I really feel gratified to have been able, during this practice period, to take a few steps along the Bodhichitta together with you. to take a few steps into the yogacara of the bodhisattva, the path of yoga, of the bodhisattva meditation. You have supported this teaching. You have paid attention to it.

[01:04]

You have studied it through your ears, through your eyes. You've reflected upon it in your mind. And now, towards the end of the practice period, you have entered into meditation. We do not finish this study or some of these sutras. And my intention will be to continue this study at least for another 15 months. So, the beginning of the year 2000, we can continue here to study this kind of In between now and then, I'll do whatever I can to help you continue to learn the backward step.

[02:15]

The self and which is body and mind of themselves dropping away. manifesting your original face before imagination created a world. I mentioned to Leslie that in the past when I studied and taught this kind of teaching, a few people to learn the backward step. A few people tried to attend to the capacity to imagine the mind that thinks. But this time, I don't know, maybe 50 really tried.

[03:23]

Maybe more than 50. But many of you really tried to learn how to do this meditation. You aspired to learn it. An aspiration arose to learn how to do the backward step. The aspiration arose in you to stop non-seeking and non-attachment. But you had a hard time. Many of you said it's hard to understand what non-attachment is. It's hard to realize non-seeking and non-attachment.

[04:39]

We have such deeply rooted Habits of seeking an attachment. Of imagining. And then grasping. Our imagination. Turn that process around and look. Images is a big change. But anyway. I appreciate that the aspiration has arisen in you. And you wish now to learn how to turn the light around. The mind that thinks of images to study this uninterrupted mind, to study the non conceptual image until you are stabilized and are ready to then turn back and study the objects, study the teachings.

[05:41]

which you have previously studied with your eyes and ears and thinking. So, for the rest of the year, if you wish, continue to study these teachings with your eyes, your nose, your tongue, and your intellect. And also, please, if you want, continue to try to stabilize the consciousness. Give yourself to the practice which you aspire to. But I want to go back to the beginning of the practice period and something I think I mentioned fairly early. And that is that we really can't do anything We really don't do anything by ourself.

[06:44]

We think we do. That is not correct. That is part of our imagination. We don't walk across the street by ourself. We don't do anything by ourself. And we practice yoga of the bodhisattva by ourself. As our compassionate founder said, all of our activity is both cosmic and personal. We are both ordinary, in other words, imagining a world and believing it, and grasping it, and suffering, and also Buddha. We are both. And the dear teacher said, you must concentrate on this all the time.

[07:58]

You must concentrate on this teaching that you don't do anything by yourself. All of your activity is personal and cosmic. And you're both ordinary and Buddha. He said that I heard it on tape. I also said early in the practice period, and I've been saying for a while that I've heard that. All the Buddhas are practicing together with each person. Each of you has all of the Buddhas practicing together with you. When I was a kid, Santa Claus could visit all those people in one night, go down all those chimneys and get back up.

[09:07]

I calculated how long it would take to go down a chimney, put the presents out, Eat a few treats, climb back up right away, and multiply that by the number of kids. And that's more than one night. You get about four a night that way. But Santa Claus does visit all those kids. So the Buddhas are like Santa Claus. They can visit all of us all the time. It works out. It's cosmic. It's beyond this world of imagination of time and space. When they help one of us, they help all of us. When they help all of us, they help one of us. That's cosmic, right? All the Buddhas are practicing this all the time. You have to remember that, understand that, that you don't do this practice by yourself.

[10:08]

Still, even with the Buddha's helping, it seems hard. But that's because of our imagination that makes it hard. They're having a hard time helping us. They're not like wishing we were having an easier time or learning faster. They're just helping us. All the time. We have to remember that. And if you remember that, you want to practice. Some people think, well, okay, if they're doing it, I'll just relax and let it happen. Right, relax and let the practice happen. That's hard. Let your intense practice in all beings happen. So, you know, you've all made a tremendous effort.

[11:16]

Every person here has made a tremendous effort to come to this period. Everybody has. But some people, can you believe it, were seeking something. They were seeking. They were making effort. day by day, making effort. They had a gaining idea. They thought they were going to get something for themselves. They didn't tell me about this until recently. Because now, it looks like they're not going to get it. And they're mighty depressed and disappointed. There are several people like that, that have been seeking something. So, I said, well, now... Guess what? You're a prime candidate for bodhisattva practice. Because it's about not seeking. You can switch now from seeking to non-seeking practice.

[12:17]

Now's a good time, now that you've... You had to do all this practice. If you had tried at the beginning of practice period to get something, only one day, seeking for one day, and you hadn't succeeded, you wouldn't have got so depressed. But now that you've made this big effort on your face, now you can see it doesn't work. Seeking doesn't work. It's antithetical to what you're seeking. Because what you're seeking is happiness and freedom, and seeking doesn't go that way. So now, don't feel bad. Don't feel bad, but I mean... You see, now you know. Now you see that seeking doesn't work. So now it took the whole practice period for you to be convinced that, of course, non-seeking and non-attachment is the way to go. Now you're convinced, some of you.

