Here we go again. How's that? Oh, you can hear better? No? Not so good? How's that? Can people in the back hear too? Can you hear okay? Okay, so here I am again talking on this seat and I got my I got dressed up and I had this I kind of wanted to come today and not talk about the B word not talk about the B word not mention the B word but I just don't do it In fact, I think I'm going to say the B word quite a few times, so please forgive me for saying the B word.

[01:12]

And various derivatives of the B word. I thought I might mention at the beginning that people ask me often, and they say, what is the Buddhist position on some, you know, such and such? Or what would a Buddhist do in such a situation? Or what do Buddhists believe? Or what do Buddhists say? Can you imagine that people ask me that? And I usually say, well, I don't know what the Buddhist position is. Or what I would say, actually. But I can tell you what I would say. And so I just want to say that one of the Buddhist positions is my position. Every moment I have a position.

[02:19]

And you can call it a Buddhist position if you want to, or you can call it Reb's position. And you can call me a Buddhist if you want to. So, yeah, well, but I... is that there's not a single Buddhist position. That some people who say they're Buddhists have positions and their positions are, generally speaking, different. And people who don't call themselves Buddhists, they could also have positions on what Buddhism is or what the Buddha is. That's fine too. Because there isn't really a Buddhist position. That's my position. Generally, there isn't a single Buddhist position.

[03:23]

There is infinite Buddhist positions. There's no limit to them. And they're all wonderful according to my position. So another one of my positions is that I am a limited being, sometimes called a limited human being. I'm a human being. However, although I'm limited, I'm not independent of anything. I'm a limited, little, interdependent human being. I'm related to everybody. Yesterday a man called and left a man who's having a brain tumor now and he's going to have operation tomorrow.

[04:37]

And he said, I'm going pretty well. I'm with my family in Florida. I'm just feeling kind of related to you right now, I'm feeling really related to you. So, and in general I'm feeling related, maybe you know what I mean." He said, if you want to call and just say something to me, I appreciate it. So that's my position is that I'm independent, I'm a small, limited thing. and I'm related to all the other small limited things. To the very, very, very, very big unlimited thing. And the very, very big unlimited thing is the way all the limited interdependent beings are related to each other. And that's what I, that's my position, that's my Buddhist position.

[05:39]

Buddha is the silent communion among all beings. That's one of my Buddhist positions. Some Buddhists may agree with that, more or less. Some may not. I don't know. I haven't really... Some non-Buddhists may agree with that, too, that that's Buddha. But anyway, that works for me really well, is to think about Buddha, the B word, to think about it for a moment, to be focused on that language, to think about those words, the silent communion, the silent bond, the intimacy of all beings. That means all human beings, all human beings, Democrats and Republicans, George Bush, communion with George Bush, Sunday morning, communion with George Bush, with Dick Cheney, if you wish.

[07:02]

I wish to enter the communion with all beings. All enlightened beings, all humans, all mountains, all rivers, all rats, all gophers. Birds who eat my tulip bulbs. Because I think that's what I think is what Buddha is, and I think that's what peace is, and I think that's what compassion is, and I think that's what wisdom is. It's that state. It's a state. It's the state of affairs, according to my view of the B word. Three positions. One position, there isn't a single Buddhist position.

[08:04]

Another one is, I'm a limited being, but an interdependent being, and that connects with, I'm a limited being in an infinite interdependent relationship with all beings, and I think you are too. That's my position on the state of affairs in the universe this morning. And I say that that's peaceful and harmonious and blissful, that state of affairs. Now, you know that it's hard to realize it sometimes. So the practice of the Buddha way is basically leaping beyond our So we have positions, and our positions are limited and interdependent, but we have to leap beyond our positions in order to enact and realize the Buddha way, the Buddha path.

[09:20]

The Buddha path is the way to realize the state of affairs. Okay, so Buddha is our relationship with each other. The practice is necessary, however. Without practicing in accord with that, without our action being lined up with, what? Being lined up with our relationship, we don't realize our relationship. So the way to realize our relationship, leaping beyond our position, So we have a position. So one step is find our position. Find your position. You've got one. Everybody's got a position. Everyone's got a room in this position emotionally.

[10:24]

You all have a position. So find your position. Moment by moment. Find your position. Find your limited position. That's part of the way your true relationship with all beings. Find what you think is going on. And then leap beyond that. But if you try to leap beyond it, that won't necessarily work. So one of the main ways to leap beyond it, a basic way to leap beyond it, is to start enacting a conversation with other positions. In other words, other beings.

[11:32]

Start conversing with other human beings, for example, and others. Start conversing from your position. Don't go away from your position and converse from some place away from where you are. Find your place, find your position, communicate, converse one being, two beings, three beings finally converse with all beings. As you converse more and more with humans, with a wider and wider range of you start to get ready to converse with Buddha. Because Buddha is bigger than one human. Buddha is not one human. Buddha's all humans, including even a human who's a Buddha.

[12:42]

That would be part of the conversation. So it's kind of simple, but not easy. It's simple. Just find your position. Express it. Express it. And express it. Express it with your thinking. I think I'm sitting in this seat at Green Gulch Farm in Nizendo. I think it's Sunday morning. Etc. I think this would be good. I don't think it would be good. This is my position. This is what's going on with me. Yeah. I'm a human being. I think this way. I have this story about what's happening. And I'm honestly admitting this is my position right now. And I'm expressing it. I'm expressing it by thinking it.

[13:44]

I'm expressing it by reflecting it in my posture. And I'm expressing it with my voice. Now, sometimes the way I express it is by being quiet. Actually, I spend quite a bit of time being quiet. It's my way of expressing myself. In conversation, I spend part of my time being quiet. But I mean quiet as an expression. I understand my position in life is that I sometimes. And sometimes when I'm quiet, I'm also listening. And I'm listening as an expression. as part of a conversation, as part of a communion. In other words, I to listen as part of a conversation. Conversation isn't just me talking.

