This is the first Sunday morning of the year, right? Isn't it? Happy New Year. It's also, I guess, is it the first Sunday morning of the millennium, is it? according to some calculations. Happy millennium. I thought I should tell you that I'm a little sick today. I'm not really depressed, just kind of don't have much energy. But can you hear me in the back anyway? Can you hear me in the back anyway?

[01:06]

I was wondering if I should tell you I was sick because maybe you're not interested. But I didn't want you to take personally the way I am. I was sick before I saw you. But then when I sat down and I looked at you, I thought, oh, you look sick too, so maybe I'll mention it so we'll have some kind of like empathy for each other. But now you look better for some reason. Can you still hear me in the back? I have often repeated words that I've heard.

[02:22]

I don't know if these are words that were really said by anybody, but I heard them. And then when I say them, I don't know what you hear, but anyway, I often say, I've said a number of times that all the Buddhas and all the living beings are just one mind. And besides that, there isn't anything. And that doesn't mean necessarily that there's a nothing in addition to that. But just there's no other things than mind and there's no mind other than all things.

[03:26]

And they're just one mind. Everything's one mind. I heard that and to me this is an interesting thing to meditate on. In the context of such a statement, it also can be said that all the Buddhas are practicing together with each person. And each person's practicing together with all Buddhas. In the context of this kind of statement or this kind of vision or this kind of thought or this kind of awareness that we're all practicing together with all Buddhas in that one mind, in that context, the practice that follows, it seems to me, is a practice of

[05:07]

not seeking anything and not grasping anything. Because there is nothing outside this mind, there is nothing to seek and nothing to grasp. We're already together with everything. we're together with everything we want and everything we don't want. So pushing things away or pulling them towards us expresses the view that, well I don't know what a view expresses, but anyway it kind of

[06:12]

is antithetical to the view of one mind. Not even the view of one mind, just the understanding of one mind. So that's a simple way to start in a way that the practice is just don't grasp anything in your mind, in the mind, and don't seek anything. And this not grasping and not seeking, not grasping is actually practicing not grasping realizes no death. And not seeking anything realizes no birth.

[07:17]

and that which is not born and doesn't die is Buddha. So when we enter into the practice of not grasping and not seeking, we realize the practice of Buddha, which is no birth, no death. So there's a suggestion to us which I try to give myself over to the practice of not seeking anything and not grasping anything. So in the process of experiencing moment by moment each thing that arises

[08:28]

I devote myself, I devote my life to trying to meet whatever comes. Meet whatever comes and join it. Meet whatever comes without a fixed perspective. Now whenever anything comes there is a perspective, otherwise there wouldn't be a coming. But to not grasp that perspective realizes non-grasping and makes the perspective not a fixed perspective. Of course, there is another perspective which we're also, most of us, familiar with.

[09:36]

It's a perspective that all of us are not just one mind, that we're separate minds, and the Buddhas may be separate from us, or separate from some other people, even if they aren't separate from us. And we have another awareness of what we call the awareness of birth and death. the awareness that things can be sought after and grasped, we have this awareness too. So I first mentioned a kind of awareness of suchness. and second mentioning now the awareness of birth and death, the awareness of that things arise and cease. Neither one of these awarenesses are better than the other, it's just that we have a tendency to be trapped in the awareness of birth and death, the awareness of

[10:56]

things beginning and ending, the awareness of segmented time, the awareness that we're separate, we seem to be trapped there. The other awareness is not better, but rather it's an antidote, or it's a perspective that saves us from getting trapped in the view of birth and death. the view of beginning and end. And the view of beginning and end also is a view of inclusion and exclusion. And these things are useful to us. And we have a body, a brain, a nervous system, sensory organs that are built to deal with and process

[11:58]

the reality in terms of beginnings and ends. It's not really that there's beginning and ends in the world, but we have a body that turns the world into beginnings and ends. The kind of beings we are, we convert whatever's happening into inclusion and exclusion. And that's useful. We can include food and exclude poison that way. And we can also include our family and exclude somebody else's family. So it's been useful to us as animals to be able to make these distinctions of birth and death. But these distinctions of birth and death cannot be made except by our discriminating equipment.

[13:02]

Take away our discriminating equipment, there is no beginnings and ends out there or in here. So it's not that we should try to stop our body from doing what it does of creating a world that has inclusion and exclusion, birth and death. but rather to cultivate an awareness which keeps us from being trapped in that perspective alone, which protects us from believing that that's the only truth. And then this vision of separateness can still arise, but not trip us up And then it could be used when it's helpful, like for example, discriminating between food and poison, between safety and danger, but not to hold to it when it causes harm.

