Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play. Did you notice? Many thought it was a hard game yesterday. But today, it's an easy game to play. Just kidding. It's hard today, too. It's hard to play with everybody. And yesterday we chanted the words, from the first time you meet a master without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, repentance, or reading scriptures, you should just wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind.

[01:03]

Remember that? Wasn't that good? Now, so another way to say that from the first time you meet a master without engaging in all those other performances, just perform Wholehearted sitting upright. Perform sitting upright as the Buddha way and thus drop away body and mind. Or perform upright sitting and thus drop away body and mind as the performance of the Buddha way. In performing the Buddha way, body and mind drop off. Buddha way is the way of reality, and in reality... Could you move that way a little bit?

[02:16]

A little bit more, yeah. That's good, that's good. Okay. Thank you. So I can see Tim and Betty. Could you move that way a little bit, please? Thank you. So, performing the Buddha way means performing reality, putting reality into action, putting your action into reality, putting your action into the practice of the truth. Reality is body and mind is dropping away. Body and mind is dropping away. Body and mind is dropping away. Body and mind is dropping away. But I noticed that we humans have a little trouble going with the program. We've heard about it.

[03:21]

We think, well, that sounds, I don't know what. But anyway, we resist. Body and mind dropping away. We resist impermanence. We resist change. And impermanence, change, dash. We resist giving our mind away every moment. We resist giving our mind away every moment. And therefore resist receiving a new body and mind every moment. Have you noticed that? Some resistance to letting go of your body and mind. ...giving it away. And some people have noticed some resistance to this, and they've confessed it. And they mention how tiring it is to try to hold on to body and mind. So, the great ancestor Ehe Koso,

[04:28]

not ko-su, ehei ko-so, he says, from the first time you meet a master, without engaging in incense offering, bowing, incense offering, prostration, chanting Buddha's name, repentant reading scriptures, without doing those things, just wholeheartedly sit. So I would propose to you another way to understand this is that wholeheartedly sit means when you're sitting, You are performing incense offering. It's hard to see. Anyway, you're performing offering incense, making offerings to Buddhas. You're performing prostrations. You're performing confession and repentance. You're reading scriptures. You're doing all those practices when you sit. So this instruction is saying, let's consolidate all the Bodhisattva practices. Let's consolidate all the bodhisattva vows into the one thing we're doing, whatever we're doing.

[05:38]

But let's use sitting. We don't have to do all those practices to get ready to sit. We bring all those practices into the sitting performance. So he says, we read, without doing those things, just sit. you just sit, then he says, do those things. And then after he says, without doing those things, just sit, then after that, he writes many essays about incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, repentance, and reading scriptures. Did you get that? Is that good? Usually, So the last time I was here in Houston, I talked about Samantabhadra's house.

[06:41]

Remember them? Do you remember them? You were there. Do you remember them? No? You remember them? Oh, good. I'm glad you don't. You remember them, of course. You don't? Well, Jill certainly remembers me. Right, Jill? Yeah, but you were a green culture. Anyway, the nice thing about teaching elderly people, you can give the same teachings over and over. They say, oh, that was interesting. That was nice to hear. rather than, we heard that already, teacher. The ten vows of Samantabhadra are, first one, paying homage to all Buddhas.

[07:45]

And the traditional way of paying homage is with your body, speech, and mind by prostration. Prostration is the traditional way of paying homage because you're not just thinking of homage, you're not just thinking of and honoring the Buddha, your body's showing it, and your voice is showing it, too, by being quiet. But you can also be, while you're bowing, you could also be saying thank you or something. Anyway, with body, speech, and mind, the first mantra Padre's vows is, I vow, or I think about, paying homage to Buddhas every moment. with body, speech, and mind. That's the first of his vows, first of his prayers, first of his... Remember that one? Do you, Kathy, remember that one? No? Thank you. You remember those.

[08:49]

Okay. You don't really remember after I told you? Wow, this is fabulous. You keep coming to see me, okay? Yeah? Great. Well, thanks for coming today. All right, so number one, paying homage to the Buddhas. Number two, making offerings to all Buddhas. Every moment with body, speech, and mind. Number three, praising all Buddhas every moment, body, speech, and mind. Next. What's next? Huh? Being one with all Buddhas? All these practices are ways of being one with Buddhas.

[09:51]

The fourth one is confession and repentance of our short practice number five is rejoicing in the merits of others number six is requesting the buddhas to roll the dharma wheel number seven is to beseech the Buddhas to stay in the world with us, not to split. Number eight is to do all the practices that Buddhas have done, vow to do all the practices that Buddhas have done, every moment with body, speech, and mind. Number nine, to accommodate and accord

[10:59]

with all sentient beings. And number ten is to dedicate the merit of all these vows and practices to all sentient beings. Those are the ten. And there's another, these are the vows of Samantabhadra, which you find, which are found sort of in an appendix, actually, to the Avatamsaka Sutra. There's another presentation practice, which is prostration, formal homage paying, making offerings, confession and repentance, Rejoice, requesting the Buddhist to teach, beseeching the Buddhist to stay in the world, and dedication of a merit of all that.