[14:51]

And we'll have a question and answer later where I will listen to some of you and make gestures, physical gestures. And I will watch your gestures. I will listen to your voice. And I will listen to my story about what you're doing. And I will listen to your story about what you think is going on. And we will have a conversation a little bit different from this one where you don't seem to be talking so much. But you're welcome to talk. I personally, this small person, welcomes you to express yourself fully. And I also propose to you, here's another one of my positions, is that I cannot express myself fully without doing it with you.

[15:54]

Even if I'm walking in the hillside up here, I'm expressing myself But I can't express myself without those mountains when I'm walking in them. Their elevation, their angle, the way they support me, the way they make it possible for me to work my They support me to express my physical effort to climb the hill. And if I speak in the hills, if I think that I did that speaking without doing it with you, I would say, If I don't think I'm having a conversation, I'm missing what full expression is. Someone said to me just the other day, I don't feel or sometimes I don't feel that my authentic expression is welcome.

[16:59]

And I thought about that, and I thought, yeah, I think that it does seem that way sometimes, like our authentic expression is not welcome. And I was thinking about, I heard about Abraham Lincoln, who was a person who expressed himself. I think my view is that he expressed himself together with history by himself. He lived in a time of this great struggle over what was going to happen around slavery in this country. And when he first went to Washington as a congressman, was right at the time President Polk was interested in having a war with Mexico. And the pretext of the war was that American blood was on the earth.

[18:23]

And because of that the United States could declare war or invade Mexico. And Abraham Lincoln asked, you know, what proof is there? Blood was spilt on American soil. If Mexican military personnel attacked Americans on American ground, then I guess that's part of our sense is to go to war with someone. But Lincoln said that the president offered no evidence that the American lives were lost on American soil. And he was one of six, I think six congressmen maybe, or six congressmen who voted against the war. And a new senator walked in and gave this huge long speech opposing the war.

[19:31]

And they started and they teased him. They called him Spotty Lincoln because he was quibbling over on what spot of ground the blood was spilt, whether it was the United States or Mexico. So I don't know where the blood was spilt, but there was no evidence, I guess, that it was built on the United States soil. So the United States invaded, and as a result, the United States got this huge territory, right? Texas, California, New Mexico. I think maybe way up into Oregon, we got this huge, Nevada, Arizona, the gold, we So a lot of Americans were really happy about this war because we got all this land. So part of what made this such a huge and rich country is that we did that.

[20:35]

And now the Mexicans are coming back. And so we're trying to negotiate this situation, right? but Abraham Lincoln's authentic expression was not welcomed by most of the country and that was the end of his congressional but he came back and he kept expressing himself and his expressions were not always welcome in the long run I think the thing that is most welcome I think the thing the universe is calling out for us to do is to fully express ourselves. In the short run, up close, sometimes people say, you know, I don't like the way you're expressing yourself.

[21:39]

Welcome your expression. Even if it's authentic, they might not welcome it. But I think we have to offer it again and again. But also in conversation, not in just like pushing your position, your expression on, but as an offering and in a conversation. This is what I have to offer. I say, I oppose this war until we have evidence of aggression against us. That's my offering. And I offer it energetically because that's how I feel about it, but I would like to have a conversation from that too, to enact communion. But our job, our hard job in a way, simple but hard job, is to find our position which is right, is available. You have your position.

[22:45]

I have my position. Find it and express it in conversation. And part of... If you practice that way, if I practice that way, I have to also, I think, make an effort to express myself by inviting others to give me feedback and telling others that this is an offering, not an ultimatum. This is an offering to communion. I offer myself in communion. Who wants to offer themselves in communion to me? And that's a delicate matter because people may be... This is a precious... ...in communion to someone... So we have to work for a while before we actually start working this conversation where we offer ourselves, fully learn to find ourselves and offer ourselves in communion, in conversation with eventually, but one by one, two, person by person, and in particular the people you're meeting.

[24:08]

that's really a good place to start. Skipping over them usually is not a good idea. Yeah, and full self-expression can also be, I have a headache, I can't talk to you right now. Or I have a headache, why don't you go talk to somebody else now? And although I have a headache and I'm sick, somebody else right now and that's my that's pretty much my full self-expression right now with this headache I've got still I welcome your feedback which might be that you go and talk to somebody else or it might be that you say please talk to me even though you have a headache and then I might say can I lie down while I listen okay you know, if it's that necessary, okay.

[25:12]

It's a conversation, it's not a fixed position. To offer it wholeheartedly, what's the response, and leap beyond it together. So I'm not saying what I said this morning is is Buddhism or the Buddha way saying this is my little presentation of it. The Buddha way is a boundless ocean. I just offered a little circle of water so there can be some entering this little circle of water of find your place in body, speech, and mind. Express it in conversation as a way.

[26:15]

You can never be the ocean, but by fully expressing yourself, you can realize the ocean together with everyone. So I'm just offering one little circle. There's other circles which could be offered. This is one little circle. This little person's working in this one little circle. I'm trying I'm trying, moment by moment, where I am, how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, what I'm saying, what my posture is. I'm aware of my activity and I'm trying to express it in conversation for the sake of realizing reality. And this activity I call the Buddha way. But I don't want you to think that I think that this is the only way. I don't. It's just my little way, which I'm giving to you.

