Good morning. Can you hear me in the back? Can you hear me in the back? Can you hear me outside? Can you hear me in the front? Can you hear me in the middle? Who said that? Man, you look great. Shaved head monk sitting outside with sunglasses on. This morning I'd like to continue talking about what I talked about the last time I spoke here in the tent and that is about the very important practice in Zen which we call upright sitting or zazen or

[01:30]

Buddha's way and so on. But today the word I'll use over and over is upright sitting. Can you hear it in the back? This is a particularly, in a sense, auspicious and poignant day to speak of upright sitting. for of course many reasons, but two reasons. One reason is that this afternoon, this evening, about 50 or 60 people will begin sitting upright for seven days. That's why I say it's somewhat poignant. Because actually they're gonna have quite a week sitting upright in the meditation hall. And we will probably have various moments of nervousness and pain facing ourselves, facing our lives.

[02:47]

And those of you who will not be in a meditation hall in San Francisco for seven days, I would like to invite you also to practice upright sitting for the next seven days. And so that's why I'm giving instruction for not just the people who are entering this sitting, but all of you, I hope, can practice uprightness. And the instructions I give, I hope, work for everyone inside and outside this tent. Let me know if they don't. but I hope that they work for meditators in tents and meditators outside of tents, people in formal meditation posture and out in the marketplace. Another reason why it's auspicious for me to mention, talk about upright sitting today is because today is the 22nd birthday for me as a priest.

[03:53]

I was ordained as an upright sitter 22 years ago. Thank you. And on the theme of anniversaries and birthdays, a friend of mine came and told me a story a few days ago. She was going to celebrate 30th anniversary of her father's death last week. And she was planning on and preparing for a memorial service for him. And early in the morning she got a message on her answering machine that a close friend was about to give birth to a child.

[04:57]

And she had attended previous births of this friend. So on the day of celebrating her father's anniversary of passing, she got to go and be with her close friend giving birth. And she told me that there is a time when the baby's head comes out. There's a moment there when the head comes out. I may have this technically wrong, but forgive me if I do. When the heart stops. And at that moment, you can see this new life and death. At the same time, And at that moment, they're the same.

[05:59]

She saw this in the form of a new baby boy. And she said, this, that moment, when birth and death are both there at the same time. That's what I want to focus on for the rest of my life. There's other stuff, she said, but they don't matter. This is all I care about. And I, playing the role, said, that's upright sitting.

[07:08]

To make birth and death your focus is upright sitting. We can do that in formal meditation posture. We can do that in the hospital. We can do that in the birth canal. We can do it, but it's hard for us to do it because sometimes we don't have such a vivid presentation of birth and death. Sometimes the universe isn't knocking on us quite so clearly. Wake up, wake up. Do you see birth and death right now? But sometimes the universe does present us nice, clear images, and then we say, thank you for showing me what I want to focus on,

[08:29]

And you know, the word focus, its Latin root means hearth. The hearth in the Latin home, in the Roman home, was called the focus. So the upright sitting person sits by the hearth of birth and death and warms her hands there, warms her feet on birth and death. So, and that is what I also said to her, and that's what a Zen priest focuses on. That's upright sitting, and that focus on birth and death is the focus of a Zen priest. It's also the focus of a midwife, I think.

[09:37]

But although I say it's the focus of a Zen priest, I hope that non-priests also focus on this. It's just that if a priest doesn't, it's a disgrace. It's a disgrace to the priesthood. I hope someday it becomes a disgrace to the laity. But so far, it doesn't seem to be. People who aren't focusing on birth and death, who are lay people, don't seem to get in trouble for it. Of course they do, but it's not so public. I was sitting at the bed, the death bed, the dying bed of our teacher, Kadagiri Roshi, a few hours before he died. I was sitting there with his wife, and she whispered to me, that she realized when she was watching her grandson be born.

