I get the impression that, for some of you, the teachings about these outflows or these leakages is somewhat new to you, is that right? Someone says, new material, when they heard about this, how many people would say that it's kind of new? And then some other people have heard about it before but maybe haven't completely understood, is that also the case? I thought I might just, hopefully as an encouragement, just do a somewhat brief description of how you can find this teaching, this practice of observing and becoming free of outflows

[01:04]

throughout the lineage, our practice lineage, and then maybe you can see that although it may be somewhat new to you, it actually is well within the total, the long river of our tradition and that may be helpful. And while I'm doing that I'll also hopefully talk a little bit more about how to practice with this teaching. So starting with Shakyamuni Buddha, the knowledge of the outflows, seeing and understanding the outflows and then knowledge of the subsiding or waning of the outflows was the vision that he realized, whereupon he then saw clearly the Four Noble Truths.

[02:08]

So the seeing and then seeing through the outflows is the ground upon which we understand the Four Noble Truths, at least as Buddhist disciples. From there on this starts. Then I also might mention that Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty, this perception, this vision, again, is based on not being disturbed by the outflows anymore. Then you can see the way the five aggregates actually are manifesting. Nagarjuna, when he presents in his fundamental verses on the Middle Way, when he presents

[03:17]

his wonderful teaching on the Four Noble Truths, in the chapter before he presents the teaching on the Four Noble Truths, he presents his understanding, his teaching about the outflows. So chapter 23 is about the outflows, chapter 24 is Four Noble Truths, chapter 25 is freedom. Vasubandhu, in 30 verses which we studied here quite a bit, he also taught that in the waning or the cessation of the dispositions, one can see. Again, the dispositions are the established tendencies or inclinations or sentiments that we have which arise out of our dualistic thinking.

[04:24]

And also, as I mentioned before, in the Abhidharma Kosha, in the Treasury of the Abhidharma, Abhidharma, he points out, he asks, how are the defilements dropped or how does one become free of defilements? And one becomes free of defilements by seeing the truths and by meditation. And then he points out further that by meditation he means meditation that doesn't have outflows. Seeing the truths, of course, the vision of seeing the truths, of course, doesn't have outflows because you can't see the truths if you have outflows, but the defilements

[05:38]

are not all dropped when you see the truths on the path of vision. We have to further practice meditation based on that vision in order to remove and drop all the defilements, all the afflictions which interfere and hinder us in our work to live in peace and in healing and beneficial ways with all beings and the Great Earth. These hindrances and obstructions and defilements to that project are dropped by seeing and then by the path of meditation following seeing. The path of seeing is sometimes spoken of as happening in 16 moments, in other words it happens all at once like a great one stroke, and sometimes Vasubandhu speaks of the defilements

[06:45]

being crushed like breaking a stone by that vision, but then the other defilements which are removed by meditation based on that vision are more like squash, like a lotus stalk, it's slower and more kind of juicy, slippery, it takes much longer. One can actually happen like that, you know, like in just an hour or even a day or a second, but the other may take several years after that. That's why a person can be a stream-enterer, which means you have this kind of vision and still have lots of strange habits which were developed under the auspices of the outflows and belief in self, or belief in self and the outflows which grow up out of that. And I mentioned that, and I'll mention again, that Dogen Zenji only taught, except for a

[07:50]

few little slips here and there, and almost all of what we have of what he taught or what he wrote is teaching from a meditation practice which doesn't have outflows, selfless meditation. And Charlie asked me, well does that mean that Dogen Zenji disagrees with Vasubandhu Zenji? And no, it isn't that he disagrees, because Vasubandhu says, although there's two paths of meditation, a worldly path or a path which has outflows and a path without outflows, he doesn't say that the path without outflows removes the defilements. He points out that it doesn't remove the defilements. It's wholesome, this path of meditation which is taught and practiced by lots of Buddhists, or if I would say lots of people who vow to be Buddhists, who want to be Buddhists,