[13:19]

Some of you were successful, you think. So you're not convinced. You think you can seek and get by with it. Well, you can't. You'll see. And some people just can't, they think, well, then I'll just sort of shrug my shoulders and roll over, play dead. I'm a Nazi. How can you make a big effort and not seek together? It's hard for people to understand that, I've noticed. But anyway, it is possible to make a big effort, devoted to somebody, for example, to be totally devoted to somebody without any expectation. without seeking anything. Hoping the best, but not seeking anything by your devotion. It is possible. And it's a happy way. But anyway, the Buddhas are helping you learn this.

[14:29]

How to be devoted with no expectation. How to be devoted and not seeking anything by your devotion. How to be generous and give without seeking anything. Without seeking anything. When you're in pain and you practice patience, it's not patience to practice patience to try to make the pain go away. That's not patience. That's impatience. Patience is, I don't know if this thing's ever going to go away. I'm going to make my peace with it. It may never go away. I wish it would. That's fine. But that's not patience. Wishing it would go away is compassion. Patience is the practice, the work, the working guts of compassion. Patience to try to manipulate the pain into pleasure. Patience is to sit in the middle of it where the seat of enlightenment is.

[15:31]

The Buddha and the Samdhi Nirmocana Sutra says, that people who won't sit in the middle of suffering will be able to sit on the seat of enlightenment. I don't say that. If they're afraid of pain and trying to get into a comfortable place, fine. There is a place for such yogis. But if you're going to sit on the seat of enlightenment, you have to sit in a place where you're not running from pain. I don't say that those who won't sit in that way will be able to sit on the seat of enlightenment. Put it negatively. Positive way is if you will sit suffering as it is now with no dealing, with no expectation. This is how you take your seat of enlightenment. with no expectation.

[16:37]

Yes, can you do it by yourself? You wouldn't even think of doing it by yourself. It's only because Buddha's working with you that you even think of sitting in the middle of pain and not wiggling. The fact that you do think of it means you're not doing it by yourself. So it can be realized. You can learn how to be very patient. you can learn it, just like the Buddhas learned it. Did it take them a long time to learn it? Yes. So, I told one of these people who I recommended switching from seeking something to not seeking, now that she seems to be convinced that not seeking isn't working very well, And she said, but I don't even know how to practice not seeking. He said, well, I don't know how either. Anyway, Buddhas are helping you learn.

[17:43]

He said, well, where are the Buddhas? I don't see any Buddhas. He said, they're all around you. I can see them. He said, well, I wish I could see them. He said, I'm sure that would be nice. It would be nice to see the Buddhas, wouldn't it? I've told you before, you know, occasionally I think, I wish I could talk to Suzuki Roshi just for like five minutes. Just five minutes. Not even talk to him, just say, hi, how am I doing? I think he would not say anything, but that would be fine. But he might say, you're doing a good job. Because that's what he said sometimes when he was alive. He might say it even now. He might say, you're my disciple.

[18:44]

He might. Or he might say, you're not doing very well. Anyway, I still would like to talk to him for a few minutes sometime. Anyway, it is important to see the Buddha. And you might not be able to see the zillions of Buddhas around you, but you do need to see, according to some ancestors, you do need to see the Buddha. And you kind of need to see somebody's face. The person who you're looking at is not really the Buddha, but you need to use that person's face to see the Buddha. And not only the Buddha, but all the Buddhas. We need this. That's what I was saying about we need a face to come into the world and we need a face to transcend the world.

[19:47]

So, for me, Suzuki Roshi was an ordinary person, quite a nice ordinary person, and Buddha. He was a lovely little Japanese Zen master. But still, a person that I could look at and watch. In one of the first lectures, I heard him give here in San Francisco. I told you this before. He said, I'm not enlightened. And I thought, uh-oh. That's too bad. Here I am, brilliant career, at the university to come and study with somebody who's not enlightened.

[20:49]

But just in a moment, I thought, well, he's still the best I've ever seen. So I'm going to study with him, whatever he is. The next week, he gave a lecture and he said, I am Buddha. And I thought, that's more like it. Every time I tell it, over and over. You know, sometimes people tell jokes that I've heard before and I thought, now here it comes. Now, am I going to laugh this time again? And sometimes I do, just because they want me to. Okay, I'll laugh. You're telling that again? That's funny. So, ordinary person, Buddha, you've got to see that Buddha face. It helps you understand that that's just one Buddha face.

