Once I had a secret love that lived inside the heart of me. All too soon that secret love became impatient to be free. So I told a friendly star The way that dreamers often do. Just how wonderful you are. And why I'm so in love with you. Now I shouted from the highest hill. Even told the golden doubt. Now my heart's an open door.

[01:10]

My secret love's no secret anymore. I'm thinking about Edith Piaf and ritual. And I would say, I just say that maybe early 20th century, late 19th century anthropologists and other students of human culture had a view of ritual and ceremony as a way that cultural beliefs and values could be communicated within a community, within a society, within a culture.

[02:28]

So I think again of Edith Piaf, you know, when she sang to some extent she was communicating French or human cultural values and beliefs. It's part of her function as a singer was to do that kind of thing. In that sense, you could see her singing as a ritual in French society. But now more recently, students of ritual have now what's called a performance model of ritual. And they recognize that one function of ritual is to communicate cultural, social, communal values and beliefs. But there's another function which I think is closer to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the conveying of values too, but I'm talking about more the performance aspect in the sense that the performance of the ritual changes the subjective experience of the performer.

[03:51]

and the performers come to embody the value which they might be performing or maybe not even be talking about the value but manifesting it in their body and voice in the performance without even mentioning it. So you can actually... So, for example, we can sit, do the ritual of sitting, wherein you can imagine that you are performing the posture of a Buddha.

[04:57]

you're performing, you're doing a ritual performance of Buddhahood when you sit and that you actually come to embody the Buddha even though the form, even though your bodily form doesn't actually reach what Buddha is because Buddha is not an entity and your body isn't either and yet you are realizing it. You can realize it. And you can realize it because it's not an entity. And you're not an entity. So you can imaginatively give yourself to this performance through a form which doesn't reach the thing which you're realizing. And as you perform it over and over, you become a different kind of a person, too. you become a person of the ritual, which is not a person.

[06:02]

It's a ritual. You become a ritual. But that's not much of a person. But it is a person. It's just not an entity person. And that's what you're trying to embody. So, in that sense, these rituals are the essence of the Dharma. which doesn't have an essence. And while I was talking to you, an image came to mind which I mentioned to some people recently. This robe I'm wearing is about about a foot and a half by a foot, the square part. And we have other ones that are about maybe five feet long and four feet wide that wrap all the way around the body. This is a traditional Buddhist clothing.

[07:06]

And one time we had a ceremony at Zen Center when Suzuki Roshi was still alive and all the people he had ordained who were at Zen Center got new robes. they were made, all the priests got a new set of robes, a new robe made for them according to the traditional way of making robes. The robes we had before were made in a non-traditional way. So a teacher came from Japan, a female teacher, a female Zen teacher came and taught us how to make the robes and they made them and then there was a ceremony where Sri Guruji gave the robes to his priests. And I think after the ceremony was over, we were up in Suzuki Roshi's room and we asked Suzuki Roshi, well, how do you put this robe on? Put it on in a different way. How do you put it on? And he got up and walked away. And then we asked Kadagiri Roshi, who was there too, how do you put it on?

[08:09]

And he started to explain. But sometimes, you know, he wasn't a native English speaker, so sometimes it was difficult for him to explain things. And so he was struggling to explain. And then someone noticed that Suzuki Roshi was over in the corner putting a robe on. Or someone might say, what's Zen about? And then Sukershi gets up and walks away. And you notice he goes over and sits down and faces the wall. And now I'm going to introduce something which is maybe some of you may find a little troubling but I still want to offer you the idea that the historical Buddha who lived in India in our historical records about 2,500 years ago

[10:31]

I proposed to you that that person... Well, before I tell you that story, I want to go back to Edith Piaf. So part of Edith Piaf was she was singing in the sense of conveying cultural values and cultural beliefs, some of which she herself might have been holding. and wishing to communicate. But the other part of Edith Piaf was more this performance style where she just became these values when she was singing. So Carolyn suggested maybe Edith Piaf was enlightened but I feel more like She may have been, but that her singing was, although Edith Piaf might have been enlightened, her singing might have been enlightenment. Her singing might have been a thing which she was doing because the people of France were supporting her to do it and they were supporting her to do it because she was doing it for them that the relationship between the giving and receiving between her and the French people that that was enlightenment I don't know if she was enlightened by that enlightenment but I think her singing you could see was an enlightenment experience for the country

[12:01]

a source of light for the whole country and for even some rest of the world too but certainly for the French people she was a source of light a source of encouragement a source of truth they were demonstrating in their relationship what she could do because of them and what they could experience because of them supporting her to sing the way she did for them That's more like enlightenment, this mutual giving and receiving through the voice, through the ritual. So in that sense she was like performing the relationship which the French people want and all people want. So in some sense, in a somewhat minor way she was conveying values But in this other way, she was performing the value with the people because the people had to be listening for it to be what it was.

[13:11]

Yes? I have a question. Can enlightenment then be spontaneous? Can it be short-term, between people? Again, the word spontaneous does not mean without causes. There's no phenomena, including enlightenment, that exist without causes, without conditions. But the word spontaneous means that what occurs, it occurs without any external causation. So in some sense, yeah. So this gets into causation. You brought the word up, spontaneous. And maybe I'll set that aside for the moment, if you want to come back to it. But causation, spontaneous, doesn't mean without cause.

