Though I was here for a practice period 25 years ago. You were? Wow. I picked a lot of chard and sat in an interview with you. You haven't aged a bit, I must say. And I mean that in all sincerity. I'm amazed. Outwardly. I have no idea, but outwardly. You were 25 years ago. Great. You look younger. It's all attitude. But I forgot your name. What is it? Sophia. Sophia. Sophia. Ah. My question was about delusions. Delusions are a number of things. Given that we have a neurobiology that secretes thought and secretes story and that And we are surrounded by the Dharma and what is real and what is true. How do we come to know what we are holding as deluded? What are the things that we're holding within us as beliefs?

[01:01]

How do we know what is delusion and what is authentic in regards to the Dharma? I would propose all we know with our ordinary consciousness is appearances. is basically what we're knowing. And so that's the teaching. Nothing but mind. Nothing but mind. It's not the same as there is nothing but mind. It's just that for us sentient beings, all of our perception is nothing but the workings of our mind. However, we are also who we are. We are also experience. But experience is not reached by the appearance. So basically mental fabrications.

[02:03]

And there's different appearances. We honor them all. We practice compassion towards all, not experience, all appearances. We perceive appearances. We don't perceive experience, we are experience. And we can realize experience by being compassionate towards appearance and become free of the misconception that appearances of things are things themselves. Oh, so that's what delusions would then be. Appearances, the personal appearances. Yeah, and they're infinite, and our mind's conjuring them all the time. However, they appear and they say, the mind says, I'm not mind, I'm somebody other than you. It appears as though it exists separate. It appears as though it's not mind. So in a sense, much of it is the appearances are all delusion.

[03:07]

All the appearances are delusions in the sense of they appear to be something other than appearances. Appearances say, I'm not an appearance. Appearances are the tricksters. The mind in its apparent manifestation is a trickster. And if we're kind of the trickster, the trickster will finally say, I was just kidding. Perfect. I think I misunderstood. I was ignorant of what delusion meant. I thought it meant error or unreal. Within appearances, there are errors. Like 2 plus 2 is 4, different from 2 plus 2 is 5. But mathematics, to me, mathematics is a thought construction. However, it's based on something which is not a thought construction. So our actual life is for our conjured life. I used the image recently of basically life is unborn.

[04:13]

It's like a river. But then the river gets covered by a road. And because the road was originally a river, it's always hungry. This is from the beginning of a novel called The Famished Road. So we make the unborn into something we can grasp. from the unborn, which is like a river. But then we've got a road, and we can have stop signs, and traffic violations, and police, and citizens, and right and wrong. We need that stuff. It's a land of stories. We make a story of birth and death. but we're hungry to go back to our actual unborn river-like life, which is always there.

[05:15]

If we're kind to the road, the road opens up. We start communing with our actual life experience. What a beautiful invitation. Hmm? What? What a beautiful invitation to free yourself up to dip back in too. To be kind to that which is covering our direct life. Perfect. Thank you so much. Any other things? Yes, please come. I'm also near the microphone. Oh, there it is.

[06:16]

Not now. What's your name? I'm Ken. Thank you, Rishi. So... When you were talking about stories, a lot of them I heard were of the past. And I was hearing you talk about your experience going to Zen Center, the A building. I was wondering if you had a story in mind for the future when you knocked on the door and how you worked with that. When I knocked on the door, did I have a story of the future? Like an intention or a thought? At that time, my story of the future was I wanted to become like the people in the Zen stories that I read. People who could, when you attack them,

[07:19]

oh, so this is what's going on. And when you praise them, they say, oh, is this what's going on? Because I noticed that sometimes when people attack me, I would kind of feel like, well, no, I don't need that. And when they were praising me, I said, that's fine, keep it up. I had been around by blame and praise. And I saw examples of people who could, like, welcome both. And I wanted to learn that. And I found out that they had a training program. You know, this Zen training thing. Oh, I want to optimize my chance of living in this world with equanimity and compassion in response to everything. That's the future I was devoted to, wanted to realize. And when I first came, I guess I I wanted to be that way with people, but I wasn't so much thinking about I want people to be that way with each other.

[08:27]

I gradually got the other side of it. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other points of discussion? Charles? I'd like you to. It's a long trip, but it's worth it. I know Charles, he's been around the scene for 40 years or 50 years. To be with one's body means that there's a body. To be with one's body means that there's got to be a body. In truth, I can never find my body. In truth, you can never find your body, right? You can only find the appearance of your body.

[09:30]

Thank you. The biophysicist Beverly Rubick has said, in any one second interval of time, there are more events happening in the human body than all the words that have been spoken and heard, written and read on this planet through terrestrial history. That's a lot of events, isn't it? We are admonished to follow our breath. I can't do that. Think of the swarm of structured activity that it takes to produce a breath. I can't follow that. So what am I to do? Follow the appearance of your breath. Follow the cognitive construction of your breath. Follow the circle of water of your breath.