[08:52]

who want to like develop Buddhist vision, they do practices which develop wholesome roots but which actually don't uproot or remove defilements. But those practices are allowed in Buddhist centers for a certain number of years, and then gradually the crackdown starts to occur, because time starts running out. So, Vasubandhu presents that there are two paths of meditation, but he doesn't say that the one without outflows actually works to liberate people, but he presents it anyway and teaches something about it, and there's quite a bit of teaching in the Buddhist tradition about how to do practices which are pretty darn good but won't liberate you, practices

[09:56]

of meditation. There's also practices of conduct which are good, which also won't in themselves liberate you, but if you don't do them, or something like them, you won't be able to do pure meditation without outflows. So, we have to do those practices thoroughly, even with hopefully a correct understanding of what we're doing. Then comes, you know, many others, but I'll just go to Prajnatara, Bodhidharma's teacher, who teaches that, you know, while breathing in and out, while breathing in, he doesn't dwell in the five aggregates, so that non-dwelling in the five aggregates is to be in the middle of the five aggregates without outflows. If you have outflows, we tend to dwell in our experience, we tend to sort of lean back

[10:58]

into the comfortable ones, or stick our head into the comfortable ones, or lean our elbow into the comfortable ones, or just flat-out camp out in the comfortable ones, dwell, and not only dwell, but even protect our position there, and our housing in those nice areas. It can get ugly, what we'll do in the midst of five skandhas, if we dwell there. Or another way of dwelling, which sounds not like dwelling, another way of dwelling is to try to get out of certain five skandhas, you find yourself in certain experiential neighborhoods and you want to get out of there, or you want to get rid of somebody who's making your neighborhood not nice, not in my neighborhood, get out of here. So this also is dwelling in the five aggregates, is basically to be holding or pushing and shoving, to have greed, hate, and delusion about the five aggregates, that's dwelling. But even before greed, hate, and delusion, just simply having an inclination towards

[12:03]

them, a leaning, just being oriented about them, and oriented away from them, this is the outflows. Prajnaparamita did not practice of dwelling or indulging or anything with the outflows, he just practiced not dwelling in the outflows. And he did this over and over and over and over, that was the thing he did all the time, nice simple practice according to him. Not easy, but simple. His disciple Bodhidharma, we don't have much about what Bodhidharma taught, but what we have what Bodhidharma taught is almost entirely simply no outflows teaching. He says, don't activate your mind around objects, that means no outflows.

[13:10]

If something nice comes up, nice object, don't activate your mind, just the thing comes up, that's it. You don't get all excited about a nice thing. Something ugly and horrible comes up, you don't get all excited about that. You don't run away from the bad, you don't run towards the good, you don't get excited about what's appearing and disappearing. There just is appearing and disappearing. He says, no coughing or sighing in the mind. And when something comes up, you don't go, you don't go, there's no reaction to what's appearing. Now, what's appearing could be something fairly wholesome, it could be something unwholesome, it could be a defilement, or it could be something that's fairly pure or neutral. What appears can vary greatly, by Ascandas, right? Almost anything can be what appears.

[14:14]

It's the upright, unbiased, unsentimental, unprejudiced, in some sense, no response response that Bodhidharma is pointing to. In other words, with a mind like a wall, you enter the way. You have a mind that's like a wall, not blocking things, but not totally untouched, unmoving, and that's your response. It is a response, but it's not a reactive response. It's not an enslaved response. It's the same for everything. So, actually, someone came and talked to me recently, and I appreciate that people are picking up on this teaching and trying to practice it, and she wanted to give me some examples of what she thought maybe were outflows. So she told me some stories about some stuff that she was experiencing. She talked about certain conversations that were running through her awareness, and she

[15:28]

characterized a lot of the conversations were self-aggrandizing conversations, conversations between her and some other people, where she was explaining to them how things were in such a way as to aggrandize herself. She had previously heard me say something about how we talk that way about ourselves, and she thought, well, I don't really do that, well, maybe occasionally, and then she noticed in her meditation that she was almost always doing that. But actually, we don't always do that. We have another kind of conversation, which we often have, that is self-deprecating, self-contemptuous language. Basically, those are two types of conversations, which are often going on in everybody. Now, some people specialize in self-aggrandizing. Some people have a style of self-contemptuous. Some people are 50-50.

