It is actually a great joy for me to discuss with you how the bodhisattva vows or how the great vows of bodhisattvas are the way that they practice meditation. how the meditation of our school is actually carried out by the bodhisattva vows and how the bodhisattva vows carry forth, carry out our practice, our practice of what we call, you know, zazen. It... It is sometimes said that the essential art of Zazen or the essential art of the Zazen which is taught in this school is to think of not thinking.

[01:24]

And how do you think of not thinking? Non-thinking. So non-thinking is thinking the bodhisattva vows. Or rather, thinking of the bodhisattva vows opens the gate, is the gate to non-thinking. Non-thinking is the way to become free of our thinking. So we practice a kind of thinking which sets us free from thinking. And the kind of thinking that sets us free of thinking is sometimes called non-thinking. The instruction for these bodhisattva vows is instruction in non-thinking.

[02:30]

To sit and practice non-thinking is the way that Buddhas and ancestors sit. They sit and practice non-thinking. They sit and they think in a way that is beyond thinking. They sit and they think in a way that liberates thinking beings. They sit and think in a way that opens up in unconstructedness and stillness. They sit in a way that opens up immediate realizations. This way of thinking I feel is a way to live wholeheartedly.

[03:45]

If you sit, if you walk, if I sit, if I walk, if I stand, if I talk, if I practice those activities wholeheartedly, body and mind drop away. Wholeheartedly standing, body and mind drop away. Wholeheartedly sitting, body and mind drop away. Wholeheartedly sitting means also to sit and practice non-thinking, to sit and practice beyond thinking. So I may think I'm practicing wholeheartedly, which is great, nice thought, and that I want to practice wholeheartedly, a nice vow, good vow,

[04:55]

and these further and these instructions from Samantabhadra on how to think are ways to make more likely that my activity is wholehearted. So I wholeheartedly stand but now I'm also thinking of these vows and thinking of these vows, I would say, fully inhabits wholeheartedness. Part of the reason for this is that I'm not only standing here, I'm also opening to and thinking about my relationship with Buddha and my relationship with all beings. I'm raising my hand wholeheartedly, but I'm also raising my hand in relationship to all Buddhas.

[06:04]

I'm also raising my hand in relationship to all beings. I'm raising my hand wholeheartedly, yes. And also, if it's wholehearted, then it is also paying homage to all Buddhas. It is making offerings to all Buddhas. It is praising all Buddhas. It is confessing and repenting my shortcomings. It is rejoicing in the merits of others. It is asking the Buddhas to teach. It is asking the Buddhas to stay with us. It is practicing all the practices of all the Buddhas. It is serving all sentient beings. It is turning over the merit of all this virtue to the welfare of all beings.

[07:10]

It's all those things in raising the hand. That's wholehearted and that's thinking. Thinking about that when you raise your hand is beyond thinking. It's non-thinking. It's dropping our body and mind. It's the whole universe realized in a hand raising. This is wholeheartedness that I'm talking about. And I'm happy to talk about it. And some people are saying, but it sounds busy, you know, raising your arm. Why don't you just raise your arm? Thinking about all these offerings to Buddhas and homages to Buddhas and doing all the Buddha's practices and serving all the beings, it seems busy, like an overlay on top of raising the hand.

[08:14]

I can understand that. But another way to put it is that it's just that you're making explicit what is implicit. In doing something wholeheartedly, if you do something wholeheartedly, you don't have to think. that it's paying homage to all Buddhas. You don't have to think that. It's optional. But when you do something wholehearted, it is paying homage to all Buddhas. Because that's what Buddhas do. You're aligning yourself with all Buddhas when you speak wholeheartedly, because that's the way Buddhas speak. When you sit wholeheartedly, The homage to all Buddhas is implicit in your sitting.

[09:20]

When you sit wholeheartedly, it is implicit that you're praising Buddha, because nothing's more expressive of praise than to follow somebody's example. When you sit wholeheartedly, you are making offerings to all Buddhas. The supreme offering to all Buddhas is to practice the Dharma, which is to be wholehearted. When you sit wholeheartedly, you practice confession and repentance. if in your wholeheartedness there's any missing of a moment of practice, the wholeheartedness naturally exudes the confession and repentance. When you say it wholeheartedly, that's the way to ask the Buddhas to teach. They see somebody's practicing wholeheartedness and they say, hey, that guy probably wants a little teaching. There's some nice stories about the Buddha

[10:26]

whom he meets somebody and the person's like really like wholeheartedly sitting and he says, would you by any chance like to hear a little Dharma talk? The Buddhas naturally offer and teach those who are requesting it. They don't actually teach if you don't request. But when you sit wholeheartedly that is a implicit, at least implicit request. and so on. All the practices that you do wholeheartedly are an implicit expression of these ten vows. However, do you understand this? And most people do not. Most people do not know that when they're wholeheartedly strolling across the face of this earth, wholeheartedly taking step after step. They don't understand necessarily. It's not explicitly expressed and they don't understand because it hasn't been explicitly expressed.

[11:29]

They don't understand that they're wholehearted. Everybody is wholehearted. Everybody is wholehearted. But not very many people understand that and therefore they feel unrealized, caved in, miserable, more or less. And they don't experience body and mind dropping away. Actually, in the unconstructedness of stillness, in immediate realization, which is always happening, we're all wholehearted, we're all dropping away body and mind, and we're all assisting each other and being assisted by each other in wholeheartedness and dropping away of body and mind. We're all, in other words, Buddha. All of us together. wholeheartedly together, dropping our body and mind together and with each other's assistance.

[12:37]

That's really what the Buddha is looking at all day long and realizing all day long. But if we don't make it explicit, we may not notice it. Probably we won't. Some people say you definitely won't. So it seems that we need to explicitly think about these things in order to realize that they've been implicitly been expressed all along. We need to explicitly do this. And this is a little confusing because There is a practice in our tradition called concentration and in that practice you actually systematically give up thinking in order to calm down. But that practice for a bodhisattva is practiced in the context of giving up thinking in the context of thinking.

[13:44]

that this giving up thinking is paying homage to all Buddhas. And this giving up thinking, you're thinking that giving up thinking is doing what all Buddhas have done, which they have. They've all practiced giving up thinking in order to become concentrated. But the Bodhisattvas understand they're not just like doing some great concentration exercise, which they are, but they're not just doing that. They're also thinking that they're doing the same as the Buddhas have done, and they're also thinking that they're doing this for the welfare of all beings. They don't overlook that they're doing all these practices for the welfare of all beings. They don't overlook that while they're giving up overlooking. While they're giving up thinking, they simultaneously understand and remember that they're giving up thinking. They think that they're giving up thinking. for the welfare of all beings. In other words, they wholeheartedly give up thinking. It's really easy to give up thinking when you're doing it for everybody's welfare.