[10:32]

And remember that the breath you're following is only a circle of water, of the ocean of breath. Your breath is an ocean, but it appears as a little circle of water. If you're kind to the circle of water, you'll understand that that's not your breath. Thank you, Rick. Welcome, Charles. Charles brought Yogi Chen to Zen Center back Yogi Chen is a Chinese Buddhist yogi who was schoolmates with Mao Zedong. And he was a wonderful yogi. And if we run out of stories, I've got some stories about Yogi Chen.

[11:39]

I'll just hold those for a minute to welcome your other comments or questions. Yes, please come. Thank you, Roshi, for attending the questions. I have a bit of beginner's mind here, still a little bit of a ramble, so pardon the preamble and whatnot. You're welcome. I'm new to Zazen sitting, although I've been dipping in and out of Buddhism since Alan Watts as a teenager. May you always be new to Zazen. True. True. What I'm playing with lately is what exactly, how to approach the sitting because I understand that Right action is supposed to include fostering good ideas or wholesome ideas and sustaining wholesome ideas.

[12:53]

And so I'm presuming that in approaching the sitting, the literal translation is just sit and the mind state is don't move. Are there other wholesome intentions or something that we should be doing as we approach a sitting and within a sitting? Because I find, you know, during a rising, if I bring compassion to them at that moment, you know, ah, or amusement, it seems to help. But is that skillful or not? Sounds pretty skillful to me. And also, being still. is in some sense the fundamental. Not moving with what's happening is the beginning of compassion. It's like if someone cries, Avalokiteshvara is sitting still with that person, listening to them.

[13:56]

So I would the not moving is a fundamental, I would see as an act of compassion, not like not moving is cold, not moving is really being with what's appearing at the moment. But if you want to amplify being still by saying being still means being generous, being still means being careful, you know, careful about your stillness, not attached to your stillness. being patient with your stillness, being relaxed and gentle and open with your stillness. That's all part of stillness. So zazen as an act of compassion includes stillness. Stillness, I think the stillness that we're talking about here is a stillness which is compassion. Any other offerings?

[15:07]

You can't come? Okay, from the internet. Internet. Internet. how can we stop telling ourselves our stories? Or how can we change our stories to benefit others? Well, if you've got a story that's ruling your life, I would say, if I have a story that's ruling my life, I would say thank you very much to the story which is ruling my life. I'm saying I vow, I intend to say thank you very much to the story If you practice compassion and generosity towards the stories that are ruling your life, and then be very careful with them once you welcome them into your life, and be patient with them, and be calm with them, you'll get to a point where you're not attached to them anymore.

[16:21]

And when you don't attach to them anymore, they will not rule anybody's life. You don't have to change the story, but you can. But change the story as an offering. And that person can't say, thank you so much for what you did. And it sounds like, Wendy, you're welcome to come. You can come too, but Wendy's ahead of you. You can come right after her. Yeah. You can come up there if you want. I wonder if we could... Thank you for this morning.

[17:25]

I wonder if we could just sit and let the stories that won't be told come up. just for a minute or so, just because they're in the room and out of the room. Okay. Would you want to time this period? No? Yeah, okay. I'll thank you afterwards. Thank you for knocking on the door.

[18:57]

Thank you. That's a very important point. I feel lost. It's fine. Oh, okay. I just feel full of anxiety. Thank you. We're sitting there. My heart's going da-da-da-da because I want to ask you. Your heart's going da-da-da-da. It's going da-da-da-da. Yes. You got company. Oh, good. Mr. Law's company. Louis Beethoven. Louis Beethoven. All right, Louis. He had that going, too. I think, I don't know, part of my story is that this is age related. I like at this age to know where I am, to know where I'm going to be.

[20:03]

It's like in the future, where am I going in the future? I mean in this life, where am I going to be? Who am I going to be with? Do I want to stay where I am right now? Do I want to go here? All these questions, it's like there's this big sort of void right here. Regrets are on one side. Fear, anxiety, all this is going on. And it seems like I'm not alone in that. That's right. As we move on in life. I've heard this story from many. These things, we start thinking about all this. What have you to say to help the situation? Well, I say again that if we practice compassion towards these, you just told some stories. If we practice compassion to these stories, we will understand that they're just stories, and we'll become free of them.

[21:07]

And then we can tell stories from the freedom from the stories, and show other people how to turn these stories into songs. from the place of freedom that comes through completely using the stories to cut through the stories. But if we reject these stories, they just keep enclosing us. To make a space like Wendy just did, where they can be welcomed and met with kindness and kindness. tranquility and concentration and equanimity. And then we can start interacting with them and playing with them and understand the process by which they arise and become free of them. And then continue to tell stories with everybody else, but from freedom from the stories.