[16:30]

Basically, we all know a little bit about both, and they're going quite a bit. That isn't the only kind of conversation that's going on, but it's a common one. So she thought maybe those conversations were the outflows. Strictly speaking, I would say those conversations are not the outflows. Those conversations are defiled conversations. They're defilements. You know, conversations where you talk about how great you did yesterday, and how everybody else really didn't do so well, and maybe some plans of how they should be punished for their bad behavior. These kinds of things are afflictions to the person who's thinking that way. They're defilements in the mind, but they're not outflows. The outflows are your response to those, but even not your emotional response. So feeling bad about it or feeling pain about it is not even the outflow.

[17:36]

The outflow is that when you think that way and you feel bad about it or good about it, it's the inclination towards, it's the being disoriented by the defilements. That's the outflow. Or it's the grabbing the defilement and taking it as real, or attaching to it and not being real. That kind of thing is what causes the big disturbance, and that's the habitual part. What's running through your mind is changing all the time. The afflictions are always changing, all these new varieties, even though you can class them. It's always a new affliction, but the basic response to this stuff, that's very strongly established and that's what really throws us for a super loop. The afflictions are pretty bad, pretty interfering, but then to grab them and shove them, then

[18:41]

they're not only influential and not only do they have an effect on us, but then we become enslaved by them, running away from them, trying to get rid of them, trying to promote them. This is the big time upset. All these defilements are the objects of mind. The outflow is the activating the mind around this crap, or activating the mind around these jewels. That's the outflow, and it's kind of hard to see sometimes when you're in the midst of being harassed by various things, people's faces, people's words, your own opinions, whatever. It's kind of hard to tell the difference between an affliction and these fundamentally disturbing response styles, but that's the job. Stuff's coming up. Objects are flying up into your awareness all the time, going away, flying up, going

[19:42]

away. That's going to keep happening, right? Then also, in that situation, you've got to be like a wall. You've got to watch all this stuff, high-frequency changing world of pain and pleasure all around you. That keeps going on and somehow you have to stay present there so you can also see, now is that all going on, but then there's all these reactions to it, and then discriminate between the reactions and the objects, activating the mind and the objects. There's a difference. The objects keep arising, the reaction can drop. The reaction is the key thing, because that's the outflows, and when those drop, then you can start seeing the defilements for what they are, and then see how they cause the pain, and also see how the afflictions cause the perpetuation of the whole system. This is our job, is to see all this. And again, you don't go looking for this stuff, you just be balanced.

[20:43]

The looking for stuff is, again, more outflows. The running after and trying to find out this and gain that, trying to learn this meditation, this is more outflows or defilements, one or the other, you can tell the difference. I heard, you know, I saw a couple last year, particularly I saw quite a few people using cotton in their ears during Tongariro, because of the flies, right? And now some other people have more high-tech kind of things for their ears, and I can certainly understand how one would like to plug up the ear so that the flies would like not find their nest nearby. I was watching somebody plug up the ear on their head while there was a fly in my ear, and it was buzzing and vibrating around there and slobbering all over the place. And I thought, you know, I can understand.

[21:48]

But I also thought, the mind of no outflows is the mind that right there, when you're having this fly in your ear and it's hassling you and you want to get rid of it, it's the mind that's right there that doesn't care. Right while there's somebody else that's going, get that out of here, there's also a mind that doesn't care. It's right there at the same time. It doesn't, it's not trying to get rid of what's happening. It's not even, it's not trying to get what's happening. It's not trying to understand what's happening. It doesn't care. It is a wishless mind. It has no wish, and it's awake, and it works with what's happening. It doesn't mean that part of your body wants to get that fly out of there. This is our, you know, our tissue calling out, get it out of here. But somebody's sitting there, not even saying, I don't care.

