This morning is a morning to honor mothers and motherhood. In this life I have given some attention to watching mothers with their children and children with their mothers. And I see that the process of motherhood... I see that the process of motherhood... Is that okay? The process of motherhood, the life of motherhood, seems to involve various kinds of pain and various kinds of pleasure and various kinds of joy in service of life.

[01:28]

During the pregnancy, as you know, many mothers are sick almost the whole time. Some are not. And the ones who are really sick and in lots of pain are challenged. to be compassionate towards the difficulty. And childbirth, actually delivering the baby from the body, is also usually, it seems, very intense pain. But also A time when many mothers say that in the middle of the pain or along with the pain was perhaps the greatest joy of their life.

[02:38]

A time that was so intense that they stopped resisting anything. And in that complete openness, not only did the baby freely come into the world, but the mother, perhaps more than any other time, sensed the meaning of life. And then the mothers often spend many years, many hours, many weeks, many months, many seconds nurturing the children and loving the children.

[03:47]

Just nurturing isn't enough. Children also need love. They need someone to look into their face and think and feel that this is the most beautiful being in the world. even though they may look in the faces of other children and feel the same thing. For this child, the mother looks and says, in her eyes, the baby can see this most profound appreciation, which is coming from not just the mother's thoughts, but the mother's body. baby can see right into the eyes, into the brain of the mother and see that the mother is totally adoring.

[04:58]

And some people say, the mother is saying, you are the very best in the world and you're just like me. And when the mother looks at the baby this way, the baby looks back at the mother And the baby looks back at the mother something like, you are also the best thing, the most wonderful thing. And then even though the mother thought a moment before that this was the most wonderful thing, now it's even more wonderful. And when the baby sees that, the baby looks back even more intensely and with more joy. And they go like this until the baby can't stand it anymore. The healthy baby can't stand it anymore and turns her face away from the mother for a little break from this most intense mutual appreciation, mutual joy.

[06:09]

And this kind of face-to-face transmission of profound psychophysical joy is necessary for human beings to develop neurologically in certain ways. And this kind of thing not only nurtures the neurological development of the baby but also is essential for the formation of a self, a sense of self, an ego. So the mother supports the body, the mind and also supports the formation of the self which the child needs to function in human society. And then lots of problems come with the self.

[07:14]

And these problems are very difficult for the mother. The assertion and the will associated with this sense of self are constantly testing the mother's love. And then the mother can move into another phase. All these other things continue to go on. But another service that the mother can offer is the mother can also teach the baby and allow the baby to let go, to not cling too much. So the mother provides a service so the baby can learn to cling, to form a strong bond. And once the bond's formed and the self is formed, then the mother can also teach the baby that the baby can let go. In that first interaction or the intense face-to-face transmission of appreciation between mother and child, that mutual situation, part of the way the mother teaches the baby that they can let go is to let the baby look away.

[08:37]

If the mother follows the baby's face and moves her face around to where the baby turns away from so that the baby can't get away from it, that seems to be too much. But sometimes mothers, some mothers have not learned from their mothers how to let go, so they have trouble teaching their baby how to go, how to let go, how to not cling too much. great opportunity that mothers have to teach their children to let go of their mother and for the mother to show the child that although they're totally devoted to them, will give them everything, appreciate them completely, they also will let them go. They can send that message, they can say it and they can act it out. I am here for you as long as you want me to be and when you want to go, you can go.

[09:44]

You can go be a mother and teach your babies what I taught you, namely total devotion while not suffocating or overly clinging. In this way, a human mother, for example, can prepare, can ready her child for the meeting with another mother, a mother of the Buddhas. There's no sharp line between the human mother the human being who provides these gifts and services for the child, there's no sharp endpoint where the child moves from relating to a human mother to relating to the mother of the Buddhas.

[10:57]

The human mother can actually kind of ceremonially stand in for the mother of the Buddhas. The historical Buddha had a mother who provided the things I just talked about. And that mother or those mothers prepared the historical Buddha, the historical Bodhisattva, to meet the mother of all Buddhas. So in front of me there's a Buddha, and behind me there's a Buddha, there's a female Buddha sitting behind me. And these Buddhas, and also these Bodhisattvas before me and behind me, these Bodhisattvas and these Buddhas are the children of what we call Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom.

[12:02]

is the mother of the Buddhas. A human female or a human male can ritually stand in or sit in for this perfect wisdom, can encourage total attention, total devotion, without abiding in the devotion. Total giving without dwelling in the giving. Total giving without dwelling in the gift. Total giving without dwelling in the receiver or the giver. Without dwelling in the process or the elements of the process because the giving is so total.

[13:09]

In this way, one opens to the perfect wisdom in which the Buddhas are born. The whole process is a mothering process. And part of serving our role in the mothering process is to be aware of what part are we performing. So once again, the mother of the Buddha is to practice non-abiding, non-attachment to what we are totally devoted to. to beings, non-abiding devotion to beings and to forms.

[14:19]

Forms are beings too, but sometimes we don't think of them as beings. But just when I say beings, I would also say forms. So beings, like human beings, to be totally devoted to them, to have a loving relationship with a being, that is mutual, mutual loving. When there's mutual loving, that's the real non-abiding. So it's not one person's love towards the other and the other person's love towards them, although that's involved. It's in the mutuality that the non-abiding lives.