[10:52]

Her grandson was, in Kadagiri Roshi's grandson, was born just a month before, about a month before he died. And when she saw her grandson born, she realized that for the person being born and for the person dying, Both of them have a very difficult time. She felt that it was equally difficult for this little boy to be born as it was for this big boy to pass away. But we, she said, when we look at it, we feel happy to see the difficulty of the baby, but we feel sad to see the difficulty of our teacher or our husband. Because in one case we get something, in the other case we seem to lose something. But, and that's not to begrudge that, but from the point of view of the person going through this change, equally difficult. A friend of mine who is a monk said that

[12:09]

The focus of a monk is on death. A monk is mindful of death. I don't disagree with him, but today I'm saying the focus of a priest, the focus of a person out in the world, maybe, is not just death, but also birth. In other words, life. that vibrates between these two. Spiritual life vibrates between life and death. Spiritual life is the swing, is the swinging between birth and death. Once a Zen teacher asked his student, what is the business beneath this patch robe?

[13:33]

This robe is made from patches, patched together. It's called a patch robe. He said, what is the business beneath the patch robe? And the student didn't have anything to say. So the teacher answered for him and said, can you hear me outside still? Can you hear me outside? Way far away you can't, though? You don't care? All right. You're in a nice place. You want me to speak up a little bit more? How's that? OK, so did you hear the beginning of the story? So the teacher answered for the student.

[14:41]

The question, remember the question? What's the question? What is the busyness beneath the patch robe?" So the teacher answers for the monk, the business beneath the patch robe or the busyness beneath the patch robe is that studying the Buddha way and still not reaching this realm is most painful. Studying the Buddha way and still not reaching this realm is most painful. That's the business under this robe. You know what this realm is in this case? It's the realm of birth and death. If you wear this robe, if underneath this robe there isn't a reaching the realm

[15:45]

of birth and death. If we're not there at the place where birth and death are one, that's the most painful thing for us under here. We have other pains too, believe me. All the pains that anybody has. But the most painful thing is not to reach this place where birth and death live together. This echoes an earlier story where a Zen teacher asked another monk, what is the most painful thing? And the monk said, hell is most painful. And he said, wrong. What's most painful is to wear this robe and not take care of birth and death. So the teacher said,

[16:50]

studying the Buddha way, wearing this robe, which means studying the Buddha way and committing yourself to practice the way, and still not reaching the realm, this realm. Without reaching this hearth, this focus, this is most painful. Now you ask me, he said. And the monk said, what is the business beneath the patch robe? And a teacher said, intimacy, intimacy. Intimacy is another word for this place.

[18:00]

And in Zen practice, there's basically two kinds of intimacy, or two levels of intimacy. It's like one-two, but it's one-two-one-two. It's a circle. You start with one, go to the next one, go back to the first one. It goes round and round. The two levels of intimacy are intimacy with yourself, and intimacy with the other. You gotta have intimacy with the self before you have intimacy with the other. However, after you have intimacy with the other, you can lose it and get back to it through intimacy with yourself. You can get intimate with yourself in many, many ways. Simply, fundamentally, be deeply mindful of your body.

[19:07]

You got a body? Be deeply settled in mindfulness of your body. So, if you're breathing, check it out. You got a spine? Check in. If you're inhaling, notice you're inhaling. If you're exhaling, notice you're exhaling. If you're breathing, be aware you're breathing. This is a simple way to get intimate with yourself. If you have pain, notice you have pain. If you're angry, notice you're angry. If you're happy, notice you're happy. If you're a man, notice that. If you're being born, notice that. If you're dying, be aware of that. This is how to become intimate with yourself.

[20:10]

So this week, I hope you all practice that all day long. I'll try to. Of course, there'll be moments when I'll forget, but that's my vow. And I feel grateful that I have so much encouragement and support to do that. It's really wonderful to feel like people want me to do that, because it's hard enough to do it. And if I don't think people support me, that's a good excuse to be lazy. But I think you do support me, so if I don't do it, I know it's just laziness. So to make a long story short, become intimate with yourself. Once you're intimate with yourself, you can meet another. You can become intimate with another.

[21:13]

If you're not intimate with yourself, if I'm not intimate with myself, I may try to be intimate with another, but I just won't be able to do it because I won't be there to be intimate with them. You've got to be on site to meet somebody. You can't meet somebody when you're not home. You can't become intimate with somebody if you're not there. It's not your job for them to be there. That's their job. It's your job to be yourself, to be intimate with yourself. And you bring this intimate self, this self which you're intimate with, to meet another. And a little while ago, somebody said to me an interesting definition of original sin. His definition of original sin was a lack of or incapacity...

