment workers are the bodhisattvas, the Buddhas are the enlightened.

[75:49]

Bodhisattvas are out there concentrating on other people waking up, They're working for the enlightenment of all beings. Buddhas are the enlightenment of all beings. They're not doing any work. The bodhisattvas do the Buddha's work. And by doing Buddha's work, by dedicating yourself to do the work of Buddha, which is enlightening, by willing to do that forever for all beings, that's what all Buddhas have done that. All Buddhas have, for inconceivable amounts of time and effort, dedicated their living to the welfare of others, the awakening of others. That's what they do. So bodhisattvas, the enlightenment workers or the enlightening beings, do that same practice of always trying to help other people, help other people wake up, help other people be happy. help other people be happy enough so that they can admit that they're confused.

[76:55]

If people are too miserable, they won't be able to admit that on top of being miserable, they're also confused. Usually, people have to get a little bit happier, some people have to get a little bit happier, a lot happier, to be able to say, God, I'm confused. You're really depressed, you don't want to admit anything bad about yourself. It's already bad enough. And that's true, it is bad enough. So let's make it better, and as things get better and better, you can realize more and more that there are some fundamental problems, namely, your own confusion, your own attachment. But if you feel fairly good about yourself, you're fairly friendly to yourself, fairly kind to yourself, well, you might be able to admit that you're confused. Does that make sense now?

[77:58]

This term? I could say bodhisattva, but it's a censored word. Let's see, I don't know this. Hi, I'm confused about how shopping all beings is. Well, what I mean by no shopping... is that you're not trying to get away from yourself. Don't shop for another person than yourself. Don't try to be somebody other than who you are right now. Also, don't try to have your baby be different than your baby is. It's okay with us if she stays. I know, but this is an example. When this baby cries, everybody in this room has some reaction, right? Some people feel like, oh, it's so uncomfortable.

[78:59]

Some people feel like various things, right? Depending on your background. If you're breastfeeding, you're probably having a different reaction. So each person has a reaction. So not shopping would mean none of us would shop for another experience than the one we've got. And we wouldn't say, well, let's get rid of this baby so we can all have a different experience. So we can be more concentrated on what he's talking about or something. So we can study Buddhism. We can hear about Buddhism. What I'm saying is not Buddhism. What he's saying is not Buddhism. We're just talking. And each of us has a response to this. Buddhism is not our response to it either. Buddhism is that you taste what's happening to you now and you don't go shopping for something else. That's not shopping. That's also not shopping for another Buddha than that. Okay? Going shopping with all beings is the same because when you go shopping for all beings, what you wind up with is yourself, your experience of that.

[80:08]

And when you're with all beings, it means you really... Like, for example, when you let babies cry, you're going shopping with all beings. And if babies are crying, you're going to get to be somebody who you're not selecting not to be that person. If you shop with all beings, you're going to run into some people who give you quite a... who give you something that you're going to respond to with, you know, some difficult stuff. You're going to get... You're going to start feeling angry. You're going to start feeling impatient or petty or jealous. You might also feel happy and loving too. If you feel happy and loving, then don't go shopping for something else. If you feel envious, don't be shopping for something else. And going shopping with all beings means you embrace all beings, and that will be like not shopping, because you will be constantly taking what comes if you shop with all beings. So the same thing. One emphasizes staying in the present. The other one emphasizes that when you stay in the present, you embrace all beings.

[81:10]

If you embrace all beings, ladies and gentlemen, there's only one place you can stand to be. If you embrace a few people, you can stand to be sort of like someplace else. If you embrace all beings, life is too vivid and too intense to be anywhere but in the present. That's your only safety. If you have 19 kids crawling on you, there's only one place you can be, one time you can be. here and now. You have one kid who is well-behaved, you might be able to be taking her someplace else and get by with it. But if you have nineteen kids, many of whom aren't your own kid, and not who you want them to be, plus innumerable other beings, you have to stay in the present in order to survive, or vice versa. If you stay in the present, you naturally embrace all beings. Two different ways of talking about the same thing, which we call returning to Buddha, which is called completely being yourself.

[82:14]

Just a second. This guy right here was next, I think. I wanted to ask you what you mean when you talk about sincerity, sincerity in terms of related to your own practice. You know, I think so. Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is sincerity is your willingness to ask that question, that you're interested enough in such a boring thing that I said that you're willing to examine it a little bit. If you're sincere about your life, sincere means, I guess, that you deeply appreciate your life. And if you deeply appreciate something, you don't just appreciate it yesterday and tomorrow, you also appreciate it now, and you appreciate it now. You appreciate it right now.

[83:20]

You don't know how long it's going to last. You appreciate it now. Even though this particular now is not your idea of a pleasant time, or an interesting time, or a meaningful time, Right now it's just kind of like walking down the street on a grey day. It's not raining, so we're not happy for that. It's not sunny, so we're not happy for that. It's just you walking down the street. But if you know you only have this moment and not tomorrow, maybe you feel sincere about your life and you value your life, and also you maybe value all other life. and really appreciate all life. So then you start to appreciate kind of ordinary things. And this is what I mean by sincerity. which could also be called concentration, concentration on life, staying with life all the time, staying with life.

