This year, like other years, I vow to give attention to the teachings, the philosophical teachings of the Buddha. In particular, the central teaching of dependent co-arising. Sometimes dependent cauterizing is also glossed as causation and as causality. Sometimes as a process of cause and effect and sometimes the principle of the process of cause and effect.

[01:11]

We just chanted something like, I vow from this life on through our countless lives to hear the true Dharma. I could also say to see the true Dharma. And that upon hearing it or seeing it, no doubt will arise in us, nor will we lack in faith. In faith in what? In the true Dharma. Prior to hearing the true Dharma, we may have a little bit of doubt. But upon actually hearing the true Dharma and seeing the true Dharma, then our faith will be not lacking. In other words, from there on, we would be able to act from the hearing of the Dharma consistently.

[02:26]

And that, upon meeting it, we will renounce worldly affairs. And worldly affairs, one way to talk about worldly affairs is worldly affairs are the when we are not hearing the true Dharma. or when we don't see the true Dharma, then the way we act is a worldly affair. When we see the true Dharma, then what we do is Dharma practice. So, to some extent, maybe, we do not hear the true Dharma all the time, and then when we don't hear it, our activity is a worldly affair. Another way I put it during the intensive, which we just did, was that worldly affairs are actions which are half-hearted. And that when we hear the true Dharma, our action becomes wholehearted.

[03:32]

So, yeah. And what I'm emphasizing now is that the true dharma is the dharma of the Buddha is the teaching of dependent co-arising. It's the teaching of dependent co-arising and it is dependent co-arising itself. The Buddha's teaching is actually dependently co-arising. The Buddha is drawing our attention. The Buddha discovered this. discovered this law of dependent core rising. And I just make a big parenthesis right now, which I'll go into more detail on the rest of my life. Laws are not the way things always are, but the way things usually are. Probably are.

[04:36]

And the Buddha said this is the way they usually are, but they won't always be that way necessarily. They're just the way they are most of the time. I recommend you listen to that. So the law of dependent co-arising is that everything's arising mutually. That we're arising together. that we mutually depend on each other for our existence. That's part of the meaning of dependent co-arising. Another part of the teaching of co-arising is that based on ignorance, ignorance dependently co-arises with suffering. Suffering dependently co-arises with ignorance.

[05:38]

Ignorance and suffering are kind of like partners. They have mutual interests. Ignorance of what? Dharma. Ignorance of what Dharma? ignorance of dependent co-arising. Ignoring dependent co-arising, depending on ignoring dependent co-arising, there is the arising of ignorance. With the arising of ignorance, there can be the arising of suffering. But I would just, again, parenthetically mention that Buddha doesn't say that absolutely all the time, whenever there's ignorance of dependent core arising, that there's suffering.

[06:39]

But anyway, when suffering arises, it arises in that kind of dependence with ignoring interdependence. And then it also seems like when there's suffering, That seems to bring... Yeah, when there's suffering, that seems to bring ignorance along with it. Hey, I'm suffering. I don't know the truth. I've got to ignore the truth because that's what I usually do when I'm suffering. But then the suffering gets reproduced again with the ignoring of the pentacle arising. that depending on ignorance, suffering arises. Maybe that is part of studying the true dharma. Even though you don't necessarily see it yet, you hear about the teaching that ignoring inner dependence, suffering, fear, trying to control, and so on.

[07:48]

Hearing that teaching, then you say, well, what should I pay attention to? Well, pay attention to that teaching. But if I'm ignoring, what should I pay attention to? Pay attention to your ignoring. Open to that or ignoring interdependence. We've heard the teaching and we're paying attention to the teaching. But the teaching is saying that our discomfort has to do with the fact that we're not fully opening to the reality, to the truth of interdependence. So we're also opening to that we haven't really renounced this ignorance. Learning how to pay attention to ignorance, learning how to pay attention to delusion is a skill which seems to be helpful in order to hear the truth.