[14:53]

But if you're doing it just for yourself, you're conflicted. If your children's and grandchildren's and spouses and parents' life depended on you giving up thinking, it would be a lot easier. And that's the way it is. But if you think it's just for you, conflict. So the teachings are to train our thinking into non-thinking so that we become free of thinking. Because thinking is the main problem for living beings. Thinking is karma. Our thinking is what creates the obstructions to reality. This is a new way of thinking for all beings. It's always a new way of thinking. I'm just very happy to tell you about this new way of thinking. see how inspired you are and to see that when you become really inspired then you get a new kind of resistance that you never had before you were so inspired.

[16:05]

I also want to mention that we have an ancestor. He's one of the main disciples of the sixth ancestor. His name is in Japanese, we say Seigen Gyoshi. In Chinese, it's Chingyuran Shingsa. And Gyoshi or Shingsa, Gyo means to walk and it also means to practice. And Sa or Shi means think or thinking. His name, his Buddhist name, Chingyuran is where he lived. His Buddhist name that we use for him is Walking and Thinking. Walking and Thinking. This is the great ancestor.

[17:05]

Or you could say Practicing and Thinking. Or you could say Thinking of Practice. Or you could say Thinking Practice is his name. And Thinking Practice is his name. When he walked, he was thinking. What was he thinking of? He was thinking of Buddha. Every step he took, he thought of Buddha. Every step he took, he thought of enlightenment. Every step he made, every step he carried out, he thought of paying homage to Buddhas. Every step he made, every step he received, every step he lived, he thought about serving all beings.

[18:07]

He thought about doing all the practices of Buddha. That's the way he walked. He walked and thought about Buddha's bodhisattvas every step. Think of Buddha. And they don't just think of Buddha, but they think of their relationship with Buddha. It isn't just, hey, Buddha over there. It's like, hey, I got a relationship with you, man. I'm like into meeting you. I'm like into serving you. I'm like into asking you to teach. I'm like... I'm like... paying homage to you. I praise you. I make offerings to you. Everything I do is like that. I'm thinking about Buddha and I'm thinking about my relationship with Buddha. And as I think about that, I come to think of it, it seems like I got a close relationship with Buddha where I'm not identifying or disidentifying. I'm just really close.

[19:08]

And I think about my relationship with Buddha in order to help all beings, and I think about my relationship with all beings and serving all beings in order to fully realize my relationship with Buddha, because that's what Buddhas do, and so on. So you and I will be walking or crawling for a while now. We may be in wheelchairs, but every turn of the wheelchair Think about that's an offering to Buddha. That's what the ancestors have done and one of them has a name called practice thinking or walking and thinking of Buddha. Walking and thinking of my relationship, our relationship with Buddha. at every step, Amish to Buddha.

[20:13]

I was opening up a package of rice crackers. I was trying to pry those little circular ones. I was trying to pry them apart. I said, how can this be Amish to Buddha to pry these little rice crackers apart? I wasn't offering the rice crackers. I was offering the prying the rice crackers apart and getting the plastic out of the way. Maybe I should sit up and not bend over while I do it. Okay, upright. Now pry the rice crackers apart as an offering to Buddha. Think about Buddha while you're prying the rice crackers apart. Please give me a break. I don't want to practice offering, paying homage to Buddha when I'm prying rice crackers apart. I hear you. And when somebody doesn't want to practice making offerings to Buddhas when they're frying rice crackers apart or putting, pulling the rice cracker out of the envelope, they don't want to practice, we open to this.

[21:31]

We practice, we accommodate to this sentient being who does not want to think about Buddha. They want to break from thinking about Buddha. We accommodate to them We serve them. We are gentle with them. We're upright with them. We're patient with them. Or you could say, when you're prying rice crackers apart, accommodate beings. Be patient with them. And so on. In each of these ten vows, in each one, the other nine are there. They're simultaneous. and go through one in order, but then the more you go through in order, you realize whenever you're really doing one, you're doing all. If you have any questions about that, let me know. Maybe it's clear to you that whenever you're doing one of these, you're doing all. When you're wholehearted, you're doing all ten vows. When you're practicing the Buddha way, you're doing all ten vows.

[22:39]

When you're doing one of the vows wholeheartedly, you're doing all ten. If you're doing one of the vows half-heartedly, you might not realize that you're doing all ten. But again, no matter what you're doing, you actually are wholehearted. It's just a question of, are you explicitly expressing that? Because if you don't express it, you may not notice that you're doing all of the great bodhisattva vows all the time. And when I was talking about, well, what about this? It's hard to imagine some of these great bodhisattvas having anything to confess and repent. And somebody mentioned, well, one of the things they probably might be able to confess is that occasionally there's a moment's gap in their attention to these bodhisattvas. you know, during the gazillions of moments in a day, they miss a couple.

[23:42]

Say, oh, missed one. I missed the opportunity. I missed the opportunity. So, again, when we're wholehearted, all these vows are implicit, at least, Sometimes when we're wholehearted, they're implicit and explicit. When they're implicit and explicit, we realize that we understand them. But they're always at least implicit. This is our nature, but if we don't practice it, we may not get it. We may not realize it. And someone sent me a message that I made a mistake when I said that that trigram with the receptive in the middle and the responsive or active around, I said it was a water trigram.

[24:48]

Apparently it is a fire trigram. Now water is good, but fire fits better in with the mass of fire. So this meditation is a massive fire. This meditation is this receptive surrounded by the active. And again, this fire at the center of our practice, this unconstructedness and stillness, this immediate realization, it's right burning inside of everything. Everything is like this. Everything is receptive and responsive. And the receptiveness is at the center. And this responsiveness is right there surrounding, supporting and expressing what is received.

[25:51]

This is the unconstructedness. This is unconstructedness and still. And it has tremendous activity of all beings working together. So again, the practice is to be open to this, to be wholehearted, and in the wholeheartedness we drop away body and mind, and we're really open to this. In the wholeheartedness we're upright, we're gentle, we're honest, and we're peaceful, and we open to this fire. And we don't, we circumambulate it. We're walking around it all the time. We're sitting with it all the time. And we try not to touch or turn away. And if we get excited about it, it's easy to get excited about this thing. Immediate realization. It's right there.

[26:54]

It's easy to get excited about it. But if we're excited, we fall into a pit. And it's easy to hesitate. And if we hesitate, we fall into doubt and vacillation. But then we have something to confess and repent. And go back. Okay, now, where is it again? Where is the immediate realization? It's in everything. Everything is none other than this immediate realization. Everything is the realized universe. Or as Tore Zenji says, none other than the marvelous revelation of the glorious light. Everything is a merciful avatar of Buddha. When things come at us from all directions,

[27:58]

What should we do? Give up trying to control. Be upright. Be gentle. Whatever is coming is the Buddha's teaching. Come to help us. Wake up. And it's easy to forget that, but when we forget it, We had something to confess. I forgot the teaching that whatever comes is the Buddha Dharma. Whatever comes is the realized universe, is Genjo Koan. This attitude towards life is what we call also just sitting. non-thinking, practicing the ten great vows and practices of Samantabhadra.