[12:09]

That's called the seven-limbed prayer of the seven-branched vow for bodhisattvas. So in the forms of Zen that we're practicing, for example, here in Houston, I would suggest we understand the vows of Samantabhadra, these ten vows, and the seven-branched vow of bodhisattvas. I would understand them as something that we would practice within the forms that we have here. So schedule. Your action of attending these periods, of coming to the period and sitting with others, that action of following the schedule, of participating in the schedule, that you would do these 10 vows simultaneous with that, that that would be

[13:27]

a way to perform these vows, you would understand that. When you're sitting at your place, that's an act of homage to the Buddhas. That's an act of offering to the Buddhas. You're offering your sitting to the Buddhas. a body, speech, and mind in praise of the belief. It's an act of confession and repentance. While you're sitting, you're sitting at the confession of your shortcomings and you're repenting while you're sitting. And you're in the merits of others when you're sitting. And your sitting is requesting the Buddhas to teach.

[14:29]

And your sitting is requesting the Buddhas to stay in the world of sentient beings. And your sitting is performing the practices of all Buddhas, and your sitting is accommodating to sentient beings. And you're sitting in the dedication of all this practice to all sentient beings. The only way, I shouldn't say, I'll just say this. It's not true what I'm about to say. Anyway, the only way to drop off body and mind is to practice. Or put the other way, if you practice this way, body and mind are dropping away and you're realizing it. Body and mind are dropping away anyway. No matter what you do, no matter what I do, you can't stop your body and mind from dropping away.

[15:39]

You and I can resist that, but we can't stop it because it's reality. We are dropping away. But we can join it. And we join it by what we call wholehearted practice. We join it by, for example, making everything you do a service, an offering, an homage. We have to get out of the way. Dropping off body and mind could be called get out of the way. Get out of the way of making what you're doing right now, requesting the Buddha's to teach. Many people, if I would, you know, like if I asked my grandson, asking the Buddha to teach, he would just kind of frown at me and say, leave me alone, granddaddy.

[16:45]

Like, you know, not too long ago I was visiting him in Los Angeles and he was eating his breakfast. And I went and sat down across the table from him and looked at him adoringly. And he kind of wrinkled his four inches, wrinkled his brow. And he said, a little while later, he said, would you stop staring at me? I said, OK. And I sort of looked off into space. I'll be looking at, but I'll be seeing you, my dear little grandson. So I'm looking off into space. And then he says, referring to his cousin, He says, do you think Gabe has problems following instructions?

[17:57]

My grandson doesn't understand. He is wonderful, but he's kind of in the way of the actual, he's kind of blocking the way in resisting that he's going to teach. So the Buddha is, you know, bringing this old man into his room and sitting down to look at him. And he says, get out of here, Buddha. I don't want to see this Buddha face. Get out of here. So a lot of us do not understand that we're walking around on this planet, step by step, saying, hey, Buddha, please, teach me Dharma. Hey Buddha, teach me Dhamma. The guy. When body and mind drop away, you realize that you've always been asking the Buddhas to teach you, and they've always been teaching you, and it's always been great.

[19:19]

So if body and mind is dropped away and you're with the program, you understand. Yes, I am. If somebody asks you when your body and mind dropped away and you're with that, and you say, would you by any chance like to request Buddhists to teach? Yes. Totally. That's what I'm doing here. Dropped off body and mind is requesting the Buddhists to teach. dropped-off body and mind is rejoicing in the merits of others. And it's almost rejoicing, not so much in my own shortcomings, but rejoicing in confessing my shortcomings. I'm not exactly happy about my shortcomings, but I'm happy that I notice them. And because of dropped-off body and mind, I have no problem noticing them. But if I resist dropped-off body and mind, I want to see some of my shortcomings. So yesterday, some people came forth in our meeting and offered confession.

[20:39]

This offering confession is part of what we mean by just wholeheartedly sit. It's part of what we mean. Offering confession is part of what it means to drop our body. Because, again, when I'm holding onto my body and mind, I may have some resistance to noticing the shortcomings of my mind and body. Does that make sense? Doesn't? Come and tell me about how it doesn't make sense, please. See, I said it doesn't make sense, and he offered me a gift called no. Tell me about how, tell me what you heard in the next one, please. That by dropping off vitamin one, you don't go to prison.