[22:23]

or trusting the other or an other. The lack of trusting another as original sin. And that original sin of lack of trusting other then works itself back to lack of trust to yourself. So you don't even trust yourself after a while. And this morning when I was coming to meditation and someone was making tea for me, she said, asked me, how's your practice these days? And I said, well, I was thinking about an interesting definition of original sin as a lack of trust of the other. And she said something like, what's the way back?

[23:26]

And I said, I think admitting that you don't trust is the way back. Admit the original sin. I don't trust the other. It's hard, actually. to admit you don't trust the other sometimes, because the other wants you to trust him or her. But if you don't, and you don't admit it, you'll be stuck there until you do, I say. Once I admit that I don't trust, once I admit my lack of trust, Trust begins there.

[24:30]

I begin to trust when I admit I don't trust. And if I hate, once I admit I hate, I begin to love. It doesn't mean I try to hurt somebody. It just means I admit that I hate. This is a strange... idea of where love starts. We don't usually think love starts at admitting we're hate. It doesn't always. But if you hate somebody, loving them starts with admitting that you hate them. And sometimes we hate people. Sometimes mothers hate their babies. And of course they know they're not supposed to hate their babies, so they have a real hard time sometimes admitting that they do. So then, They're stuck in hate. A certain mother knew that, I knew a certain mother that knew that she hated her baby, so she gave her baby to me to bathe so that she didn't drown her.

[25:45]

I mean drown her. And it all worked out well. The baby is now much bigger than the mother, so it's okay. But this mother knew she hated the baby. And she admitted this and so she could love the baby. But it's scary to admit you hate somebody, especially if you're a good little Buddhist. Or a good big Buddhist. Either way, it's not easy to admit you hate people when you're vowing to love people. A good joke just flew by and I lost it, sorry. So last time I talked to her, I talked about kayaking. And I mentioned that a friend of mine told me that when you get turned upside down in your kayak,

[26:55]

that the first thing you really have to do to get right side up is to admit you're upside down. As soon as you admit you're upside down, that's the first step, the very first step, the very first thing in turning right side up is to admit I'm upside down. Once you can admit that you're upside down in your kayak, you can realize that there's no such thing as being upside down, and therefore you can be right side up. And there's no such thing as being right side up, but that's what you need. As soon as you admit that you're upside down, you begin to sit upright you begin to manifest the true situation that you're deluded and you think you're upside down.

[28:06]

That's the beginning of turning right side up. And also at the end of last time, I asked for a song about this turning upside down and right side up. And someone gave this song, I'm a little teapot. short and stout. This is my handle. This is my spout. When I get all steamed up, then I'll shout. Just tip me over and pour me out. And as I mentioned last time in my doctrinal analysis of that song, that the key, the place of turning is the shout. I'm steamed up. I'm angry. I'm scared. I'm in pain. I'm stupid. I think I'm smart. I'm upside down. As soon as you say, I'm steamed up, and you shout, steamed up, steamed up, steamed up, they come and they turn you upside down, which is right side up.

[29:17]

They tip you over and pour you out, They tip you over and empty you. You get emptied when you shout. Once you're emptied, anything's possible. Once you're nothing at all, you can do anything. When you're something, you're stuck in that. But to realize that you're nothing at all, you first have to shout, I'm this. You have to admit what you think you are before you're going to be relieved of that. Once you understand that upside down and steamed up and lack of faith are empty, you can do anything. This is called dropping off body and mind.

[30:22]

But to drop off body and mind, you have to admit, I got a body, I got a mind. Boy, do I. And I got it like this. And I got it all the way. When you admit it all the way, it flips over and releases you. And you don't have to be short and stout. You can be tall and thin. Anything, whatever you are, as soon as you admit where you're at, you get turned over and emptied and set free. That's upright sitting. And when you sit like that, you're free of inside and outside. You're free of before and after. You're just shouting. You're just shouting. There's nothing remains. You use up everything in that shout or that squeak. Whatever it is, you use yourself up in admitting where you're at.

[31:27]

This realm of birth and death are the same. Buddha's compassion says you can be yourself you can do your shout, moment after moment. And in that shout you will be released. When you shout and you're released, when you shout and there's nothing remained and you realize there's nothing to you at all, you can perform miracles. And the you that performs them is nobody at all. But this you, this self of upright sitting, which is nothing at all, must be a working self, must be a working woman, a working man. It's not just you drop it off and you're nothing at all. You go to work. You do a job.