[27:18]

And you can give me your little way. And actually you will give me your little way, but I don't know if you'll be intending and practicing giving me your way. If you practice giving me your way, you'll realize that you're giving me your way. If you don't practice it, you might miss it. Again, that's my little story. So, I'm guessing that you understand that. You look like you understand what I was saying. Kind of simple, isn't it? But very hard. Very hard to find your place, really find your place. Quite an effort. It takes a lot of concentration and mindfulness to find your place. And then tune into the expression of it as a gift as an overture as an entree to communication and conversation and then do it again find your place express yourself in conversation receive the gift back

[28:31]

Find your place again. Express yourself. It's a gift. Receive the response. Back and forth. Back and forth. You realize with everybody else this reality. Acknowledging our limitedness. opening to conversation between limited beings and realizing the unlimited. Again, coming back from the unlimited to the limited. acknowledging it, finding it, expressing it, opening to other limited, entering and forth between the large and the small, from the huge Buddha state of affairs to the little limited human person. Expressing, opening, interacting, opening to Buddha again,

[29:37]

merging with great interdependence, and then come back to the limited person and find it, admit it, express it, and give it away, or give it away in expression and then welcome the response. This is a picture of the practice. There was something I wanted to say, but I think actually, maybe I'll say it in question and answer, I think that seems to be enough.

[30:48]

And I feel that you've received a lot and it may be good just to give a message, if you wish. Is that okay? Like I said, I've been sitting in this seat quite a few times over the last few decades. This is my last talk of this year in this room, and it's kind of nice when I occasionally don't talk too long, because sometimes I talk a really long time. So I'd kind of like to not talk too long today, even though I might have already talked too long. And now I express myself by asking your patience with me while I sing a song.

[31:58]

...of like the struggle of this practice. And I particularly I beg your forbearance because it's the same old song that I sang quite frequently so I'm kind of sorry to the old timers for subjecting you to the same Some of you never heard it, so you probably won't feel so bad. Right? You never heard me sing, did you? Okay, this is for you. What's your name? What's your name? C-Mac? That's a nice name. This is for you, C-Mac. This is like a song about my struggle in the Buddha way. Do you know what it's going to be? You don't? Do you know what it's going to be? Want to start it?

[33:02]

That's right, you got it. You started it. Want to do it with me? Boom, boom. Boom, boom, [...] boom. I can do what I want. I'm in complete control. That's what I tell myself. I got a mind of my own. I'll be all right alone. Don't need anybody else. Gave myself a good talking to. No more being a fool for you. But then I see you. And I remember how you make me want to surrender to Buddha way. You're taking myself away. Buddha way.

[34:08]

You're making me want to stay with Buddha way. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Equally extend to every being and place. Would I describe self-will? Well, a story I would tell, and the story I'm telling is an expression of the will

[35:18]

the will in my mind is the way my mind is constructing my relationship with the world. So if my mind constructs a cognitive representation of my relationship with you, and that cognitive representation is that and you ask me a question, then there might be the story or the construction. I will answer your question about this very topic. The question is about how I see myself in relationship to you. That's my will. If I see somebody as somebody who is dangerous, if that's my story, my will might be that I want to be very careful or if I see someone who's very sensitive and someone who's feeling very vulnerable, also, if that's the way I see the relationship, then I might have the will to be careful, or the intention.

[36:33]

So I would say will and intention are really synonymous with the story I have of my relationship with beings. If I have this kind of a story, then I would intend to go this way or that way. I have another kind of story. That story has an intention in it or a kind of implied direction of action. The basic definition of karma is your will. However, the will that arises in your mind is not made by you right now. You arise with a consciousness and you arise with a story of your relationship to the world. And the world influences you and supports your story. And all your past stories support your story. So like if you meet someone and in the past you've had stories of that person being difficult, that past story will contribute to your present story, which might be again, at least in the past I've seen them as difficult.

[37:48]

But that is already kind of some awareness that you saw them as difficult in the past and that's going to influence you now. So that you're somewhat aware now of your intention as being dependent on something. So we have will and we're responsible for our will or our karma or our story. We're responsible for it even though we do not make it right now by It's made by all our past selves, but it's also made by the world we live in. However, it's not the world. The story we have of the world is not the world of our relationships, but the world of our relationships support our thought, our mental constructions about our relationships. I have a story about our relationship, but without you I wouldn't have this story. But my story is not our relationship. Our relationship is not your story about it, is not my story about it, is not her story about it or his story about it.

[38:55]

But we all have stories about it. Right now everybody in the room has a story about it. But none of those stories are the relationship. So the actuality of our relationship is the basis of our thought constructions about it. And our thought constructions are will. And each of us has our own little, you know, cognitive enclosure we live in. And that cognitive enclosure is our consciousness but also the story we have about our relationships. If we study these stories and are gentle with these stories we have a chance of not being totally smothered by them. And that's part of admitting the small. And then find your smallness, find your story, find your will, and then proactively express it in conversation. And then if your will starts to be in conversation, you start to be more and more free of your will and more and more realize the actuality of your relationship.

[40:10]

Does that make sense? Yes. Who said there's no past, no future? Where did you get that? What? But you're wondering, where does this proposition that nothing exists come from? Is this something you believe? Is this your story? You don't think Buddha taught that, do you? Yeah, yeah. Things are brought in. So, you sometimes think, or I sometimes think, I bring things in. Okay? And many of us have that way of seeing our life, that we bring things in.

[41:13]

Okay? Okay? So when I say that, I'm confessing delusion, that I bring things in. It's true that I think I bring things in and I push things away. That point of view is true, and that's the definition of a deluded view of the world, that I bring things in and I push things away. Really, things come in, and then I'm here. When there's no karma, what is here? Well, you might say when there's no karma, when there's no karma, like you can't... Again, to say that there's no karma, to say that there is no karma, is a result. So when you say there's no karma, you're living in the world of karma, denying the world of karma that you're living in. But to study your karma... the appearance of karma, and carefully learn about it, you will find out not that there's no karma, but that you can't find it.