[14:14]

So if you want to change your question to a simpler one, and we get into the issue of spontaneity later, you could say, if enlightenment is a dependent co-arising, is it impermanent? That's a simpler question. And more simply for me to say, yes, it is impermanent. So enlightenment, if it exists at all, the only way things exist is interdependently. There's nothing that exists any other way. So enlightenment too, even though it's very important in our tradition, it's the point of the tradition, it's something that depends on conditions, and those conditions depend on conditions, so they're impermanent, and so the enlightenment depends on things which are impermanent, so it's impermanent too. And also, if enlightenment is helping others, then helping others is impermanent. Now it can be impermanent, like right now, there can be an impermanent moment of helping others, but that impermanence doesn't mean that it's stuck in the present.

[15:22]

The effects of enlightenment can pervade the past and future too, in an impermanent way. So we can enact enlightenment here. We can have a meeting here. of mutually giving to each other with no attachment, of being totally devoted to each other, of giving ourselves to each other completely with no clinging. And actually giving ourselves to each other completely means no clinging. But some people think that they can not cling without giving themselves. And I would say, no, no. If you don't give yourself to others, you're clinging. You're holding on to yourself. The only way you can not attach to somebody is to give yourself completely to them. Otherwise, you're attached to them. You may feel like you're trying to get rid of them and don't want anything to do with them, but that's because you're attached to them.

[16:24]

And of course, if you're trying to keep them, that would also be because you're attached to them. But when you give yourself completely to them, you realize they give themselves completely to you. Complete giving to each other, that's enlightenment. Just like Edith Piaf singing to the French people and the French people listening to her. We're listening right back at you, Edie. We're listening to you as much as you're singing to us. That kind of thing. That is impermanent. And then, maybe again, another one. And then another one. Boop. Maybe several minutes of it. Boop. And then she stops singing. And the French people are lost. And then she sings again. And they find again enlightenment. And that enlightenment can illuminate people. Conscious beings can be illuminated by enlightenment.

[17:26]

But the consciousnesses which are illuminated can't reach the enlightenment. My consciousness cannot reach the mutual giving between us. What I think our giving is, and what you think our giving is, isn't the way we're giving to each other. The way we're giving to each other is impermanent. And that's why we have to keep doing the ritual over and over again and again because when we stop, we slip back into like separate existences because that's our habit. Okay? So you didn't... I let you not come up? It's the last time for you. So don't think you can follow his example. If anybody wants to come up, they can come up. I'm talking about anybody.

[18:30]

You want to come up? Leon, come up. I didn't really mean do you want to. I meant, come on, Leon. The question I was asking was, I didn't know if you finished. Let's try in places, shall we? Sure. Thank you. It was a simple question and was just wondering if you'd finished the thought on Edith Piaf and when you were describing what she was doing for the French people. And I thought there was still more to that story when you addressed his question. You thought there was more to the story?

[19:36]

I thought there was something hanging there. Do you have any sense of what it might have been? No, I don't. But I do have something to say about Yudhpia and how she sings and her, the enlightenment of the French people. Go ahead. Enlightening of the French people. That I experienced that from her. And I don't speak French. I really don't have an idea. what she's saying. You were French in a past life. Perhaps, that's why this fits in here. You don't have to speak French to communicate with French people. I found that to be true. But you do have to eat with them. I'd like to do that. That's their enlightenment, eating together.

[20:38]

Maybe something more. Maybe something more. What? The joy of life. The joy of life, yeah. This feels OK up here. I don't think so. This is a ritual of something. The driver and the driven. How many of you heard the story about the last pope that I met?

[21:56]

How many of you heard that story? In this life? Yeah, in this life I met the previous pope in this life. Did I tell you that story? No? Well, this arrangement reminded me of the story. So, in 1987 I was invited to go and meet the Pope down in Carmel. He's going to the Carmel Mission as part of the part of the process of canonizing Hunipiserocera So there was this big audience there and they invited Protestant bishops and one Buddhist priest, me, to meet the Pope.

[23:02]

Some of you have seen the picture of me meeting the Pope at Noh Boat. That's the occasion. There's a picture of me meeting the Pope there. twenty two years ago and uh... so uh... yeah so that was i met him and i really liked him uh... nice really nice vibe and i particularly liked his attendants who were all bishops his attendants are bishops the the the feeling of the he had a very nice warm feeling but the bishops that were attending him had they really felt like yogis they they really felt like they practiced And I don't mean to be disrespectful of the Protestant bishops, but they didn't feel physically like their practice was as rigorous as yogic as these bishops. They seemed more like college professors. They were very well-educated theologian type of guys to be in charge of these various religions.

[24:08]

the Catholic bishops had a different feeling. I really liked them. And also I liked the feeling of Clint Eastwood was there. He's a mayor at that time of Carmel. And so he was there too. So it was a very nice event. And then after that, and he gave a talk at the racetrack, Laguna Seca racetrack. He gave a talk there. And then he went to Montana, which is not a hotbed of Catholicism, but anyway... He went there because I guess there is, I think maybe there is a cathedral there somehow in Montana. And Montana, as you know, is a very big state and it has a population about the same size as San Francisco. Not the Bay Area, just the city of San Francisco. I think actually Montana is the same size as Japan. I think. In square miles, yeah. but has a population of a small city in Japan.