[21:58]

So he's saying how dropping off body and mind invokes the Buddhas. That's one thing that didn't make sense. But the thing I said just before that was, can you see how when body and mind, when you accept body and mind dropping off, you have no problem confessing? Can you see that? Does that make sense? If I see body and mind dropping. Yeah, if you're sort of in accord with that, that you wouldn't have so much problem confessing your shortcomings. Does that make sense? That makes sense. Yeah. So like when people are going to die in the next few minutes, it's not so difficult for them to say, you know, I made a few mistakes. And I regret some things. When you're about to see your body, like, go away, you're not supposed to protect it anymore. Does that make sense?

[23:06]

And also, when you look at other people, you're not holding on. Particularly if you look at other people for whom you're not trying to hold on to their body and mind, it's not so difficult to get a notice they're shortcomings. You let other people change. You're not holding on to them. Some people you are. The ones you're holding on to, those people will be harder for you to notice their shortcomings. Or, actually, if you're holding on to them being nothing but shortcomings, it's harder for you to notice their merits. Does that make sense? Yes. So holding on, resisting body and mind dropping away, makes it hard for me to admit my own shortcomings. And it makes me hard, therefore, to see other people's merits. But when I let go of a body and mind, I just see a spade of the spade, even though the spade is me having shortcomings. And I see the merits of others, which is hard for me to see when I'm holding on to my position.

[24:07]

But now coming back to the thing that you said, you have trouble seeing how In the situation of mine, you had trouble seeing how that's requesting the Buddhists to teach. Yes. Yeah. So I'm proposing to you that you are requesting Buddhists to teach. And that's actually your situation right this minute. Right now, it's you and I are requesting the Buddhists to teach. We want to go to Buddhist school. and we want the Buddhists to teach us. We want these wonderful, beneficent, compassionate, wise beings to teach us. We want to learn from them. But if we're holding on to our body and mind, we might not realize it. Holding on body and mind can block our awareness that we want the Buddhists to teach us.

[25:10]

So I'm suggesting that if we get out of the way that this natural desire but a really, really competent and kind teacher, not just somebody who knows a lot about something, but somebody who's skillful at transmitting it. Some people know a lot about fish, but they're not good teaching people. Like I heard this one biology professor He didn't want to learn the names of the students because if he learned the names of students, he'd forget the names of fish. Some people know a lot, but they don't want to tell anybody about it. But imagine somebody who is omniscient and also totally devoted to you. And I think we want to meet people like that.

[26:10]

I went to San Francisco Zen Center because I wanted a teacher. I wasn't yet ready to, like, admit that I was coming to Buddha. But I did realize I wanted somebody to help me learn how to practice Zen meditation so I could become, you know, a good person. I did realize I wanted that. And I did want somebody who was kind, actually. So, in us already, that we want the teacher of compassion and wisdom to teach us. And when we're holding on to our body and mind, we might miss that more or less. But when we get with body and mind dropping away, then we feel no hindrance to the in us of, please, those who have understood the Dharma, please teach it to us. Does that make some sense to you now? It makes sense, yes.

[27:14]

Yes. But what is the whole element that we're talking about here as well? I see the Buddha in you. I see the Buddha in you. They all teach you things. Yes. Is there an opening where you receive a message from something that you can't put into words? Can we pull you a little closer? I would say, yes, that dropping off body and mind is like part of what it's about is an opening where you're open to receiving a message that you cannot put in. And the person from whom you're receiving the message might be talking to you, but the message is not what they're saying. Somehow you hear the truth while they're talking, and the truth is not actually words.

[28:17]

But by listening open-heartedly to someone talk, or even to someone being quiet, by opening your heart, the Dharma enters you. You're in accord with heart opening. Heart opening could also be called body and mind dropping away. So the Sufi instruction might be, as soon as you meet a master, just wholeheartedly sit and let your heart open. So heart open, body and mind drop away. So there you are sitting with your heart open. You're not holding on to your body and mind. And you realize, yes, I actually am requesting a Buddhist. I'm requesting somebody who's really wise and kind to teach me the truth. If I would be taught the truth and open to it, then I would be able to live the life I want to live, a life of compassion and wisdom, where I'm totally

[29:37]

promoting beneficial things, that's the life I want to live. A life of fearlessness, a life of openness, a life of benefit. The other side, the other way to come at it is, when you're sitting, if you haven't, maybe you don't think you have a body and mind, if you, in your sitting, open to the prospect, that your sitting is a request to the Buddhist to teach, if you can feel, oh yeah, this sitting is a request to the Buddhist to teach. Like right now, you're sitting there. Can you sit now with me, and can I sit here right now with you, and can we feel right now when we're together that we are requesting the Buddhist to teach? And if we can feel that, and if we can want that, I would say the body and mind the drop-off body and mind is starting to be matched.