[42:23]

And not only can't you find it, but you also will eventually see it cannot be found. But to say that something cannot be found does not say it doesn't exist at all, necessarily. So I can't actually find Homa. But that doesn't mean you don't exist, it just means you're not a you're an unfindable person. Because when I reach for Homa, I actually get Homa's mother, and her father, and, you know, Iran, and Buddhism, and my friend, and I, you know, actually find you. All I can find is infinite conditions which make you. But it doesn't mean you don't exist. You do totally exist. You totally exist. You exist totally. But I can't find totality. You are a total thing. I can find a, what do you call it, a pipsqueak version, a tiny little graspable version of Homa.

[43:26]

That I can find. But that thing I can find only exists as an illusion so that I can get a hold of you. As I actually study you, I won't find you. And in that, there's no Homa that I can grasp. And that opens me to the real Homa, which is an ungraspable being, but not a non-existent being, but just somebody I can never get you as separate from your mother. Your mother is separate from you. That's not possible. So I can't really find anything if I look carefully. But it doesn't mean you don't exist. We say it comes through interdependence.

[44:28]

The world comes depending on certain things. That's how it comes. And again, if we start saying how it comes, that's a story about it. So the Buddha... And other sages have explained a little bit to give us a foothold in our study about how the world comes to be. But they also say that to actually see this, you have to study it. And what somebody says is not going to answer your question. You know, like you say, how does the world come to be? And they say, come over here, look at this flower. Come over here, study the water running downhill. If you study, you will find eventually the answer to your question, but no one can tell you the answer to the question. I want you to look in the right direction, namely look at what's happening in this open, gentle, upright way, and you will see eventually the answer to your question.

[45:34]

You're welcome. I don't know if there's anybody ahead of Ugo and Charlie. Did anybody else have their hand raised a while ago? Okay, Ugo and Charlie. You spoke, you touched on leaping beyond. You talked about that before. If you could say a little more about that. Say a little bit more about leaping? Hmm, more about leaping. Well, what is leaping? I have an idea. It's acting. Proposition of preparedness. Skillfulness. After you've found a position. Yeah, leaping would be acting appropriately and skillfully, but it's putting emphasis on basically letting go of your position once you find it, of making your position a gift.

[46:56]

Don't find your position and try to find some way to offer it up. Not throw it away, not reject it, but say, here's my position. If you keep it to yourself, you might be holding on to it. So just to test to make sure that you're leaping, offer it, and also invite to request you to give it away. So that when you find your position, if you ever do, your friends can say, did you find your position? And you say yes, they will hand it over. And then maybe you feel like, wow, I think, yeah, I just did. And they say, no, you don't want to do it like this. And you say, oh, I don't want to do it that way. How is that giving? How is that giving up your position? You're not leaping now. They might say that to you. So you might enter into a conversation where people challenge you about whether you're really leaping. You know, they accuse you of being stuck in your position. And then you start accusing them of being stuck in your position.

[48:01]

And then you kind of stop and look at each other and say, hmm, We seem to be kind of stuck here. We don't seem to be leaping. So you just leapt. The leaping happened right there. The leaping is going on. Actually, buddhaway is our life. So we have to practice leaping in order to tune into it. But you can't leap from someplace else. You've got to leap from here. And we tend to sometimes get stuck here. Even though we can't get stuck here, we imagine we're stuck. So we have to practice letting go of our position. Articulating also that we feel stuck in our position and we don't want to move. We feel stuck in our intention, stuck in our story. Confessing that starts to open the process of letting go of Does that make some sense?

[49:06]

Excuse me. Pardon? Okay. Just a second. Yes? It seems that you want to find position. You want to find your seat. I think I do want to find my position. Yes. I have to find my place. I do, being a human being, I do imagine I have a place. I have a position. I have a story. I do. That's a normal human being. And I accept that in myself. I try to accept that. And not accept it, but find out what it is. And you have to find your place. You have to pay attention to what you're doing. You're Your mind is creating a story of your life right now. So find your place there. And, you know, accept this is my... Be honest. This is my story. And now...

[50:18]

And then in the conversation we can find out if I'm stuck someplace. And as the conversation gets more and more wholehearted pretty soon, I don't necessarily think it, but the leaping starts to happen. In the middle of the conversation the leaping happens and you might not even notice it. But you're happy and you're free. And then you've got to find your place in that, but don't stop there. Then express that freedom in conversation to make sure you don't get stuck in the freedom and go on from there and on and on. Make some sense? In George Bush, I have a story about George Bush, you know, and the U.S. government. I have a story that they, my story is that they invaded Iraq with no good reason, and that they've caused too much harm to the United States.

[51:23]

Not they have, but this whole situation has caused tremendous harm and suffering to U.S. citizens, and has harmed tremendously, in a way, it looks like even more, the Iraqi people. It's made the U.S. government, it made the For us, in so many ways, it's been so wasteful. It's been a great, great tragedy for our country. It looks like I've never felt in my life like the U.S. government was doing such harmful things to the world as I felt in these last few years. That's my story, which I offer. And I would like to offer to somebody who has a story, I'd like to meet somebody who has a story that this is a good deal, that this government has done well, that this has been beneficial. I'd like to have a conversation with somebody like that. I'd like communion with such people. Because I think not only, yeah, not only did I have this story, but I would like to, you know, offer this story as a means

[52:32]

to be in communion with people who have a very different story. Because that difference is also, I think, creating a lot of suffering until we have communion between the different views of this war. But unfortunately for me, I don't meet too many people who think the war is a good idea and who want to talk to me. So I don't have a chance. I'm sorry. but I would like to. It's hard to leap if I don't get challenged. You people aren't challenging me much on this story. I appreciate it. He's going home to see his family, which involves... And older sister.

[53:42]

And I'm wondering if you can give a word of advice for when you... Well, the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, clear the dishes and wash the dishes. Offer to chauffeur your mother around. it doesn't snow there, so you can't shovel a front walk. Be of service to them. Give them gifts. And just give them gifts, give them gifts, give them gifts, give them gifts. Not expecting that you're going to get a word in edgewise. So this would be an attitude that you would have towards your grandchildren.