[25:10]

So anyway, and they also don't, in those days, and I think they still don't have a speed limit, really. So he, so the Pope was going someplace in his limousine and he was driving and he mentioned to the driver, that's where I got, driver in the driven, you got that? so here's the Pope and I'm the driver and the Pope says you know before I was Pope I used to actually like to drive some but now of course I don't get a chance to drive anymore and the and the the chauffeur said well we're out in the middle of nowhere you could drive for a while So they changed seats. Would you face that way, please?

[26:12]

Sit down, please. Sir, Your Holiness, please sit down. Would you like something to sit on, Your Holiness? Here, here, here. There you go. Could I have something taller? Yeah. There you go. Like a throne? Yes. There you go. That's much better. So this is the original enthronement of the Pope in the limousine. Maybe we should take this off, sir. No, maybe back on. And you can use this just in case there's any interviews in this company. So we're driving along. So I get in the back seat. And we're driving along. And even there's no speed limit, but he starts driving so fast that the highway troopers pull him over.

[27:18]

And the trooper comes up and is going to give him... Actually, the trooper's driving behind them and they pull him over. So they come up and the trooper comes up and says, Can I see your... Oh. He recognized him. Well, he's in the newspapers and stuff. He recognized him and said, Oh, sorry, sir. See you later. He goes back to his partner and his partner says, What did you do? He said... I couldn't give him the ticket. He's too important a person. And his partner says, don't make exceptions just because they're important, but just go back and give him a ticket. So he goes back and says, excuse me, sir, but my partner told me that, you know, even though there's no speed limit, we feel that still you shouldn't drive that fast. And so he told me I should give you a ticket, but I can't. Excuse me. You know, go ahead. So the trooper goes back to his partner and he says, I just couldn't give it to him.

[28:35]

And he said, well, who is he? He says, well, I don't know who's in the back seat. That was a good rip. But the Pope's the chauffeur. Pope Leo the first.

[29:52]

I had another thought about entity. Identity. Or id, entity. Yeah. The id wants an entity. entity, and then you have a sequel, Return of the Entity.

[31:08]

Any other offerings you care to make to His Holiness? Didn't I? I told you the story about Susan Gershey. Did you miss it? Did you? So, yeah, but... No, I think the story I was thinking of was the one of him putting the robe on. I think we're kind of like hanging chads here.

[32:12]

I think I'm going to quit. But I just said before you quit, before you retire, sir, by whatever means you retire, hopefully without passing away. Yes. I just wanted to point out the function of ritual enthronement. The ritual of enthronement. Pretending he's the Pope. But the story I postponed, which was not about Suzuki Roshi, was about another ancestor, the first one. That's the one I postponed. I think that's the one you're thinking of, right? That's the one I postponed. And that had to do with, now Leon is pretending to be the Pope. But pretending to be the Pope, there's a little bit to it, isn't there? I'm sweating. And we didn't really get into the details of enthroning a pope.

[33:27]

If we had all those bishops here. Tell us what it feels like to be pope. It's hot. No, he meant, when he said hot, he meant like hot. Leon, you're hot. Finally. Maybe this helps too, right? I'm hot. No, I'm hot. Is this hot? So anyway, we did a little ritual here. And the thing is, if we had gotten more into it, you would have felt more about what it's like to enthrone somebody.

[34:29]

And as you feel more and get more into it, then the risk of abiding in it increases. Can you feel that? And there's something nice about getting more into it, And one of the nice things about it is you can feel the risk of abiding in it more clearly. It gets more tangible. This is getting like real now. Wait a minute. Like my grandson, not so much the last year or so, but even quite recently, I would be talking to him and I just lower my voice a little bit like, Maceo, you want to go outside now? You want to take a walk? And he would say, stop that, granddaddy. Just the tone of my voice changing was enough to invoke the presence of demonic forces for him. This is very close, you know. Or one time he would say, he said to me one time, ghosts aren't real, you know, and I would say, aren't they real?

[35:36]

And he'd say, stop that, granddaddy. So it's like, See? Then you can get in touch with the projection of substance by playing the edge there. But you have to be careful. It's dangerous. But if you stay away from it, then all this stuff stays kind of like in the background and you don't even know it's there. So thank you very much for serving a short term. Thank you. Come back again, please, to visit America. Thank you. We love you. Thank you. Papa, could you bless us before you go? I've stepped off from the throne. What? I've stepped off from the throne. Sorry. It's too late. What?

[36:36]

I see your face. It's too late. This lady over there needs help. Can you help her? I'm devoted to you, so yes. But not by giving her what she's desiring. As you were read. Is that kind of like, that'll do, pig? So the story of Shakyamuni that I proposed to you, this is just a story, is that the historical Buddha was, he, at a certain point in his life, in his historical life, he pretended to be Buddha. he ritually pretended to be Buddha.

[37:38]

He pretended to be a great sage. And he did a really good job. And people saw him pretending to be a Buddha and they worshipped him. They went for refuge in him. They listened to them. They respected him. They opened their hearts to him. They gave themselves to him. Because he did such a good performance, they gave themselves to him more and more wholeheartedly. And in that wholehearted giving them to the Buddha, they entered into an enlightened relationship with the person who was pretending, who was giving the pretense of being a Buddha to them. And pretending has the scary connotation of deception.