[09:20]

If you see a delusion and don't open to it being a delusion, If you see a delusion but are closed to its deluded quality, if you see ignorance, namely you see how things are not interdependent, can you see that? So you can see the suffering that comes with it. Opening to the suffering that comes with ignoring interdependence, that openness to that also opens to interdependence and freedom from suffering. And some people might say, I would be willing to open to interdependence and suffering. Well, good. Are you willing to open to suffering and ignorance of interdependence? No. I don't want to open to that, even though that's what I've got right now. Okay, well, let us know when you are ready to open to ignorance, delusion, and suffering.

[10:29]

And then we will help you. Because actually learning how, learning how to open to delusion and ignorance and suffering is something which is learned through group activity. If the thought arises in you, I would like to learn how to be aware that I'm ignorant and suffering. I would like to learn how to be aware of my suffering and open to it so I could open to its causes and conditions. And in opening to my suffering, to my ignorance, my delusion, I could also open to the true Dharma. And I... through group activity. For example, what's happening here could be seen as group activity right now. And it's in this kind of situations, group activity situations, where we learn how to learn.

[11:41]

We actually also learn in group situations how to not learn how to learn. We also learn how to be deluded in group situations, too. I'm doing really well. I don't feel a need for more of that, although I'm going to get what I don't need, what I feel a lack of need for. I really do need more when it comes, obviously. So we need to enter group practice through which we will be able to meditate on delusion and ignorance and suffering in order to meditate on the end of ignorance and the opening of our eyes to the true dharma of interdependence.

[12:52]

And again, ignorance and delusion are easy to find. That's what you see right now. And the suffering also seems to be fairly easy for people to find these days too. Most of us can find it quite easily. And then we've found it, now how to open to it. And also Well, this is how to open to it, how to open to the suffering. We see other people suffering, and when we see other people suffering, sometimes we feel pain. The pain we feel when we see other people suffering is good pain. It's compassion. It comes because of your interdependence and love for them. That's good pain. But still, now that you feel the pain of their pain, we need to open to it.

[14:02]

Open to it. Be patient with it. The pain we feel when we see all the other people and animals and plants suffering. We need to do that in order to... Our ignorance... Because again, if we close our body and mind to the pain we feel, especially the pain we feel of other people suffering, which is a good pain, we really should open to that. That's opening to compassion. That's good. But we close to this good pain often. So we need to open to that, open to it. That's patience, to have the capacity to feel the pain of compassion. And also, of course, be gracious with it and practice giving with it. So the patience and the giving will help us about the pains we're feeling, the pains we're seeing and the pain we feel from the pains we're seeing.

[15:07]

This will help us get warmed up to meditate on the true Dharma, to receive and hear the true Dharma, to stop ignoring it. So there's a teaching that the way of the sentient being is to ignore the pinnacle arising, to ignore the true Dharma and to suffer. The way of the Buddha is to not ignore the true Dharma. And in this not ignoring true Dharma, in that mode, suffering is relieved. Another way I was going to talk about tomorrow at Green Gulch is the way of ignoring dependent co-arising of sentient beings, ignoring dependent co-arising, ignoring the Dharma, is the way, is the path of self-improvement and self-help.

[16:21]

It's the way of sentient beings. Improve the self, help the self, and ignore independence and suffer. The Buddha way is to open to dependence and help others. Helping others comes with hearing the Tiradharma. And to learn the Buddha way is how we are now. And how we are now is that more or less we're ignorant and deluded and suffering. We feel pain from our own ignorance and we feel I wouldn't say it's a bad pain but it's not a good pain. And we feel pain of other people's suffering which is a good pain.

[17:29]

Hopefully we feel that And another reason why, in order to learn in this milieu of being a sentient being, through group practice, through group activity. We need Sangha in order to realize Dharma and Buddha. in order to be patient and generous in a world of interdependence and constant change, which we see as quite stable and controllable.