[14:14]

And not even to hold to it when it's helpful. But to use it skillfully means to use it without rigidly holding to it. To use it skillfully, like using a very sharp knife skillfully, means not to rigidly hold it. Hold it just when it's appropriate to hold it and then later set it down when that's helpful. So it's not that the perspective of one mind is better than the perspective of separate minds and birth and death, but rather that they work together to create, in some sense, a true perspective of keeping them both balanced with each other.

[15:21]

just not seeking anything by itself in some sense won't work. It's rather that we practice non-seeking in the midst of making a great effort. So for example we have now people coming here making a big effort to come out here today and some people are here Now for a retreat for three weeks, making a big effort to practice lots of meditation, getting up early in the morning, coming to sit, several periods through the day working together, serving each other, quite an effort in that context. to make this effort as an expression, as a demonstration of not seeking anything, to make an effort as an expression of not grasping anything, or as a challenge and a test

[16:57]

of not seeking and not grasping. Now again, I've heard this story, and I don't know if it's a true story, but anyway, I heard this story about, actually it was about Chinese person who was in the royal family and was a potential successor to the imperial throne of Tang Dynasty China. And because he was a successor, he was in danger of his stepbrother, I think, who wanted to have him either imprisoned or killed, so he ran away and hid.

[18:01]

And one of the places, and he hid in Zen monasteries in China. This is a story, right? I don't know. And he wound up in this monastery where there was a Zen monk named Wang Bo living, Wang Bo. was the head monk of the monastery. I don't know if the future emperor had heard Wong Po saying something about practicing not seeking anything. Or if it was just sort of like in the culture of the monastery that these monks who were practicing meditation diligently were doing that as an expression, as an expression, as a statement of non-seeking.

[19:08]

I don't know if that was happening. One time, Wong Po was standing before like a Buddha statue, like we have here, and he was prostrating himself to the Buddha statue. He was bowing to the Buddha, paying respects to the Buddha by bowing. And this young future emperor comes up to him and says, If you don't seek Buddha, and you don't seek the Buddha's teaching, and you don't seek the Buddhist community, how come you're bowing to the Buddha? And Wong Po said, I always express

[20:13]

my non-seeking by paying respect to the Buddha. Or, I pay my respects to the Buddha in order to express my non-seeking. And then the young emperor, the future emperor said, what's the good of not seeking? And Wang Bo slapped him. I don't know if he knew he was going to be the future emperor. And then the future emperor said, why so coarse? And Wang Bo said, what's it got to do with coarse or subtle? And slapped him again. And when he became emperor, he gave the Wangbo an imperial title.

[21:20]

It was Course Acting Yogi. And then later, when one of Wangbo's disciples became prime minister, he asked the emperor to change his name. to boundless Zen master. I don't know if it got changed, but... So again, I heard Wang Bo said, all you got to do, all you have to do is just don't grasp anything. That's it. Just don't seek anything.

[22:32]

So, come on to Green Gulch. Somehow, park your car, come in here, and do all that without seeking anything. And then when you get here, don't grasp anything. And then at some point, I guess either you'll stay or you'll leave and see if when you leave, you can leave without grasping anything. Or I should say, see if you can leave as an expression of not grasping, as a celebration of not seeking. Drive up the road expressing not seeking. What kind of driving will that be?

[23:35]

Drive up the road, relinquishing any fixed perspective about how to drive up the road. Like, I should drive slowly if I'm not seeking anything. and now somebody's tailgating me, so I should slow down, or I should speed up, or I should pull over. These are all perspectives. What would your driving be like if moment by moment you released your momentary perspective And someone might say, maybe you shouldn't be giving advice about how to drive. So that wasn't advice about how to drive.

[24:50]

That was just a question to you. How would it be? Well, I don't know how it would be. I mean, I have some ideas about how it would be, but those are just perspectives.

[25:55]

I don't know how it's going to be. It could be like this. Last night I was feeling sick, kind of weak, actually weaker than I feel right now and it was before the meditation period started. Evening meditation starts at 7.30 and at about 7.10 I called Reverend Maya Wender and told her that I was feeling kind of weak and sick thought maybe I might not go to meditation. I wasn't sure, but anyway, she didn't have to come up and carry me down to the meditation hall.

[26:57]

If I could get there, I'd get there. And she made some comment like, yeah, maybe a little extra rest would help. So then I was up there, you know, kind of in my bed, I think. So I was sort of in my bed, and then I got up and I went into another room and sat in a chair, and there was a little boy in there who just had his first birthday, and so I came off the chair and started playing with him a little bit. And after a little while, actually he had been sick earlier himself, he had a 103 fever, but then he got over it and he was kind of perky and so I started like attending to him.