[30:40]

And if we all feel that way, like we're sitting here together, and we actually are sitting here together, this retreat is one very big, fat request of the Buddhist to take the wheel of Dharma in Houston, in this room, in Texas, in the United States to turn the Wheel of Venom, that we are sitting here, sitting as a ritual act of making this request. Then our sitting turns into body mind dropping away. So we're not just sitting. We're sitting, body mind dropping away. We're not just sitting. Our sitting is a request for the Buddhas to turn the Great Wheel. And I'm saying if I open my heart to that, if my heart opens to that, then my heart opens to Zazen of dropping off body and mind.

[31:44]

So I ask you right now, do you feel in your heart an opening to request the Buddha to turn the wheel of Dharma? I feel in my heart a request to turn the wheel of Dharma. But I have to admit that it sometimes takes getting into a retreat like this to be able to open my heart. So my question is, how do I take this out into the world where I don't have this environment? Because my practice seems to be very short, starts and stops, as opposed to coming here for five days. where I've been, and that's why I keep coming back, is why my heart opens. Okay. Now, the next step would be, number one, you're able to feel your heart open to make the request of the Buddhas in the sitting posture that you're in right now.

[32:53]

Sitting upright right now, you can actually feel that your heart belongs to the Buddhas. And then also your heart would allow the neck, actually it was a couple previous ones, your heart allows that you confess that sometimes you come short, up short, that sometimes you do not actually come up to that open heart with requests. So that's another practice. So not only is wholehearted practice requesting the Buddhas to turn the wheel of Dharma, wholehearted practice confess, and we don't. So you just did too. You confessed. You actually felt for the moment that your heart opened to request the Buddha to teach. You dared to be like a child and regard

[33:59]

ancestors and the great believers to teach, but then you also notice that in your memory there have been moments and you think perhaps there might be moments in the future when your heart will close to that request. So you're confessing the past ones now and you're also recognizing them in the future. You might also feel the heart closing to that request. So then I would say, at that time, when you notice that, you have the opportunity to do another bodhisattva practice, which is to confess, I humbly confess that my heart has closed. I've got distracted from requesting the Buddhist to teach here in this situation. I did not feel the open heart, but I practice of confessing that my heart has closed.

[35:06]

And that's a bodhisattva practice. So that one can live here. So even when my heart isn't open, I can do the bodhisattva practice of confessing that it's closed. And confessing that it's closed is the beginning of opening again. When you have, just now, when you confessed that sometimes you can't open, at that moment, there was an opening. And it's always opening to... Basically, it's opening to what in Soto Zen we call dropping off body and mind. It's opening to that. That's a short concentration of all these bodhisattvas of ours. And specifically, it's opening to each one of those, each one of those 10 bottles. Thank you very much.

[36:12]

If you're complete. Thank you. So, again, I asked, does that make sense? And I gave that as a gift. And then Joe said no, and he gave me. I invited him to come up as a gift. I didn't expect him to come up. I just invited him to come up. But he did come up as a gift. You see, we are performing. We are performing the Buddha way. We are performing the Bodhisattva vows. You see, we're doing this here. actually enacting the bowels of the Great Bodhisattvas right here now. And which also means, in Dogen's language, we are enacting dropping off body and mind.

[37:14]

We are enacting opening our hearts. I propose that to you as a gift, without expecting you to agree with me. So if you don't, or you do, or you don't know whether you do or you don't, you're welcome to come forth and give me gifts, give me Dharma gifts. And don't just give Dharma gifts to me, give them to Buddha too at the same time. And don't just give them to me and the Buddhas, give them to all your friends at the same time. You're invited to be very generous with your practice. I want to start by saying that I'm very grateful for the merit of my fellow good friends in the Sangha.

[38:29]

I've been noticing how hard they've all been working and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to practice. Could you hear that? Would you like to say you're welcome? You're welcome. Thank you very much. I heard you yesterday talk about the intimate relationship with all the Buddha and the attraction of offering a service to all the Buddha. Yes. And I need to confess that I often feel so distant from the Buddha. And. Very. You feel distant from the bootage. Very far away. So. And I would like to ask how I might cultivate.

[39:30]

The kind of trust and. In this relationship. Um, so, uh, it is proposed to you that you are intimate with all Buddha. And, um, so, but it's also proposed that without practice, you don't realize it. You're acting, acting in practice, you get to realize this intimacy. But as Daddy said, we are one with the Buddha. Another way to put it is, Buddhas, enlightened beings, and unenlightened beings are not two.

