Thanks for all the work that some of you have done to organize this event, and thanks for all the others who came today. We have had a little bit of time already to sit quietly, and I thought I might mention that Usually when I go someplace to do a retreat, the people who invite me ask if there's some theme or title for the retreat, and so then I usually give one. And then after I give it, I feel like I should relate to it to some extent. Just in case anybody was attracted by the title.

[01:02]

And for this retreat, the title I offered was The Mind of Mountains and the Body of Liberation. I think part of the reason that I suggested the mountains was because I think there's mountains right to my back. You can see them up there. Are they to our north? Are they to the north of us? Yes. And to the south of us we have the Pacific Ocean. So it's one of the virtues of this place is these mountains. and the ocean we're blessed to live with. And I'll just say briefly, and I'll say again and again,

[02:26]

I said the mind of mountains partly because I think humans often think that they have a mind and with their mind they can be aware of mountains, and with their mind and their body they can walk in the mountains. But they sometimes think the mountains don't have a mind, that we living beings have a mind and the mountain doesn't have a mind. So I put the mind over on the side of the mountain to set up the proposal that our mind is actually something that arises when our body is touched by the mountains. That the way our body and the mountains interact gives rise to a mind So the mind is as much the mountains as it is our bodies.

[03:29]

And sometimes we even think that our mind is something and our body and the mountains are both something other. But really, not really, but anyway, the story of the Buddha's teaching is that our conscious life, our life, is the interaction between our environment and our body. the interaction between our environment and body, that interaction is our life. So it embraces the body and it embraces the world. Our life embraces this sensitive body, this sensuous body, and it embraces the mountains, and the mountains and the body embrace our life. Our life is not the body, and it's not the mountains. It's the dynamic intimacy and reciprocity between mountains and waters and sensitive body.

[04:31]

That's our life, and our life is a conscious, it's a consciousness. That's a little bit of what you might call epistemology. Buddhist epistemology. Epistemology is like the study or theory of how we know or how our knowing comes to be. And also it's a critique of the criterion for valid knowing. So that was just a little bit of epistemology. And then in the Oftentimes, again, after they get the title, people write back and say, could you say a little bit about the title? So I wrote a little blurb, a little paragraph after the title, which goes something like this. Zen teachings may be seen as poetic offerings.

[05:36]

or today I've changed it a little bit and say, Zen teachings may be seen as offerings of poetic images. So in Zen teachings, sometimes there's a body of a person, or there's a garden, or a meditation hall. Or there's the sound of a bell or the sound of a human voice speaking or singing or shouting. Or there's a staff, wooden staff, pounded on the ground. These are poetic images that are offered in the Zen tradition. And they're offered to guide living beings. They're offered to guide the imagination of living beings.

[06:46]

Living beings usually have imagination. Human beings, for example, have imagination. So poetic images are offered to the imagination of living beings. Other and maybe non-poetic images are also offered to the imagination of living beings. And in particular, the Zen offerings are for living beings who wish to live for the welfare of all other living beings. Zen teachings are particularly for those who wish to live for the welfare of others. People who are just living for the welfare themselves are also welcome to receive Zen teachings, but they may not find them appropriate to their agenda.

[07:52]

But those who wish to live for the welfare of others, these teachings are particularly offered to them. The wish to live for the welfare of others and the wish to attain correct authentic understanding of reality in order to benefit all beings. That wish is sometimes called the mind of enlightenment or the spirit of enlightenment. And it is something that... it is the seed for all Buddhists that they wish to attain authentic understanding of reality in order to benefit beings. It's not just wishing to understand reality so that you'll be happy and free. It's to understand reality so that you can help all beings be free and happy, and help all beings understand reality and be free.

[09:02]

This wish is the wish that is the seed of all Buddhas. And ordinary people like me could have such a wish. And this thought or this wish can arise in a person, an ordinary human being. The seed that makes a Buddha can arise in an ordinary human being. All Buddhas have this seed in them, and in them the seed has become to full fruit. All beings who are heading towards Buddhahood are called bodhisattvas, and they also have this vow, this wish. They all have this vow. And someone asked me, well, if you have this vow, are you a bodhisattva?