[38:46]

We don't think of the Buddha as deceiving people, but in certain scriptures, particularly the Lotus scripture, the Buddha actually tells people, I told you that, but I wasn't deceiving you. I just did it you know, to save you. And this little article I stumbled upon that I mentioned to you where the beginning of the article, this is an article by one of the sages, one of the mystics of psychoanalysis or one of the mystics. I think he had a psychoanalysis. His name was, I think, David Winnicott. Is it David? Donald. Donald Winnicott. He quoted this other person who said, I don't really believe that mind, I don't believe that mind really exists as an entity.

[39:57]

I just stumbled upon that article. And then on the previous page was another article by Winnicott and he mentions at some place that it's helpful that at a certain phase of our development our main caregiver, often mom, allows us to believe that the illusions we create are real. illusion can be useful and it seems to be necessary that somebody allows us to believe and allows us to believe that they believe that the illusions that our mind is creating and that we're expressing are real. And this leads me to a bunch of grandfather, grandson stories which I will tell you.

[41:10]

But I just want to remember the context of this is I'm proposing to you that the historical Buddha pretended to be Buddha so that people could venerate him and in that veneration could generate the mind which opens to the truth. He pretended to be something that they dared to open their heart to, and when they opened their heart to him, they opened their heart to the Dharma. Because the Buddha cannot, even any kind of Buddha cannot come up to people and just make them enlightened. The Buddha comes and relates to people, and in the relationship, they open to the Dharma which the Buddha wants them to open to. The Buddha has opened to the Dharma, has let it take over her life. Now the Buddha, because of that, can meet people and relate to them in such a way, for example, that they think it's a Buddha. But the Buddha is not a person. But the Buddha can pretend to be a person and a person can pretend to be a Buddha in order to make it possible for Buddha to be able to be realized.

[42:24]

But there's an illusion there and the illusion is illusion is a necessary part of the process of enlightenment. If we exclude it, then basically everybody is excluded. But now we're at a stage where we can actually be told beforehand that we're going to be using some illusions here. You can be told beforehand you can be included in the magician's activity. So the Buddha does the ritual of being Buddha because Buddha is not an entity. But a person can show you the Buddha which is not an entity by being an entity, by appearing as an entity. So you can venerate the entity. And then by venerating the entity, the Buddha can tell you that the Buddha is not the entity that you're venerating.

[43:32]

But the veneration process makes it possible for you to open to the non-entityness of this illusion and the non-entityness of everything. And then when you open to that, in that communion is actually, that's Buddha, that relationship. And it's a ritual. And the Buddha walks around, remembering, you know, being mindful of enacting Buddha. Being mindful of thinking like a Buddha, like always thinking, how can I help all beings? So Buddha pretends to be Buddha by being mindful of what Buddhas are mindful of. But the mindfulness of how to help all beings is not necessarily the English sentence, how do I help all beings? Or the Chinese or the Sanskrit.

[44:34]

It's none of those particular forms, but those are examples of what you can pay attention to in order to ritually enact Buddhahood. And so I tell you this thing about Buddha enact, pretending to be Buddha, so that you can pretend to be Buddha. So then you're doing the same practice that the Buddha's doing, even though, in some sense, you're not a Buddha. But you're also not not a Buddha. And you're also not a person, or not a self. So you can also go around pretending to be a self. And if you pretend to be a self wholeheartedly, That's the same as pretending to be a Buddha wholeheartedly. Because if you pretend to be a self wholeheartedly, you realize there's no self that can be grasped. And that's what it's like to be a Buddha. Okay, so before I tell the grandson stories, which are also grandfather stories in this case, was there something you wanted to bring up?

[45:44]

You don't want to do that? Oh, please come. Do you want me to come to you? You don't want me to come to you? I'm willing to. Are I fine? Really fine? You'll try your best. Part of being wholehearted is to be open to being tongue-tied. Okay. And here's a little present for you. Thank you. Tongue-tied, tongue-tied. So, if enlightenment is mutually, fully, completely giving, that implies mutually, fully, completely receiving. Yes, right. Yay! But the giving is always easier than the receiving. Wrong. It just feels that way.

[46:50]

It feels that way to you now in this moment, but it won't feel that way tomorrow. I'll hold you to it. Go right ahead. I receive your gift. And the other thing that I thought of in the pretending of things Is this technique called mirroring? Where you actually, in order to tap into what a person is experiencing, you copy their actual, what they're doing at that moment. And it actually works. So if it works person to person, it should work person to Buddha. Yeah. Except, Doug? Well, there's two ways it works person to person. One way it works person to person is forming a self. Another way it works person to person is letting go of self. So if it's the letting go of self phase of that mirroring, that's the same as doing it with Buddha.

[47:58]

Yep. Because we don't have somebody who's walking around now pretending to be Buddha. Even the Dalai Lama is not going quite that far. Maybe in the shower when he's taking a shower instead of singing. Maybe when he's in the shower he's pretending to be Buddha. Nobody's around. I'll go ahead. This is Buddha singing here. Once I... But Shakyamuni Buddha pretended to be Buddha and people met that and they realized that the self could not be found and they were liberated. And when we meet someone, and the giving is full, and the receiving is full, and the gift is full, and you can't get a hold of any of the parts, you can't get a hold of the self, that's Buddha. And you're meeting Buddha, and Buddha's meeting you, and you're Buddha.