[40:34]

However, without practice, you might realize that they're not two with the Buddhas. So I want to say a little bit more about the affordability to the practices. Now, what are buddhas? Buddhas are separate beings from us. Buddhas are separate beings from us. Entity beings are beings who think that separate from each other and separate from others. So sentient beings are beings who do not understand yet. They don't understand Buddha yet. Buddhas are, or Buddha is, the correct understanding of sentient beings.

[41:38]

The correct understanding of all the sentient beings. and all the Buddhas, which have an understanding of this relationship. Buddha is the understanding of non-separation of all being. Buddha is not something in addition to understanding of non-separation of all being. So Buddhas are very close, because Buddhas are actually the way we related to everybody. The way you're actually related to me and Ross and Glenn, that actual relationship you have, the actuality and understanding of it is Buddha. And so then the way to practice it, for example, is to pay homage to your true relationship at all. So when you're in thought and you're claustrophobic in your voice, those actions are actually actions of homage to your true relationship with all beings.

[42:56]

You can't grasp your relationship with anybody, not to mention your relationship with all beings. You can't grasp it, and yet it's totally what you are. But if you don't do a practice celebrating that, honoring, making offerings to God, you might realize that you're not close to somebody. So sometimes we start by developing a relationship with Buddha, and you start by developing a relationship with the reality of your relationship I prostrate myself to this inconceivably wonderful proposal that I'm in harmony with our being. My mind cannot grasp it.

[44:01]

My mind can grasp that I'm paying homage to this. So my karma is now given with offering to this true relationship. And I have to make offering to the Buddha. I think of offering my karma to the Buddha. If I'm talking to you, I'm trying to talk to you now. I'm trying to be helpful to you. I offer my relationship to you to the Buddha. And now, also, while I'm talking to you, I'm opinionated. I'm crazy good at it. I'm watching with my attention. If I'm talking to you in a way that I don't think is kind, then that wouldn't really, that wouldn't accord with me crazy good at it. Crazy good at it is to be kind to people.

[45:03]

And if you're being kind to people, You make that an offering to do this. And if you're sitting in meditation, you make that an offering to do this. In this way, you've cultivated a practice which realizes your actual relationship with all beings, which realizes your intimate relationship with all doers. Confessing your shortcomings, a doer. is another way to cultivate the realization of the intimacy with society here. For example, if you have a thought in your mind, the Buddhas are far away, by confessing that you just did, by contracting that you feel that they're far away, but make that a confession of a circle to understand that that's not what the Buddhas are telling you. They're not telling you they're far away. The Buddhas are telling you they're close. That's the message. Matter of fact, the message is that Buddhists live innumerable light years away, and they're with you.

[46:16]

So the Buddha is also preaching to the entire universe. It's not followable. It's not separate from you. Far away is far away, but far away is not separate from you. So by cultivating. The confession that you're thinking that these great beings are far away is opening your heart to debate. By noticing the merits of others, I cultivate love. The more virtue you see in others, the more you feel a realization of your intimacy with Buddhas. Buddhas are constantly seeing the virtues of others. Buddhists see all things and things and go, wow, these people are falling in doubt with the virtues of the Buddhists. That's a Buddhist thing. Non-Buddhists see not a part of that or zero of that. The more you see the virtues of others, the more you see the virtues of others, the more you're opening your heart to Buddha.

[47:27]

Buddha's already with you, but if you open your heart, you realize it. If you don't pray, if you don't see the merit of others, you're closing your heart. If you close your heart to beings, to sentient beings, you close your heart to Buddha. As you open your heart to others, as you see the merits of others, you also realize, oh, Buddha's here. At the fullness of appreciating everybody, we're on the same page as Buddha. So cultivating, craving the virtues of others, opening your eyes to the virtues of others, you're opening your eyes to your thinking of the Buddha. And so just talking to Joe, cultivating, actually asking that you actually think of asking the Buddha to teach. Say, I request the Buddha to teach. And what's your body? during the palms and across the Buddha's fatigues.

[48:31]

These actions of body, speech, and mind. Realize. Intimacy is already here. Practice is necessary to realize it. Then go on to do all the practices. There's many scriptures, probably with the practices that Buddhists have done. Now we're getting into a very challenging area here that Buddhists have done so many amazing practices. But you open up to the huge ocean of practices that the Buddhists have done and told us about. Of course, I can't do it alone. But I'm actually open to the possibility of doing all these practices, of learning all these teachings, of memorizing all of these scriptures, of copying all these scriptures, to copying all these, making a copy of all these scriptures.

[49:43]

I won't be able to make copies of all these scriptures today, probably, but my heart opens to the idea. So example now, I will suggest to you, which I suggested in August, I would suggest to you that before this life is over, that you, on the right, allow this to happen. I suggest that to you. I suggest that to me, too. And if I say that to you, and the heart goes, yeah, that's the kind of heart that opens to anything and everything. And if the heart goes, I mean, that's a waste of paper, you know what I mean? It's like some kind of code, not for me neither. But then you have something to think that.