[15:21]

Because from one side, if you express appreciation and devotion, there's a kind of I'm devoted to you sticking point. Or the other side too. But in the relationship, In there, there's no abiding, and that's where the wisdom and the Buddhas are born. But I also mentioned forms, a kind of being which we sometimes call forms. For example, in this hall we practice the form of sitting. We spend quite a bit of time sitting, and we sit in a form. we kind of, we make an attempt, we commit to sitting upright. That's the form. It's up called upright sitting. Now sometimes the way we're practicing upright sitting might not look so upright but we understand that that's the form that we kind of are willing to give ourselves to.

[16:31]

And loving that form, giving ourselves to the form, more and more completely. Understand that when we sit, we're loving the sitting. We're loving the body sitting. We're loving the form of sitting. We're devoted to it. We're devoted to the form. And in the total devotion to the form, it's mutual. The form is devoted to you. The form nurtures you and supports you. In the total devotion to the form of upright sitting, in that relationship between the person and the practice, in its fullness there's no dwelling in the practice, there's no clinging to the practice.

[17:33]

So I use the word love or devotion, but also I like to use the word discipline. We discipline, we practice disciplining, we practice discipline with the form of sitting. Discipline has, one meaning of discipline is to punish, but the other meaning of discipline is a form of training conducive to learning. So we discipline the form. And the way we discipline the form is we learn to do it with no resistance. And learning to do it with no resistance for most people involves many, many hours of doing it with resistance. For example, one kind of resistance is a feeling of, I don't want to do this anymore.

[18:37]

I wish this period would end. I'm getting uncomfortable. I do not want to... I do not feel loving towards this discomfort or this restlessness. Restlessness could be in many forms. For example, I'd rather do something else than be here. I'm not getting anything out of this, and so on. There's many forms of presence. Another one would be, I wish, I'd like to go to some other Zen center that has better Zen students in it. These people here are not really worthy of my presence. This is a kind of resistance to loving being in the form that we're in. And there's a kind of discipline in this love of learning to do it, a way of doing it where you learn what the resistances are and learn how to again then be loving to the resistance in such a way that you completely love the resistance, not like the resistance.

[19:55]

not even like the upright sitting. That's okay to like the upright sitting, but that's not the love. The love is either liking the form of sitting or disliking it. Although you may like or dislike it, that's not the love. The love is to give yourself completely to the form so completely there's no dwelling in it. If resistance comes up, in other words, I don't want to give myself completely, for example, then to be kind to the resistance is the process. And to realize the resistance is being kind to you. The resistance is showing you the incompletion, the lack of completeness in your devotion to the form. And the same with a person. The relationship is loving, is devoted and heading in the direction of so complete a devotion to a person, to a human person or a canine person or a feline person, whatever kind of person, so devoted that there's no dwelling in the relationship.

[21:15]

In a relationship there's no dwelling. The relationship is constantly changing. and constantly non-dwelling. The relationship is actually not dwelling in itself. If we find ourselves dwelling, it's a gift to show us that our love is not complete. So we love more then. This is a discipline. This is a love. And also mothers, in their discipline of love with children, teach them to brush their teeth go use the toilet to get their pajamas on and so on. They teach them, they discipline them, they give them lots of opportunities to realize And the mothers give themselves lots of opportunities to realize not dwelling in the form of the baby brushing its teeth or using the toilet or going to bed or getting the pajamas on.

[22:23]

To do all these things and to look for the place where the devotion doesn't cling. To show that incompletion and to ready the mother and the child for perfect wisdom. This devotion which realizes the mother of Buddhas is sometimes presented in six parts. which the first part is called giving. It's in some sense, it's the first, it's the basic. It runs through the whole process of devotion without attachment.

[23:27]

So you give yourself, but you don't give yourself and expect something. You don't give a gift. You don't give your love and expect something. You give with no expectation. Something will happen but you don't expect. It's really a gift. That's the first step in transmitting the love which readies us to meet the Buddhas. Another word which I've been using lately for this first step is welcoming. So again, the practice of giving would be to learn to practice the giving all the time, to evolve, to learn, to make every action a gift, to allow everything you say, everything you think, every posture you make, to make all your actions of body, speech, and mind, to let them be gifts.

[24:39]

They are gifts. Let them be gifts. Dedicate them to giving. Join the process of giving. Enter the path of the children of the Buddhas becoming the Buddhas. Someone said to me recently, how could I welcome my daughter dying a tragic death. Of course, we're not talking about wanting anyone to die a tragic death, but how, if it's happening, or if it's happened, how could you welcome it? And I said, if you knew, if you had confidence that

[25:41]

not welcoming it would be a disservice to your daughter that would help you welcome it. If you felt that welcoming it would assist her in welcoming it herself so that she or he I say she in this case, so that she could practice what will get her ready to meet the mother of Buddhas. If you felt that, then you would do this for her. Or you could do this for her. If she hasn't died yet, but she's dying, then in this life, she could meet the mother of Buddhas. As long as we're alive, we can meet the perfection of wisdom.

[26:45]

We can meet the relationship in which Buddha is born. If we're dying, which some people would say we're all dying right now, if in this dying process that we're in right now, we can learn to welcome everything that comes, everything we feel, all our resistances, all our pettiness, all our selfishness. If we can welcome all of our unskillfulness and all of other people's unskillfulness, if we can welcome the worst and the best, if we can welcome everything, this is the first step in the ongoing practice of meeting the mother of the Buddhas. And before some people can welcome anything, they need lunch.