[48:59]

It's Buddha and Buddha. All right, yeah. Or it's more like the earlier phase, and it's self meeting self, and you're just deluding yourself. That's because somebody's not pretending wholeheartedly. I was going to say the difference would be how fully you're pretending and so you should be pretending to the extent at which you lose the self. Yes. And with a baby, the mother is letting the baby believe that what they're pretending is real. But when you get grown up, you get to realize that the thing you're pretending is an illusion. But the baby's not up for that. The baby needs to like... Yes, the illusion that I'm the most important person and the most important person is telling you that you're the most important person. That's true. You really are the most important person.

[50:00]

You are just like the most important thing in the world. You are like the center of the universe. It's true. You think that, I'm totally up to reinforce that and I'm very happy about that. And we need that kind of like illusion for our brain to get turned on properly. I just wish my mom didn't tell me that I can't fly because I was convinced that I can. It would have saved me a lot of money on the long run. Yeah, too bad. No mom's perfect. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for coming up to the warm area. Anybody else cold, want to warm up? No? Oh, here comes Deb to meet Reb. Yeah, come on. Oh, I called him Zed a few years ago. Want some cushions? Yes, I think so. I have some leg cramps, so... Okay, well, you can... I'll stand up and dance with you.

[51:05]

Thank you. I have to grab my pressure point or something. Okay, go ahead. Thank you. I'm interested in some of the things you've been talking about. Really? Yeah. I'm never so glad. About song and the give and take of that to the audience. And I stumbled across something a while back. Actually, this is two questions. that when I give myself wholly to an image in my mind, it kind of turns into a movie. So it happens occasionally. It's not something I do on purpose. And there's always a healing out of it for me.

[52:09]

And so I was wondering, in Zen Buddhism, if there is a term for that, or if there's a belief about what the imaginal world would hold as a, I would say, an entity. But obviously not. Well, what you just described of giving yourself completely to an image, would you say? Yes. You give yourself completely to an image, and then when you give yourself completely to it, you start to play with it, and then surprises happen. Yes. It starts responding to me of its own volition as far as I can tell. It doesn't, but the way it does, not by its own volition, you interpret that way, that's fine. And if you give yourself to the image of it doing what you just said, give yourself to the image of the idea that it's responding with its own volition, then that idea will surprise you and will tell you, you know, it's not that, it's not that, I'm not that.

[53:26]

Don't put me in that box. Okay. And then you go on from there. You keep getting liberated from the images by giving yourself completely to them. At first you think there's you in the image. If you give yourself completely to the image, there won't be you in the image anymore. There'll just be you and no image. Having an experience. No, there won't be you having experience. There'll just be you. There'll be no experience. Or there'll just be the experience and no you. As we say, when one side is eliminated, the other side is dark. When you fully give yourself to it. So the surprise is, here's the image, I give myself to it completely, and there's no image, or there's just the image, and no me. This is called the end of suffering in Zen, or also in the Buddhist teaching. This is the end of suffering, which

[54:27]

happens in that total engagement with an image. So, like sometimes what happens is just if you are the image and... I'm not an image, but you make an image of me. I allow you, like a nice mommy, I allow you the illusion that I'm the image you have of me. I allow you to do that. Okay. And you allow me to do that too. We're very nice to each other that way. Because these illusions we have of each other are somewhat useful. Because again, an illusion of a Buddha is useful because you can be totally devoted to this illusion and become free by that. It's an illusion which says, be totally engaged with me. I invite you to be totally engaged. I'm a good thing to be totally engaged with. See all these other people who are totally engaged with me? You can totally engage with me. And that will be good. You will become free of your illusion of me.

[55:32]

But I had to let you have that illusion for a little while. So you have some place to focus your reverence. So anyway, I'm really not an image, but I allow you to make an image of me. Ready? Ready? Yeah. You want to do it again? Here we go. Here's another one. Here's another one. Here's another one. You can do that to me. I'll let you. And then hopefully you can fully engage with them and get over me. You kind of disappear on your own, actually. I do. But then I come back. Not that I come back. Then somebody comes back who has the same name. The thing is total engagement with others. And I mentioned the other night, and I found a little note recently which I thought was nice.

[56:39]

It said, it's hard, it's difficult to practice alone. And practicing together with others is the same. The difference is that practicing with others is the way of the Buddhas. They're both difficult, but one is the way of the Buddhas. So here I am, another for you to practice with, practicing together with me and others. This is the way. And when we practice together, we project images on people, and they let us, and then we get in trouble, and we struggle with that, and if we wholeheartedly engage it, it's the way of the Buddhists. But it's hard, because we keep confusing our images of each other with each other. And then I keep telling you, I'm not what you think I am. Honest. Honest? I'm pretending that that's so. You know, I'm troublesome.

[57:40]

I'm difficult. Can you totally engage with a difficult person? You can, you can. I say you can. Well, which leads me to my second point. Well, let's hear it. When you do what? When I do engage with somebody that's difficult. Wholeheartedly? Wholeheartedly. Yes, when you do? When I actually use color to change my emotion. Is that part of the wholeheartedness? Mm-hmm. So instead of singing, I color myself, or I color you, or I color the energy, or I color... All right, fine. Go right ahead. What are you doing now? A little purple. What color is this, by the way? Magenta. Magenta. Do you like it? I like it on you. I like it, too. It reminds me to color you. Yes. Well, I've begun teaching a group of pregnant teenagers about creative parenting.