[54:50]

But maybe you think, well, my parents, I don't have to be grandmotherly or grandfatherly to my parents. They should be. I'm the kid. But actually now you're grown up. So now you can be an adult with your parents and you can stop trying to get stuff from them. You've grown up now. So now you start giving to them. But giving does not mean you're trying to get away. get them to listen to you. You maybe would like them to listen to you, and you maybe would like to have a conversation with them. That's fine. That's fine. That can be a gift, too. So you can give the gift that I'd like to have a conversation with you, even if you can't say it, you can't think it. I think you're beyond that. I mean, you're beyond that as a practice you're committed to. Now you're going to start going home and you're going to give gifts like dishwashing, listening, and speaking.

[55:57]

But if there's no opportunity to speak, are you going to give Charlie walking out the door? Taking a walk around the block? And coming back in the house? and just opening the door and saying, Santa Claus, or whatever, you know. Here I am, the big gift, you know. But not to try to get a word in edgewise, not to try to get, you know, any foothold in the situation, but just to give a gift. And maybe they'll put a, what do you call it, they'll gag you as soon as you come in the door. You can't even say Santa Claus. You can't even say Merry Christmas. They'll stop you. Because you're giving gifts. The more you give gifts to your parents and your big sister, the more you'll see that this way you've described them has always been a gift. That them acting in this way you call not getting a word in edgewise, not letting you know that way has been a gift to you.

[57:02]

You'll see that as you give to them more and more. And eventually they'll see the gift giving too. You're giving to them and you're appreciating them giving to you. Somehow a space will eventually open where you can say for what you see. Not just, you know, to say it to get something, to trick them. But you actually see, oh my God. Or oh my Buddha, whatever. So you have to see you do need to see that they give you gifts. You just described that that's a gift to you. It is. And they give it to you, but also your own mind gives you this story. It's also a gift from your own mental activity, the story you have about your relationship. That's a gift too. So you practice giving and you'll see that they're giving to you.

[58:06]

And eventually, they'll join the process with you. I mean, they will consciously start practicing that with you. But you can give gifts to people and see that they're giving you gifts before they see that they're giving you gifts and before they see that they're giving you gifts. That can happen. So the Buddha gives gifts to you and the Buddha sees that you're always giving her gifts. She sees that all the time. But you don't see it yet. But Buddha just keeps giving and receiving, giving and receiving. Buddha is in that samadhi, in that concentration, and receiving from you, and feeling the joy of this relationship. And the more time you spend with this, the more time you spend in this samadhi with someone, eventually they will join it. It's the basic entering activity, opening activity. I don't know when it will happen, but people cannot indefinitely resist this generosity when it's really being worked in their presence.

[59:11]

They will eventually feel it and happily surrender to it. Between now and when you go, surrender to practicing giving with them. Don't try to get anything on this visit. You know, just give, give, give. And, of course, you will get a lot. Just don't try to get anything. And you may get more than you ever dreamed of, or you may not get much at all. You may not be able to see that you get much at all. But you will get a lot, and you will give a lot. But if you give a lot, you'll see that you get a lot, or you'll see you're given a lot. But if you try to get anything, it's probably better That's your attitude. So, you know, usually if somebody's practicing in Zen training, I would usually recommend, you know, actually, probably not a very good idea to go home until, you know, you've been training for quite a long time, because you're probably just going to go home and fortify these... You know, I don't think they usually tell their parents I said that, but...

[60:28]

You think you're ready, Charlie. What do you think? Ready to go home with us? Yeah, okay. Well, then we certify your visa. You can go to Seattle. Just don't fall asleep. Who's next? Okay. Elizabeth? Okay, who's next? Bruce? David? David? The story of what? Les Miserables. Yeah, right. one guy who's kind of trying to redeem himself, trying to lift his life into a new perspective, and he's the guy who pursued a son, who wants to paint him into the picture of his original daughter, Esperano's self.

[61:57]

Yeah. Just to end, that's this polar of ourselves that always thinks the same. No matter what we achieve, it works. No matter what. Yeah, there's wanted posters. All over the town. Wanted, dead or alive, here he comes. There are stories like that. I would suggest you start practicing giving.

[63:06]

as soon as possible because of the wanted posters all over the place. Start by being generous with the situation. People are seeing us and believing, seeing us and making stories about us. People do make stories about it. That's a normal human thing to do. People make stories about us and they often hold on to the stories. This is normal and it's very difficult If we practice our own story about them and our own story about their stories about us, this is the way that things start to open up to compassion. This is the first practice of the compassion. The first practice of bringing benefit is to be generous toward the story that other people have stories about us. And they probably will admit it. And they sometimes will admit, yes, I have a story that you're a bad guy.

[64:09]

Or that you're a good guy. My mother, may her soul rest in peace, I used to hear her talking on the telephone to her friends. Now, they were almost always stories of this fabulous son she had. You know, they were like advertisements for the, you know, what do you call it, Nobel Peace Prize or something. She was telling them these great things I did and how wonderful I was. But she was just telling them that to make them think she was a great mom. You know, I wasn't like what she was saying. She was just using, you know, me as a thing to tell stories about. So I really felt kind of bad that she told stories that were exaggerating my good point. But nonetheless, fortunately, I feel very generous and grateful to her for telling those stories now. I've grown up.

[65:12]

And I thank her for that. And I realize those were gifts. that she gave me. She was such a good mother, she gave me these exaggeratedly positive stories about me to her friends. And my father too, you know, he had all kinds of, he lacked discipline, and he had such great gifts as a person, and he didn't take care of them. And he told me that story about himself, you know. But he was such a great, he gave me such a great gift to show me the path of unhealthiness. He showed me, he said, I'm your father, you've got a body like mine, I have a nice body, and watch what happens. And this is what happened to me. I show you, and he showed me this. And he didn't make me, he didn't say, this is actually a healthy way. He didn't say, you're supposed to think this is a good way. He admitted it was not a good way.