[32:32]

You perform miracles. Vimalakirti says, upright sitting is to live in this world, which we call in Buddhism the triple world, to live in the world, to be involved with all daily affairs, shouting left, shouting right, do this, do that, completely, to live in the world, and yet not abandon cessation, not abandon nirvana, not abandon dropping off body and mind. In other words, live in this world with nothing at all. How can you do such a miraculous thing of being totally involved and realizing it does nothing?

[33:40]

How can you do that? It's a miracle. You can do it by simply being honest and doing your shout. moment after moment. I'm inhaling, I'm exhaling. I hate you. I'm scared of you. I don't trust you. I hate you. And there's no before or after in that hate. I don't hate you a little bit and have something left over to think about before and after. I just hate you. I don't have anything left over to think, I'm not supposed to be hating, I'm a Buddhist priest. I'm not supposed to be hating, I'm supposed to be helping people. Then you've got something left over. There's a bystander, there's a peanut gallery who's saying, no, no, you can't really be that way.

[34:41]

Well, okay, well, you're not there. You can't be released. You've got to admit all the way what you're doing And I got a shout that I haven't used today, but just because I got this amplifier here. I don't want to show off. But even without yelling really loudly, I can feel my shout. You can feel your shout. Whatever it is. If you do your shout, you'll be able to see that whatever you're shouting is not really anything at all. And therefore, you can do anything. You can be completely free. And I found this cartoon, which, you know, I've had it for a while, but just today it was on my desk, and it perfectly demonstrates what I'm talking about.

[35:49]

It's a cartoon about, you see there's sort of a man there kind of jumping around, and he's like a marionette, And he's holding the marionette things. And underneath it says, self-actualizer. I'll show this to you afterwards in question and answer. I'll pass it around. So this is my little gift today from the universe to encourage my talk. And I'd like to conclude with a story about this, which I heard on NPR. And when I heard it, I thought, and I support this station. I was proud that I'd made my donation. Now, I'm not telling you, you should support NPR, KQED or whatever.

[36:55]

What's it called? 88.5? Is that KQED? Huh? So here's a story. It's a story about... It took place in the Buddha land called Nebraska. In Lincoln, Nebraska. And there's this guy who lives there. And he was the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Anybody here who does not know what the Ku Klux Klan is? Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and his name was Larry Trap. And he was raised to hate everybody that wasn't like him. He was trained that way. Whereas most of us, without any training, hate people who aren't like us.

[37:57]

But he was totally into it, you know. So he became the grand dragon of hating others, of hating anybody different from you. And he was also a diabetic, so he lost his legs. He lived in a little, tiny, dark room with pictures of Adolf Hitler all around the walls, who he called Adolf Hero. He hated black people. He hated Jews. He hated Asians. Anything different from what he was, he hated. And the more he hated, the more prestige he got in the Ku Klux Klan. And the more he threatened violence, the higher his status. So a Jewish family moved into Lincoln. They thought it would be a safer and less violent place to raise their children, less anti-Semitism.

[39:08]

And the man was a cantor. The husband, the father of the family was a cantor. And his name was Michael Weiser. And after he moved into town, Larry Trapp found out about him and started threatening them, trying to scare them, make them feel frightened and worried. Called them on the telephone, sent them letters, threatening, threatening, threatening. They were used to this kind of thing, but it still got to them. And Michael Weiser said, in my opinion, according to my spiritual convictions, my beliefs, and also of Judaism, the greatest thing is to love your enemy, to make friends of an enemy.

[40:13]

And then he said, But I realized that I hated Larry Trapp. Once you admit that you hate, that's the beginning of love. Then he could see that he was a hypocrite, in a sense. And the question was, now would he put into practice his highest value? And he said, I'm going to. Yes, I will. I hate Larry Trapp, but I'm going to make friends with him. So he started calling Larry Trapp back. And talking to Larry Trapp when he called, and he would say things like, you know, you're disabled, and if the Nazis were in charge, they would eliminate you.

[41:26]

And could we possibly take you shopping, drive you to the supermarket? Things like that. And when Larry Trapp heard that, he said, he was stopped by it. And he thought, and he said, no, you can't, but thank you for offering. And finally, I can't remember who suggested, but finally either Larry or Michael suggested, why don't we talk? Why don't we get together? Why don't we have dinner? And so they agreed to have dinner. And before having dinner, Michael Weiser told one of his friends that he was going to have dinner with Larry Trapp, and his friend said, What? You're going too far, Michael.