[50:46]

And you go, oh, I think that my heart closed to the idea of copying words that you're mocking. And my heart closed to the idea of copying all of what she was the entire time in Buddhist pictures. The Buddhists weren't too busy to teach all those pictures, so how about me being not too busy to make copies of them, to read them and recite them? That's the foolish heart of the Buddha. So I will give all these teachings, and I will make copies of all these teachings, It's a cultivation of the heart that you realize is . Another thing I just want to mention to you that I've said often, so Dogen's Enji recommended you copy, make a copy of the . He said this actually in a text that he wrote shortly before he died. And he also recommended that you make a copy, that you make a sculpture of a Buddha.

[51:52]

And about nine years before that, he vowed to make a sculpture of the Buddha himself. will be very good. I don't know how long I will live, but I vowed to make a sculpture of the Buddha. And often, I vowed to make a sculpture of the Buddha. And I still vow to make a sculpture of the Buddha. So I mentioned to you that's another way you could cultivate in the school of Buddha. Make a statue, carve a statue. or spoke to Stephanie or Buddha. Another way you could practice in order to realize the intimacy of human would be to handwrite a copy of the Lotus Sutra. But also reading a copy of the Lotus Sutra would also be things you can do, not just to put the Lotus Sutra through the straw, but an act of homage, act of offering, act of praise, Acts that open your heart.

[52:55]

Acts of dropping off body and mind. And then accommodating to be. Like here you're texting these other beings and you're appreciating their efforts. You're thanking them. You're trying to support them. Accommodating to be. And then also, All the merit of all these letters dedicate back to the Lord Buddha. These are practices to realize the japa body and mind. These are practices to open our heart to our intimacy with all the great Buddhas and bodhisattvas and all things etc. If you're intimate with the Buddhas, you're intimate with those who are intimate with everybody. That's why serving other sentient beings who feel separate from each other is opening to Buddha.

[53:58]

So sentient beings confess, I feel separate from other beings. I feel distant from Buddhas. I feel my heart sometimes closes. Confessing that, repenting that, and also accommodating and being all these like that, what did you have to do? It's over. It was suggestive. um um

[55:21]

I'm really quite aware of things that close my heart. You're quite aware, I thought, of things that close your heart. You're quite aware of the conditions under which your heart closes? Mm-hmm. What are those conditions? Well, they're anger. Could I know something? Yeah. I don't think any of it closes your heart. I think when the heart's closed, you're at risk of becoming an animal. Okay? When the heart's open. But if your heart closed with someone else's anxiety in you, then you're probably angry at them.

[56:51]

I don't think that anger causes your heart to close. I think it causes heart... It doesn't stop. No. Well, I can understand that. I mean, if you have, if your heart is open, you wouldn't get it. It's got this one. While your heart's open, you won't get any. No. Well, I think it isn't. It is in your heart, no? In your own body? No. In your own penultimate opening? It is. I don't see why I keep the feeling. Yeah. That is your heart. It's the same. It's the same. One year, when you find your heart... I think they say a closed heart is an impediment to a closed, to open heart. But really, the thing, as you can read, I mean, the traditional, the conditions for a closed heart is past carnal. So because of a past carnal, what part is closed?

[57:59]

You want to know how it's closed? We could go green, anger, and repulsion. And that kind of situation can only do conditions for future forest health. But I just felt the way the cough outside, a little too outside. And I wanted to get more intimate with him. Yes. Well, what I was kind of working up for was international . I don't know the answer, but I kind of hope to. Go ahead and ask it in. Or maybe it's not the answer. I don't know. But anyway. But, you know, these things that I was called on, had implications or frustration. Not just anger. I don't have the problem, but I have with the big, big anger and my frustration.

[59:06]

Implications. Irritation. What did you say? Frustration is not anger. Anger is one of the responses to frustration. If you try to open it, and it doesn't open, and you're so frustrated, that's not anger. That's just you have a desire to open it, and it's not, and you find it's frustrating. So you can get angry with that or not, but frustration is not the swimmer zone. It's pretty good to and the response to it, which is often anger. Irritation is also not the famous anger that people use. And we mix irritation with an irritated response to irritation. If I kick my finger in your wrist, it's hard to make you have an irritation in your skin. But that's not anger. That's irritation. But if you feel irritated, you can feel angry toward you in response to that irritation.

[60:11]

Sometimes people use irritation for the only report of irritation. So I think it's helpful of the response to irritation and irritation itself. That's it. No. To be aware of these things, however you analyze them, is what I think I find helpful. To be aware of the irritation. To be aware of whatever it is I'm doing is helpful. I agree. Or if I'm judging someone. To be aware of the irritation is helpful. I agree. When you carry not, I agree. That seems to help.