[10:06]

And strictly speaking, you might say, well, if you have this vow in your heart, if you have this wish in your heart and you take care of it, you will become a bodhisattva. But when this thought first arises in you, it doesn't instantly make you a bodhisattva. That's one understanding. Even though you now have the seed for Buddhahood appearing in your mind, You have to take care of it for a little while before you're really like a bodhisattva. And you have to take care of it for quite a while until you achieve Buddhahood. So again, these poetic offerings are for those who have this wish and who wish to take care of this wish. And I also want to say, I don't know, this is kind of an epistemological warning, please do not think that you're other than Buddha.

[11:27]

So it's not that I am a Buddha, but I am not other than Buddha. The Buddha is The way the Buddha is, is that the Buddha isn't separate from any living beings. Not all living beings have realized complete perfect enlightenment, but the nature of complete perfect enlightenment is that it's not the least bit separate from living beings. So taking care of the bodhisattva vow, taking care of the thought of enlightenment, will eventually lead to Buddhahood. But even if you're not taking care of the thought of enlightenment, even if you have not experienced or realized the thought of living for the welfare of others, even if that hasn't happened, you're still not ... nobody, no living being is separate from Buddha.

[12:32]

But most living beings get distracted from, for example, that, and actually think that they are separate from Buddhas, or they think some other people are separate from Buddha. This is another epistemological admonition. It is that we living beings have imagination and we

[13:40]

we live, we are somewhat confined, we are confined by the way our mind imagines what's going on. And all of our problems occur within the way our mind constructs our world. And these images that are being offered are coming from a place that has become free of images. So the Buddhas are beyond images. They're free of images. And then they practice with beings who are entrapped by images.

[14:50]

They don't actually send images to the beings' imagination. They actually send their freedom from image to the beings who are entrapped by images. And when their freedom touches the bodies, of the beings who are trapped within images, those beings make that touch, which is not an image, into an image. And those images are sometimes startling and disturbing. And they're intended to be startling and disturbing because the Buddha's freedom is trying to touch sentient beings disrupt their entrapment in their imagination. Not to destroy the imagination, but to open it up and let beings free of it without actually changing it at all, necessarily.

[16:02]

Because it's not real, you don't have to get rid of it. But it needs to be touched. in order to become free of itself. So I hear the expression, the mind of mountains, and that image, that word image, mind of mountains, I have the idea, the image, that that message came from freedom from images. And so I share with you the image of the mind of mountains. And then when such images release us from our imagination, then if we have this vow to benefit beings,

[17:06]

Our release then is offered to them, and when a release touches them, it seems like we just offered them something poetic, and they experience something poetic, which again sets them on the process of release from their imagination. So that might have been, you know, So the images which have just arisen in your minds might be really clear and simple or they might not. So I'll say, I wrote it again here, the Buddhas and their disciples make offerings of images to sentient beings. What I just said is actually they don't really make offerings of images, they make offerings of their life. For example, I offer you my life right now.

[18:10]

I'm not an image, but when I offer you my life, which is not an image, your mind makes an image out of me. And I'm fine with that, because I know you need to make an image out of me. And I'm hoping that you'll make an image out of me that will liberate you from your imagination and set you free from suffering and set you on the path of offering yourself to beings so that they too will make an image out of you which will disturb their imagination into freedom. But I'm not an image and you're not an image and you offer yourself to me and my mind makes an image out of you. So I'm wondering, are you offering your life to me to disturb me out of my imagination? You're welcome to join at any point. The mutual disturbance of what?

[19:14]

Of entrapment, of cognitive entrapment, which is the normal condition of living beings is to be entrapped in their imagination, in their karmic consciousness. That's the normal situation. and no sentient beings, even great bodhisattvas who are also sentient beings, have anything but karmic entrapment. Because freedom is not something they have. It's just that they're free of their karmic entrapment, without getting rid of karmic entrapment, because they want to show other beings who are trapped what it's like to be trapped and free at the same time. You don't have to get rid of entrapment to be free because entrapment is not real. Freedom is real, and freedom is free of entrapment, and it's free of any images we have about it.