[58:49]

And so we were talking about how sometimes it's hard to go right to curiosity to find out what the need is. of your child, but perhaps if you're seized with emotion, fear or your own unmet need or anger or whatever, that if you can divert yourself for a while through color or shape, movement, song, something, or breath or whatever, that then you can eventually get back to curiosity. So it really has kind of come out of my own intensity, because that's my struggle, is that my intensity, so developing some sort of mechanism. I don't mean to co-op your method. I don't mean to. But I just want to relate what you said to, I would call that, teaching these girls to love what's happening for themselves. They're trying to take care of their baby but all this stuff's coming up in them.

[59:56]

They have to take care of themselves before they can take care of their baby. So they have to be kind to their fear of being a bad mother, their fear of not giving the baby what it wants, their tiredness, So I think you're giving them ways to take care of themselves and when they take care of themselves then they can go back to effectively taking care of the baby. But they need a break from taking care of the baby. The baby needs them to take a break and take care of themselves. So I think it's good for you to teach them ways to take care of themselves so that they can take care of their baby. And most of the time it's hard to get to the new idea. It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some people feel like it's not permitted that they would take care of themselves, that their evil mother, if they're taking care of themselves, they should be just taking care of the baby. But the baby needs the mother to take care of themselves. But the baby says, just take care of me.

[60:57]

Don't take care of yourself, mom. But you have to say, darling, I have to take care of myself so I can take care of you. And mothers don't very often say that to their kids. I shouldn't say they don't very often. They don't say it enough, I don't think, because they think that's a bad mother that's taking care of themselves. I used to say it to my grandson a lot. Let me take a nap. I'll be a better grandfather afterwards. No, no, no, no. Please, just five minutes. No, no, no, no. Just five minutes. You'll see. And I take a five-minute nap. See, here I am. Ta-da! So you have to really encourage them that the children need them, but the children don't know that they need them to take a break. The children don't even know that the children need to take a break. you have to teach them to take breaks too. But if you don't take care of yourself, you miss the right time to teach them to take a break.

[62:00]

So you really have to give them confidence in taking care of themselves. You see, you have a lot of good ideas of how to re-coordinate their energies to rest maybe without taking a nap. Yeah, that's good. Thank you. You're welcome. So I just want to say a little bit more about this huge topic. And that is, if you're doing something important, you know, to help people, and you're not giving enough attention to yourself because you think this thing's so important, it's probably that you think this thing's an entity. and that you think taking care of yourself is an entity. And therefore you're doing this thing you think is good, and maybe it is, I don't know.

[63:05]

But even if it is good and you do it thinking it's an entity, you poison it. So I'm proposing to you that if you're doing some maybe kind of like medium good thing, just passively possibly decently good thing not very good but pretty good but you're doing it taking care yourself to such an extent that you realize you're not an entity and this thing that you're trying to do is which is pretty good is not an entity then you will help people but if you doing something really really important and not taking care yourself because this is a very important thing is an entity then that's not helping people. Matter of fact, it's teaching them exactly what the problem of life is about. Self-clinging. You're teaching self-clinging by making this thing so important, by making this thing too important.

[64:09]

It's too important because it's too real. You're making it too real. So it's too important and you're conveying not the truth, but misunderstanding. That's a kind of strict way to put it. You need to take care of yourself so thoroughly that you know you're not an entity if you're trying to help people. Sorry. The world needs you to do that. In other words, you need to make your work a ritual. Not real work. This is really the work of helping people. This is a ritual of helping people. Lighten up. Now, the grandfather stories, two of them, which you've heard already, I'll tell it real fast. One is, my grandson says to me, a long time ago, when he was like three,

[65:18]

or four he said he said it like this is like in November after daylight savings time has gone bye-bye it's dark around 530 he said when he said like after dinner when it's about 7 he said let's go down into the garden at Green Gulch and dig in the dirt so it's cold and dark and he wants to go out into the cold dark fields and dig in the dirt and I think hmm he thinks that's going to be kind of like fun In his mind. And he's got this little gardening belt with little plastic gardening tools. They're about this big. So he wasn't very, you know, little tiny trawls and hammers. So he puts on his little gardening belt and off we go. I think to myself a little bit, it's cold and dark out there.

[66:23]

Maybe he'll get scared when we go out on this adventure. But I don't tell him I don't adjust his fantasy and say, you know, won't you get scared? I go on this trip with him. I hold his hand and we walk into the land he wants to go into. And we take our little dog with us named Rozzy. So the grandson, the grandfather and the little dog are going into the dark. And as we come down towards the fields at Green Gulch, there's a pond there. And he says, what's that sound? And I said, I think it's frogs. And he said, you mean like ribbit, ribbit? And I said, yeah. And we walk closer to the pond and the sound of the frogs gets louder. And he says, I think Rozzy's getting scared.

[67:24]

Let's go home. So I go with him on adventures, imaginary journeys into imaginary lands. And I don't tell him that these are fantasies. I don't tell him. If he thinks the forest is safe, I don't tell him it's not. If he thinks it's not safe, I don't tell him it is. If he wants to go where it's not safe, I vow to go with him. If he wants to go where it's safe, where he thinks it's safe, and I don't think it's safe, I vow to go with him. I go with him wherever he wants to go. I support him so he can go and realize the illusion, which he will realize, and he does realize. He may not fully realize it and blame it on the dog, but... Get the point?