[29:10]

Someone pointed out that the way Tore Zenji put it, first of all he says, whatever comes, every experience, every moment, whatever comes, it's the marvelous revelation of the glorious light. Whatever comes is the marvelous revelation of the glorious light. And then he says, like, even, even, you know, he said, you heard me say that. Even if somebody is abusing you, that's the marvelous revelation of the glorious light. You probably think, oh, people heard me say everything is a marvelous revelation of the body. Okay, now how about this? Even this, yes. Even this has come to, and then people say, what about this and what about that? Yes, that also is the marvelous revelation. Well, what about this? Yes, that is the marvelous revelation.

[30:43]

This is the Buddha Dharma coming to you to wake you up. Whatever is coming is that. But then he says, to save us from our evil karma, then somebody might think, well, he's saying that this thing is coming to you because of your evil karma. No, this thing is coming to you to save you from your karma, which is another way to say whatever comes is coming to save you from your thinking and the consequences of your thinking. The world we live in is a consequence of our thinking altogether, and the teaching, whatever comes in this world, is coming to wake us up and free us from our thinking and the consequences of our thinking. Yes, even that. But in a way, you can rewrite this vow. You can all write your own vow now. You can rewrite it and say, even when something good comes, even when something pleasant comes, even when someone nice comes, it's the marvelous Avatar coming to help you.

[31:55]

And when something terrible comes, it's the same. No matter what comes, good or bad. But he mentioned the bad because people think, oh no, that couldn't be. This couldn't be. Come to help me. Bodhisattvas need to understand this so they can go where people are being abused and teach those people how to see their abuse as Buddha's teaching. Otherwise they'll just, I don't know, they'll close down and fight. Or they'll close down and, well, they'll close down and stop looking to see what's the meaning here. They'll stop trying to understand the abuse. Somebody has to show them, hey, look, this is how the abuse works.

[33:00]

Look, come on, look, see? This is what it means. This is, look, see now we can respond in a beneficial way because we understand it, because we have understood the Buddha's teaching. Genjo koan. Abuse is the genjo koan of abuse. Enlightenment is the genjo koan of enlightenment. Delusion is the genjo koan of delusion. X is the genjo koan of X.

[34:02]

And the meditation of the school is to meditate on that. How can this be a perfected universe as this? And the virtues of the Buddhas are realized in meditating on this. You will be able to help beings more and more effectively if you understand this. If you think about this moment by moment. And if the people in the back want to hear the people that come up here, it'd probably be a good idea if you came up here.

[35:16]

You'll be able to hear much better if you come up here. Does anybody have any feedback on this? Bhaskar. Bhaskar. I actually wanted to confess I have severe limitations in compassion. I mean, the upright practice that you have taught has been very helpful to me, and I'm very grateful for it, especially the part where you pushed me up. But I feel, and that also helped me somewhat with feeling more compassion, I feel. But I have a tremendous problem with compassion towards myself, other people, and even deceiving it from other people.

[36:23]

Yes, there's a tremendous problem. Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated greatly. I would wholeheartedly as I can encourage myself to be upright and very gentle and tender and patient with the limitations of my compassion. So now you honestly have disclosed that you see limitations in your compassion. And so I'm saying, okay, now that you've done that, now try to be very gentle about this limitation and be try to be upright about it don't try to get rid of it just you know just like if you met someone on this in this world and and they they seem to have limitations in their compassion to open to that person and be very gentle with that person in that gentleness in that tenderness the flower will open more

[37:35]

Still there's some limit, but more tenderness, it will open more. But again, not just tenderness, but uprightness. So it's not like tender and tender and come on, hurry up. You know, when are you going to do it? It's tender, very tender, and take your time or receive your time. This may take a very, very, very long time to completely open. And I feel tender about that, and I'm not rushing it. And that also has been taught. Those who practice that way will completely open, and not just be completely open, but also will see the Buddha teaching right now. So you got the honesty part, and the uprightness, you're trying to be upright with that, That's good. And try to be tender and peaceful with this painful limitation. Thank you.

[38:40]

You're welcome. I came to ask you a question from my notebook, but between that question and the time that I carried my notebook, something changed. It seems to me that when I try to open my heart that I get hurt, it's really safe to keep it closed.

[39:48]

Seems safe. Feels safe. Feels safe. But it feels like I'm not fully living. Right. But when I am fully living, I feel a great deal of pain. bodhisattvas feel a great deal of pain. And they also feel a great deal of joy and they feel fully alive. So it is part of the life of bodhisattva is to feel the pain of those they love. And even the pain that those they love inflict on them or try to inflict on them so if someone you love tries to hurt you even if what they're trying to do doesn't hurt you it hurts you that they are trying to hurt you because you know that hurts them but if you love them and the pain is coming from loving them this is a great joy

[41:08]

So it is part of the practice to feel the pain of the world inside and outside. It's a normal part of the practice. That's why we need to develop gentleness, tenderness with this pain and patience with it and generosity towards it and uprightness with it. and be patient with how slow we are learning these practices. I was writing down about your statements about If you want to hear, you have to come up closer today.

[42:13]

I'm sorry? You're whispering, they can't hear you. And I'm telling them if they want to hear better, they need to come up closer today. I'm going to stop asking people to talk louder. There's a lot of empty space here. There's a lot of empty space here. Earlier, we read, quietly explore the farthest reaches of these causes and conditions. In the past, you've offered teachings about analyzing, reflection, non-thinking, mind like a wall. And in this session you seem to have resisted the word figure out.

[43:17]

Resisted? Yeah. I don't think I'm resisting it, but anyway, you think I've been resisting it. I've been cautioning people towards doing the practice rather than figuring it out. So, how does the Buddha's teaching to analyze and to reflect differ from figuring out? It would be that you're analyzing something, but you're not trying to get anything. You're not trying to figure out. So figuring out means getting something? It seems to be that you want to get the knowledge before you start studying. That's what people seem to be meaning by figure out. This figuring out energy is gaining energy. So analysis is part of the Buddhist practice, but you practice analysis for the welfare of others. You practice analysis as an homage to Buddhas because Buddhas practice analysis.

[44:21]

So you practice analysis. You do the practice of what the Buddhas have done. But you do it to do the practice that Buddhas have done rather than you do it to figure things out. Because people usually do things to figure things out. I'll often do things to figure things out. Isn't it to understand? If it's to understand and you're still trying to get understanding, that's not the way Buddhas study. They don't study to get anything. They study to study. So that's the way they study. And they analyze to analyze. They don't analyze, they're not seeking anything. Got it. And how does that relate, all this offering of teaching, how does that relate to the genja koan and when the fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, it will be lost and not find its place?

[45:28]

What does... Yes. What does that mean? It means that if you hear instructions like, for example, think about, you know, think about wanting or committing or saying you will endeavor in practicing all the practices that Buddhists have practiced. Okay? Think about that. And if you think about that you might think, well, I don't understand what that means. What does it mean? And you try to understand what that means before you start practicing the practices that all Buddhas have practiced. Or when you hear about confession and repentance, you say, well, what does it mean? And what's the good of it? And so on and so forth. Before you start moving in the water, you try to reach the end of the water. You try to comprehend the water before you start moving in it.