[20:21]

But entrapment is not free. Actually, entrapment is also free of any ideas you have about entrapment. And being entrapped is not what we think entrapping is. What we think is not what we think. So the Buddhas and their disciples make offerings of their life, which they understand people will turn into images, and the images that they turn their life into, they hope those images will guide them, will guide their imagination to enter the realm of liberation from imagination. enter the realm of liberation from imagination, and then they will be able to also offer their life in new ways to other beings' imagination, and so on. So that's a little bit of

[21:26]

something as a kind of background for lots of expressions which I will make which your mind will turn into something. Which one should I start with? The one I would like to start with is the mountains and the waters of the immediate present are the manifestation the path of the ancient Buddhas. So that's the... I just expressed something, and you, and as soon as I expressed it, I also had an image of those words. I got some words. What I did led me to have some words. Somehow, for me, the expression and the words were almost at the same time.

[22:33]

For you, the listening and the words, I don't know how that worked, but there's something about me that touches your body and gives rise to these thoughts, like the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. What are the mountains and rivers of the immediate present? What are the mountains and waters of the immediate present? They are the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddhas. The path of the ancient Buddhas occurs in the mountains and rivers, the mountains and waters of the immediate present. It's not the mountains that we see when we look out the window and see something.

[23:41]

It's not those mountains. The mountains and waters of the immediate present, the mountains of the immediate present are the way our body is in an intimate reciprocal relationship with the mountains. There are mountains before our idea of mountains. There are mountains which we do not know but which are touching us, touching our body. And there's also a body before our ideas of our body. Power we have to be touched is not something we know. But when that power is touched, we know what touched it. But what we know is not what touched it.

[24:44]

We know our image of it. We know our imagination of what touched us, our body. The immediate present is where the mountains are soliciting us, are beckoning us, are touching us, and where we are asking, you know, who are you? is the mountains of the immediate present. And in there is where the path of liberation lives. That is our actual life. That is our actual experience. But it's before the image of the mountains or the image of our body.

[25:46]

Another translation of this expression, the mountains and rivers of the immediate present, is the mountains, which is simpler to say, the mountains and rivers right now. It's simpler to say, but I find that when I say it that way, it tends to fool me into thinking that what I think is the mountains and rivers right now is the mountains and rivers right now. But what I think is the mountains and rivers right now, or the image of the mountains and rivers right now, is something that my mind creates because of the mountains and rivers right now. By being supported by the actual reciprocal relationship with the mountains, I can think of the mountains. But my thinking of the mountains is not reciprocal the way the mountains are touching my body.

[26:52]

The mountains and rivers of the immediate present are not a perception, they are experience which we do not know, but is our life. We do not know our life, and our life really doesn't have anything to do with the fact that we don't know it, and we don't know it. So knowing and not knowing is not the issue as far as our life goes. Knowing and not knowing is the issue for being somewhat, well, I could say stressed. Our stress comes from knowing things. Our stress comes from knowing our body. In other words, thinking that our body is our idea of our body.

[28:42]

Our perceptions of our body or the mountains, the structure of our perceptions is the actual intimate resonance between our body and all other bodies and everything in the environment. That's the structure of perception. But perception, although it has a structure, which is the mountains and rivers of the immediate present, it has a structure which is the ancient Buddha's way. We do not know the structure. So I now express that there's a story that some of you are at a loss of

[30:38]

how to interact with what you have imagined I said. And I sympathize if you feel frustrated or whatever. But it seems that this is actually perhaps necessary. When I first heard the teaching, the mountains and rivers of the immediate present are the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddhas, I was a little bit shocked. And then later I was a little bit shocked. And then I was a little bit less, a little bit more shocked or bewildered. What does that mean that the mountains and the rivers are the path of the ancient Buddhas?

[31:41]

The mountains and the waters, excuse me. What does that mean? How are the mountains? So people look at the mountains and sometimes they feel good, sometimes they feel bad, but they still feel trapped. The mountains which you see are not the path of the ancient Buddhas, and the path of the ancient Buddhas is not apart from those mountains. The path of the ancient Buddhas is not apart from you seeing me or you seeing the mountains. It's not apart from that. But You seeing me is not the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. You seeing me is the mountains and rivers of your conscious construction. You seeing me is the mountains and rivers of your imagination. Okay, that's just normal. But don't confuse the images you see with the mountains and rivers of the immediate present.

[32:45]

or the you and me of the immediate present. The you and me of the immediate present is how I, whatever I am, is inviting you and soliciting you, and you're going, whoa, what do I do about that? The way your body is doing that, the way your ears and eyes, the way your power of your ears, not your ears, but the power and the energy of your sensual body, the way it responds to me, and the way I'm inviting it, that resonance, you don't see that, I don't see that, but that's the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. And the way the mountains do that with you and the way you respond to the mountains You don't see that. I don't see that. Nobody sees that. But we all are that.