[68:27]

That's my vow anyway is to go with people not to refute their illusions but to go with them and then watch to see if they stick to them and if they stick with them I just keep going with them and then they get to see if they're sticking and eventually when they see they're sticking they'll get unstuck. but not by me taking away the place they're sticking but me going with them so they can wholeheartedly feel the place and the sticking and then be there completely. Would you come with me to a stuck place? Yes.

[69:31]

I feel disqualified from being playful. And do you know how to love that disqualification? I feel sort of encouraged by sort of the light that I'm experiencing. It feels like it's coming from the people here. I feel somehow encouraged, but I also feel sad that I don't feel like I have a gift to give back. You don't feel like you have a gift to give back? And can you love that feeling of not having any gifts? Can you love the feeling of not having any gifts? Well, I'd like to give something. Yes.

[70:33]

And does that mean I'd like to give something but I don't have anything to give so I feel bad? Yeah, it's kind of like that. So I'm showing you something that could be given. you could give love to the feeling of first of all, I'd like to give a gift and second of all, I feel like I don't have any. You could be generous towards those feelings and that would be giving. You could be gracious with the feelings you just gave. You just gave me gifts. You just gave me some gifts. And you could be gracious towards the gifts which you just gave me. Somehow the gifts that I'm giving I feel are not a fair trade. I feel like I'm receiving many more gifts. And can you be loving towards the feeling of receiving many more gifts in the trade imbalance?

[71:36]

Can there be love for the trade imbalance? I would like to practice loving. And can you see what you just said as a gift? Actually, I feel like I'm receiving. You do? You feel like you're receiving? I do. And do you understand that feeling like you're receiving is part of giving? Do you understand that? Yes, I understand that that's part. And then maybe you can hear me say that if you would fully feel that you're receiving, that in the fullness of that you realize that a full receiving, a full catch is giving something.

[72:49]

Like if I threw you a ball and you really fully caught it, can you imagine that I feel like you just gave me something? I can imagine. You can? I can imagine. So just now, recently, my grandson's... For years I've been saying, you want to play catch? He said, no. Now he says, yes. So I throw the ball and he catches it. And I feel like I got a gift called a grandson who caught a ball. And I say, great. And then he throws the ball, and that's a gift too. And if I catch it, it's a gift to him. Because that means he threw it somewhere near me. And if he throws it where I can't catch it, it's a little harder for him to see that he gave me a gift if I have to run after it really long ways. Now he says he's sorry. Before he used to throw it and say that I was just bad at baseball. Now he actually wants me to receive what he sends me.

[74:03]

He's learning. He was always giving to me, but now he's learning to actually give me the ball and give me catching the ball. So I'm not exactly talking you into it and to say, you know, you are giving gifts, but rather just say, if you can be wholehearted about what you're already receiving, if you can be wholehearted about that, you will understand that you're giving. Some people feel like they're giving and don't feel like they're being given anything. And I say to them, well, be more wholehearted in the giving you think you're doing and you'll realize you're receiving. When I don't feel like I'm receiving, then I work on giving. Would you remind me how you suggested I receive more fully? Well, just, you know, for example, if you feel like you're receiving, but you feel like, you know, there's a trade deficit, so I shouldn't be receiving so much, well, just, like, be kind to that resistance.

[75:11]

So be calm and be gracious towards the fact that you're on the receiving end from your perspective, that you feel like you're playing, you're pretending you're doing the ritual, you're doing the illusion of receiving. It's an illusion to receive and not give. It's an illusion that you're only receiving. You're never just receiving, you're always giving too, simultaneously. But if you want to play that illusion, then play that illusion completely and you'll see, I was giving the whole time. Or vice versa. For example, there's been a lot of laughter in this group today. Have you noticed? Yeah, I have. Thank you. It was a nice gift you gave me. You've made this a successful retreat. That's really sweet.

[76:15]

Well, it's sweet of you to come here so this could happen. Actually, I traveled a hundred miles to get here. So, hearing people laughing a lot today and not not finding that, you know, I didn't, I wasn't receiving laughing, I was receiving, I was receiving a lot of crying today. Oh, thank you. And so there's a feeling of like, there's so much warmth in this group, but I don't feel like I've contributed. Yeah. And so I, I gratefully receive you saying that. Thank you. That's a gift to me. what you just said. And I vow to love you feeling like you haven't been contributing. I vow to love that.

[77:19]

I don't like that you feel that you haven't been contributing, and I don't dislike that you feel like you haven't been contributing, but I do love it. And I also understand that you cannot avoid contributing. Because I love you feeling that you're not, I understand that you are. And if you thought you were, I would love that too. And that would also show me that you are. I can't understand anything you're saying anymore. And, you know, I can go over it again and force you to understand, but it's kind that you don't. I love that too. Just love everything. That's all. Love everything. the thought that you're not contributing, love that there's lots of laughter, love that there's warmth and you're not contributing to it as much as you think you'd like to love that. Welcome that.