[46:31]

But if the fish tries to comprehend the water before moving in, they'll never comprehend the water and they won't find their place. But if you start moving in the water, even before you understand how to move in the water or what the water is, you will find out what the water is and you will find your place. So when you're in the water... Yes. Let's say I'm sitting. That's being in the water. You're sitting in the water. You're sitting, but you're also sitting in your thinking. So human beings, we swim in our thinking. So when I'm swimming in my thinking, I'm not reflecting? You can reflect. That's fine. That's part of your movement. But you're not waiting to swim in your thinking. You're not waiting to enter into contemplating your thinking. until you've understood what thinking is and what the practice of contemplation is. So he says at the end of that, if you only will move in your thinking, only move in your experience after you've understood it, or you refuse to move before you understand, then you won't find your place.

[47:52]

Now, then he says, when you find your place right where you are, you will realize the practice occurs, realizing the Gendro Koan. Realizing... When you find your place right where you are, the practice occurs and the practice realizes the perfected, the realized universe. But we have to work with this right now. And if you say, if you try to figure out what it means to work on this right now, That's okay as long as you're working on that. But if you're going to wait to start the practice until after you understand what it is, you won't get started. Like this person just told me he got this big job, you know, to take care of a lot of people. And he said to the person who gave him the job, well, how can I do it? And the person says, well, you got to get bigger. And he says, well, what do you mean by big?

[48:55]

He says, well, like, you know, big. Yeah, but what do you mean by big? Oh, big. Start where we are. Start right now. You can come together if you want. We did come together, in fact, so... Yeah, you're friends, I know. Although not a couple. How did you know?

[49:56]

I didn't say I knew. You want to go first? Sure. My confession is that I've been over the week just periodically defining this practice. You've been defining it, uh-huh. In terms of what I've done before. Okay. So my story is that I actually felt I had, still feel that I had, the tremendous opening and spiritual awakening. that you mentioned people like Alan Watts having. And at the time I didn't feel I had anyone to go to. And I actually just realized I didn't tell anyone about it for three years. I just sat in my room and listened to Ram Dass tapes and did bhakti yoga. And so what you're bringing up this week has sounded a lot to me like bhakti yoga. And so that's, it's been bringing up a lot of these old practices that I really

[51:05]

just really let go of when I moved here because I saw what it was doing was causing me to negate this realm and push myself away from people. The bhakti yoga seemed to be contributing to pushing yourself away from people? Yeah. Yeah. So that's not good, is it? No. So you should do bhakti yoga towards people. And now you're telling me to do it towards... Towards all people. Yeah. So, yeah, practice being devoted to all beings. That's part of the bodhisattva's thinking process, to think about being devoted to all beings. Of course we are already, but we don't get it. So we need to make it explicit so we understand that our life is actually devotion to all beings. And you can call that bhakti-yoga. It's a perfectly good word for it.

[52:13]

But not bhakti-yoga, just, you know, to your own practice. To your own bhakti-yoga. Well, today when you said that we're all doing it together... Yeah, we're all doing it together. Actually, this whole week I've been confused until then. As to... Yeah. And if I'm interpreting all these teachings in terms of what I already know, then that's just thinking about the teaching. So then again, I'm open to my thinking about these teachings and my thinking about this thinking, about all these kinds of thinking. But still, I see that and then I confess that and I go back to thinking about it right again. But maybe I realize this is my thinking about this. in order to be more and more wholehearted. Because this is a new kind of thinking, even though I'm interpreting this new kind of thinking by my old thinking. But I'm open to that.

[53:17]

So, it's fine. May I make a request? You have a request? Yeah. Okay, please, make a request. So you said that these people that had the opening didn't get the training. Yeah. It looked to me like they didn't, like they couldn't find a community and they couldn't find a teacher. They thought that was square Zen. They could have gone to Japan, but they knew about that, but they thought, no, no, not me. Gary Snyder, however, did go to Japan and find a teacher. And, you know, he survived. And Philip Whelan did find a teacher, and he survived. So they both somehow didn't kill themselves with medication.

[54:19]

And Allen Ginsberg found a teacher, too. So at least three of those great poets, great people, found teachers and found communities, and they managed to integrate this opening, this great cultural opening, which helped so many people but crushed some of the leaders. So three of them did find teachers. And your request? If you can offer the training that you speak of. Can I offer it? Yeah. I don't know if I can offer it, but I'm very, very happy to enter it with you. The training is available and I'm happy to practice it with people. But it's not exactly... And I can make an offering of it. I guess I can offer it to Buddhas. I can offer the training to Buddha, but it's not exactly that. I have the training, but I offer the training, I offer the practice, and I do the practice of offering.

[55:25]

Yes. Does that make sense? You're welcome. Thank you for opening to it. Next. Are you having fun? Yeah. We're on vacation from Tassajara. I came up to confess that I have some embarrassment about how much I love the Bodhisattva vow. Okay. Okay. You're embarrassed. You're confessing embarrassment? I'm confessing embarrassment because I feel a lot of sorrow about the embarrassment. I do actually really love the Bodhisattva vow. And you feel sorrow about the embarrassment? That's right. Okay. It's a wonderful mixture. of loving the practice and feeling embarrassed and feeling sorrow.

[56:26]

And, of course, the embarrassment and the sorrow totally work with the practice, as you know. I do practice. Even in... I guess I felt the power of wanting to make this confession because I didn't feel embarrassed to tell you about some of the practices that I do that I feel are really supportive of the Bodhisattva vow. And I find that really odd. Well, embarrassed is somewhat related to shy, I think. And shy is a polite way to describe frightened children. You know? When we get introduced to a child and the parents say, oh, she's shy, they don't say she's afraid, usually. But it's really they're afraid of you. And after a couple of hours or after a few minutes even, sometimes they get over their fear and then they're like in your face, which is great. So I think embarrassment and shyness are pleasant ways of describing fear.

[57:33]

And I think when we start to open our heart to these vows, we uncover realms of fear that we don't see when we're not so open to these vows. When we start really loving something, certain kinds of fears surface that aren't there when you don't feel love. So love opens up and unearths deeper and deeper levels of fear and anxiety. But as we say, all the more to practice with, all the better to love you, all the better to eat you. Do you have any suggestions for the particular sort of how to practice with when an expression of the bodhisattva sort of invites invites like mockery even within the practice community? Yeah, well... What's this? Well, same practice with the... So if you bring this... Like I have been talking with you about this stuff and there has been some mockery going on towards these practices and towards me for bringing it up.