[33:48]

That's what we are. And you can't get a hold of it because you can't get outside of it. You are that. That is what we are. We are in the mode of the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. We are the path of the ancient Buddhas. We are liberation in that mode. but we can see it with perception and it is the structure of our perception. We perceive what we know and what we know is the images we make of what isn't images. Reflecting on this kind of teaching, I'll say again and again, if you reflect on this kind of teaching, there is an offering which is something like this.

[34:50]

You will understand it. You will actually enter into what's being discussed here. You will enter into the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. And if you reflect on these teachings — and how do you reflect on these teachings? Well, you reflect on them by reflecting on them over and over and over. Yet we have to keep reminding ourselves that, well, to be humble, that we live within an imaginary world. that we live within thought construction only. That's all we have as living beings. And those who are free, those who are free are sending us messages to stimulate us to be free from our imagination.

[35:58]

I used to be — well, I shouldn't say I used to be — but somebody who's not here anymore has been touched in the past in such a way that he imagined lots of mountains and waters doing all kinds of amazing things. And the person who's here today has an intention, if you can stand it, to offer you many more images to express himself in such a way that your mind will conjure up many more images of the activities of mountains and waters. So somehow my life has been touched by the liberated beings such that my mind gave rise to many amazing what seem to be poetic images of the activities of mountains and waters. And because I'm now the result of such a life, I will offer these to you, one of which I did already, or two of which I did already.

[37:38]

The mind of mountains, in the mountains and rivers of the immediate present, which are immediately present right now. And the path of perfect wisdom and infinite compassion and complete liberation are here right now. So human beings might wonder, how do we enter? And I just told you, but I'll say it again, the way we enter is by reflecting on what our mind has made of these teachings. And to do it a lot. And reflecting means to learn about these teachings and listen to these teachings and learn about these teachings and listen to these teachings. The people who do that — somehow I'm acting in such a way that you probably can hear me say this in English — the people who do this enter it. the people who listen to this teaching a lot enter it.

[38:41]

Who enters it? The people who listen to this a lot, who learn this a lot. It doesn't say, and those who don't listen to it a lot don't. It doesn't say that. I haven't heard that said, but I have heard it said. The people who enter are those who listen to it a lot. I have been listening to this, I should say again, My ancestors have been listening to this. All the Rebs who are not here anymore have listened to these teachings for more than 40 years and continually been turned around by them. I'm turned around by everything, by all words, but these words too turn me a little bit at a little bit higher velocity. These words actually turn me in a way where I become aware of how words turn me. So part of what listening to this teaching does, potentially, for me it does, part of what listening to this teaching does is that it makes me more aware of how words turn me.

[39:46]

A lot of people, everybody gets turned by words, but some people don't notice that they get turned by them. they get turned by the words and then they get angry at the person who they think said the word that turned them. But they don't really say, hey, those words turned me, they said that was mean. Or, you know, stop talking like that. Or, thank you very much. But they don't necessarily notice that they just got turned by the person's words. To put it positively, it's very helpful to notice that everything you hear in terms of words, turns you. If we don't notice how the words turn us, we're missing something that's very helpful. I say to you, or I talk to you and you hear me say that. Sometimes your children or your spouse or your parents say, blah, blah, and you get really turned by it and you think, wow, that was really helpful.

[41:00]

Sometimes you get turned by that and say, that was really unhelpful. But I actually wish we would realize, wow, what you said really turned me. That really flipped me around. When you talked to me just then, I realized, thank you, I realized the nature of my mind. Sometimes when somebody says something, we have a totally new perspective about what our life's about. That implies that something shifted, that I got turned. Because now I think, I used to think I was a good person, and now I think I'm a bad person. But it's not so much that I was wrong before and right now, or right before and wrong now. It's that I got turned. That's the key factor. Karmic consciousness, where we live, which is all we have, we don't have freedom.

[42:10]

Actually, we are free, but we don't have it. And we like to have stuff, so we got stuff. And what do we have? We have karmic consciousness. And karmic consciousness is described as There's no place to get away from it. You can't get over it. You can't get under it. It's boundless. In terms of what we have, it's all we have. Everything we have is karmic consciousness. Everything we have is our imagination of the world. That's all we have. And sometimes we think, like somebody was telling me, I have a good life. Sometimes we think that. Sometimes we think, I have a below average life. Okay? Those are examples of karmic consciousness. This teaching says, please reflect on the teaching that when you said that, when you thought that, you just got turned by it.