[22:52]

That's the mind that's like a wall that doesn't get excited about this dramatic interaction in the ear. And it's dramatic, right? If you plug up your ear, it's okay, but if you plug up your ear, then it might be harder for you to find the mind that doesn't care. It's okay to plug up your ear. It's all right. It's better to plug up your ear than run out of Tassajara, I would say. I prefer that. But if you hit, when the fly's in your ear, and you're like, then you know the fly's in your ear, and then you know you want to get it out of there. And then you can realize the other mind, which is not even a mind. The mind which has no abode. And that takes you down to the sixth ancestor, walking through the marketplace, selling wood,

[23:55]

and he hears a fortune teller reciting the Diamond Sutra, section 10c. A bodhisattva must find the mind which has no abode, the mind which doesn't depend on colors, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, or mind objects. A mind which doesn't depend on not having a fly in the ear or a fly in the eye. It doesn't depend on that. It doesn't depend on having the fly in there or getting the fly away. No matter what color, no matter what smell, no matter what touch, it doesn't have to have any situation. It doesn't depend on anything. That's the mind we need. This is the mind like a wall. He woke up when he heard that. He realized something about no outflows. And then, just to, you know, go down a little bit further, Guishan, talking to Yun-Yan,

[25:12]

and Yun-Yan says, Yun-Yan had been talking to Guishan, and Yun-Yan said goodbye to Guishan, and he asked Guishan if he has any more, any advice to him. Oh, no. Dongshan said goodbye to Guishan. And Dongshan says, Dongshan and Guishan didn't hit it off, you know, in a big way. I mean, they hit it off in a little way, not in a big way. And then, so Dongshan says, Well, can you give me a referral? And Guishan says, Yeah. I think you would like Yun-Yan. I think he's more your style. I think you two might be able to meet, really. He's a wonderful guy. And Dongshan says, Well, can you tell me something about him? He said, Yeah, he was visiting me one time, and as he was departing, he asked me if I had any advice, and I said, Yeah, end all outflows. And then Yun-Yan becomes, in fact, Dongshan's teacher,

[26:22]

and then Dongshan writes the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, writes the song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, where he talks about, he actually doesn't talk about the outflows so much, but he talks about the mind that doesn't have outflows. About that mind. Something about the mind that doesn't have outflows. That's called the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. Jewel Mirror Awareness. Now, so my question I ask you is, is it becoming clear how it is that the realization of this mind without outflows,

[27:28]

which is, you know, the selfless upright sitting, is becoming clear to you that that kind of needs to be non-conceptual, or inconceivable, beyond all human karma. Is that becoming clear to you, how that needs to be the case? Hmm? Do you see the connection there? No? Yes? What? What? No? Yes? Some yes's and some no's. Okay. Okay. First of all, this place of sitting, you know, like the example I just gave, you know, the mind which doesn't try to get rid of the flies. Getting rid of flies is something which there's been quite a bit of human agency about, right? There's been a lot of human action about getting rid of flies. The mind which does not get involved in that is a mind which has given up.

[28:34]

And given up doesn't attach to the power to manipulate the number of flies in your life. It isn't that there aren't conceptions flying all over the place, always, in our life space. It's just that there is a non-conceptual, inconceivable practice which doesn't dabble in conceptions. It's a non-conceptual awareness. Not that there aren't any conceptions, but the conceptions aren't being played with. They're just allowed to be conceptions, and some of the conceptions are defilements, and some aren't. This is also called unconstructedness, instillness, or unfabricated. So whatever is happening,

[29:38]

to leave it alone, to let it be what it is, then each thing is the same. The source, or the basis of their sameness varies from thing to thing. But when we let things be what they are, when we let Ana be Ana, we are then being present with the unconstructedness of her. We have no way of dealing with unconstructedness. We can't do anything with it. Like it says, naturally real, yet inconceivable.