[61:19]

Essentially aware of it. Thinking that awareness is helpful helps you deal with it. Having a sense that awareness is helpful is one of the conditions to encourage awareness. Awareness is essential. You have to be aware of your shortcomings. You have to be aware of your closed heart in order to confess it. You have to be aware of others in order to pray to meet their virtue. So awareness is fundamental. Without that, we won't be able to learn. But also without that, we wouldn't have any problems either. We're worried about what we have to be mindful and aware that we're aware. Very important. I mean, yeah. Or if you've heard, if you've heard. If you've heard, it's good to be aware.

[62:20]

If you're in pain, it's good to be aware. And now when we're in pain, we're full on in pain. Now let's practice when I'm in pain. When I was a doctor, you get to open to it, yeah. And make it a gift. At the moment of being in pain, pay homage to Buddha, praise Buddha, make offerings to Buddha. You can make your pain an offering, but you can make yourself an offering. You can make your care, you can practice with your pain. practice patience with your pain, practice generosity with your pain, and make the patient and generosity offerings to Buddha. When you're in pain, you can notice the virtues and rejoice in pain.

[63:21]

Like right now, some of you may be in pain. So you can practice without pain by noticing, great, I've enjoyed seeing the madness of others. So right now, I'm in pain, and I'm rejoicing in the night with Mike, which is a momentary thing. Now you're getting me, Mike. OK. All being, including you, I'm getting you pain. Everything in the universe is getting me pain. Things develop. and how they serve. So you're into the heart of the W's, right? Well, it's a way that I think about things. It's a way to think about things. And then you're thinking about heart broken. So when we open our heart, we want to learn to open our heart to the pain.

[64:29]

Right? That's mindfulness. Yeah, it's mindfulness, the pain, but also mindfulness about will the heart open or not. If it's not open, and when it's not open to the pain, there's no hope. My heart is full feeding and it's really like slow feeding. That's quite open. Quite open and quite gentle. I am 50. I can't get away from people and physical assistance. I adore this system. It's lovely. You can apologize to someone. You can apologize for something that you created. Yeah. Oh, by the way, am I... I absorbed it all.

[65:49]

Thank you. I'm not sure, but I think it might be Jade. Um, I don't know what sounds best for me.

[67:16]

It's going to be very hard to write it for two years. Would you like it to be? Yeah. But I didn't hear teaching. And I was raised in a Christian position. I was not a very good Christian. But I was raised and teached in that culture. and then adopted by a personal child. I started to practice at some point and find that they all did the same.

[68:19]

And the more I felt the universal truth in both of them, as I saw them, I rejoiced in that. when it served me well. But recently I started to become aware that I have been unconsciously perceiving something, deluding, making a decision. Your way of thinking about Buddha, which I gradually adopted, I was more relating to the universe and the thoughts. I didn't have a name for it, and I didn't use any name. I didn't really have to put any words on it or qualities.

[69:24]

I just thought, whatever it is. It doesn't have to be named. And as the Taoists say, the unnamed is named, it's not just unnamed. So it didn't bother me. But when you were talking about Buddha, you know, in a way, as I heard God, there was restriction. And I was listening. So a lot of times when I hear your... And I'm kind of translating in my own realization of Christianity, which is not kind of that church Christianity, but kind of that between my own understanding. And it's worth time, basically, to say that the one that never stopped is still in the jail, I think, about it. Whenever we don't want to drop the

[70:29]

body and mind, one wants to invite into Buddha. To me, it's a Christian idea, you know, whenever my eyes get very busy, whenever I, so, when the clothes are separated and blocked in reality, I will use them for another look-through. I will just fill in my case, my knowledge of this. It didn't get me anywhere. But I thought it would. So... Yeah, when you close our heart, you want to get out of it. I'll get out. When you close our heart, you want to get continue to open our heart. Yeah.

[71:30]

that it would just open our heart to have you closed hearted. Well, before we even think about opening our heart, we'll not come and think about it. Well, it's so that it heals, you know. I'll become a set of the stuff that people would like to wrap around me. But that was my intention before I would even close my heart. So maybe I can devise something new that's going to fix this world. Maybe. Yeah. That would be a sound like a high-closing project. Yeah. And that's what I'm recording. So when you do that, you can press hold. We're all trying to get control of the situation again by deposting it. So anyway, that was really, you know, going kind of tense.

[72:37]

And especially when I, you know, I had to look in shopping to get to my car stopper. And I found the trail of San Francisco, Mississippi. And the last line of saying, I'm dying, was, or, it isn't dying, it's just, you know, come on. But somehow, when you were talking about Buddha, it was somewhat conflicting with the idea that the God is not divided. and a needy one that I don't even want to try to deprive or everything. I agree. I agree. So the Buddhas are not divided.