[43:14]

And also don't degrade yourself because the teaching is even highly, greatly evolved beings are still turned around in the flow, in the river of words. They're still flipped around. Carnal consciousness is boundless and it's giddy, giddy. You know what giddy means? What does giddy mean? Huh? What does it mean? Excited? Right. Excited. What else? What? Effervescent. What else? What? Disoriented. It's excited and effervescent, which doesn't sound that bad, to the point of being disoriented and distracted. So like, you know... Let's say you have this deep wish to live for the welfare of all beings. That thought can arise in karmic consciousness, which is really marvelous that somehow karmic consciousness can let that thought arise when the Buddhas touch us.

[44:19]

So there's the thought. And then karmic consciousness says, wow, and forgets what the thought was. What was that again? Something cool just happened. What was it? And then somebody says, you know, you're really stupid, you're losing your memory. And you think, well, you're more stupid than me to talk to me like that. So we take a little break there in that wonderful thought. When the mind of enlightenment appears with the incarnate consciousness, it's an image. The mind of enlightenment allows itself to be transformed into an image. But it lives in the realm of giddiness, so it gets lost. But not permanently. Because you get touched again and again and again and again. So to be aware... So I think, you know, like I had this thought that, you know, you looked, you were having some trouble with what I was talking about, so you turned to me.

[45:31]

I mean... Yeah, I was... No, no, you turned me. You touched me. You gave me life. And my mind made words about that which turned me, which is okay. I'm... It's okay because I welcome being turned by what my mind makes of you. I welcome being turned by the words that my mind interprets you through. So now I'm inviting, I'm inviting you to enter into this turning, enter into this reciprocity. Enter into, I'm inviting you to enter into the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. And I'm saying to you,

[46:34]

Is there anything I can do to help you if you have any questions about how to reflect on this teaching, how to listen to this teaching, how to learn this teaching in order to enter the mountains and rivers, the mountains and waters of the immediate present? May I ask you a question? Is there a wish, do you see a wish to enter the mountains and waters of the immediate present?

[47:46]

Do you see a wish to do that? Yes, I feel like I'm in that play. You're in what place? That play of interacting with the mountains and waters. You feel like you are? Yes. May I ask you another question? Please. Do you think it's possible that you're always in that place? I think it's possible that... I think, yes. I think, yes. And I don't think I'm always aware of it, though. Yeah. Did you hear that? So I asked her, do you think maybe you're always in the mountains and rivers of the immediate person? Excuse me, I switch mountains and rivers with mountains and waters. Slightly different. You'll see. Anyway, I asked her, she says sometimes she's in that place, and I said, do you think maybe you're always in that place? And she said, yeah, but maybe I'm not aware of it. Right? May I say something? It's not something you're aware of.

[48:49]

you're aware of your idea of being in that place, or your idea that you're not in that place. When you're in that place, you're not aware you are there. Your awareness is that place. And our awareness as the path of the Buddhas, as that place in that place, is not something we know, and that is the structure of everything we know. It is the structure. It is the way we actually know things, but the way we know things is not what we know, but we can realize it. So it's like sometimes you somehow realize that place and sometimes you feel distracted from it or disoriented from it. Well, and what I also feel is... I almost feel like the person who's free and the person who is caught in images is both within me and that the person who is free will flash and the person who's caught in images will see the freedom and see the lack of freedom.

[50:17]

And then the person caught in images which I tend to put as self, we'll get a little caught in that. We'll get a little, that's the focus. Look at how you're always caught in images. As opposed to, thank you for turning. Thank you for letting me see. Very good. Very good. And so what we're doing right now is we are reflecting on these teachings. She and I. She's reflecting on them with me and with you. And then in this process of reflection, and with words, things can get turned, right? They will get turned. And so now I happily ask you, I turn by asking you if I can turn things a little bit. Please. So part of what she was doing, she's saying the person who's free of images and the person who's not.