[22:10]

What I'm saying is just a story that I have going right now. Some other people have stories that they're teenagers. And the teenagers are really horrified by the stories they have. They can barely stand to live, many of them. They're not worried about getting old. They're worried about going to school and being bullied or ostracized. or they're worried about dominating somebody else and what that's going to be about. So human sentient beings are living in this story realm, enclosed by it, but under, sort of on the is our actual life. But we're not going to realize it if we're not really kind and calm and eventually wise to these stories. And at a certain point in life, you used to have.

[23:21]

And more stories are coming to be compassionate towards. So what I say, just be with it. Just be. Just story. Just be with the story. Just keep breathing through it, sitting through it. Yeah. And be with it means say thank you to it. Be a great hostess to all stories. Don't close the door. Bum, bum, bum, bum. Let them in. and that ugly visitor sometimes. Please come in. But then when it comes inside, be careful of it. It's powerful. Don't let in the door and then close your eyes to it. Stay awake to it. And remember that you want to practice compassion with it even though it says, can I be really obnoxious now? And then you might say, actually, I need you to be quiet. Please be quiet. And then they say, no. And you say, you welcome their disobedience.

[24:29]

You're obedient, even if they're not. You're going to work on it. Good. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Is that enough for today? What's the Yogi Chen story? Yogi Chen story. Santa Claus. So I went to visit Yogi Chen, and I have a story that I lived in Berkeley. He lived on Shattuck Avenue. Did you know that we have Chinese yogis living on Shattuck Avenue? And I believe Charles was supporting him to live on Shattuck Avenue. I don't know if you were. Anyway, he had this nice apartment there, and I went to visit him after he visited Zen Center. He visited Green Gulch and gave a talk here.

[25:33]

Actually, I want to tell one sub-story of Yogi Chen before I tell the Santa Claus story, and that is... at Zen Center one time on the early Chan history and he went into the Buddha Hall at Zen Center and at Zen Center in the city they have tatami mats in the Buddha Hall and he stood at the tatami mat farthest from the altar and he jumped in which sent his tatami mat flying away from the altar. He was like 80 at the time. Just pushed off of the tatami mat into a full prostration and his tatami mat flew backwards. So I went to visit him at his apartment and in his apartment a mantelpiece, a western mantelpiece over a or a fireplace, but he had turned it into an altar. And the ash on the altar was like almost an inch deep from all the incense he offered.

[26:36]

And he never cleaned the altar. So it was kind of like a volcanic scene. And all these Buddhism stuff, which I would expect in a Buddhist yogi's altar. But also there was a Statue of Liberty No, no, not separate. Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building. I thought, oh, they're using them as tantric symbols. But then I also noticed that he had a nativity seat. And he also had, on his altar, with all the Buddhas, he had sandals. So most of this, I said, why is Santa Claus, I said, why do you have Santa Claus on your altar with all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas? And he said, originally, it was a gift someone gave me. So I just put it, you know, in my room someplace.

[27:39]

And he pointed to his meditation seat. He said, I put it over there. And while I was sitting in meditation, I saw Santa Claus go and take refuge in Buddha. And I realized that in the West, Santa Claus is a Dharma protector. Santa Claus is a spirit of compassion and caring for living beings. So then I promoted Santa Claus from a visiting gift to a protecting deity. So now he's an altar. Yeah, he's amazing. He's passed away now. But he was a great yogi. He lived in a cave for 25 years in eastern, western China, which is eastern Tibet.

[28:41]

Is that where he lived, you know? Yeah. In Hunan, he lived in a cave in Hunan, south of the lake. Anyway, wonderful, wonderful practitioner. Homage to Yogi Chin. Is that enough for today? Well, it isn't quite enough. Steve, would you come up here, please? Or you can stay there. Would it be easier for you to stay there? Yeah. While Steve's waking up, anything else you want to bring up? We're not going to rush him. I'm inviting you to come up here and sit down and sing the missing lines, the missing verse.

[30:04]

He showed me one more verse. Let's see. I was born one morning No, it's a drizzling rain Fighting and trouble in my middle name. I was raised in a cane break by an old mamma lion. And a high-toed woman made me walk that line. Yellow 16 tons. You get another day older and deeper in depth. Peter, don't you call me cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company's role. Yeah, I think we've each had experiences like that.

[31:08]

High-tone woman. Made me walk that line. Yeah. Homage to high-tone woman that make us walk the line. Thank you. So I'll add that one to my repertoire. Thank you, Steve. Is that enough then? Can we have lunch?

[31:33]

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