[18:39]

Yeah, not completely interdependent. So the world is going right ahead and changing and independently co-arising. We're not stopping that. But if we ignore it, that ignorance creates suffering in the world. So we need help to face the suffering that comes from closing to the Dharma. we need help from each other we need to help each other in order to receive each other's help and we need to be we need and we need to be generous and we need to help others be generous and patient and we need others to help us be generous and patient in order to learn to be generous and patient in order to have in order to realize the knowledge the knowledge of patience and generosity We realize that as a group, through a group practice.

[19:47]

Causation is not a thing. The true Dharma is not a thing. It's life itself. Life itself is not a thing. But living beings, perfectly good living beings who are part of life itself, imagine that life is a thing and that they are things. Life allows people to be deluded. So that we have. making life into a thing, making causation into a thing, making the Dharma into a thing, making a Buddha into a thing, making sentient beings into things, making those who make things into things, things. I should say make beings, yeah, make beings who make beings into things, making them things. So someone recently asked me, how do you study causation?

[21:15]

And I was acting that she would like to find some way to study causation. Like, where do you look to study causation? How can you study it? I mean, where's the causation? Because you can't see causation. You can barely... You can see things changing to some extent. What is it? Saturday follows Friday, and you can watch and see if Sunday comes. You can see the date changing. And you can maybe see, even if you could open even more, which you can, with the help of your friends, you can open more, see more change than you see now, open more to how radical it is than you've been able to open to before. But still you can't, and you can actually see it. We can actually see things changing more than we usually see things changing.

[22:17]

Partly we're more in touch with the more rapid and rich process of change than we ordinarily choose to open to consciously or conceptually. But even there you can't see causation because causation is not a piece of . So how do we know causation? Because you can't see it. David Hume said, causation is a superstition. People make it up because in the face of seeing constant change, they make up causation to hold the world together with that idea. But the Buddha doesn't agree with that. You can't understand causation. The Buddha has knowledge of causation. Don't get the knowledge of causation by your own consciousness, by your own thinking.

[23:26]

You get it by practicing together with a group, in a group. The group activity realizes the knowledge of causation, realizes the true Dharma. Individually, do not realize the true Dharma. And there are no individuals except for groups. the group is first and then you can individuals was we think individuals are first I should say we I see some people do actually this is also called the imperial did the empiricist follow fallacy for the folly and the empiricist has to think that the parts precede the whole except holes Does that make sense? They wouldn't be a part unless they were a part of something.

[24:30]

But we do see parts of wholes. In fact, there is a knowledge and we see parts of it. And you can see the parts, but you can't see the whole. You can actually see the parts with your eyes and with your tongue. You can taste the parts. You can touch the parts. You can have an empirical experience. You can experience parts. But they're parts of a whole, and the whole was there before the parts. But our individual consciousness cannot know the whole. The whole is causation, is the true Dharma. Who knows that? Who knows the whole? The whole is known by a group. who practice together and encourage each other to open to their delusion and open to their pains and practice patience and giving with the pain of their delusions. And that kind of activity gives rise to knowledge of the true Dharma.

[25:38]

So it would be possible, perhaps, today, here, that the knowledge, the actual knowledge of the true Dharma, would arise dependent on our group practice of attending to our delusions, our ignorance, and our pain, and being patient and generous. Individuals in the group could also say, I see, I see, I hear, I understand. I'm willing to give up worldly affairs. Individuals can talk like that because they have opened up to the knowledge which the group makes possible. Our practice together realizes a knowledge which all of us can enjoy. And it makes the knowledge be open and patient and generous, which none of us came up with on our own, but all of us together can realize and enjoy.

[26:55]

What I'm saying, you are supporting me to say, I'm talking about what I've heard is the central teaching of the Buddha, dependent co-arising, which is also emptiness, the ultimate meaning of all events. But emptiness is understood in terms of dependent core rising. Dependent core rising is also self. But non-self is understood in terms of dependent core rising. And non-self is also a dependent core rising. And dependent core rising is an emptiness. It's empty. It's ungraspable. Wholeness. of the universe is an emptiness, is ungraspable. But because of the wholeness and emptiness of the universe, the universe is possible and so are we.