[51:21]

And then you talked about the way the person who's not, what that person thinks about, the way they think about their images. But somehow this person who's free is also in there somehow, all the time, maybe. Sometimes. Sometimes a parent. Okay, it's just sometimes apparent, so I'm saying when the person who's free is apparent, that's not the person who's free. That's the person who's not free making images of the one who is free. The one who is free is not apparent, but never separate. The Buddha is not an appearance, but We like appearances, and the Buddha says, okay. If the Buddha says okay, but not with words, the Buddha just is like, the Buddha is okay. And we make the Buddha into the word okay. The Buddha says, the Buddha has no words and says stuff to us. In other words, the Buddha has no words, but lets us make the Buddha's teaching into words.

[52:25]

And it feels perfectly all right about that because the Buddha knows we need to do that. So the one who is free lets you make an appearance out of her, but she's not an appearance, but she doesn't punish you for it. She says, I know you need to go right ahead. And she says that non-verbally. But that person then gets upset that I've immediately... This person is basically upset. This person is upset because she can't leave this wonderful free person just to be free. She makes the free person and she says... I totally love you, I want to be intimate with you, I want to realize you, but can I just make you into something? And this one says, go right ahead, and then you make it into something and then you feel upset. Because you just made something that's not something you totally want to be, you just made it into something you can get a hold of, but then you lose it. It's like many stories. You know the story of Amor and Psyche?

[53:29]

Yes. So, yeah. So, the Psyche got together with love, and they were perfectly happy, but then somebody told Psyche, you should find out who this guy is. So she made him into an appearance. She brought some light, she could see him, he was totally cool. So when you have an appearance of the freedom, or the free self, when you see your free self, it's pretty cute. Like, wow! Wow! And then the free self says, yeah, well, you're right. This is wonderful, but you also just crunched it down to wonderful. So bye-bye, you lost me. Oh, darn. But it's not the end of the story because the freedom just keeps sending you messages which you turn into appearances. But the appearances, she said one of the appearances that's really helpful, which is, thanks for turning me. Instead of like, oh darn, you did something that, it was so nice that I couldn't help but make it into something I could get a hold of.

[54:35]

It's your fault for being so totally cool. How could I resist making you into something I could grasp? And now I did, and now I'm frustrated. But I could not, and I am upset, but I could also say, fine, thank you very much. In other words, another touch is when you make your real life into a counterfeit life and feel frustrated and unhappy about that, when you do that kind of thing, then we have a bunch of practices for you to do with that. Starting off by being generous towards the situation, like, wow, thank you very much for this upsetting arrangement. Welcome Welcome appearances which are separating me from the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. Welcome mountains which I can see. Welcome mountains which I can see who are what's blocking me from the mountains and rivers of the immediate present.

[55:36]

So you people are lucky here. You've got these mountains up here you can see all the time. And the mountains aren't blocking you, but your mind's version of those mountains are blocking you from the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. And these are pretty nice mountains. Can you imagine how beautiful the mountains and rivers of immediate present are? They're inconceivably beautiful. And you say, yeah, but I want a conceivable version. And you get a conceivable version, which is pretty good. But the problem with it is that you just divorced yourself from the living mountains. In other words, the mountains you have a living relationship with. So you said, be nice to that divorce. Be generous towards the divorce. Say thank you to the divorce. Welcome the divorce. Welcome it. That teaching also gets through. What to do when you are not in the mountains or rivers of the immediate present.

[56:42]

How to relate to that also has come through from this touch. The mountains and rivers of the immediate present touch us, we make a story about them, we feel unhappy and they touch us again and say, now you're unhappy, So be kind to the unhappiness and the appearance, be kind to it, and you will enter the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. And so on. Then after generosity we practice ethics and patience and diligence and concentration. And then wisdom comes, because we're listening to these teachings all along, wisdom comes when we enter the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. In the meantime, she came up and showed us the story of the free person interacting, the person who's free of images interacting with the person of images. The person of images is making all kinds of stories about the free one, the free one's letting them go ahead, but the one who's

[57:45]

imagining her relationship with freedom from imagination, can't be aware that she's doing that and what it's like. And then she can be kind to that scenario of giddiness. And she can also be kind to forgetting to be kind. That's also part of it. And confessing and repenting, I wasn't kind to my giddiness. And then asking questions of other people beings who are trying to do the same thing. For example, is it true that when I forget to be kind to my giddiness that I should confess and repent that and go back to work? Yes. Is that part of it? Yeah. That's a very important part of it, noticing that you weren't kind to the one who's crunching life into a little container. Be kind to the one who is confining. Be kind to the one, and then be careful of that one, and be patient with that one, and be enthusiastic with this enterprise with that one, and calm down with that one.