[30:45]

Each person, each thing is naturally real, in the sense that it's naturally itself. For a diagon to be a diagon is natural. For a rock to be a rock is natural. It's naturally that way. And yet, it's inconceivable how it is that a diagon is a diagon. And there's no difference between the way a diagon is a diagon and a rock is a rock. You cannot conceive of that. There's no way to conceive of a difference between those two natural realities. All human discrimination can't operate on that sameness. Can't discriminate between it. So it says, naturally real, yet inconceivable. It's not within the province of delusion or enlightenment. It's not within the province of delusion or enlightenment.

[31:51]

Delusion can't reach it. Enlightenment can't reach it. But, letting it be is enlightenment and messing with it is delusion. But it's still not in the province of either one of them. Leaving it alone isn't like you leave it alone and then it shares. And it isn't like mess with it and then it shares. It's got nothing to do with it. You or anything else. It's got nothing to do with anything and it's exactly the way everything is. When you let the five skandhas that are manifesting to you right now be the five skandhas that are manifesting to you right now that's unconstructedness. That's what's happening anyway and you participate in the what's happening anyway by letting what's happening anyway happen and not succumbing, not becoming possessed by the idea

[32:58]

that you can do anything about what's happening. Now part of you can do something about it. Fine. That's your ordinary human agency. That's karma. But part of you appreciates the thing being the thing and this then is the blooming of the thing. Again, allowing the five aggregates to be the five aggregates the way the five aggregates are the five aggregates is the blooming of the five aggregates. Then they turn into, then they bloom into wisdom and compassion and skillful relationships. Although it's the unconstructedness the unconstructedness of the five skandhas blooms into speech, right speech blooms into right action, blooms into right livelihood blooms into right thought, blooms into the path

[34:01]

which realizes enlightenment. But how, how does, how your five aggregates how your experience blooms into enlightenment this is inconceivable. No. The source of it is inconceivable. The unconstructed source of this blooming is inconceivable. If it wasn't conceivable we would be selling it. I mean, if it was conceivable we would sell it we would market it, you know, we could have it and not have it but it's not, therefore it's free, we can never remove it we can never promote it, but we can realize it. How do we realize it? By giving up our personal trips about it and leaving it alone. The place, this place, this unconstructedness of things being themselves this teaching of suchness

[35:04]

is where the wooden man begins to sing and the stone woman gets up to dance. It's not within the reach of feelings or discrimination. You can't attain this by feelings or discrimination. How could it admit of consideration and thought? You can't reflect on it, you can't reflect on unconstructedness. You can't sit there and look at the unconstructedness. But the unconstructedness can be realized and can express itself. How do you realize it? Leave the constructed alone. Leave the pain alone. Leave the flies alone. Leave the mountains alone. Leave Daigon alone, if you're Daigon. Or leave the vision of Daigon alone, if you're looking at him.

[36:08]

You can't reflect on the leaving alone. You can't reflect on what happens when you leave things alone. It's not an object of thought. But you can realize it by this kind of renunciation of your human powers. It's deportment beyond hearing and seeing. It doesn't mean it's someplace else in hearing and seeing. It means that when you hear, you just hear. That's it. You don't try to hear in a special way. Of course you do try to hear in a special way, but that's not Zazen. That's another human thing. No, get that station on, not this one. It's beyond seeing. It's just letting the hearing be the hearing and the seeing be the seeing. That's deportment beyond hearing and seeing. That's the manner of behaving beyond hearing and seeing.