[42:30]

So they went into his dark, Hitler-covered room, and they had a four-hour dinner. And later, Larry Trapp said that when he met Michael, never before ever experienced such love coming from a person. And he said, I just couldn't resist. I couldn't go on with my way. Once you admit you hate, it's the beginning of love. Once you admit you don't trust, once you confess you don't trust the other, it's the beginning of trust.

[43:38]

It's not full-blown trust. Trust can get more than that. It can go farther than that, but that's the beginning. That's the beginning of flipping around. So, then Larry Trapp Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan resigned his position, quit the Ku Klux Klan, formally apologized to the Native American, the Afro-American, and the Jewish people in his area for all he had done to them, and converted to Judaism. I'm not kidding. His friends in the Klu Klux Klan said, Larry, you're going too far. I am kidding when I said that.

[44:44]

And he moved in with the wisers. And Mrs. Wiser quit her job so that she could be full-time taking care of Larry. Miracles can happen if we admit what creeps we are. But we don't like to do that. We'd rather pretend for somebody else who's much nicer. So we vow to be nice. We vow to be super nice. We want to be really helpful. We want to love everyone. But we have to admit we're not there yet. There's some people, some people, somewhere who we don't love yet. And if you're like a teacher of Buddhism or something,

[45:50]

you might think, well, jeez, by now I should love everybody. And maybe that's so. Maybe some Buddhist teachers love everybody. Well, that's great. But for some of us who are not that developed, it's inflation to think that we love everybody. Actually, we do want to love everybody, but first of all, we have to admit there's some people who we hate. Our only purpose in Zen practice is to melt the glue and remove the blocks, to let go of the ultimate even, and join hands with all beings and walk through life and death together, to dare to enter the mud and water of life for the sake of the benefit of all beings.

[47:18]

That's the heart of Zen and the whole point. That's the beginning and that's the end and that's the middle. How can a person Live that way. How can you realize such a heart? So Zen practice is to support and sustain that singular purpose so that it doesn't get lost. That purpose is why we come to practice Zen.

[48:34]

But even so, when we arrive, we may still lose what brought us here. Forget it in the midst of the confusion of our lives and the constant change, the onslaught of thoughts and emotions and opinions we may forget the reason why we came to study the Buddha way in the first place. So to make a long story short, the way we protect this wonderful aspiration, this wonderful heart, is to end all attachment and fixed views about what compassion is, about what right and wrong are, about everything.

[49:40]

But that's not easy. Our great ancestor Dogen Zenji said there's three things. that are unlikely to reach maturity. One is fish eggs. The other is the fruit. or not the fruit, but I guess, yeah, the fruit of a certain extremely delicious fruit that for some reason or other, I don't know why, almost never reaches maturity. And the third is the purpose of Buddhism, is the heart of great compassion.

[50:51]

It rarely reaches maturity. It's easily lost, easily forgotten. So we have this really vast store of practices so that through the various myriad circumstances of our lives we can take care of this spirit of this aspiration. So on one side we have this deep care for all beings. On the other side we have a deep carefulness, a carefulness that goes with the care, because this care can be lost. We're full of care about this care.

[51:54]

We're full of it. When I take notes, sometimes I have abbreviations for certain Buddha's terms, like B is for Buddha, B with a circle around it means Buddha, SB with a circle around it means sentient beings, N with a circle around it means nirvana, E with a circle around it means enlightenment. So I can take notes more quickly that way. and BS with a circle around it is bodhisattva. So bodhisattvas are full of it, full of care to take care of this aspiration because they know it's easily lost.

[52:58]

When I was in my Even when I was in my late preteen and also 13, around that time, I had this man who I lived with who I respected a lot, and I pay homage to him. He was a huge man with a huge heart. And he also had a huge fist. He was National Heavyweight Golden Globes Champion of 1946. And he lived in my apartment building and took me on as a protege in many ways. And he said to me once, you know, it's easy to be bad. What's hard is to be good. And I thought, OK, I'll try.