[27:51]

So it would be nice if somebody would give them a little lunch because if their blood sugar level is too low, They maybe can't even receive the teaching of welcoming what's going on. But after they had lunch, after someone has nurtured them, then they can receive the teaching of, we all love you, you're the greatest, and now can you welcome everything? Again, welcoming doesn't mean I want you to come to visit. In that way, welcoming doesn't apply to things that haven't happened yet. It's more welcoming what's being given. And welcoming isn't holding on to what's given, and of course it's not pushing away.

[29:01]

It's really welcoming. And when the thing or the being is ready to move on, you welcome them to go. And in this relationship, this relationship, perfect wisdom is practiced. The next practice, number two, is ethical mindfulness. Because even though you may feel that you're really welcoming everything or that you're really giving yourself to everything, still there could be some kind of like subtle, even in the face of this great practice of giving, there could be some subtle ethical faultiness or inattentions. So then to study ethical teachings may help us find that, oh, oh yeah, I see, actually I was practicing giving but I actually was taking

[30:12]

the opportunity of giving before I sensed that it was given. Or I was thinking, I'm a little better at giving than this person next to me. Or maybe even I'm quite a bit better at giving than they are. They're kind of stingy and I'm really not and I'm Yeah. Now it is possible that someone is really stingy and you're really being generous. That is possible. But can you see that without thinking you're better than them? It's possible. Especially with children, you can see the mother is totally, pretty much totally generous to the child and the child is like totally selfish. And the child is not at all ready or willing or interested in practicing giving towards the mother on some occasions. And certainly not towards certain other people. The child does not want to be generous to anybody at any given moment.

[31:13]

And somebody is being really generous to that selfish child. And that person could think, I'm better than this kid. Or they could just think, This child is manifesting and enacting complete selfishness, and I'm not the slightest bit better than them, even though I've been practicing giving towards them, and right now I'm doing it too, and I love to practice giving, and I wish to continue to welcome them being totally selfish. And I'm looking to see if I think I'm better than them, and I don't really think I am. Oh, now I do. I see it. Now I see it. So you keep watching because things change and then the next moment you can slip back into thinking you're better than someone who's really a beginner at a practice that you've been doing a long time. But in the transmission of this readiness to meet perfect wisdom, part of what's being transmitted is I'm not better than you.

[32:25]

You're not better than me. You're great, but even you are not better than me." And then, of course, the other ethical thing is being possessive of the excellent student in the practices of giving. Oh, my God, the little selfish person actually did something generous. Like I was watching some grandchildren who someone might say are my grandchildren. I was watching the boy and the girl and we were in the swings. This is in Minnesota a few days ago. And in the sand in the swings was a quarter. and the little girl, the five-year-old girl, found the quarter, and I said, I think it's okay for you to have it. You can ask around if anybody lost it, but anyway, I said, you can have it, I think. So she had the quarter, and then... I don't remember exactly what happened, but her brother came over a little while later and said, could I have a quarter?

[33:39]

And I said, I don't have any quarters. I actually have some, I think I have some dollars, but I don't have any quarters. We wanted a quarter for a gumball machine in the park house. And then his little sister came. He's seven. Little sister comes with a gumball bulging in her cheek. And... He wants the gumball. I said, well, we can walk back home and get the quarter if you want to. But then I see them talking, the two of them. And then he's got the gumball in his cheek. And then the gumball's back in her cheek. And then they're talking some more.

[34:42]

big brother talking to little sister. And then the gumball goes back to his cheek and kind of stays there. And I think what he arranged with her was that later he would get her another quarter. And then, in fact, that's what happened. But when she did that, I praised her generosity. I didn't praise his negotiation skills. But I said, that was really kind of you to give him your gumball. even for a taste. And she appreciated that appreciation. And then later, when we went back home, her dad took her back to the park, which is not too far away, and she got her gumball. And I wasn't just saying it to try to get her to be generous. I thought it was really lovely the way she listened to her brother and shared her gumbo.

[35:44]

I really did. It was easy to appreciate her, her effort. And then it was a little harder for me to appreciate his. But he wasn't too cruel to her, you know. He was kind of overbearing a little bit, kind of talking to her kind of seriously. But he wasn't like, you know, being real mean, really mean. So I could appreciate him too. And that was my performance of the duties of welcoming them at the playground. But again, after the welcoming then, look to see if there's any kind of like sneakiness around the welcoming. If there's any sneakiness in your giving. Again, when I was a little boy around their age, I was downtown during Christmas shopping with my mother and there was these Santa Clauses ringing the bell. And I had a quarter then too, which was a bigger quarter than now.

[36:50]

But anyway, I had a quarter, or more than one quarter, and I gave the quarter to the Santa Claus. But I was watching to see if my mother noticed. And even at eight, I could tell that there was a difference between giving the quarter and giving the quarter to please my mother. I could see that. I could notice it. So now I can tell you that even in an eight-year-old, there's awareness of, I'd like to give the quarter, but I'd also like to give the quarter to impress my mother and encourage her to do the same with me in a bigger way. We're Christmas shopping, right? So maybe she could spend $250 on me or even more to this excellent little boy. So even an eight-year-old can tell when they're practicing giving to kind of like actually sneakily get something back without even admitting, I'm practicing giving to get something back.