[28:10]

And if we understand this, we will then live a life of helping others. We will live a life of helping others deal with their issues around helping themselves. will help others who do not see dependent core rising, who are therefore into self-improvement. We will joyfully help them join the group practice of understanding, the practice of helping others. Did I pass this calligraphy out here last time we had one day sitting? Time before? Have you seen this calligraphy before? But I'm not sure if it was here or in Green Gulch in a Monday session.

[29:11]

Oh, okay. It might have been in a Monday session. Well... What does it say? This says, deep faith in cause and effect. The vertical lines, four characters. The top character... The top character is a character which means deep. This means deep. The next character means faith. And the character for faith has two parts made of two other characters. The character on the right side is a person. You could say even a human person. The character on the left is character which means word. So faith, this character means faith, but it means faith in a word.

[30:13]

The word, in this situation, the words of the Buddha, the words, for example, the word Sangha, the word Buddha, the word dependent colorizing, it's to use certain words as the basis for your practice. of faith. Faith in what? Well, faith called in effect in the teaching of the Pentacle Rising. I say that this faith is the central faith of the Buddha Dharma, and this is the central faith of Dogen Zenji. This one here? And the next one means fruit, for effect. The square is actually a square all by itself. It means mouth. The square by itself means mouth.

[31:14]

Mouth. They had square mouths in China, apparently. The character inside the square, we see other ways, so it's curious that it's bound in that square. Yeah, the character inside is character, which means great. So it's great in a mouth is a character for cause. So anyway, this is the slogan of this year's practice at No Abode and other places. And if you'd like one of these, you may receive it as a gift. This phrase how often it appears in Asian Dharma practice. But it's the name of one of the fascicles in the ancestor Dogen's Treasury of Two Dharma Eyes, one of his fascicles that he wrote.

[32:17]

And it's a fascicle in which there's a story about One of our great Zen ancestors, Bajong Waihai, was giving talks to his monks. And oftentimes when he gave talks, the old man who sat in the back of the hall, who came to the talks and sat in the back of the hall, and when the monks dispersed, the old man dispersed. And this happened quite a few times. And one day, after the monks dispersed, the old man stayed. And he came up to Bai Zhang afterwards and he said, Teacher Bai Zhang, I'm not a human being. I'm a fox spirit. I used to be the head monk of this monastery a long time ago.

[33:19]

I was Bai Zhang before you were Bai Zhang. And a monk came and asked me, a student, Dharma student came and asked me, does the greatly cultivated being fall into cause and effect or not fall into cause and effect? Does he fall or not fall? And I said, not fall. As a result of which, I was reborn 500 times as a fox spirit. Master, please give me a turning word. Please turn the word. I said, does not fall, and got in big trouble. Now what do you say? So the teacher said, ask me again. So the old man said, does the great fall or not fall into cause and effect?

[34:24]

And Bai Zhan said, does not ignore cause and effect. does not obscure cause and effect, is not blind to cause and effect. I looked up the character and I was surprised to see one of the first meanings was colorblind in the Japanese dictionary. Anyway, a greatly cultivated person, we don't say that they do not fall into cause and effect. We hope they don't, but we don't say they don't. We don't say they do fall into cause and effect. Well, what's the point of practice if you're going to fall into cause and effect? So to say they do fall into cause and effect, you might not get in big trouble for that, but you might. Byron didn't say they don't fall into cause and effect. He didn't say they do fall into cause and effect. They're not blind to it. or even if you look and you don't see cause and effect, it's obscured, at least you know that this is an obscured version of it.

[35:35]

The version we have of Dharma, although obscured, the nice thing about it being obscured is you can get a hold of the obscured version. But we know now, don't we, that what we see is what we call through a glass darkly. We see an obscured version, but this version is also a door to the truth. We know we can't see causation with our eyes, but we know that by practicing together we will realize the full knowledge of dependent core arising. This is called deep faith in cause and effect. The faith that if we study cause and effect, we will understand it. But not by ourselves. We must do it together. Through our lives together. None of us is so great a meditator that we will by ourselves understand this Dharma. But our practice is the understanding of it.