[58:57]

And then you can really understand that this one is nothing but a story about freedom. And it's impossible to know freedom, but it is it's actually quite accessible to realize it. It's impossible to know it, and you can realize it. You can realize freedom. It's right, the mountains and rivers of the immediate present are the path of freedom, and they're right now, and they can be realized, they just cannot be confined in any way or grasped in any way or known in any way that we ordinarily consider knowing. but they can be realized because they are our life right now. We have to keep working with them if we wish to realize it. We can take infinite number of breaks from the practice.

[60:01]

And we have already taken almost infinite number of breaks from the practice. And we can take many more. So that's going to keep going on. We're going to take breaks from the practice. We're going to take breaks from reflection on the one who's playing with imagination. We're going to take breaks from meditation on that one. But we also can do infinite number of moments when we are practicing. More and more we can do the practice, which you demonstrated very nicely. She noticed that mind and then she notice the trouble that mind causes. And then she thought, well, I think I'll do something nice for this mind. And you didn't even, I didn't even hear you say, well, I think I'll do something nice for the mind because that will be liberating. But in fact, it would. It would be. That's the first step. It's that kindness I saw towards this troublemaker, which is the

[61:04]

the mind which actually arises in... which is sponsored by the actual process of liberation. The process of liberation allows non-liberated beings to arise. Is there much merit in going into the story of the...? Is there much merit into going into the story of the...? if you're going into the story as an act of generosity but if you're going into the story to try to get for example free of the story if you're going into the story to get control of the story if you're going into the story to make the story better if you're going into the story because of another story that's you know something other than this is a story then you probably should wait for a little while until you get your license to go into stories.

[62:13]

And your license to go into stories is that you would be going into stories not to get something out of them, but in order to do these practices with them. Then if generosity would say, I think there's a gift for you to give to the story, and that is to ask the story some questions, for example. But again, if you're going into the story to try to get a hold of it, then you're just repeating the addiction, the addiction to knowing. Like you got a story which came because you want to know things, and you want to know things about the story, Well, again, you don't punish that wanting to know about the story which came from wanting to know about the story. It would be more to set free the story by asking the question such that the story... You said a question. Asking questions, asking the story questions, is like seeing the story as offering to you.

[63:21]

The story has now come to you. So rather than try to get, you know, okay, here's a little story, now I'm going to possess you or get a hold of you, ask it questions. It's actually, it's another example of the story is actually the mountains coming to touch you, to touch your body. So it's actually asking you to ask it a question. It's not asking you to confine it and get a hold of it and make it into something small. It's asking you to say, who are you? Not, who are you so you can find out, but who are you because that's your dynamic relationship with it, is to wonder, who is this story? Who is this mountain? So yeah, I think asking questions is different than, did you say go into it? Is that the word you used? Yeah, I remember. Asking questions in a kind of responsive and reciprocal way dramatically, dramatically enact your reciprocity with these stories of your life.

[64:23]

It's more the spirit of entering correct reflection on these stories. And notice the difference between the story was a way to make your inconceivable beautiful life into something conceivable. Okay? Now that is another gift which you can this time not try to make small, but actually ask it a question without trying to get a hold of it. Which follows quite naturally from, hey story, which is, hey story, welcome. You can be here. And now also be careful of you, now that you're here. And so on. Do these compassion practices with it, but one of them is to ask a question not to get answers, but as a gift. as a response, as an enactment of your response, because within the confined story of the mountains and rivers that the same process goes on that goes on preconceptionally.

[65:36]

The way your concepts interact with your body is also the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. The reality pervades all realms. It's a question of how to enter it. There's no time when you can't enter. You never get so far away you can't enter. This is a very optimistic teaching. Anytime that you realize you're getting turned, you can wake up. Any other offerings at this time?

[66:44]

You mentioned that you would make a distinction between rivers and water. Yeah. A distinction in this case is that when saying mountains and waters, the water is... is in one sense like a river. And rivers often run through the mountains. So the rivers that run through the mountains are kind of on a par with the mountains. They're part of the mountain imagery. There's mountains and rivers. But the mountains and waters are somewhat different in the sense of the waters are in some sense more like, in that imagery, are more like an ocean upon which the mountains can walk or travel.