[58:42]

There's resistance. So mockery is a kind of resistance usually. However, mockery is also... None other than the marvelous revelation of the glorious light. So, when the mockery comes, hallelujah. You know, open to it. Be upright with it. Be tender with it. Do you feel like your ability to stay strong and your ability to see it as practice gets weakened a little bit when that's happening? Do you cringe when you're mocked? I think a lot of times, not always, but a lot of times when the mocking comes, there's a little kind of a crinkle in the surface, a little kind of... If somebody spits, my skin kind of has a certain reaction when it hits the skin. If somebody slaps me, there's a certain physical reaction.

[59:44]

So any suggestions for... But sometimes, quite frequently actually, when that happens now, I just feel very happy too. It's the same time. Because the crinkle is like so slight and you... No. Fabulous, their presentation of... Well, it's not because it's so slight. But if it's slight and I laugh, I think, maybe I understand something. If I feel happy when I'm crinkled and I think maybe I understand something, wonderful. But before I think maybe I understand something, I feel happy. Maybe you did understand something, but maybe you irritated the other person in your... Well, there is that possibility that they'll feel irritated when they slap me and I laugh. It is a possibility. So then they slap me harder and then I maybe laugh at that and they slap me harder and say, well, maybe I'll stop laughing.

[60:48]

But anyway, if you open your heart, people will attack you sometimes. If you don't, they will attack you sometimes. But if you don't and they attack you, you don't feel so bad about opening your heart because you didn't. But if you open it and then they attack you, it kind of hurts more. And the danger is that you'll say, okay, I'm closing down here. which then you have something to confess. So I closed down because they attacked me when I showed my baby heart, my sweet, naive, I love bodhisattva practices heart. And then, oh, that's what she is. Yeah, that's pretty much how I got here. But, you know, it's just normal part of it. And this Sashen is a good example bringing these outrageously benevolent, loving vows out of being like, you know, so open to the Buddhas and that the sentient beings might think, you know, all kinds of weird things about you and might mock you.

[62:10]

They also might be jealous of you. Like, how could she be so outrageously devoted and loving of these Buddhas I don't feel that way. She's crazy or whatever, you know. So just to make sure I've got it... Something to work with when I feel attacked is what I mean. When I feel attacked, what should I remember? Open. Remember, open. Open to it. Be upright with it. Be very tender with it. Be honest about it. I feel attacked. I feel the talent. And the tenderness includes, and the uprightness includes being gracious, gracious with it, graciously experience it, graciously observe it. Gracias.

[63:13]

I have no complaint whatsoever." And there's a bodhisattva, and he goes around to everybody and says, I don't disparage you. I don't despise you. I don't despise you. I don't despise you. And people, you know, always attacking him for saying that. And then I don't despise, when they attack him, I don't despise you. I see your light. I will not despise you. Oh, you do, huh? How about now? It's just a normal, kind of normal thing. that might happen to somebody who doesn't despise anybody. Thank you for that reminder. You're welcome. Can I ask a question? Does anybody know, maybe Charlie, what was happening in Tibet in the first century? In the time of Christ. What was happening there? Yeah. I'll tell you later. Okay. Okay. And I'll tell you now, what was happening was all the beings in Tibet were like totally, you know, taking refuge in Buddhas and taking refuge in Dharma and taking refuge in Sangha.

[64:32]

And they were also like, you know, being devoted to all beings and dedicating the merit and so on. However, they didn't know it. They didn't have the teaching to articulate that that was going on. But that was what was actually going on. So what was going on is that they were that way, but they didn't realize it. And then the Buddhists came and told them that they were that way, and then they got it pretty well. And I think some of them still understand that, although they had to move to India. That's what was going on. Should we see if Charlie has anything to add? Yeah, anything to add? What did you say? Not on that subject. Not on that subject. On what subject do you have something to add? Okay, he's going to come and add something on some other subject. I want to check in with you about when you were talking about abuse, that I think my thinking somehow received an idea in there that I don't agree with, so I thought I'd see if it was in there.

[66:23]

If you see beings that are being abused... It's particularly when you're being abused. Start with there. Start there. It says, when someone abuses you. Do you have something there? Is there no... Do you basically... I guess it has to do with when you respond. Right. Correct. What's the response? And if you don't see it as the Buddha Dharma, your response will not be informed by Buddha Dharma. I mean, you won't understand that. So your lack of understanding will, you know, form and influence your form of expression. Your form of expression will also be nothing none other than the marvelous light but it will be the light coming to show what it's like when somebody doesn't see the light and what they do what they do so again i often use example of martial artists if they're really skillful when the abuse comes they understand it it's like oh this is the next lesson in martial arts and then they receive it

[67:55]

and they come back with a response which protects beings. They can even see these extremely rapid, high-energy, dangerous transformations. They can see this as a teaching, a martial arts teaching. If they can understand that, then they can make this good response. But if they can't understand it, They still are basically practicing with it. And they say, well, that wasn't a very good response. I didn't really understand it that well. Part of the process then could be responses that you get to basically confess later, but that unskillful responses that you work with also in the whole situation.

[68:59]

Right, that I didn't see this abuse as a Buddha Dharma, and therefore I hated it, and I fought back, and that didn't seem to really help that much, but You know, I met abuse with aggression or in hatred and unappreciation and so on. And that didn't seem to help. What transforms the world seemed to be to meet aggression with love. And it doesn't necessarily transform it right away, but the Buddha sometimes could transform it right away, but sometimes even the Buddha couldn't find a way to respond such that the other person would actually get converted and their harm would be neutralized or even turn to pot benefit. But at least the Buddha tried. We don't have examples where he didn't even try, where he came back with hatred to hatred.

[70:02]

But maybe the Buddha did sometimes. But anyway, the Buddha would say, I think, if I come back with hatred to hatred, then I'm not my own disciple. And anybody who comes and meets hatred with hatred isn't my disciple. My disciples are those who meet what comes as the teaching and come back with compassion. Those are my disciples. But even if they think they are, and it doesn't seem to help, they didn't really understand. And then they can confess that. When you see somebody else being abused, what's the difference? It's basically the same. That You see it as abuse, and it is abuse, but it is also simultaneously, what does that mean? And what does it mean is, what is the teaching there about how beings can be benefited? How can these beings, both of them, be benefited?

[71:06]

How can you do that? And if I'm afraid, it makes it hard for me to come over and say, excuse me, I have a question, or whatever. That's what I would like to be able to not be afraid so I could go over there and in those moments are wonderful moments. Thank you for your question because when I said that a lot of people got kind of wilted. I think Catherine's next. And then maybe there's kind of a tie between Andreana and Craig. First, I want to thank you for saying yes to my request.

[72:11]

You're welcome. for continued counsel and guidance. And thank you also and to everyone for this wonderful sashin and these practices that you have brought to us. I must confess, and do it now, not on paper, that coming to the session, I was feeling quite discouraged and disappointed, disheartened, dismayed, disgruntled in my practice. You were doing dissings. I was a lot of dissing, and especially towards my Sangha. And I don't like feeling that way. You feel sorrow? Yes. Yeah. But I'm very grateful for the focus of this session on these vows.