[54:02]

And from that time on, I decided to try to do what's difficult. And sure enough, it was more difficult than being bad. And around that same time, I just had this little light went off in my head one time and I realized that if I would just be kind to everyone, that all my problems would evaporate. I had that clear vision. I had it in my bedroom one morning, and I decided to go to school and be kind to all the other people. And I walked up to the school, up the stairs, and opened the door, walked in, and there they were, all these very active 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds, and so on. And I completely forgot about my intention and went to homeroom. And again and again through those years I would remember what I understood was the way of happiness and I would keep forgetting.

[55:17]

So I think I started to practice Zen to find some way to develop this intention. How does that go? When somebody loves you, it's no good unless they love you all the way. Through the good and mean years, and in all the in-between years, come what may. Deeper than the deep blue ocean, that's how deep it goes if it's real. When somebody loves you, it's no good unless they love you all the way. So, the question is how to do it all the way. So,

[56:23]

The way that I try to practice and the way that I found called Zen is the way to do it all the way is to just breathe and sit through everything. without getting involved in anything. Be like a dead person 24 hours a day. Don't do anything, but just live.

[57:28]

Breathe, sit, walk, step by step, and nothing more. And then we can respond to the call. just not moving from what we are, moment by tiny moment of breath and body and thought. Then when someone says, hello, we can say, what? What's that? Huh? And it is compassion. Not our idea of compassion, just the appropriate response for that moment coming from a place where we're actually trusting simply to be ourselves.

[58:43]

Coming from the place we are before we think about anything. There may be other ways. I think there are. This is the way that I found in Zen practice. So that's the way. I want to just put that one out first. I have a story about it, too. It's a story called, well, it says here, Spiritual Uncle Me and the Rabbit. but I think better just to say Uncle Mi and the Rabbit, which is in English sort of a pun, Uncle Mi and Rabbit, but actually it's M.I. His name is Sung Mi. He's a Chinese monk, a Chinese Zen master, lived in the Tang Dynasty. His name was Sung Mi.

[59:53]

He's called Uncle Mi because he was an uncle, you know, he was older, than another great Zen master named Dung Shan, who is one of our founders. So one day, Dung Shan, the great young Zen master, and Uncle Mi, older Zen master, were walking along. Or to make it shorter, as Dung Shan and Uncle Mi were walking along, they saw a white rabbit run in front of them. Mi said, Swift. Tung Shan said, How? Mi said, Like a commoner being made a prime minister. Tung Shan said,

[60:57]

Such a venerable old person still says such words. Mi said, well, then what about you? Dengshan said, after generations of nobility temporarily fallen into poverty, Okay, so let's recite this together so you get it in you a little bit, okay? As Dung Shan and Uncle Mi were walking along, they saw a white rabbit run in front of them. Mi said, Swift. Dung Shan said, How? Explanation mark. Mi said, it's like a commoner being made prime minister.

[62:05]

Dongshan said, such a venerable old person still says such words. Mi said, what about you? Dongshan said, after generations of nobility temporarily fallen into poverty. Now here's a faster version of the same story. Either it's a faster version or they did the same thing again on some other occasion. So another time they were walking along together and they came to a stream. And Dungsan said to Uncle Mi, how is the event of crossing a stream? Now before I tell you his answer, I recommend to take advantage of such opportunities, you know?

[63:17]

It's kind of tacky maybe, or weird, or I don't know what else, corny, but when you're hiking around in the woods and so on, don't miss the chance of crossing a stream to ask your comrade, how is the occasion of crossing a stream? You can have a little dialogue there, right there, and see what you think this is going to be. What is this? Okay, that's what these guys did anyway. Now, it may sound like they're kind of silly, but I feel that their hearts were so big that they were always concerned with this important issue. They didn't want to lose it. So everything that happened in their life, they took advantage to re- remember what this is all about. So they come to the stream and the younger monk says, how is, how is it, how is the event of crossing the stream? And Uncle May says, doesn't wet the feet.

[64:26]

So can you guess, can you guess what Dung Shan might say at that time? Such a venerable old person still says words like this. Uncle Mi says, well, what about you? And he says, Deng Shan said, feet are not wet. Uncle Mi said, doesn't wet the feet. Dung Shan said, feet are not wet. Both of these approaches are ways to protect this great thought of benefit for all beings, but they're a little different. In one case, He sees the white rabbit crossing in front of them, and he says, fast.