[84:27]

Why stay with life? Because you're alive. In other words, just life is living. Life is living. To just live life is living. That's it, nothing more or less. That's Buddha's precepts. That's sincerity. Does that make sense? Yes. I wanted to ask about partial awakenings. I wanted to ask about the one child, knowing the one good child, or knowing the one bad child, instead of not knowing the one good child, and thinking about bad experiences with awakening, with seeing partially what is, and how to deal with that. I've had that. caused me a lot of anxiety, fear about what life, as it is, scares me sometimes.

[85:27]

If I go slightly beyond what my personality can deal with at that moment, if I go a little bit farther in the way things are, it scares me and it puts a big hatchet in my practice because I don't know if I really should try and you know, be more here or be more with... Anyways, yeah, I guess I would. So, as you... as you become more present, certain things have been revealed to you which you weren't expecting to see. And so your worldview is somewhat disturbed. And you used to have something that you kind of comforted yourself with about the way things are, a little bit, even though it didn't work so well. still you were used to it, and now as you become more present, that doesn't work, you start to see the flaws in that, but also you're somewhat anxious about this, and you wonder maybe is it going to get, are there going to be more flaws in this worldview, and is the whole thing going to fall apart, and how are you going to be able to function in this kind of stuff?

[86:34]

Well, one thing I can say to myself is, oh, well, compassion comes with this, this awakening. But if I just feel what I'm feeling in the moment, it's a whole bunch of fear, no compassion with myself and no compassion for the other people around me. And so if that's the truth, then do I want to be with that truth? Well, it's not the truth, and you don't want to exactly be with that truth, but it's not the truth, but you have to be with that in order to realize the truth. If you can be with that, you will start seeing more and more clearly, and the truth you will see more and more clearly is not that everything's okay, exactly. You will see more deeply how things aren't okay. And how they aren't okay is that because of our attachments, the situation is actually never going to work out. As you get more and more able to stay in the anxiety you're feeling and the pain you're being opened up to, as you become more and more patient with that and can get more and more to the centre of that, more and more calm in the middle of those flames, and be still and quiet in the middle of that difficulty, the more you will see that the situation is set up in such a way that it will never be anything but misery.

[88:02]

And the way it's set up is by the way you think. Namely, you think in terms of, for example, before and after. You think in terms of gain and loss. You think in terms of self and other. And you can start more and more to see, actually, as you get more and more calm, you can dispassionately, calmly see that this is simply not going to work out the way it's set up. And also you can see... that other people are in exactly the same boat, and they're suffering because of it too. So what happens as you sit more and more calmly in the middle of these flames that are building up around you, is a wonderful mind starts to be born, which is sometimes called the soft mind, or the supple mind, or sometimes the meek mind, but also sometimes called the mind of renunciation. The mind of renunciation is, one way to put it, it's the wish or the willingness to drop all this attachment, or the vow to drop your body and mind off.

[89:20]

According to the teaching of the Buddha and Zen teaching, all Buddhas have sat in the middle of situations like you described, And this soft mind, this mind of renunciation has been born in them. They saw more and more clearly that the world of thinking in terms of before and after, that world is nothing but misery. When they get calm they see it's nothing but misery and therefore they're willing to drop all attachment, which is the cause of it. But you can't make yourself drop attachment, that's another attachment. In fact, the reason why they wish to drop all attachment is because all attachment is already dropped. And our wish, our will, our vow needs to actually meet completely the reality of the situation, which is we're constantly dropping off our body and mind all the time. Really, that's what's happening.

[90:25]

We need to be willing to be in accord with reality of constant change. When your will is complete and you're firmly and absolutely no doubt about the fact that you're willing to let go of all attachment in order to liberate yourself and all beings, in order to liberate yourself so that you can help all beings more and more effectively, do the same. When you sit there long enough, that unshakable commitment will be born. And when that commitment is born, it's practically the same as dropping, and it's just a matter of time until the dropping will be realized. And you'll be liberated from this thinking in terms of before and after, right and wrong, gain and loss, yourself and others. So this practice of patience, of patiently sitting in the middle of your difficulty, gives rise to this mind, and this practice of patience is the primary cause of awakening.

[91:30]

It doesn't mean you're going, it means you're actually completely at peace in the middle of these flames of pain and outrageous fortune. And now you're walking into that center, and you're getting burned by these flames as you walk towards the center. So this is the heroic effort for you to get to the center of your life, which is the center of the present moment, and sit there. And it's hard to get in there. It's like walking through brambles. You can't just force your way in. You have to be clever about how to get through without cutting yourself up and get yourself to a safe place in the middle of the moment. You can get there and sit, this mind, this clear vision of the unworkableness of the world of before and after will dawn on you. Your compassion for other beings will spontaneously arise and your willingness to drop all attachment will get stronger and stronger. This is an incredibly wonderful and effective practice, extremely difficult to fully realize it, but

[92:43]

I tell you, I've seen it work. It works. And I've seen most of us also trip and slip and fall down and have it not work because we didn't do it. But then we just get up off the floor and try again. That's why this is enlightening work. We just keep working at it until you get more skillful, more skillful. And be patient with your unskillfulness too. That's also part of it. So you're into it. I would say keep going. If you get scared, come. We'll give you encouragement.

[93:19]

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