[36:42]

And the more we practice together, remembering the teaching together, opening to our ignorance and our suffering together, the more the conditions are becoming readied for the realization of this knowledge. And when the man heard the teacher say, does not ignore cause and effect, he was released. from the cause and effect to have fallen into for the results of what he did. He was released. He was released into what? Into being able to meditate on cause and effect rather than falling into cause and effect because he said that the great people do not fall into cause and effect. Yes, you may say something.

[38:03]

I don't know if it's really far out, but I was thinking of, there was this fly desperately trying to get out through a window in my house, and I made a lot of effort for it to eventually, by opening several windows and see it... And it occurred to me that that fly has no idea how it got up. It's so... Yeah, it might not even have had the idea that it got out of prison. Or that it got out of prison. No. So it's like the universe... As a matter of fact, maybe it didn't get out of prison. Maybe it went into a different prison from your house. It was a change. It was a change. And the fly probably did notice the change. It probably did.

[39:03]

It looked very happy. It actually was happy. It was happy. Yeah, it was very happy. It actually came over here and told me about you. It was very happy. So the whole universe was there. That's right. To allow that change. It was. Thanks for practicing with the fly. Thanks, Fred. And this place is one big fly trap. So, you know, open the doors and windows when you have a chance because a lot of flies in here are trying to get out. And a bunch of others are trying to get in. Very difficult situation we have here. So when you guys leave here, make sure that the flies get out with you, okay? So are you ready for me to respond to your question, Elizabeth?

[40:07]

Yes. Okay. Is deep faith receiving everything that happens no matter what I get? Mm-hmm. And I see a trap for myself in that of self-improvement, of wanting to be a person who's like that. Yeah, so there's a welcoming of everything as a gift, and then one of the gifts that comes is an impulse to self-imprisonment. So then you welcome that, and you study that, and you notice that you're deluded about that, that you think it's a thing. You think this impulse for self-imprisonment, you think, oh, by the way, I'm a thing too, which I want to improve this thing called me. So you start to see how deluded about improvement in yourself. But that comes because you welcomed this impulse as a gift. It's a Dharma gift.

[41:10]

And then you see, oh yeah, I don't really see that this is... I think it's a thing by itself, not life itself. And I notice that there's some fear around it. Fear that I won't get improvement. Fear that somebody might notice I'm into improvement. Some Zen student might find out. that I'm into self-improvement and turn me in to the Dharma police. There's a lot of possibilities here. And this is what comes with delusion. And I've got it right here. And because I saw it as a gift, I could see it as delusion. But when you don't see it as a gift, you think it's just a bad thing, not a delusion. You think it's really and truly a bad thing. whatever, including the impulse for self-improvement. You could think that's bad. Yeah. Self-improvement is a gift. Yes? I don't understand what the problem is with him saying a highly cultivated person does fall into... You don't see what the problem with that would be?

[42:24]

No. Does or does not? Does. He said he didn't. He got in trouble for saying he didn't. Right. And I can understand that. And the statue can understand. But you can't understand the problem of saying he didn't. Right? Correct. Yeah. Well, now if he said an uncultivated person falls into cause and effect, you wouldn't understand the problem in that either, would you? No. No. Obviously, uncultivated people do fall into cause and effect. By not paying attention to it, which is a sentient being. Sentient beings ignore cause and effect, so they do fall into it. Because they ignore it. But if you don't ignore it, you don't fall into it, really. But to say you don't fall into it is too much.

[43:24]

How so? Because if you're studying it, you might fall into it just to go visit some people. In fact, bodhisattvas do vow to fall into it if it's helpful. They willingly say, okay, what do I have to do to go visit these people who have fallen because they're not paying attention? Well, you have to stop paying attention, too, for just a little while. And after you enter through falling for not paying attention, then you are vowed to help them, plus your long practice of paying attention will reassert itself. It's as simple as that. Now you understand, don't you? I still have a question. Fine. I still have a thread. I'll let you off this time. You will. Do you understand completely? Wasn't that nice and simple?