[66:13]

So I could see, yeah, that's not a good way. So he sacrificed his life to help me find a way of healthiness, which is not easy to follow, but his example is always there to, like, be careful. Even this great, healthy, intelligent guy crashed because he didn't take care of himself. Everybody is giving. Always, no exception. That's what I'm saying. That's my position. That's my proposal. Everybody. But if you don't practice giving towards them, and I don't practice giving towards them, if the lack of generosity towards people we're persecuting, they just look more and more terrible. The more you're not generous with your persecutors, the more they look like persecutors. You collude in solidifying their cruelty by not being generous towards them. The more generous you are toward your torturer, the more you see that they're actually helping you become .

[67:20]

I'm not saying this is easy. It's hard. It's hard when someone's being, you know, offering you these intense, shocking, rejecting, disparaging, critical, respectful gifts, gifts of those things. It's hard to practice giving towards them and open to the gift of them. But anyway, we live in a world where a lot of this stuff is coming at us. And if it isn't coming today, it's going to come later. If you keep living, somebody is going to disrespect you. Somebody is going to tell stories about you. Eventually it's coming. Get ready for it. It's coming. And practice being generous to the people who are attacking you. Yeah.

[68:28]

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. That's a good point. The wanted posters mean unwanted. We don't want these people. These wanted people are really the people we wish weren't here. Somehow find them so we can make them not here. Very nice point. Elizabeth? They were unwanted children and no one taught them that they were wanted. And no one taught them how to be generous. But that's... some people would like everybody to learn this. And these people are... want to give their life to the Buddha way, to teach beings to be generous under these very difficult circumstances. I hope they're difficult enough for us to start practicing it.

[69:32]

I hope they don't get more difficult before we get the idea that this world is a place that's set up to become generous. The world is pushing us to wake up. The world is pushing us to be kind. And in these very difficult pushings, they're gifts. That's where they're sending us. Bruce, I think? Yes? Yes? Yes. And it's how to practice with a pattern. I don't know if I can clearly say the pattern I'm noticing about myself, and you may see it as I talk. How to practice with a pattern, yeah. How to practice with a pattern is the same as how to practice with intention. How to practice with will. When will appears, you're seeing a pattern of consciousness. So now you've got a pattern. You've got a karmic pattern. Now how do you practice with it? You tell me, how do you practice with it?

[70:35]

Yeah, that's how to practice with the pattern. Yeah, so there's the pattern. The pattern is panic, urgency, disaster nearby. That's the pattern. Okay? And that's the pattern to be gentle with. That's another pattern. Be gentle with this. I've got to do these things. Be gentle with that. I've got to do these things. Be gentle with that. Well, not doing them is another pattern. When you're panicked, be gentle with the panic.

[71:43]

If you act on the panic, be gentle with acting on the panic. If you're panicked and then the next is followed by not acting on the panic, then be gentle with the not acting on the panic. Every moment, this pattern is appearing. Panic, response to panic, either following it or Or you could have counter-phobic, counter-panic reaction, right? Right. I've got to get this out of my life, get to the root of it, and then my life will be fine. Yeah, so that's another pattern. So the patterns are constantly flowing. Each one deserves the same, the same uprightness, the same generosity. Each one. And so some of these patterns of panic will be acted out with speech and posture. Some of them will be acted out together with gentleness in speech and posture. And some of them will be punished. But the punishing isn't the practice.

[72:45]

That's another pattern. But if there is punishment, be gentle and honest. This is punishment. Here I am being rough on this. rough on this, mean on this, okay? About that, gentle with that, upright with that. Just let me check the time. Yes, what's your name? Deborah. I skipped you. Oh, uh, She had her hand raised a long time ago. It's okay. Debra, and then Bruce. So, definitely related to what you were saying about your mother, and just thinking about, because there's a moment that I'm curious about where I feel like I've gotten to where I can see her stories about myself without being very positive, but still also, to me, not the truth.

[73:53]

Yeah, your mother cannot tell the story of who you really are. She's just, it's too positive or too negative or just irrelevant or, you know. But also, if you agree with, it also could be something you agree with. You know, it could coincide with your story, but still it's not who you are. Right, it's not. So, now that I have a story about, she needs to tell the story about me. Excuse me, her limitations, her limitations of being a human being. Right, right, yes. And so, then I find, to deal with it, I put myself a little above, like, well, I can see her limitations, and I'm concerned about that, that there's a place where there's truth in that, but it's not a better than her, because I see her vulnerability, and her need to put me up. So there's a bodhisattva precept of not praising yourself while putting others down.

[75:05]

So when you see somebody who seems to need to tell a story and then you kind of feel like they need to tell a story but I need to tell a story which is that I'm a little bit more evolved and I'm better, I'm more... I need to tell that story. But that story is in contradiction to this teaching of not putting myself above them. So this is like a story of... It's kind of an unskillful story of me being superior to somebody. But the practice is confess it. Admit. I'm better than you. I can do anything better than you can. No, you can't. Just again... I can do anything better than you. No, you can't. Yes, I can. Anyway, I have this story. I confess it. That's part of the practice of the Buddha way, is confess. I think I'm more evolved than these other people. And most people agree with me. So maybe it's true. And now I'm kind of... Not only do I have this story, but I'm considering that maybe it's true.

[76:12]

That maybe I actually am... more highly evolved than someone else. Aren't some people more highly evolved? And I would say, well, yes, they are. However, my story about that is not the way they are. And my story about it is what I'm believing right now. The way I'm actually more highly evolved is actually that I'm finally a little bit willing to be not more highly evolved. After many years of practice, I'm a little bit closer to kind of like almost be willing to be normal, average person. That's quite a high level of involvement is to be like ordinary. I'm almost willing to be like not better than other people. That's how highly evolved I am. And I hope someday to be like so highly evolved that I don't think I'm better than anybody. And actually not so much that I'm not better than anybody because I'm not. But I don't think I am anymore and I don't try to get people to think I am.