[37:53]

No, it's like, hey. So we can convey these subtleties to the students of giving. And it helps to notice in ourselves so that we see their selfishness. We're not totally shocked. We're very familiar with subtle imperfections in our giving by meditating on ethics while we're practicing this wonderful practice of welcoming everybody and everything. The next practice is patience. The next dimension of being ready for perfect wisdom is patience. Giving is very similar to perfect wisdom and patience is too. Patience is not liking discomfort. is not tensing up and gritting our teeth through discomfort. It's just trying, it's just being really close to it and not trying to get rid of it, not trying to hold on to it, but really being intimate with it in the very, very, very smallest flash of the present to learn to do that.

[39:11]

If we can be there If we can learn to be there with our pain in that way, to give that kind of intense mindfulness to it, we'll be able to be in pain without deviating from wisdom. And patience with our imperfect practice, patience with our discomforts, patience with other people's imperfect practice, all these things which are more or less uncomfortable And then comes diligence. Again, to really give ourselves to the previously mentioned practices and future practices. Really loving to give ourselves to these wholesome practices. And then comes calm, focus, concentration. So with all these things that come to us, all the things that arise in us,

[40:16]

As an act of love, be calm with them. Things can be very active, like active children, active emotion, active resistance. Intense resistance to what's going on can be going on. But we're practicing welcoming the resistance, being patient with it, being ethical with it, and now be calm and relaxed with it. And with these five practices, now we're ready to enter into the completion of non-abiding in all these gifts that come. And when we actually can non-abide in what we're practicing these gifts to, practicing these dimensions of compassion towards, then perfect wisdom is being practiced in full. And then Buddhas can be born to serve the world.

[41:18]

And mothers, all mothers, and mothers can be male or female in this, partly in this, men can do part of this. And they maybe not be the literal mother, but they can support the literal mothers. So I've often mentioned that in the building next to this house here, with the slanted roof, a baby born who called me daddy. I saw her come out of her mother and I saw this wonderfully devoted mother delivering this baby into the world and I saw this little Buddha face come out. When the baby's head was crowning, I didn't exactly understand what crowning was, But crowning is when the head's coming through the cervix and it's kind of bulging out through the cervix.

[42:32]

It has a little kind of dome shape. But it's not the shape of the actual head. It's more like a bump on top of the head, which also Buddhas have a little bump on the top of the head, which I think is called a ushnisha, a little bump. There's one on top of the Buddha there. You see? Got a little bump on top of the head. Well, she had a little bump on top of her head, but I thought that was the contour of her head. So then when the whole head came out, it was about 10 times as big as I was expecting. I was expecting a head about the size of my fist, a little bit bigger than my fist. But a much bigger head came out. So I was really surprised. And it was calm. And I laughed when I saw the face. this huge, calm little Buddha face. And then 22 years later, I saw her give birth.

[43:44]

I saw my daughter give birth. I became the father of a mother. which is, oh, well, I can't be a mother the way mothers can be mothers. I can be the father of a mother. So I was very happy to see my little girl be such an excellent mother and give birth to her little boy. And on that occasion, I cried instead of laughed to see the beauty of her effort, of her giving, of her patience. And the story goes on. Now I can be devoted to the grandchildren as a way, partly as a way, to show the daughters, or the mothers, and to show the mothers of the daughters

[44:52]

that although I wasn't such a good father, on many occasions I wasn't really giving myself fully, I'm still trying to learn how to do that with the grandchildren. And so they can see me trying to give myself in a way that I didn't know how to give myself to them. This is part of my confession and repentance which is also part of getting ready to meet the Buddha. Confession and repentance of our past and present shortcomings in practicing compassion and clinging to our children and clinging to our other things which hinder us from being totally devoted to our children. But those things that we're clinging to, we should be devoted to them too, in the same way.

[46:00]

So we won't cling to them, so that we can give ourselves to our children, to our students, to our parents, to our spouses, to everything. So I think that's kind of simple. Very simple. Just give yourself completely to everything. That's all. Including give yourself completely to any resistance in yourself and others to giving yourself completely. That's it. That's how to get ready to meet the Buddhas, get ready for the birth of Buddhas. And there's nothing harder, of course. But it's very simple. It's total. And also in the total of it, once again, in the total giving of ourselves to others, we realize others are giving themselves totally to us. Until it's mutual, it's not complete.

[47:04]

If I think or you think that you're giving yourself completely to somebody and they're not giving it to you back, you have not yet given yourself completely. Even if they think, I don't want to give myself to you, they're still giving themselves to you completely. And when Buddha's born, there's an understanding of that and wishing to help them understand that they're really not being stingy. They just don't know how to practice giving yet. Happy Mother's Day. May our intention equally extend... Discuss? Yes.

[48:15]

Yes, it's only possible to meet within relationship. That's the only kind of meeting there is. That's the only kind of existence that there is, is a relational existence. Yeah, you meeting your thoughts, you meeting your body, or, you know, the relationship between awareness and pain, for example. In that meeting, there's no abiding in that in that phenomena that there's awareness of, then you meet perfect wisdom. Then there's meeting of perfect wisdom. That is perfect wisdom. The perfect wisdom is really the meeting. It's not one side or the other.

[49:39]

Well, in relationship with another being, where I have, I feel the perfect meeting, even if the other being does not realize that it is a person, cannot meet another fully. And I can meet that person fully. And there can be a perfect meeting because I am meeting it fully. And see there, Yeah, so basically meeting fully is really what's going on all the time. It's not so much that you tap into it. but that the way of practicing that enacts that, enacts it.