[65:35]

Fast what? Fast like one of us, a commoner, becoming a prime minister of China. That's fast. But the younger monk admonishes his uncle. And uncle says, well, what about you? And he says, well, basically he says, it's a lot faster than that, uncle. It's like after generations of nobility temporarily fallen into poverty. In other words, we are noble people. We have great hearts. Our hearts are nothing but care for all beings.

[66:38]

But after long generations of that kind of nobility, we have temporarily fallen into our confusions, our selfishness, whatever. But really, We're already nobility. It's not that we're going to quickly become nobility through practice. But we've been nobility for eons. We're temporarily, maybe just for this moment, have forgotten that. Feeling, who me, Buddha? Who me? So one way is you start from ordinariness and then you become a great compassionate sage. And that can be fast. But faster than that is you already are there.

[67:44]

That's who you really are. You're really that way already. It's not that you're going to practice sincerely and become that way. You're already that way. And you come from that way. You come from your nobility into this ordinariness. That's why you can be completely ordinary. And our willingness to be completely ordinary, our willingness to not be better than we are, And to completely accept the way we are as ordinary people, that protects our nobility. But if we flinch from our ordinariness, it shows that we do not believe where we came from. And that way, the attitude of we start from our Buddha nature and go forth into the world

[68:48]

As a matter of fact, we already did it and this is the result of that action. We entered this world out of compassion. That's what we're here for. We are, you know, we are messengers from Buddha. But we forget that because, and sure enough, when we got into ordinariness, it really was ordinary. And as we are inundated in, as Eliot says, squadrons of uncoordinated emotions. And great waves of thoughts and opinions crash upon us. We can barely remember that we willingly entered this mess in order to benefit beings. But that way, the way of coming from nobility, coming from greatness, coming from compassion into the world, that's faster than fast.

[69:55]

That's already happened. We just have to somehow not move from our ordinariness because that's where our Buddha nature put us. We put ourselves here, moment by moment, to realize is compassion, because you cannot realize compassion from some dislocated place. You have to realize it from the mud and water of daily life. If you believe that, then what you will do, or you will do, what you might try to do, is to try to do nothing at all. and just settle into what you are. But there is another approach if you don't really believe it.

[70:57]

There are practices that you can reconvert yourself out of this ordinariness into sagehood, and then after you're a sage, then you can come back into ordinariness again. So there's two approaches. One is complete or ultimate thought of enlightenment, which is simply that this illusory being that appears here is completely empty, nothing to him, therefore he can be this, and this empty being is compassion. The other approach is actually based on a glimpse of that person, which is called the relative thought of enlightenment. And that means I will practice the perfections. I will practice the perfection of generosity, of ethical conduct, of patience, of enthusiasm, of concentration and wisdom.

[72:04]

I will do these and I will save all beings. through these practices and through this aspiration, I will become a sage, I will become a Buddha and save all beings. But that aspiration is based on a glimpse that you're already there. So either approach is okay. One is the feet don't get wet. The other is the feet are not wet. Matter of fact, there aren't even any feet, and there's no wetness. This is simply compassion beyond our ideas of compassion, is to trust that we are nothing but compassion. That's what we actually are. So do we dare to enter the mud and water of what we are,

[73:06]

for the sake of all beings, trusting that from that comes forth the appropriate response, moment by moment. And again, when we say to just breathe and sit and not get involved. Not getting involved means that you're so totally involved that you have no fixed attitude about what's happening. Because you're just there with each step, you're not involved. You're so totally there, you're so full of care, that you don't get involved. To be in your experience and to hold to it, that's getting involved.

[74:08]

That's something extra, as though you could hold on to yourself, as though you could get outside yourself, be slightly off sides and grasp yourself. That's getting involved. That's getting entangled. The mind can do both all the time. It's subtle. the difference. But if we're totally devoted, if we're full of care, we can allow ourselves to live without this additional self tacked on to ourself. It's difficult to understand this and difficult to practice it, but that's what I'm talking about. That's why I couldn't practice it when I went to school.

[75:11]

But with the encouragement of the great Buddhist tradition and all the practitioners who live now and who have lived, I'm still trying what I started when I was a boy. It's 10.50 now. That means that I've been going on for about half an hour, right? Well, because 10.15 was when that bell ended, and I didn't really start because we had all that noise before, so I've only been talking for about half an hour. So, let's see.