[77:16]

And of course, if I wanted to get people to think I was more highly evolved, I would be more highly evolved. And they would love that, to meet somebody who really didn't think he was better than them. You know, I think, this is great. He actually doesn't think he's better than me. And he doesn't think he's worse than me. He just thinks he's just like me. He's like a human. Wow. And I've become very famous for that. And then, like, is being famous more, you know, and so on. This is the ongoing challenge, right? Bruce? Yeah. Accepting and confessing. Accept them in conversation, not just by yourself. Okay, I accept it. Because, again, you say, I accept it, and then people say, what is it that you accept? I'd rather not talk about it.

[78:19]

Oh, okay. Accept, and then tell people how you accept, and you say, you know, Deborah, it doesn't really sound to me like you accept it. It sounds like you're kind of like, still kind of like, what do you call it, finessing it, or, you know, why don't you just accept, why don't you just really accept it, why don't you confess it, just straight up, or preparing me for it, or downplaying it, or exaggerating it, just say it. And you finally learn. The person says, oh, that's pretty good. You got it right. That was just it. You got it. So, yeah, accept, confess in relationship, not just by yourself. People who are doing that who are also confessing. Barus? My question is about the awareness that is essential in this process. Awareness is essential to life. You have a desire to know other people's position?

[79:30]

Yes, uh-huh, yes it does. It arises, your awareness your awareness, whatever awareness you have, including what you might call deepening and more and more authentic awareness, it comes to the compassion of the Buddhas. It comes through the ill will of ignorant people. Because those are who you feel compassion towards. So all beings Unenlightened beings and, you know, and unenlightened beings who are frightened and all those beings are supporting you to have greater and greater consciousness. They're begging you to become aware to help them. And the Buddhas are, you know, rooting for you to get with the program and sending you all kinds of instruction about how to become more authentically and aware. But everybody, not just the Buddhas, are helping you.

[80:44]

Just that people who have very underdeveloped compassion aren't helping you with compassion because they don't have much. They're helping you with their suffering and their fear and their hatred. That's how they're helping you. And Buddhas are helping you with their fearlessness and their compassion and their love. Everybody's helping you develop. So everybody's helping me develop. So if I practice generosity, I'll start to realize Buddhas are helping me, thank you, and other people are helping me. Thank you. Thank you. And try to breathe while you say thank you. Because they're strangling you. Does that hurt? Does that hurt? I have my grandson. Does that hurt? Uh, yes. Will you stop now? But, you know, it's easy to give an example because I can see that he's giving me gifts. Even some of the gifts are such that I say, would you please stop giving me that kind of gift and give me another kind of gift called stop pinching me?

[81:51]

But as a gift, not to manipulate him to stop. So let's see what time it is. God, it's still early. So, I think next is Lynn. I'm interested in the distinction between self-expression, which has awareness, and self-expression, which is kind of a tension, or just preventing, you know, from death, you know. Okay. Is that enough? Can I respond to that? So she said she would like to look at some distinction between which is, now how do you say it again? That has awareness and self-expression which is trying to get something. Venting?

[82:53]

Venting? You could vent Okay? Pardon? Yeah, you could vent and invent. You could express yourself. You could vent. Okay, I can go, venting! You know, vent. You can vent as a gift. And in that way, you feel like, I'm venting, but I'm thinking of this with this venting, that I'm venting. And I'm doing it as a gift. And I'm doing it with everyone. I feel like it's not me venting by myself. I'm venting with everybody. So I invite everybody to give me feedback on my venting. No, it is a gift. It really is a gift. It is a gift. Everything is a gift. That's what I'm saying. My story is everything is a gift. When you vent, it's a gift.

[83:56]

The Buddha is watching you venting. The Buddha sees. Lin is venting. Lin is giving me Buddha gifts. And Buddha says, thank you. And Buddha is giving you her love. I love you, Lin, the venter. And you could learn that too, yes. First of all, I'm just saying Buddha sees you as giving gifts and you're venting. But if you don't see the venting as a gift, if you don't see it that way, Then you miss that the Buddha sees you as giving a gift, and you miss the Buddha's gift, and you miss other people's gift. But sometimes people would like you to vent. When you're venting, they actually are supporting you to vent, and sometimes they actually not only support you, but they want you to vent. You know, like they might say, Lynn, why don't you just vent? One, two, three, we support you, vent. Would you like to vent now, by the way?

[84:58]

It's actually, I'm more concerned with other people venting and my reaction to that. I don't know if it's a good time for somebody to vent toward you now. You want somebody to vent now? We can get somebody to vent. But anyway, sometimes people do vent, and if I'm practicing generosity towards them, then I'm joining the Buddha. And then when I practice generosity towards them, when they vent, I see a gift. And when they vent and they can see that somebody saw that as a gift, and someone is giving them a gift while they're venting, this helps them tune into that their venting is part of the gift-giving process. then they see it. They can wake up to it. So, by being generous, that you give a person to themself, so how they're acting is affecting you in a way that you find them flippant to a story that they shouldn't be doing.