[37:17]

It's to let the hearing and seeing be the hearing and seeing. So the Dancing Stone Woman, the blooming of the Five Skandhas, the Blue Mountains walking, these are all possible. These are all happening. So, and they can manifest in our ordinary daily life too. So,

[38:37]

this acts as a standard or a guide for all beings and its use removes all pain. Its use relieves all suffering. What is the standard? It's the mind. It's the presence. It's the posture without outflows. It's upright sitting that takes you into the realm where you see the truths and become free. How do you see the truths? Renounce all your personal reactions to what is being presented

[39:40]

through your perceptual experience. This is selflessness. Selflessness. And a big part of what appears in your sensory experience, in your conceptual experience, is selfishness. So, watching the selfishness come up, watching your selfishness come up, and not trying to hide it, not trying to promote it, not trying to justify it, just letting your selfishness be your selfishness. Your selfishness is naturally real and it's inconceivable. Your selfishness, as in its liberating aspect, cannot be attained.

[40:41]

The liberating aspect of your selfishness cannot be attained by feeling or discrimination. The binding, the enslaving aspect of your selfishness, however, can be attained by feeling and discrimination. You can reflect on the binding, enslaving aspect of your selfishness. And that's fine, go ahead. Or don't. But anyway, you can get it that way. But, the natural reality of your selfishness, the inconceivable, liberating, the liberating, the liberating function of your selfishness cannot be reflected upon. How do we see the liberating quality of our selfishness? Let the selfishness be

[41:44]

precisely the type of selfishness which it is at this moment. That's why in some ways it's better not to plug your ears because when the fly is in your ear, your selfishness manifests very sharply. I need to protect this ear. Maybe some of you, when you have the fly in your ear, you think, I need to protect those ears of all beings. There might be some flies in somebody's ear. I need to go and protect those ears. Maybe you think that, but it's hard to even think that thought with the fly in your ear. And yet, even though it's hard to think thoughts like I wonder how other people's ears are doing at this time. And I wonder what they're doing in the kitchen. I wonder if they have enough fly strips down there. It's hard to think those thoughts when the fly is going, but it's easy, even though you can't think of any of those other thoughts, you can easily think of a thought, a nice flat, nice big fat sentence you can think. Right at the time you can think of the one of, I want to get rid of this fly, you can

[42:47]

think of that one, funny that you can think of that one but you can't think of those other ones. Well, you can think of that one because your self is working for you, whenever you need it, it's there producing just exactly the thought you need to promote itself. So then, if you can see that selfishness and let it just be selfishness, just for a second, it doesn't mean you don't put the earplug in, but before you put the earplug in, notice the selfishness and let it just be the selfishness, that's what it is. No big deal, no little deal, just thus. This is the unconstructed natural reality of selfishness, that's what it is. Notice, somebody just sits there and says, oh, there's some self-concern here, somebody

[43:48]

wants to get the flies on the other side of some kind of barrier, fine, let it be that, there's no outflow there, there's no outflow there, and that kind of response, there's no outflow. Do you see there's no outflow? There is though a nice powerful selfishness there, can you see it? There's a real honest to goodness, little dose there of self-concern, you're not worse than other people or anything, just your own personal momentary example of I care about me more than anything in the world, including flies, that's all, no big deal, everybody's like that, except almost no one admits it, that's rare. I mean to like just flat out admit it without any kind of fudging or excuses or even criticism, just plain admit it, there it is, boom. So if we're all the time maneuvering things so that we don't notice how selfish we are,

[44:54]

then we're missing this great wonderful example of a thing being what it is, and if we won't let that one be there, then it's also going to be the case that because we're avoiding that one and don't want that one to show up, we won't let some of the other ones show up either, so it'll block our vision of the natural reality of everything. You can face this one tough thing to face, you can face some others, and as someone pointed out, this is the one we were told from the time we were little kids, it's bad to be selfish, so don't be selfish, and if you are selfish, hide it, and after a while, forget where you hid it, and then you can put various things around yourself to protect yourself from things without even noticing that there's any selfishness in it, it's just reasonable, and it's true, it is reasonable from the selfish point of view and perfectly reasonable, no problem