[50:51]

Now you may have some sense that this practice is enacting it, but you don't have to have that sense. But your activity, when your activity is the performance of that relationship, that is the actualization of it. But you may not be like recognizing it. You may not be recognizing it. Or you could be recognizing it. Like you could be dancing with someone and recognize that a dance is going on. But the actual dance is the realization of the relationship, not the people's recognition of the dance, which may or may not be there. Sometimes people are dancing and they think, I think we're dancing. This seems to be dancing. And you're right, it is. But the dancing is what's enacting this relationship.

[51:55]

And you could also be not dancing. But if you're not dancing, it's hard to... What do you call it? Then you need some other way to realize the dance. You have to be... It has to be practiced, otherwise we don't realize it. And when it's practiced, then sometimes people are aware of it or recognize it, but that's optional. And it can be when two people are realizing it and enacting it together, it's possible for one of them to realize it, to recognize it, and the other not, but they realize it together. And you cannot, we can, our recognition is not a relationship. A relationship is not a recognition of our relationship. But you can have an inspiring recognition of your relationship.

[52:59]

And that inspiring recognition of the relationship can encourage you to continue to practice in a way that realizes it. ... It's realized together. It's realized together, yeah. Or we realize it together, either way. But it's not my experience of it, even though I am having an experience of it. But that's not the relationship itself. The relationship is more like the conversation between our experiences. Yes. Yes. I'm trying to understand now this, that from what you're saying, you're speaking of a larger conscious space that's aware of everyone interacting and the actual phenomena, the relating beyond the personal and self-related.

[54:02]

So that's unfolding whether or not anybody's doing anything. It's unfolding, however, it's not realized unless you're practicing it. But practicing it is not your version of it, even though you may have a version of it. Some other people might have a version like, we're not cooperating with each other, that's their version. So we're cooperating, and some people say, we're not. But even if you say we are cooperating, if you don't practice it, you don't really realize it. Just like, again, you can say we are dancing, but let's perform it then. But the performance is what realizes it, even though we're already dancing. Also, it seems like in a way there's no way for the whole relationship to be fully known because it's being learned all individually. It's not fully known by the person.

[55:04]

It's not known by a person. It's known by our activity together. The way we are together is what is the knowledge. Knowledge is not, the real knowledge is not personal knowledge. Personal knowledge, if you think it's real knowledge, is delusion. So the practicing that you're speaking of is whatever actually transpires? Yeah. And you want and you feel that what's transpiring is the practice realization, is the practice which realizes what's important to you. And additional opinions about it or views about it are welcome. They're included, but they're not it. Individual happinesses are welcome. They're changing all the time and so on.

[56:04]

Sometimes we can't find it, but sometimes a big, wonderful relationship is like looming over our own personal little trips. Something really big is also going on and it's nice to be celebrating that too. Otherwise we tend to miss it. So it's like sort of individual little moments but the stream keeps flowing. There's individual little moments and then also there's little individual moments of celebrating the interdependent stream. So that's why we have practices to make us remember that we're practicing together. So our practice, our actual practice, is the practice of the group, not the individual people practicing with other individual people. It's the actual practice of all of us together that's the practice.

[57:06]

And if we resist that, that resistance is welcome. And if we don't abide in that resistance, then it's realized. Yes? Is the perfect meeting the same as emptiness? The perfect meeting is that you can't find the perfect meeting. But all findings of perfect and imperfect meetings are welcome in the perfect meeting. But none of them reach it. Perfect meaning is permanent. The things which are involved in the perfect meaning, the phenomena, they are impermanent, but the perfect meaning isn't really impermanent. So emptiness isn't really impermanent.

[58:09]

It's a dependent core arising like other things, but it doesn't really have like parts. It's just the ultimate nature of everything. And that doesn't really come and go. It's just the ultimate nature of things that come and go. So strictly speaking, emptiness or ultimate truth isn't impermanent, but it's not permanent either. It doesn't last. It's just the way things always are. It's the well-established way that things are. Things are well established in their vast, ungraspable nature. Before I respond to you, could I just mention that I wanted to mention that one of the practices I mentioned was diligence And not think about, you know, like a diligent mother or a diligent parent. And part of diligence, part of being really working wholeheartedly is resting.

[59:15]

And sometimes people are working wholeheartedly or nearly wholeheartedly and they're feeling like they need rest. And they sometimes don't feel like they can give themselves to rest or receive the gift of rest because they think maybe that's lazy or selfish. So there again we need to welcome the fatigue and be generous with the fatigue and realize that now I would like to rest but I'm resting for those for whom I'm working. So like, again, I say to my grandson sometimes, not so much lately, but when he, I used to say, you know, can I take a little rest, take a little nap? And he'd say, no, no, no, no. I said, please, let me take a little nap, just a short one, five or ten minutes, and I'll be able to more engage fully with you.

[60:19]

No, no, no, no, please, okay. Okay. And then I would take a little nap, and then he would see that, you know, that wasn't the end of the world, and actually I was, when I come back, I was able to give myself to being with him. It's hard to say whether it would have been more or not, but it's, anyway, he's happy with the results of the nap. And so he lets me take another one. Yeah, at a certain point, when he was little, he used to take naps, but now he just goes all day, pretty much, non-stop. That's wonderful. I might be able to go non-stop all day too if I got up at eight and went to bed at eight. But I stay up late and get up early, so I need some breaks in order to keep up with him.