[44:29]

Cultivated people can fall into cause and effect. But if you say they don't, you can get in big trouble for that. They themselves, if they don't, they won't get in trouble for that because the way they don't is by studying cause and effect. That's how they don't. But they're studying cause and effect. They're not like trying not to study cause and effect. They're not into that. They're completely open to falling into cause and effect and not falling into cause and effect because their agenda is neither. Their agenda is to get people to study cause and effect, to have deep faith in it. Faith in somebody is different than falling into them or not falling into them. You used the word paying attention to it. So how do you do that? Well, like I said earlier, somebody says, how do you study causation?

[45:36]

Well, you can't see it. So how do you study something you can't see? How do you open to something that you can't see? Another example is how do you study that everybody's a gift to you? How do you study that you're a gift to everybody? How do you study the mutuality of all of our worthy... How do you study that? Yeah, open to it. Open to it. Because, you know, what direction, which direction is it? Open to it. And how do you open... And where do you open to? We can't really see where to open to it. Because where, you know, where would you open? Well, opening to what you can easily see whether you're open to or not. Namely, pain and fear, which is connected to your sense that somebody's separate from you and that you don't have mutual interests with people. That you don't have mutual... wholesome agendas that are and are supporting in each other.

[46:42]

Okay? That is hard to see sometimes when people are fighting. So what can you open to? Well, open to the fighting. But this opening to the fighting means open to some little bit of a problem. You feel kind of uncomfortable that people seem to be opposing you or antagonistic towards you. There's a problem there. If you close to that physical problem, then you close to the non-opposition and the non-entanglement and the mutuality. You close to that. Got to open the body and mind. Group thing by which this knowledge will be realized. And we know already that there's some resistance to opening to some things, right? Well, that's where to work. And also realize it's not by your own power that you're going to pull this to all this misery and fear and violence.

[47:44]

But with the help, but by helping others to do so, they will help you do so. And by you doing it, that will help others. ...of opening to the things we already are not open to. We will open to the things which we have not been open to. And therefore, there's no room for them to, like, land. And again, we don't make the space by ourselves. We've got to get a whole bunch of other people to make space, because this is a... ...that we're making space for. That's why we need the whole group to do this. Does that make, like, perfect sense? Yeah. It's very clear, isn't it? Yes. Oh, excuse me. Let me just ask Timo, because he looks terribly worried. This fall into makes me look like that. And the word fall into, would you say, or could I say instead, like, are...

[48:54]

Fooled by cause and effect or fooled by not substantiating cause and effect. Is that what the fall into is? Well, the first part's pretty clear. Substantiating cause and effect is the same as falling into it, yeah. And not substantiating, I don't know what you mean by not substantiating, but anyway, substantiating, making cause and effects a solid thing, that's the same as falling into it. So, that's the same as obscuring it. Make it into a little package. Which we do. Our minds make the world into little packages. We sculpt the world into little concepts so we can get a hold of the world. But that means that by that method we fall into cause and effect, usually. You don't have to.

[49:58]

If you have a sculpted version, this is an obscured version, then you don't necessarily fall into it. This is substantiated here, but this is a delusion. I don't believe this delusion. But to believe the substantiation, then it's the same as falling. And of course you can go to the other extreme and substantiate that. Substantiating, non-substantiating is also off the track, but it's a different kind of off the track than the other kind of off the track. It's a worse kind of off the track. So falling into cause and effect does not mean that they are not dependent on substantiating? No. The falling is a dependent core arising. The person who is falling is a dependent core arising. So the falling does not come from being inside the law or being part of the law of cause and effect? No, you are inside the law of cause and effect.

[51:01]

Yeah. But it's an illusion. You're not really falling. The falling is not real. What's real is the cause and effect. The falling is like cause and effect made into a thing called falling. But cause and effect is not really a thing. It's our life, and our life is not a thing. It's the way we're living, and you can't get a hold of that or make that into a thing. Fortunately. Yes? It seems that Yeah. No, he didn't. He didn't, right. Right. And everybody else went with him. You know, everybody's connected to his suffering. Pardon?