[73:12]

I feel it's very helpful and has given me some renewed energy and vigor that I will take back with me. So thank you. You're welcome. Also, I wanted to share a dream I had last night, if I may. Share a dream? Yeah. Yeah. Want to sing it? Oh, that would be hard. You want to do something hard? Something challenging? No, I can't. Okay. I'm not sure how to put the lyrics and the melody together on that one. But anyway, I was in a coal mine. And I wasn't alone. There was a whole column of beings together in this coal mine. And I couldn't see... A column of beings. A column of beings. And I couldn't see either the end or the beginning of this column.

[74:15]

And... Everyone was in sitting robes. And I noticed that my okesa was very dark and dusty and dirty. And my okesa had become smeared and smudged with coal dust. And at that moment, appearing next to me was an old woman. who said, yeah, it's dirty and dusty in the coal mine, like what did you expect it to be? And at the same time, I then became aware of the outside of the coal mine, that there was a beautiful grassy hillside. And it was blue sky, and it was very beautiful and airy and light. And moving up the hillside was another column of beans. But they were in beautiful, bright robes.

[75:17]

And when they got to the top, and simultaneously I was still in the coal mine, but I was also with the beings outside of the coal mine. And at the top, one of these monks or beings took out a mallet, a wooden mallet, and suddenly there appeared like a dencho. And this monk struck this bell quite loudly. And from down in the coal mine, the old woman's voice could be heard. And it said, not so loud. More gently, or the whole place will come down. And then the monk struck the bell two more times, but more softly and sweetly. And then my alarm clock went off. And I woke up.

[76:19]

So what it said to me, and I've been thinking about it all morning because it was really quite an amazing dream. And so it said a few things as I've been thinking about it, that we're not alone, even when we think we are, and to keep digging and do it gently and with light. First and foremost, Roshi, I want to express my appreciation of you, of your teaching and of the opportunity to be here.

[77:36]

I've not previously experienced a day five, six, or seven of a session before. Congratulations. Thank you. And as you suggested, it does get easier. Yeah, day six is really nice, isn't it? Your conversation with Charlie, I believe is the gentleman's name, sort of comes back to the heart of my question. which this morning maybe I'll just put in this way. Is it possible that a response to abuse can be a recognition that there's the teaching of the Buddhadharma in that abuse? compassionate and fighting back?

[78:45]

You can call it fighting if you want to, but it also can be called art. But you can call it fighting. In Judo they call it playing. You know, the aggressive energy comes and you play with it. Bodhisattvas play with aggressive energy. They almost never use the word fight. But they're in the midst, they're down in the mud, down in the turmoil. And they play with it. And it's compassionate and it's skillful and it potentially illuminates and awakens the person who is captured by fear and violence and acting it out. So that's why, you know, it may look like fighting but sometimes it looks just like fighting except not. You know, like these examples like the founder of judo, a small guy, I don't know how much he weighed, made less than 100 pounds or something,

[79:53]

And he's in a situation where this huge guy on a boat in the Indian oceans, storming around the deck, almost knocking people overboard with his aggressive energy. And when he gets to this small martial artist, the martial artist takes the man and flips him in the air and puts him back down on his feet safely. so it looks like fighting but it's actually playing and the man realizes when the man wakes up you know snaps out of his fear and he realizes you know something and everyone's protected but it looks like a fight because he's been flipped through the air but he doesn't get hurt now what if he got hurt well that would be I would say maybe a little less enlightening you know, if he had sprained his ankle when he came down and broke his shoulder bone. But he still would have probably been kind of like somewhat awakened by this little guy flipping him.

[80:58]

And I said, oh, what is this? Where am I? And then another similar story, you know, a big man getting on a trolley in Japan and another martial artist watching him come on the the trolley, another big kind of violent energy coming on and threatening people. And the martial artist is waiting in the back of the trolley to do his martial arts on this guy. But then just before the guy gets to him, a little old man gets on the bus and sees this aggressive energy and says, Hi, how are you? How are you feeling? And the guy just stopped in his tracks and burst into tears. So that could be called fighting. But you could also call it playing, and it's a playing which is not afraid of the energy, and says, I'm with you, you know, and wakes the person up. And the Buddha did this too, apparently, on a number of occasions.

[82:05]

Crazy people coming at him, just wild elephants coming at him. But still, sometimes we can't find the art. And then we say, my skill is limited. I can't see a disarming thing. Even though I'm not afraid, I can't see a disarming thing. But once we're aspiring to be able to play that way, and it could look like fighting. People watching could say they're fighting. Then, after the fight was over, they were lovers. And they actually didn't get hurt. Or they got hurt, but they were both perfectly willing and no regret over their interaction. It came to that both of them were very happy in the end. Is that, like, real clear?

[83:06]

Or do you still have some question? Oh, I still have questions. Well, ask one more, if you do. Okay. Well, it is clear, and I still have questions. Yes, okay. What is your question? Going back to the big man on the boat analogy. Yes. Clips up in the air, lands on his feet, unharmed, woke up. Yes. Suppose he didn't wake up. Suppose he kept going at it. Flip again. And again. And not think, well, when's this guy going to get this? Well, it assumes one has both the skill and the time in the circumstances. One does have the time. One does have the time, but one does not necessarily have the skill. And one does not necessarily have the patience with students that learn slowly. But we have to have the patience to do the lesson over and over and over and over from the early times in our tradition.

[84:11]

There aren't examples that I can think of where the Buddha does a teaching, you know, over and over. Actually, I take it back. He does do it over and over. But anyway, his students also where his senior students were given beginners sometimes a lot of the stories you have about buddha is when he's teaching advanced people people where there's a success happening but a lot of beginners were taught by his senior students and they they said that they would teach this over and over and over and over until people got it until people understood So patience is part of it. This is a quick story. But he also had a, you know, back in Tokyo he had a school where he would go over and over and over with people where they wouldn't understand. But even if they do understand, then you move on to another thing which they don't understand. So we're always working on training, you know, accommodating to beings to teach over and over. And there's no end to the time.

[85:15]

There's no end to these practices. And if we lack skill, then we say, well, I couldn't, I wasn't afraid, but I couldn't interact with the person in a way that they seemed to be benefited. But I was trying, and I accept that they didn't really feel benefited by it. But I'd like to try again. Or I tried and I'm kind of feeling depressed that I wasn't successful. And now I'm sort of like in the process of confession and repentance and trying to open to my pain around not being successful. And I think part of the reason why I'm having trouble is because I expected to be more skillful than I was. So now I'd like to try to just accept my unskillfulness and not mix in expectation of being somebody different than I am and so on.

[86:18]

This is the way we will become more skillful. There is a rule or a stereotype about Italians that are loud, and I won't break that rule, so I hope everybody can understand or can hear me. I must confess, in front of all these exceptional people, because what I believe is that if they are here, and these are already exceptional in the first place, I want to confess that no matter how hard I try, I always manage to be the black sheep, or maybe in my case it's better to say the white flag.