[86:13]

Excuse me, slow down, slow down, slow down, help. I'm good. On the venting belt. So someone's expressing themselves to you. Yes? And you feel it's harmful. You feel it's harmful. Okay. Maybe they're not even expressing it to me as a gift. Right. You might... They're not expressing themselves. Yeah. Somebody might be, like, cutting their flesh. Right. And you might see that. And you might feel it's harmful. And you feel generous towards that. You feel... First of all, you are doing something about it. Whenever you see anybody, you have a response. Whenever you see anybody, you do something about it. Because seeing them is an action. Seeing vision is action. So you see somebody, I see you, I make a story about you, the story is that looks unwholesome, that looks harmful. I'm already doing something. Now, if I'm also practicing generosity with my storytelling about you, and my story is I have a wholesome that I care for her, and I think she's doing something harmful to her, I'm not sure, but it looks harmful to me, and I want to give her a gift now, which is, you know, my attention, my love,

[87:33]

And I want to say, could I ask you a question, you know, about what you're doing now or whatever? I'm kind of concerned of what you're doing. But I'm not doing that to control you, I'm doing it as a gift. And I also feel in that mode that you gave me the gift of you doing this thing so that I could ask you this question, you know. coming to fruition to ask you this question now. Would you tell me what you're doing and whether you think this is beneficial? And you might say to me, no, I don't, but I can't help it. I'm suffering so much that this cutting myself makes me feel more comfortable. And I say, oh, you know. And you really need to be generous towards you when you tell me that. And that I was generous before you told me that when I was telling you that I was concerned. So that in yourself you practice awareness before you express yourself or as you express yourself?

[88:44]

Hopefully, as you express yourself. Awareness of your expression. So, like Bruce was saying, we need awareness in our expression. For our expression to be wholehearted and full, we need awareness. but if we're not aware, we don't see it. We don't fully realize how energetic and generous and alive we are. We need to practice awareness in order to realize the fullness of our life. If we don't practice giving, that we're giving. We are giving. We are alive, actually. People who are curled up in a ball are actually alive. But are they doing that as an act of generosity. If they are, they're happily curled up in a ball, feeling generous and feeling the whole world supporting them to be curled up in a ball. It's possible that they would do that as a celebration of full expression and Buddha mind.

[89:48]

It's possible. Unlikely, yes, but, you know, possible. You're welcome. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, not often, but sometimes I see people fighting with each other and I think it's so sad that this is the way that they have to try to become intimate with each other. I think we're trying to become intimate and it's so tragic that we do it by fighting and by violence, but that's what we're trying to do, I think.

[90:54]

So I hope that this terrible, stupid war help the Muslim world and whatever you want to call the Western world. I hope that this conflict will eventually make us intimate. Before we were like, you know, we have to be separate. So it's terrible, but I think most Americans feel closer to Islam than they used to. I think they do. They talk about it more. they maybe hate it and want to kill Islam, but at least they're thinking about it. At least the conversation, even if it's like still very hostile and fear-ridden. But this may, you know, this may, I hope that this leads us to form a deep, peaceful relationship rather than them out there kept separate from us in a separate world of Islam, the West.

[92:01]

Humble as a nation, yes. I was just hearing about these stories about the people, the humans, the men who came from Morocco and went to their old friend, Spain, and blew up these trains. And this town where a lot of them came from, in Morocco, If you go into that town, which seems to be breeding ground for terrorism, the men in that town who are on the verge of dealing with forces that are trying to convert them to terrorism, one of the leading imams of the village was a very kind of energetic, kind of creative guy. He wasn't like a stiff old imam. He was very interesting, and he seemed to be involved in the conversion process for these terrorists.

[93:13]

But if you go into the town, one of the main bars is called Cafe America. where all these guys hang out. And they wear hats that say USA, you know, with American flags and stuff like that. They wear all kinds of clothes that have American... They love America. And they hate America. I was really struck by that. In some sense, the world's problems are the difficulty in love. And I also just popped in my head the story of Gone with the Wind. These two people who are fighting all the time and then occasionally one's ready to surrender and the other one's not. And then that one's not. To actually work it out is very difficult when you have powerful forces like this. I think that what I'm proposing is what I propose. Find your place. Express yourself in conversation. We need conversation.

[94:16]

And I heard this story just yesterday at a sitting we had over at Noah Bowen. This woman, just the day before, I think went jogging, and she and her friend left their purses in their car over in Berkeley. And when they got back to the car, the purses were gone. This woman said, my cell phone's in my purse. So she called her cell phone. And the guy answered, it was a guy, he answered the cell phone. And she said, you can have the money, you know, but give me the money back. And, you know, there's other stuff you can't use, like my driver's license and my library card. Just give me that stuff back. Take the money. Fine. And the guy said, I feel terrible. And then because they lost contact, and the guy called her back.

[95:26]

And he said, okay. And he told him where he was going to put it, where he was going to put the person, the bushes in a certain place. And they went back. And then you heard also the story about these a robber coming in and interrupting a family that's having dinner. Hear that one? And he said, you know, somebody give me your money or I'll kill you. Really on the verge of violence. And one of the people said, would you like to sit down and have a drink of wine with us? And the guy said, okay, and sat down. And this story was substantiated by the police and the New York Times and so on. The guy sat down and he left peaceably. So, yeah, conversation, to have the courage to converse, to express yourself, you know, like, you know, you could express yourself by saying, you know, I really have a problem with you coming in here and threatening us with a gun at dinner.

[96:32]

You could offer that. That's a perfectly reasonable offering. But you can also say, would you like some wine? You want to share dinner with us? Not easy. not easy but that's where it's at I think is giving gifts rather than thinking about what people are taking from us how they're not giving us gifts and this is really a bad situation and it is a bad situation a place where people weren't giving us gifts that would be a bad situation and that's a bad world and so now we need to find the world where people are giving us gifts and that's the world where we're giving gifts It's not easy to converse with people when they steal your purse, when they're threatening you with guns. It's not easy. So if you can't do it, then you confess, hey, I couldn't do it. I'm not being generous. I'm being frightened. I'm feeling like people aren't being generous with me, and I'm not being generous with them.

[97:38]

And I confess I'm in a tight, stingy, miserable world. That's where I am. And that's generosity. And now I want to practice generosity. But I understand I'm human and it's hard for me sometimes to do it. But that's my commitment to practice the Buddha way. Not easy though, not easy, not easy, not easy.

[98:04]

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