[46:00]

if you know what you're doing, and then let it be that, and then there's no outflows, and then you can wake up right in the middle of being intensely, precisely, exactly selfish. In fact, that is where you wake up, you wake up in the pain, you first wake up in the pain of being selfish, that's where you wake up, that's where you turn, you're selfish, there's pain, and you let it be that, and then there's no outflows, and then you see the truths, and then you attain liberation. I have as much trouble as most of you letting flies mess around in my more tender areas, and I think each of us have different areas that are most tender, like I told you there's this place right here in my chin, right in this little groove here, I didn't know how sensitive it was because almost nothing small enough to get in there and play, but those

[47:04]

little tiny flies get in there and walk around there and leave that goo in there and it just goes crazy, you know, I don't have a real strong wing, my ears are not that sensitive, but in this right little place in here, when they get in there, I cannot just, you know, somebody's got to take care of this, okay, that's okay, but there's somebody who doesn't have to take care of this too, this is just waiting to be realized, this is the Buddha, and the Buddha not only cannot get rid of the fly, but also can see that there's somebody who does want to get rid of the fly, that's the key point too, you know, it's not just that you don't want to get rid of the fly, but also you don't want to get rid of this person who does want to get rid of the fly, you can face the fly and you can face the selfishness, and again, you face it without trying to push it away or saying, I've been saying it's okay, but

[48:08]

you don't say it's okay, it is okay, but the mind that I'm talking about doesn't even say it's okay, it just lets it be that way, and I'm saying it's okay so you'll be able to see it, so I'll be able to see it, if you don't say it's okay, you're not going to look at it, so it's okay as a meditation object, because the selfishness can be the thing which you'll wake up upon, in fact that is the main thing to wake up upon first, because that's the main thing that's entrapping us. But it's very hard to actually, you know, be present for this whole, you know, extremely dynamic situation, what kind of things, bugging you're changing all the time, plus also your reaction to it coming up in all these different varieties, it's very dynamic, so that's why we have to really make sure we want to attain, want to

[49:18]

realize freedom, because this is where we have to work. Thank you. I could talk a long time about how well the practice seems to be going here. Should I

[50:32]

talk a long time about it, or is that enough? I think it's going really well. There's a real sincere, I feel a real sincere willingness on the part of the practitioners here to make come and meet their experience and be present with it, and as a result of this willingness, there's a harmonious and peaceful, cooperative thing manifesting here, so this is very good. And I feel from the conversations I've been having, like you're really orienting towards this difficult material and settling in with it. So I'm just, I'm just, I'm just trying to clarify the surface that you're meeting, and clarify, and encourage you to meet it in the most balanced and liberating way. But you're all very close, you know, you're all

[51:42]

doing really well so far. Anyway, I'm just trying to encourage what you're already working on, and also trying to give you confidence that this kind of practice is what our ancestors have talked about in somewhat different ways, but I hope you can see the thread now that connects the whole lineage to this practice, and this practice back through the whole lineage. And then if you read all these different teachers over the centuries, maybe you can see how they're all pointing to the same place, but they talked about it in different ways, because the situations changed. It's nice to be able to hear many, many songs

[52:45]

and many, many teachings, and have them support you in your practice, and give you a new understanding of your practice, rather than feeling like you have to try all different kinds of ways before you finish this one. So like Charlie's question, did Vasubandhu and Dogen disagree? No. And so if you read any teachers or any teachings that sound like they're not talking about the same thing, it makes you feel like there may be some confusion, maybe you can bring it up, and it may be the case that if it's a Buddha ancestor that there will be no conflict, but they're just in a somewhat different situation, perhaps, and they talk somewhat differently. Okay.

[54:20]

Okay. Okay.

[56:24]

Okay. Okay.

[57:04]

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