[87:27]

The black sheep or the white fly. Yeah, black sheep, not sheep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I started when I was born. My parents wanted so badly a boy, and I'm the third girl. Okay, so I managed to disappoint people all the time. So do I. Most people do. It's a talent too, maybe, I don't know, but it gives me lots of frustration and sometimes I'm angry at me, at other people, but then I look into it and I always understand, I always tend to understand other people's reasons or need or... you know, set of mind or whatever you want to call it. And I never forgive myself. I tend not too much to forgive myself. So... There is so much to say or nothing to say about it.

[88:37]

Well, there's a practice. We have a practice called Confession and Repentance, which you're practicing right now. And if you practice this over and over, and you're very gentle and tender while you're disclosing your shortcomings, your frustration and anger, I don't think it's a shortcoming to think that you're a black sheep. That's similar to thinking you don't belong or you don't fit in. Other people think I'm a black sheep. Well, other people thinking you're a black sheep isn't something you have to confess. But they convinced me. Oh, they convinced you. Being convinced is something... Then you think that way. So that's just the way you think. So that thinking that you're a black sheep, that's a being. Yes. And I recommend the bodhisattva vow of opening to that being who thinks she's a black sheep and be very gentle with her and tender with her and upright with her and honest and peaceful with her.

[89:47]

and the forgiveness will come for that kind of thinking. Talking about honesty and not changing issue, if I look deep inside and if I really try to be, as I like to be, very, very honest, the most honest I can, I actually... Since I was very young, I've always been pointed as different, okay, or black sheep or whatever you want to call it. I suffered. I was in pain. I was feeling terrible all my life. And now I'm happy to be a black sheep. It means, okay, I'm different. So who wants to be like everybody else? Yeah, that's good. And you can be open to that too. So maybe it's not too wrong to be different.

[90:50]

No, I'm not too wrong. To be messy, to be disciplined. Yeah. You know... The real thing I should confess to you now, it's not this, this is a cover-up. It's just to, the real thing is that I am still arrogant. There is still some arrogance inside of me because This morning after I spoke to you in, what's your name? My room. Yeah. The Japanese name, I can never remember. You know, I brought up a very simple, but also, Linda, forbido. How do you say when it's a forbid? Forbidding. Issue like very highly educated Forbido means in Italian when you want when you bring out an issue like life and death, which is Very high, you know very big issue.

[91:55]

Yeah, let's call it big. It's formidable Formidable for Peter. You have very highly educated very sophisticated or I'm not you say anyway So, and I went to take my nap, as usual, every morning at 8.30, and I set up the alarm, and I, you know, because I wanted, I thought, oh, I want to speak in front of the people about this, because I thought of something else, because of your answer, the answer you gave to my question in this morning at 5. I set the alarm, and I set the alarm at 9.15 p.m. Wow. And so, but I, no, I mean, I didn't realize, so I woke up, it was late, and then I thought, see, see, this something or somebody or a devil or an angel really, you know, stopped you from doing this, or anyway, stopped me, and so made me think that what I was doing probably was a show-off, you know, like to show everybody that I can talk about very forbidden issues.

[93:03]

So... The real confession, I think, is about this, is about thinking that I am better than others, not the contrary, you see? So I ask everybody, these really, really interesting and valuable people here, to forgive if I still have to work on my arrogance, which is still quite big, I'm afraid. Well, we have this bodhisattva vow. I vow to be open to my own shortcomings. And if I'm open to my own shortcomings, it will be easy for me to forgive you. So I work on my own shortcomings and then I work on seeing your merits, your virtues.

[94:04]

I'm sorry, what is shortcomings then? Non-virtue, non-virtue, shortcomings. My English is not perfect. Shortcoming, non-virtue, unskillfulness. So by meditating on mine, I receive forgiveness, but also I start, then I'm ready to appreciate others, so we're working on our own shortcomings so that we can forgive others, including you, when you tell us yours. That's our vow. Yeah. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. When you were talking about, you know, people thinking that you're different and whatever, I just recently went to Tassajara with my daughter and wife and grandson, and on the way back they wanted to stop at this, what do you call it, what do you call those malls where they have those discount stores?

[95:13]

Factory Alkalet. Yeah, Factory Alkalet malls we have here, where you get all these companies. So they went in there, and I had my priest's outfit on. And I also had this hat. Some of you may have seen this hat I have. So, uh-huh, it's white, it's white and kind of summer hats. So my family called me Safari Weirdo. Or you could say Weirdo on Safari. You know, my old family going, we don't know that guy. Get away from us. We don't know him. They wouldn't get in the car with me. I had to walk back to San Francisco. Thank you so much.

[96:17]

It hurt a little bit. Or like a black person surrounded by white people. Like that. What's that? I wanted to confess two things. One is that the first lecture I had wanted to come up and offer something that had arisen And I hesitated. And the effect of the hesitation was very physical, like either an adrenaline hit and my heart was beating and I wanted to go up, but I didn't want to go up. And then I felt then I really couldn't go up.

[97:19]

Anyway, so I wanted to confess that. Thank you. That's a really wonderful confession, a testimony to hesitate and you fall into doubt and vacillation. Exactly. And it's physical and mental. Yeah. And part of the hesitation was the being, the part of me, the being that was saying, you shouldn't do that, don't express yourself that way. It was very denigrating, so that took over. Anyway, it was a very full experience, the hesitation. And the second thing I wanted to confess was being off balance the other day when we were going through the Zendo entryway, and I had my shoes off and then on or something, and I... I kind of lost my balance there, right, as I was paying homage to all Buddhas in the Ten Directions by placing my feet down.

[98:31]

So I wanted to confess that. I thought you had noticed your eyebrows went up. And then the last thing is, you didn't notice yet. I'm just thinking of, you know, the drunk Dharma teacher. I wasn't thinking that, but just now I thought that. Oh, she's a little tipsy today. I have a framed print of Samantabhadra washing the elephant, and I was thinking on the last day of Sashin, Samantabhadra has climbed down, he's got his bucket and scrubber, and he's just washing that old elephant. So what I'd wanted to do that first day, when you said we're going to climb on our elephants, and then we start doing hin-hin on our elephants, and what occurred to me was, I think from nursery school, Blue Door Nursery School in St.

[99:39]

Paul, we were taught to do the elephant walk thing. that we would do in nursery school, and I imagined us all doing it during K'in K'in, and I thought we should do it. And I pictured myself as this brown elephant doing the elephant walk, so that's what I wanted to do, if I may. Yeah, go right ahead. And anybody can join me. Anybody can join. Well, the elephant, well, I think it was something like, are you going to do it? Yeah, sure. You've got your mic. Yeah. I'm a tethered elephant. So I think you make your trunk by, and then you do this. Sway a little more. Huh? Sway a little more. Sway a little more. No, no, please. I think I will remain standing.