[61:20]

He lets me, somewhat. I ask for permission to take naps, and I wholeheartedly nap. Yes? Finding a teacher, yeah. and I'm developing relationships with other women and I'm wondering What kind of advice would you have in terms of which feelings should I notice that would point me in the direction of, perhaps that person should be like me, or that person should be like me? And what kind of emotions would you trigger or say, perhaps that person is not like me? How does it work now? again, in some sense to postpone responding to you again.

[62:32]

I think the most important thing is that you are open to a teacher. That's really important. I would take care of that as a very valuable and wholesome feeling that your heart and your mind are open to have a relationship around your practice, rather than just that you're practicing at the Zen Center. You're practicing together with somebody. And if you want that, I think that's in accord with the tradition that all that past inspirational practitioners are people who had teachers. So if you want that, you're lining up with the tradition. When I started practicing there weren't much choices, so it was very simple. Now there's so many people that have been practicing for a long time that there's potentially lots of possibilities.

[63:39]

I'm going to actually go a little further with her on this. I kind of feel like that the people to consider, for starters anyway, the people to consider as possible teachers are people that you have a sense that they're maybe good teachers and you feel that maybe they are a good teacher and you feel actually that you actually would like to give them a chance to to express themselves in your presence, that you'd actually would like to do that. And then if you go and practice in their presence, sit when they're giving a talk or sit in meditation with them, and if you feel kind of encouraged to continue to practice by the way they are, then I think that that's a good teacher for whatever the practice is you're doing.

[64:53]

So if you want to do sitting and you meet somebody and when you meet them you feel like, I even more want to do sitting now, then that's probably a good indicator. If you met somebody and you thought, I really think they're great and I don't want to sit anymore, then that wouldn't be a good teacher for someone who wants to practice sitting And then also part of having a teacher at some point is to make some mutual, arrive at some mutual commitment. And I would caution you about that until you've observed the teacher, functioned as a teacher for some time and observe how they relate to other students and how the students relate to each other and see if you feel encouraged by that, how you see them relating to students, see if they seem to be patient.

[65:55]

and see if their students seem to be kind to each other. That's a good indication. And yeah, is the teacher patient with students who seem to be maybe having some difficulty learning? Do they practice themselves? And also, do they study? Do they study the tradition? Not just have they studied, but are they continuing to study? I would say there may be some teachers who aren't studying, and they may be good teachers, but I would still ask you to look at whether they're studying. I think if they are studying, I think that's a more wholesome opportunity than a teacher who doesn't study anymore, even though they know a lot. So that, yes, I think it's good to have, in this tradition, it's good to have a teacher who's a student of the tradition, who still feels like they're a student even though they're playing the role of a teacher.

[67:05]

They also like to play the role of a student. And then you can start exploring, you know, what kind of relationship you'd like to have and whether that person would be up for that. You could talk to them about it and you may find that that process would lead you then maybe to commit to a relationship or some other places you might feel as you get into it that you don't feel quite right about it. And then if you don't feel quite right about it, are you able then to express the difficulties you're having and is the person up for it and so on? And that gives you some way to start. Yes? I wonder if you can help me understand the relationship between what's happening and being that way and being what is without thinking about being a positive influence. I think that is a big influence.

[68:18]

I think that is a big influence. If a child is doing something unwholesome and they feel that you're welcoming them doing something unwholesome, then they have a chance to welcome their unwholesomeness too. And welcoming their unwholesomeness, that would help them see that it's unwholesome. If you don't welcome their unwholesomeness, they may get into having an unwholesome response to you not welcoming them, and not even notice what they were doing in the first place. So a lot of children Yeah, they're doing things which are unskillful and people don't welcome them. And they just, they're mostly relating to fighting back, you know, the unwelcoming thing. And they don't even have a chance to look and see what it was that they're doing. But if they feel like, you're not saying, whatever you do is good, you're saying, whatever you do, I'm here. And then they say, okay, got that done.

[69:22]

And they don't really rebel against that except to test to see if it's really true. So if they feel welcome, they sometimes say they want to find out if it's really welcoming. So then they do something else to see if something they think that nobody would welcome. So they'll do that. And after a while, if they feel like, God, whatever I do gets welcomed, okay, that's it. Now I think I'll turn around and look at what I'm doing to see if I want to do it. And they sometimes look and say, well, I do want to do it. And they're supporting me whether if I do it or not. So now I can do the things I want to do. And then they do them and they say, and that was really, I don't want to do that anymore. Now that I've done it, I see I don't want to do it ever again. I'm done with it. But now I'd like to go try something else. which is also something that most people wouldn't want me to do, but I want to try it. And this person is actually there with me when I do all my experiments, but I don't get confused about whether I'm doing this because they told me not to.

[70:25]

A lot of children are doing things because they feel like they're being not just told not to, but if you can tell someone, please don't do it, or don't do it, as a gift rather than trying to control them. If they really feel it's a gift, they can see, oh, they're just telling me what they want. They really don't want me to do it. But I don't have to do it to pay them back for that disrespect. So I would just generally say that trying to control is better than ignoring. Because at least when you try to control, you're paying some attention. But control is somewhat disrespectful. If you think you can control something, you don't respect it fully. And the thing... You know, the thing either kind of feels crushed by your disrespect, like, you think you can control me? Oh, my God, I'm not worth... I'm not much, I guess, because you think you can control me. Because you're smart, you're experienced, and you think I'm something that can be controlled. So then they start trying to control them.