[78:20]

Welcome what you're feeling. I If that is for the benefit of all beings, I, yeah, I'll do that. Okay. And another way to put it is, feel the way you're feeling for the sake of all beings. I feel like I'm not making a contribution, and I feel this way for the sake of all beings. Yeah, so it's just, you know, I do feel like I'm willing to feel how I'm feeling. It's just that I start to feel disqualified from being a bodhisattva. Yeah, so if you feel disqualified from being a bodhisattva, what would a bodhisattva do with a person who feels disqualified as a bodhisattva?

[79:22]

What would they do with that person? invite them to a baseball game? Yeah. They would love them. And it might take the form of an invitation to a baseball game. But anyway, they would love this person who feels disqualified. And they would teach this person how to love this person that they are. And then they would not... then they would be enacting bodhisattva. They would be enacting the bodhisattva by loving all beings, including beings who feel like they are disqualified from bodhisattva practice. Isn't the fact that I feel disqualified, isn't that somehow like also not very good, that I'm not doing a very good job of receiving gifts?

[80:25]

No. you did a really good job, I would say fairly good job anyway, of receiving the gift of the thought, I'm disqualified. That was given to you, you received it, you acknowledged, you signed the receipt, and then you brought me and told me about this gift you received. The gift is, I'm disqualified. You told me about that, gave it to me. I gave it back to you, and told you that it was a gift, and I told you that you received it, with some consciousness. Some people receive the gift. I'm disqualified from being a decent person. They don't even know they received the gift. They're carrying it around. I'm not worthy to be here. They're carrying it around. They don't even know they've got it in their hands. But it's, you know, it's definitely influencing the way they're walking and the way they're thinking and their handshake because their hands are gripping this disqualification paper. But you're fortunately aware that you're holding on to this thing and now you have an opportunity to give it away and you just did give it to me and I don't know if you noticed that you gave it to me but now you can like move on to the next gift.

[81:40]

Why was that so funny? I'm pretty funny. Maybe sit next to her. She can tell you when to laugh. She's getting a lot of my jokes. Somebody else want to come up here? Come up, come up. Come on, come up. Cut. Sure. You know, I don't mean to make a big deal of, like... I don't... You don't want to make a big deal?

[82:47]

I don't want to make a big deal... Okay, fine. It's fine that you feel that way. I love that you don't want to make a big deal. I accept that you don't want to make a big deal. It's fine. May I share something with you? One bodhisattva to another. You talking to me? Yeah. This morning at breakfast, you came and you sat down. I think it was this morning, or it was last night, but I think it was this morning. And I said to you, I said, you look familiar to me. I know you from Tassajara, or I know of your face from Tassajara. And you said, yeah. I said, did you live there? And you said, yeah. And I said, well, when I used to go to Tassajara, I would see you there. And you said, oh, well, you know, I don't place your face. And I said to you, well, you were like the senior and I was the freshman. So I recognized you because you were a student there.

[83:51]

And I looked up to you. And you laughed. And it was spontaneous. And it was realizing Buddhahood. I mean, we were two bodhisattvas. And it was just natural arising of Buddhahood and enlightenment. So I just wanted to share that. That came up for me. And you laughed. Do you remember laughing? Not vividly, it sounds like. I loved it. It was great. She just laughed. You laughed. I loved it. Did you see that one? I don't like this game. We love that you don't like this game. You can go right ahead and not like it. Really, really you can. You can even not like it more. if you want to not like it but i hope you love yourself and that you love the not liking i i pray that you'll love that you'll be kind and gentle and patient and calm with not liking this game with the gift that's been given to you of not liking this game

[85:11]

Could you hear that? it's been a great joy for me to join this retreat. Thank you for that gift. And I also want to tell you that I observed someone talking to you during this retreat and

[86:23]

while that person was talking to you, I wouldn't say exactly that you gave them the gift, because I think I was also responsible, because I gave that person you, etc. But while they were talking to you, they were experiencing, they were expressing great joy. And they looked like, during the rest of the retreat, they looked like they were really depressed. But when they were talking to you, they were really fully alive, like life was coming out and flowing through them in a way that I hadn't seen in the other, like, 24 hours or so that I'd been observing that person. So you are part of the joy of others sometimes. But you're not, you know, the only one that's part of it, but you're a part of the joyful process of life for other people sometimes. And you really encourage a lot of people. You know, this is amazing. I came up here to say I'm receiving lots of gifts, and this just keeps kind of going on and on.

[87:28]

That you keep getting more gifts? Yes. But also, the gift I just told you about, that you were a gift, you were part of the gift to that person, a very good gift to that person. But you didn't maybe notice that you were a gift. Did you notice that you were a gift to that person? Did you notice that person? No, I didn't notice that. And no, I don't remember laughing. No. It was a gift. It was a gift. Yeah. This is just getting a little awkward. Yeah, well, we understand. Would you like me to leave? Would you like us to leave? Please, carry on with your retreat. Whether or not you want us to leave, I think a lot of people want to leave anyway because lunch is dinner time. So, let's all leave. I'm not sure what exactly just happened here.

[88:29]

We aren't either. But we have this idea that it's dinner time. But I just want to say that I think the Bodhisattva vow is really the greatest and, you know, keep it up everybody. So anyway, please, if you like, probably it's going to be a really nice dinner waiting for you guys. Thank you very much. Traveling music.

[89:17]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_87.51