[101:12]

Okay. It's all right. Yeah. I woke up a few minutes before the wake-up bell, and so there were some words occurring, and if it's all right with you and everybody, I'd like to offer them. It's all right with me. Is it all right with everybody if she offers these words? Yes. Apparently it's all right. You want to address the group? Okay. Can you stand here? And right here. Intention arises like a cat in the morning. feels its way with whiskers along the dark morning floor.

[102:14]

It finds a bowl of clear water and drops its mouth down to drink, not knowing how or why. Led by a grammar of need to a small circle singed clean by seeing and nuzzled now in an everyday black and gold home. That's it. That's it? Thank you. I'm still tinkering. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for listening. You're welcome. Thank you for your gifts. This morning I asked you a form question regarding the ordination, and I was totally caught in this simple form, which I knew the answer to.

[103:32]

And you just sat there smiling, or stood there smiling at me. And I realized I was... Everything, like I was doing the ceremony myself. I made it hard, huh? Yeah. Ever since parents stepping aside, I've felt like I have to remember everything. All by yourself. Or like I'm the one doing the ceremony. You're doing it, yeah. It's me. Yeah. It's a substantial person. Yeah. So it was really helpful asking that. Got it out in the open. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. She asked me a question about the ceremony this afternoon.

[104:33]

She asked me. And she realized in the process that she thought that she was doing the ceremony by herself. And so it was helpful for her to see that. that she was looking at the ceremony that way. Is that right? That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Great. And it really outed this knowing that and wanting to acknowledge that you all are doing it with me and it's for all of you. Yes. So thank you for your patience. My pleasure. I think so. We can have lunch a little late today. It's okay.

[105:35]

This is both an offering and a question. Going back to abuse, I remembered that it helps me when I remember on the part of the one we would call the abuser that... that their action is coming actually in its core from a positive, life-affirming... it's seeking a life-affirming quality, but just in a really misunderstood way. She's saying that the person who seems to be approaching an abusive action Their basic motivation is life-affirming, but in a distorted or off-balanced way.

[107:07]

Or a horrible, tragic way. Tragically, trying to express their life-affirming, deep life-affirming. No matter what it is, but that's there. And so that's the offering part. And then the question is, is that any... difference, or would you add anything to that? Or is it the same as saying that it's the realized universe? That their action is the... I would say that two different ways of saying the same thing. Except one is emphasizing that that the universe is making the person someone who wants to realize that their life is made by the universe, but the conditions of their thinking and history are such that it gets twisted.

[108:10]

So they can't realize it, and they don't realize it, and they don't know a practice yet to work on it at that moment. So we could maybe teach them a practice, if possible. And then if they can adopt that practice, then they can realize what they wish to realize. And one more thing is, when I hear the word evil, I always think it reinforces that the person with the unskillful action actually has a quality that is evil. I think it kind of reinforces separation. So I really, I translate it all the time for myself, but I really wish we didn't use that word, or were very careful to explain. Yeah. And I like to mention that evil is lived backwards.

[109:14]

So we could say live backwards, that is evil or something. But I don't want to like, if we avoid the word, we become a slave of it. Mm-hmm. So I'd like to find some way to work with it, which might be to repeatedly say, that's a tough word, isn't it? Because in some sense karma, all kinds of karma is some kind of twist on life. But some is kind of a skillful twist because it promotes us realizing freedom from the twist. And then some is like the kind of twist that promotes us not being conscious. So I agree. Every time I see the word evil, I think, but then I want to out it. I want to get it out and open so everybody can work on it. Confession and repentance are twisting words that people have trouble with, too. Buddha they have trouble with. God, all these...

[110:18]

So we don't say God, we don't say love, we don't say evil. We just sort of stay quiet and small and don't say any bad words. I'd like to get him out in the open and say sorry or whatever. Thank you. I'd just like to confess that the idea arises sometimes that... that Sashin... No. Okay. That Sashin is supposed to look a certain way. Particularly, maybe externally, but particularly internally, and that it's better if it's really concentrated and very focused and so on, and that actually... You're confessing that?

[111:46]

I'm confessing that. Do you think that? And I notice when that thought arises, it doesn't seem very helpful. No. But now that you've gotten it open and you're saying that it doesn't seem very helpful, maybe you'd be a little bit more free of it. Yeah. But this is a setup so that that tendency of mine can get flushed out. and notice a slight difference between it's good to practice concentration and concentration is better than not concentration. Rather than it's good to practice concentration and concentration is perfected by giving it away, by letting go of it. But concentration is a wonderful practice for bodhisattvas and then bodhisattvas get a chance to see do they think that the wonderful practice is better than distraction.

[112:46]

And if they do, then they have something to confess. And even kind of assessing the concentration and thinking about it in various ways is the very hindrance from it. Thinking about and evaluating it might undermine it, yes. But that which undermines it isn't less good from it. They're friends. letting go of both of them is wonderful. Indeed. Indeed, yeah. I'd like to confess that I have both a lack of understanding and a lack of faith about the presence of the presence of Buddhas, good spirits, all-pervasive light.

[114:29]

I have a a deep heart's empathy and familiarity with innocence and beauty and easy-to-perceive blessings. But I don't have a familiarity and an empathy with Buddhas, good spirits, etc. Okay, thank you. And do you have, if not a familiarity, do you have a faith in the beauty of all beings? Yes. Yes. When you see the beauty of all beings, you see the Dharma. When you see the Dharma, you see the Buddha.

[115:36]

So if you can see or if you have faith in the beauty of all things and you practice according to that faith and come to see the beauty of all things, that's another way to say that you see the truth. And that's another way to say that you see Buddha. So if you work on that path, you will become more and more familiar with the Dharma and the Buddha. And what is the difference or the simultaneousness of the Buddha and the many Buddhas that we have spoken about so much? I kind of feel it's more important to mention the simultaneity of Buddhas and all beings, which includes you and me, all the bodhisattvas and all the Buddhas. So the way all beings are mutually assisting each other, the way we're all supporting each other, that's what we mean by Buddha.

[116:51]

And that's what we mean by beauty. And that's the unconstructedness and stillness. That's immediate realization. And that's what we're trying to open to and enter and then bring out for all beings. And that's my faith. My faith is that that's what Buddha is. And my faith is that really we always are, our life is, the wish to pay homage to the way we're all helping each other, to line up with the helping each other and being helped by each other. That really that's what our life's about. And really what our life is about is offering our life to how we're helping each other.

[117:58]

And our life is about confessing and repenting when we don't, when we lose touch, when we get distracted from the way we're helping and being helped. To confess when we lose track of the glorious light of this immediate realization. and so on. All these practices are really what our life's about. And by exercising them, we come to realize it. That's my faith. And your practicing this this week has deepened my faith in this teaching, this practice, the reality of the universe realized, the realized universe, and of our wonderful practice of attending to this and committing and vowing to attend to this moment by moment with everybody's help and to help everybody.

[119:15]

So please consider practicing these vows and taking care of these vows until all beings are committed to these vows and taking care of these vows and realizing these vows. Okay?

[119:45]

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