[71:29]

So then they disrespect themselves, too. So the controlling thing is better than ignoring, because at least there's some relationship. But the best way is to be there with them and let them do it. Let them do what they're going to do and let them find out from their experience. And you can give them your opinion about things, but not to control them. Just to say, just want you to know, I did that once and it was a big mistake. Just want you to know. I said that to my brother about some things. He says, I understand. I've got to do it myself and find out for myself that it's a mistake. And sometimes they find out it's not a mistake. And you're not always right. But the main thing is that they aren't doing it just to rebel against you and not even pay attention to learning. So you do have an influence when you welcome beings. You teach them what welcoming is, and that's the first main thing that they need to learn to do towards themselves in order to learn from their mistakes.

[72:32]

If you do something stupid and you don't welcome it, it's harder to learn from it. Or to put it positively, if you are welcoming what you do, that means you're there watching and then you can see if it's unskillful. You possibly can see. But if you're pushing it away, it's hard to learn from even skillful things. So I think welcoming is a big influence. I think generosity is a big influence. I think it's the primary positive influence in our lives together. And then move on to ethics, patience. Those are also influences. Yes? Yes? Well, Yeah, if they're doing harm, how do you welcome it?

[73:36]

Again, it's easy for people if I use grandchildren as examples. Somehow, you know, it's not so scary. Grandchildren do try to harm me. Like, again, recently when I was visiting back in Minnesota, one of the common phrases was, torture time. They are going to torture me. So they come and they do their version of torture. You can say, well, it's not that bad. I say, fine. I'm just saying, they're trying to torture me and have fun torturing me. So then they, like, there's a grandson visiting right now who's doing the same thing. Just a couple days before I got to Minnesota, this grandson here was taking my face and pulling it in various directions and taking my lips and twisting them and putting them over and under each other and sticking his hands in my mouth. And he considered that he was having a good time doing that.

[74:39]

Just sitting on my chest, just doing this to my face. For human beings, other human faces can be quite interesting. And to be able to play with them like play-doh can be quite fun, you know, to be able to pull a person's eyes around and ears and pull on their hair. They seem to enjoy it. I didn't tell them to do it. They thought of it all by themselves, and they seem to have a good time And at a certain point, they start to pull the lips apart too far, and I start to feel like they're going to rip. So then I kind of say, well, wait a minute. I interact with that in a playful way. And I say, please stop pulling so hard. And then sometimes I do get hurt. And I also said to one of them recently, I said, if you're going to put your hands in my mouth, please wash them beforehand. So basically I'm suggesting that when we're interacting with people and it seems to be coming, some cruelty seems to be developing, I'm suggesting to give the gift of saying, you know, please not so hard or please stop that.

[75:57]

or not even, please stop that, but look to see is it a controlling thing or is it a gift? And I'm suggesting that that this doesn't mean nobody's ever going to get hurt if you practice this way. It just means that by practicing this way, we can become fearless and playful, or playful and fearless and non-violent in response to unskillfulness and cruelty. And that is, I think, the Buddha way is to meet unskillfulness and cruelty with kindness and flexibility and to welcome it in these skillful ways and thereby to... to... to enlighten all parties concerned and to teach nonviolence and fearlessness to all parties concerned. Even when things get aggressive and violent and...

[77:02]

cruel, to meet it. So the Buddha teaches, meet cruelty and violence and aggression and harm. Meet it with kindness, meet it with welcoming, non-violent response to these things. And this can snap people out of these well-established ruts of cruelty and fear and violence. But it's, you know, it's difficult. Even with, like I use a grandchildren example, they're not They're not, you know, it doesn't seem that dangerous. But, you know, there have been phases where it was pretty dangerous, like hammers towards my head and things like that. That hasn't been happening lately, but when they were little, they would actually not realize that a hammer to the head of a grandfather could, you know, really hurt him. So I had to, like, work with that kind of thing. And now they don't use hammers anymore. but they find new ways. They really want to really engage with me and I'm kind of like up for it.

[78:08]

Not everybody is. Like their mother might say, I don't like that. I don't want to play that game. Well, that's okay. That can be also a kind, non-violent gift that they can't do that at all with some people. But with me, You know, they can go quite far and it's quite a lot of fun for them. And for me too. I really feel close to them when they're putting their hands deeply into my mouth. You know, examining my teeth, asking for the history of my teeth and so on. I feel very close to them. And they're having fun. So they're willing to hear from me what my requests are for them to continue this play. And when people get bigger and stronger, it requires other skills, or more skill maybe, but it's basically the same thing. What do you think about that?

[79:09]

Have more questions? No? Yeah. This is martial arts. Not for beating people, but as a way to martially interact and realize a relationship of perfect wisdom, a relationship where we're devoted to each other, fully engaged with each other, but not sticking. Or, I shouldn't say but, so fully engaged that we don't stick. Yes? Yes. Yes. Yes.

[80:12]

And because of all the good things you've done for me, a lot of that came back. A lot of good things came back. A lot of good things came back. What amazes you is... Yes. Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. And also that I am in a state of agitation within me, in which I cannot feel it, nor can I feel it.

[81:50]

And now I'm in a state of agitation within me, in which I cannot feel it, nor can I feel it. Did you say you had difficulty accepting the generosity because that seemed like losing control? Yes, sir. So giving up trying to control and welcoming are... this is kind of the same thing. And when we actively welcome as a practice or give up control as a practice, Then we give the same things we used to give, perhaps, as controlling things. But now there's no expectation, they're just gifts. And then that opens us to the umbrella that was always there. And then we can lose it and go back to control.