[52:02]

Well, you get special treatment when you get to be a teacher. So he was the teacher. So he got to, because he was a teacher, he got to do this real special trip. I thought it was because he was ignorant. It was because he was ignorant, but he was ignorant in the position of being a teacher of enlightenment. He was supposed to be teaching ignorance, and so he got to be this special example. for all of us for centuries. So you get to play a special role when you sit on the teacher's seat, when you make mistakes, you know. Like, you know, a teacher could say, I made this one little mistake and everybody jumped on me. Well, you were the teacher. You know, somebody else, like, you know, I don't know where, and people wouldn't even notice. Like, if a teacher is rude to somebody, it's like temple news, you know?

[53:10]

It's like it gets in the Dharma newspaper. Such and such a teacher was rude to someone. It's a big deal. Whereas some other people, pro football was rude to a player, other players. Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be really rude before it gets to be in the news. Like, you know, break their back or something. So, when you sit in a teacher's position where you're supposed to be exemplifying, studying the Dharma, the pentacle arising, and then you just flip into some extreme position, then it's a big, big deal. That's why some people say, I don't want to sit in that seat, because if I make a mistake, there'll be big consequences. Okay. Let us know when you do. And we don't offer the seat the moment they walk in the door. We offered to them, like the Shiso, we had Shiso training, you know. We said the Shiso gets to sit in the seat next to the teacher and share the responsibility.

[54:11]

And Shiso says, you know, this is too much for me. We call the Shiso head monk, and this guy was the head monk. So it's, you know, it's too much. Okay, okay, okay, okay. If you say it enough times, you don't have to do it. And then later, maybe you will. as part of your evolution. You'll sit in that seat where if you make the same mistake that somebody else made, it would be a big problem. It would be nothing. Because they aren't sitting in the seat. We should be stricter with the more advanced student. Everybody's, you know, a child from Buddha's perspective, but still, the older children are stricter with than the younger children. But they're all children, and the strictness should be beneficial. So in the end, it was beneficial. In the end, this guy served a great purpose in the history of Buddhism.

[55:15]

He played a great part. And he became something really great. We don't know exactly. We can make up a story of what he did next. Yes, Homo. Interesting, as we were doing the walk today, I had this thought coming to me. I was watching. if there were children walking, there's always this joy and beauty of their natural me, you know, it doesn't matter how they walk or if it's not perfect. And that what struck me was that this thought of a wish for me to be the master of imperfection, not to be this master of perfection, but to be the master of imperfection. Yeah, that's a good attitude. Yeah. By mastering imperfection, you become natural. Like I just found this little piece of paper in one of my books recently.

[56:17]

It said, SR, and for Suzuki Roshi, SR, we become natural through discipline. Through what? Through discipline. We become natural by being formal. Like some people have maybe gone on the porch and started, you know, the whatever, you know. Fine. Maybe that is natural. But maybe not. Maybe actually that's their habit, is to do that dance on the steps, you know. But the Zen training way is by formally walking, you discover your natural self. And your formal way of walking is mastering, disciplining imperfection. Any form. It can be any form. Use that form. That form is a medium through which you can be aware of your imperfection. And by mastering how to be relaxed and playful with it.

[57:23]

And then, like this poem, you know, by one of our...Dogan's main student. Forty years of walking in Chinese fashion. Formally, like this. Forty years. No, no. Bestial. Actually, this is even better for you. Most bestial of humans am I. Most imperfect, our great ancestor says, am I. Forty years of walking in Chinese fashion, disciplining this bestial beast by walking in Chinese fashion. Today, I touch my nose anew. Maybe he, you know, had some mucus dripping. Going to clean his nose. Finally, he found this naturalness. So we are beasts, but if we discipline ourselves together, we can become really natural and free and, you know, wholehearted.

[58:38]

That's the theory of the practice which you are all giving your lives to. Thank you very much. May our intention fully extend to every being and place with the truth

[59:09]

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