[28:03]

I didn't have enough energy to play but I was kind of interacting with him. And then it got to be about 8 o'clock and I noticed that I was feeling better. And I wasn't getting any extra rest. So I thought, well, maybe I'll go to the next period of meditation, which starts at about 820. I was feeling, you know, not so sick. So I thought, maybe I'll go be not so sick in the meditation hall. I thought, well maybe the people who are in the meditation hall would like me to come and sit with them. So I started to get up and sort of straighten my robes and make motions towards the door, started moving my body towards the door and some other people in the room said,

[29:16]

And I said, well, I thought I'd go to meditation. And they said, no, don't go. And I didn't say, I didn't say, I did not say, I'm a Zen priest, I'm going to practice Zen meditation. with the true believers. I didn't say that. I just took a few steps backwards and sat down again. And then someone sat on top of me. And then a dog jumped on top of me. And then someone said, you don't love Zen meditation more than you love us, do you?

[30:27]

And I said, no. And then somebody said, You just said that because you knew that was the right answer. Really, you do love meditation more than us. And if I do love meditation more than I love you, or them. If I do, I say, so what? The practice is not to love one thing more than another or less than another.

[31:35]

The practice is not grasping anything. If you love somebody more than somebody else, so what? It's not your fault. You're not in charge of who you love. You're not in charge of what, you know, you feel. And you're not even in charge of not grasping. You're challenged by your love. You're challenged by what you feel. You're challenged by what you think. You're challenged by what you evaluate and discriminate. These are challenges to your non-grasping. to the practice which realizes the one mind and frees you and frees everybody else from the mind of discrimination, which is a perfectly good mind, just fine.

[32:39]

Like, I love meditation more than I love you, I love you more than meditation, I want to go to meditation, let me go to meditation, let me go. Fine. Whatever. Just don't grasp it. Just meet it. This is a great opportunity. This one, this one, this one. These are the things to meet. Not because they're good or bad. This is what's being given to you. The meditation is to receive what's given and don't ask for more or less. And don't take what's not given. Take what's given. Only, moment by moment, take what's given, intimately, and then receive it without holding it. And then here comes something else. This is, you know, hard for us, but there it is.

[33:48]

So in the story I just told about last night, you know, if I was going to grade myself on how I did, I think I did pretty good. There was a little bit of impulse to go, but I didn't cling to it. And then there was a little bit of impulse to sort of say staying was good, giving up going was good, but I didn't cling to that. And now there's a little impulse to say, I did okay, but I'm not clinging to that. Actually, I don't know how I did. And I'm partly confessing to the true believers that I'm sorry I wasn't with you last night. But you see my situation? It takes a lot to, you know, figure out what's the appropriate response moment by moment.

[34:57]

But flexibility is being put forth now as very helpful to find the true beneficial response. But again, flexibility up close. Is there anything you want to say?

[36:41]

You look a little better. Thank you so much. My arms, my arms, there's a little bit of yearning in my arms to move. They kind of want to like raise up in the air like this. but they're too weak. Poor arms. What do you think of that practice about not grasping anything at all? Difficult. And what do you think about that thought that it's difficult? It's okay?

[37:50]

So what? Yeah. If I had more energy I could probably think of a song, but I can't. I don't have a song. Usually my brain is just busting with songs, but not today. Poor what? So what? Yeah. I don't need to pity myself about that. Is your name Benjamin?

[39:19]

Benjamin? Benjamin? Benji? Well, basically, you know, there's a million ways to talk about it, but the basic one is to meet it with complete relaxation. Sounds good to me. How does it sound to you? Before I talk about how to do that, I just want to mention that one of the reasons why it makes sense to me is if I'm in pain, I don't see much point in getting tense about it. Do you? Getting tense about the pain. Now, even if getting tense made the pain go away, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. But anyway, I recommend practicing with pain the same way of practicing with pleasure.

[40:27]

Try to meet it and relax. Relax with it. Try to be soft with it. And then you asked, how do you do that? Well, again, now that that question comes, then we sort of like relax with the question of how to do it. In other words, don't try to grasp a way to relax. Meet without knowing how to relax is part of relaxing. I don't know how to relax. I don't. But it happens. So, I said that, I said, and also I don't know how to not grasp. But somehow, I don't know how to even say not grasp, but somehow it's been said. I don't know how all this happens, but it happens.

[41:30]

So we're, you know, we're, what do you call it, pounding the drum, beating the drum, beating the drum of non-grasping. Non-grasping, non-grasping, non-grasping, non-grasping. How does that happen? I don't know. Yeah. I see it right there, yeah. It's a baby finger and a thumb. hang loose. Well, if there's nothing else you want to say at this time, then I can say it later.

[42:46]

Okay? So please take care of the everything with devotion to every little part of it. I forgot which order to say it, but I think it's, I love you, thank you very much, and I'm sorry.

[43:20]

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