[76:14]

But if I read this story, then it'll be probably too long. So I think maybe I'll read this story in question and answer. I have a story here. about what it's like when you just don't move and how just not moving is the basis for love, love that goes all the way. So I'll read it in question and answer and just tell one more story. I've temporarily fallen into ordinariness. I keep temporarily falling into ordinariness every second. Just temporarily, though, just for the second. And then if I'm lucky, I can remember where I am.

[77:19]

Where am I? Wait a minute, where am I? Oh, yeah. I think I'm here. I'm me. Oh, yeah. Okay. I keep temporarily falling into ordinaries, falling into confusion. And when you fall into confusion you have trouble even remembering that you've fallen into confusion. You're so confused you think you've fallen into reality. And that this is really what's happening. And that what you think is happening is what's happening. That's not right. you've fallen into what you think is happening. That's called falling into poverty. What's actually happening is extremely rich. It's so rich, nobody can think of it. It's extremely vast, ungraspable radiance.

[78:23]

We keep falling from that into thinking, and thinking that what we're thinking is what's happening. Moment by moment we do that. And then we remember, oh, I've fallen into thinking. I've fallen into thinking that what I'm thinking is happening. I'm confused. Okay? And if you completely accept that's where you are, then you get another moment. This effort is what's called, what do you call it? You can, whatever you want, just name it. Practice. That's good enough. So when I was a kid, around Memorial Day, is it Memorial Day on Monday? Is that the real Memorial Day and the celebrated Memorial Day? When's the real Memorial Day? The 31st?

[79:24]

Is Memorial Day always on the 30th of May? Okay, so when I was a kid, I think we used to do Memorial Day on Memorial Day, right? And it was a joyous day, Memorial Day was, because I grew up in Minnesota, and Minnesota is cold in the winter, and by May 30th, it's starting to get warm. Sometimes, actually, there's some flowers in the trees and it's sunny. So it's a very happy time and you're almost out of school. This is like the last weekend or maybe one weekend before school's out, Memorial Day. And my dear attendant, who comes from a military family, told me about the difference, about what Memorial Day is and the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Memorial Day is to pay homage to all the dear beings who have died in all wars on both sides.

[80:36]

So that's what Memorial Day could be for us to think about. All these men and women and children who have died in wars from beginningless time. And Veterans Day, I guess you just celebrate the living ones who are on your side. So Memorial Day has a greater feeling of compassion, a more universal feeling of compassion. And it happens also just before the summer comes. So we open our hearts to the summer, to life, to love and also to the suffering of beings through war. And dedicate ourselves again to the incredible work of peace, which is wonderful work but it has no fixed sign.

[81:52]

We do not know what will bring peace. We must not be arrogant to think we know what will bring peace. It could be a game. It could be fun. It's just that we're always concerned for this and for the suffering of beings. So when I was a kid, they had this thing, and they would pick some smart kid from our group, from our school, to memorize the Gettysburg Address. And I guess you did that in your school too, right? So then we would have this Memorial Day thing and this one kid would get up and some cute little girl or cute little boy would get up and do it. And I always was very moved by that message of Abraham Lincoln.

[82:52]

I heard recently that on the time he gave it, he was preceded by a great orator in the program. And that guy spoke for two and a half hours. And then President Lincoln got up and spoke for two minutes and 20 seconds. And my dad said, he said, you know, when Abe Lincoln, when honest Abe said, the world will little note nor long remember what we say here, at that time he lied. So anyway, I thought if there's some cute little girl here or some cute little boy who remembers the Gettysburg Address, perhaps they could come forward. Please come forward.

[84:10]

You look just like that girl. It is a beautiful speech. Please speak to the people, for the people. Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought upon this nation, brought forth upon this nation, brought forth Upon those continents, a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all living created equal. We have now gathered on the great battlefield of that war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long it for. Can I have your help?

[85:11]

Worldly will not go on record, but we still keep it. I can't remember it. Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all persons are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated

[86:20]

can endure. We are met on a great battlefield of war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who have lived that the nation might live. for those who gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do so, but in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave persons, living and dead,

[87:29]

who struggled here have consecrated far beyond our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it will never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion.

[88:41]

That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth. This is about in the middle of a war, but that same dedication to peace we can make.

[89:45]

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