[82:53]

But then we can again be kind to our forgetfulness and re-enter the practice. Pardon? You're asking me what it is? Yeah, I say it's there for everyone all the time. all relationships. And any relationship where there's not practice, where the people are not giving themselves to practicing to celebrate and to realize that, people don't realize it. You have to practice, otherwise you may have the theory that it's there, but it's thought. And if you don't act in accord with that, then you don't realize it. But if you don't have the theory, that there's a big umbrella of love over everybody, but you act like that, then you realize it, even though you don't even think about it.

[84:04]

You're acting like that. So some people act like they act like that. They act like everything they do is a gift. But they don't have any theory about giving or anything. They just act like that. And you interact with them and you just feel like, wow, They're enacting giving. It's just amazing. We have this potential to learn to practice this way. And we have the potential, not the potential, but we have the active forgetting of it often. So then we have the potential of, again, being kind to our forgetfulness and our resistance. Yes, Tony.

[85:09]

My problem with this, not the acceptance of what you've said, or the idea of actually embracing it, but it's my mind's rolling backwards to all the things that I screwed up with, and not being generous, kind, or the giving aspect of it. Did you hear what he said? His mind's rolling back to consider times when he hasn't been kind in the past. Is that right? Correct. Yeah. And so now, you know, I just sort of made a list of all these scores. Yeah. Just to say, how do I go revisit that and see if to try to undo it? You know, and there's this combination of... Don't try to undo it. the fact that this is coming up in your mind is a gift to you. I would say, if you can welcome these things when they come, welcome them, welcome them, let them in, don't try to fix them, just welcome them, listen to them, then you and others will become free of them.

[86:29]

And some of the things you do some of the things you do from that place of welcoming these past stories of shortcomings, some of the things you do may actually be things that people would say is making amends, which is fine. But you don't undo it. You get undone from it, and then you can do things which you wish you had done in the past, the kind of things you wish you had done. And you can start acting the way you always wanted to act. So watch out for undoing. Yes, and I capture your meaning. But to come back to actually my dilemma, which is one of saying, man, I've got this thing sitting out there as a result of this mess, and I need to get to it. So I can't just wait for it to come back to me again, the persons or the individuals involved. It bothers me to no end that this exists.

[87:32]

It's not doing it, but how do you revisit it so that you can say, start to make the amends that you indicated? I don't know exactly how you do it, but the fact that you're noticing this, again, you say, it bothers me to no end, okay? So if it's bothering you, then can you actually welcome the bother? And can you be patient with the pain that this is, that you feel when you do this? And can you be calm with it? If you can do that, then I think you could take a little trip to go visit somebody. That'd be fine. But first of all, before you go over to take care of this thing, are you already patient with the pain you feel about it? Sometimes we want to fix something. We really do. And we want to fix it partly because we think it's right. And partly because it's painful to not have it fixed.

[88:35]

But if we're not patient with the pain we feel of this problem, then when we go to try to fix it, if we're not patient with the pain, we go to try to fix it. If we're patient with the pain, we go to give it a gift. And we don't expect that it's going to fix it. But if we go to try to, if we've got some pain and we go to try to fix it because we haven't been patient, then we try to fix it and the situation says, we don't want you to come here and fix stuff. That's not what we want from you. But if you're not patient with the pain you feel, well, I've got to fix it. Let me fix it. Get away. You're hurting us. It's more like, okay, I want to make some offering to you. I want to show you that I love you. and I feel pain that I haven't always acted in accord with that. But I'm accepting that pain, and I'm here to say, I have an offering. And if they say, we don't want it, you say, okay.

[89:37]

I may come back and offer it again. They might say, don't come back. You might say, I hear you. But you're already patient with the situation, so you're not forcing it, you're not forcing this good thing on them. Which is a good thing in your mind, but they may not be ready. And that's painful for you. So you need to be patient with that pain and patient with their schedule. Because sometimes you want to... I want to tell you I'm sorry, but I want to hear from you right now, later. Apologize to me tomorrow. I've got to do it today. This is the same thing you're apologizing for, you know. About doing things on your schedule rather than mine. Oh, okay, all right. So I'll come back again. All right, come back again. So that's why we have to take care of ourself before we take care of our relationship with others. If we skip over our own pain and we go to try to take care of them, we're not going to be able to do it so well.

[90:42]

Even though what we want to do is a good thing. We've got to skip over our own work. We've got to make sure of where our body is first before we try to do something fancy with somebody else. But where our body is, it's uncomfortable and it's hard for us to really settle with it. But when you do, then you're ready to engage with people. And if they don't want to engage with you, you say, okay. It's painful that you don't want to, but I'm handling my own pain and now I'm handling this pain. And I'm here for you when you're ready. And I want to give you some gifts someday when you're ready. And they hear that. If it's sincere and you're really patient, they feel that. But again, just because you're patient doesn't mean they'll do it when you want to. Matter of fact, they might be testing you to see if you're really patient. Because that's one of the things we're sorry about, is that sometimes in the past we weren't patient. We rushed things ahead without really addressing our situation.

[91:47]

And we're sorry about that, which is good. You're walking. Is that enough for today? Happy Mother's Day.

[92:04]

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