[21:58]

All the Buddhas are... Buddhism is actually saying to you, really, honest to gosh, what you think is happening is not what's happening. And all the Buddhas around you is not even your idea of what that's like. So... Several years ago, and if I might say, John was listening to me in San Francisco, and he thought, I don't know what he thought, something like, what's he talking about all these Buddhas all over the place? Is that what you thought, something like that? Is that what I was talking about? Buddha's helping, and he says, that's just crazy. But then later he thought, Well, that's crazy, but what I think is too, so maybe it is true. Anyway, that's how this practice happens, is that the world of reality turns out is full of Buddhas who have realized it and Bodhisattvas who have realized it, who have nothing to do but help us learn this practice, which we wouldn't be able to do by ourselves, but which can happen

[23:19]

I don't know how it happens. Somebody goes bop, bop, bop, and then somebody starts talking about practice. And then because somebody starts talking about practice, somebody starts practicing. Who started practicing, could have started practicing if they didn't squawk and this person didn't say practice. And then they started to practice. This person didn't make them practice because they wouldn't have said it if that's... This interdependent thing, somehow it happens. It's like... This message comes out from the eyes of one into the eyes of the other and gets imprinted in the brain. The person starts practicing. It happens. A person, just like we learn how to imagine that we're separate, we start imagining that we're not. Just like we think things are external, we imagine they're external, we start imagining they're external. We think about it because we said hello and the person said, mind only.

[24:29]

We prompted that Dharma to come into us. And then we said, oh, it's hard. And the person said, well, you don't do it. And gradually the practice starts to happen. This is just a story about how it happens. But somehow the message is coming that it can happen. So now, again, at the end of the practice period, when all of your hopes and all of your seeking is coming to a crashing flop, it's a good time to die of all that. I heard that yesterday was Good Friday. And it was really a rough day for people.

[25:33]

A lot of people had big failures yesterday. It would have been a good day to die, but they didn't. We have to die. We can't do it on our own. And yet, when we squawk, there's a response to, today's a good day to die. Today's a good day to close your eyes to the world of illusion, and turn around and see where it comes from. Today is a good day to die to external objects. Today is a good day to have no objects of thought, which means to die of objects of thought. It's a good day to die to the other, separate from yourself. Especially if things are going really badly, it's a good day to die. But the problem is that when things get better, you don't think it's a good day to die.

[26:39]

Some days are really good to die. Can't you see? But you didn't. Today, why don't you die to the world of illusion and stay dead continuously? until you're really relaxed and at ease and not grumpy and not trying to get away from the pain. And again, The language is, well, I'll try to die today, but that's an aspiration, which is an aspiration, but I don't mean I am going to be able to die on my own. I need help to die. But I wish that I would die to delusion.

[27:44]

But I also know that I need help. So I ask for help from the Buddhas and bodhisattvas so that I may Stop fighting what's happening. Sign a peace treaty and then retire. In the story of Yongchang and the monk, my understanding is that that monk died and then was reborn in the heaven of emptiness. He gave up illusion and after he gave it up, he looked at the world and saw that it was

[28:53]

and didn't see anything. Then Yangshan says, this is fine, but there's another step. And it's a very big step and a very extensive step to the world called Blue mountains fill the eyes. But in a way, for most of us, it's not time to take that next step. We haven't yet understood. I don't see anything at all. So it's a wonderful story about the great potential of the practice.

[29:59]

I think we're back a few steps here, most of us. And this monk who got enlightened partway, before that happened, was just like us. And Yangshan had gone all the way. whose eyes were filled with blue mountains after not seeing any mountains at all. Yangshan was like us too. And the Buddhas helped him, that monk, and they'll help us. They're patient with us. And they loan us their patience. So I hope that they'll keep loaning it to us. Be patient with being how we are now.

[31:04]

And even though it's difficult and painful, I hope that there can be some joy in knowing that we're just like the Buddhas. that the way we see and the things we're working with and the problems we have are just like the problems they had. And when I say that, and you hear that, and if you don't understand that, I'm here to talk to you about that. And I'm here to help you find the scriptures which show that that's so, and reason why about whether there's any real difference between you and the Buddhas before they understood emptiness. No difference.

[32:13]

I hesitate to speak of going into the guest season as returning to the world. I hesitate to speak of leaving Tassajara and going out to San Francisco or other places as returning to the world because maybe we really haven't left the world yet. Deep down inside, we still may be in the world because the world is external objects. the light shining out rather than back. So I think we have to stay working. And it's not that we're, I say the world, but we're still in the world.

[33:22]

We haven't left yet. We have to leave before we can return. Maybe we can be humble and say, I'm still in the world. I haven't left. I'm planning to leave soon. I aspire to leave. The Buddhas are helping me. I've asked for their assistance. They've said okay. I'll be leaving soon. And after I leave, I vow to come back and help with the guest season. But I want to leave first. And during the guest season, I will be trying to leave. Right while I'm doing my job in the office, I'll be trying to leave. Right while I'm making beds, I will be trying to leave. I will be trying to learn the backward step while I'm cooking guest meals. I know it will be hard, but I'm going to continue to leave. I can't do it by myself, but me and my friends together are going to continue to learn the backward step.

[34:29]

And if I succeed and leave the world, I vow to come back with my wisdom that there isn't anything that I can see. And everything is just mind. And there is a truth that's so meaningful and so liberating and so happy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I love you. I love you.

[35:27]

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