[73:37]

They're not separate Buddhas. Buddha can manifest as separate Buddhas. They can be infinite Buddhas, according to what people mean. But they're not separate. They're just responsible. They have the basic true relationship of all being. And that relationship can respond to a particular being, in particular ways, at a particular Buddha. So there's many Buddhas. It has a particular meaning. But really, fundamentally, true Buddha is just real. And it actually is related, as all things are related. So it's both buddha and buddhas. And the buddhas are not suffered. And the buddhas are not suffered from the buddha or from buddha. Yeah, there's also another thing which... And, you know, it isn't just making self-affecting about these unconscious mental formations that I was hearing and not seeing that somehow they were affecting how I relate to things.

[74:57]

I'm a . You'd think that I, you know, kind of... I didn't identify myself as being Christian, and yet it so deeply affects me on one level. I feel uncomfortable. Oh, really? I feel it's just the conversation we've had I feel it on my head. I feel like I'm losing sharp with the lower part of my body. It is, because it's really complex, and I'm talking about a concept that in the process of looking to you and seeing how these very concepts were actually blocking being completely open, or more open.

[76:17]

No, they seemed to go away, because that's what that means, to kind of confess and offer, because they were so... Yeah, but because, again, that going back, I don't know how she was having difficulty with her life, and you could do that, but to me... Yeah, probably again. Now I'm thinking kind of, too, And Mark, it isn't, it isn't, I'm really tight with their work. It's kind of like, I mean, it can actually work for, I mean, I don't know what to say. I don't know. [...] I don't want to say no, and I don't want to say no.

[77:25]

I'd like to make an actual connection with you right now. And I feel like I'd like you to ask this one thing that you could realize. Also, I'd like to know something that you have. Something about us. Actually, it's the same conversation that we just had, and we're pointing out to the disconnection. Pointing out to me, I think this conversation is important. We can disconnect. If I listen to the noise that you're speaking, I can go and look at it.

[78:30]

You can go. What about now? Right now? How are we doing now? We're all going from the basement. That's right. I feel like... I think things can't stay there. All the way. Do you hear her?

[79:32]

I'm really feeling it. What? I'm really feeling it. You're feeling it? Yeah. Do you feel like I'm altering you or something? Anyone? What? I've never been mad at her before. You've learned how to say, but you did say it, yeah.

[80:36]

Do you hear? Did you see them? Did you care what you were thinking about when you did that? There was an exchange there. We were doing it together. So I'd like to go down now. Excuse me, I'd like us to go down anyway. Would anyone care to offer something?

[82:04]

Any feedback on the parcel? OK. Thank you very much. And I just want to share how great it is for a group to be able to get together and have where I feel it and also how fragile I feel it.

[83:11]

How quickly we can let things get in the way, just like watching Barbara. I think there's compassion for that. or how it's going to be if we let things get in the way. And showing up and coming here together is a way we get things out of the way and allow ourselves to have something together, and it's a great book for that. And I'm thinking about how rich my life is and my relationship here. And you've read in the daylings, And then I did my wedding. I had great, wonderful parties at Catholic. The collection of Louie. I mean, I could name something with each of these sweet letters Tim just wrote me. They make my life. They make my life.

[84:13]

And so I came up here to give some of that back to you. And it's like that thing that helps it in some way. I missed the last thing. You know, you do it now. And that will wash itself now. And what it could do with that glue. And that will wash itself. could be repeated. Yeah, I did have a question, but... We've got... So it's kind of... It's kind of...

[85:34]

Do you feel appreciated? Do you feel appreciated? Yeah. Do you feel appreciated? Do you feel appreciated? Pardon? Do you feel appreciated? By now, do you feel appreciated? No. Do you feel appreciated by me? No. Do you feel appreciated? What can we do? Do you feel appreciated? Do you feel appreciated? Yeah, can you feel it appreciating?

[87:25]

Can you feel it appreciating? Can you feel it appreciating? Can you feel it appreciating? OK. Take one. Why was that? Tell me about that. I know that probably most of us at some point in our past have not felt appreciated. We've had moments like that. Yeah. Even the Buddha sometimes, in Shakyamuni, sometimes it's not appreciated. Well, I feel appreciated, too. I just want to check and make sure whether you feel appreciated or not. If you don't, I just want to tell you, I'm sorry if you don't feel it towards you. But just because I feel appreciation of you doesn't mean you feel appreciated.

[88:26]

So I'm just checking if I feel you appreciate me. And I wanted to check to see if you feel appreciated by me and others too, of course. And like Betty said, I may die this afternoon, so I don't have to thank you very much.

[88:49]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_80.04