[67:57]

So the mountains and rivers are used more in the realm of mountains, rivers, trees, you know, these physical things which are touching our body. The mountains and waters are mixed into it, the mountains and the waters of liberation upon which the mountains sit. So it's slightly different imagery there. The mountains of the immediate present are actually with the waters of liberation in the immediate present. And that's the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddhas. So those waters there are a little bit different than the waters of the rivers that are running through the mountains that are part of the empirical world that touches our sensuous body, and the empirical world where our body

[69:05]

is touched by and friends with the phenomenal world. That's just like phenomena, phenomena interacting with each other, but the way they interact is like the waters. It's the freedom of the interaction. So this is, you know, please reflect on this. And again, I will give you more images of this as we proceed. China is actually, a lot of China is very much like California, has a lot of mountains. So that's one of the compatibilities between the imagery of the Zen school, is that they use those mountains, the images of the mountains, to release sentient beings from their imagination. Zen monasteries are often called mountains, and they're often in the mountains.

[70:11]

But we can also call them a mountain when they're on the plains. It's just that people may not welcome that turning. Please come. Please come. Yes, this is the question booth. So my question is about what you said about words, us swimming in an ocean of words and being... influenced and acting in response. And the question I have, it has to do with sounds, like the sounds of yelling or the sounds of doors slamming or any sounds that could start a blast.

[71:17]

Do we treat those as words as well? Do you hear our question? So this teaching is saying that we do treat them as words. Our mind, the sounds, actually the sounds touch our body, and when they touch our body, if our body responds in that resonance between the strength of the sound and the strength of our sensitivity, our sensitivity to sounds, to that physicality, that sensitivity is a power. And that power with the power of physical nature gives rise to experience. And then experience comes with an imagination. And the imagination then renders, makes that sound into something rather puny compared to what the sound actually is.

[72:22]

And not only that, but it makes the whole experience into an image that it can know. So there is this direct thing that gives rise to consciousness that is consciousness. There is this reciprocity with our environment. But what results from that reciprocity is a mind which does not leave the situation as such. It conjures It's magic, a spell upon this sensual reciprocity wherein there's freedom and no possibility of attachment in this process because if there's any attachment, life would not arise. Consciousness would be blocked. There's a spontaneous eruption of life there. But life comes with a mind which confines itself and believes that its version of itself is the sound So, but also teachings are getting through to tell us what to do with the situation of confinement.

[73:33]

But even in direct experience like a sound, we still confine it. We still make it something that is, you know, which is exaggerated into smallness. Our mind, to some extent, is not very polite to the awesomeness of our life, which sponsors our mind. But also our mind can be taught to be kind to its own impoliteness. Like, oh, that was quite impolite. I made this person into an image and I believe this person was the image I had of them. That was rather impolite. But, you know, it I accept it. I welcome this impoliteness. And I understand that being kind to this impoliteness will free me from impoliteness. I may continue to be impolite, but I can become free of it.

[74:37]

And then say, speak from that freedom to this person who I, I'm sorry I made you into image, but I have my whole life to give to you because I'm free of my story about you. But I'm sorry I have a mind which makes you into something I can see And I have a long history of believing that things I can see as what they are. But I understand now that that's not true. I have this problem we've talked about before about trying to put words on.

[75:58]

It feels like a question, but it doesn't come with words. It feels more like it's sitting right here. But the only way I can bring it out to you that I know of is to put it in words and in a question. Elizabeth couldn't hear you. So you said, it's like you have something that you want to offer to me, but you don't know how to offer it unless you put it in words. Right. So you can start over again. Let's just say you came up here and sat down now, and you've got this thing to offer, but you haven't spoken yet. Okay? So let's just say now you come up here again, you sat here, you offered something, and you think you offered something, which is fine, but in fact I agree. When you came up and sat down here, you offered something. But you'd like to know if I got it, so you did it.

[76:58]

So then if you say it, you may have a better sense of whether I got what you offered. But when you did it with your body, you offered me your body, and I then made your body into an appearance, but you'd like to know if by any chance when I made you in that appearance did I actually get what you, what's in your body that you want me to receive, so then you start to want to talk. But you can also just try sometimes not talking and then realize, geez, but I don't know if he got what I gave him. And in fact, I think he might have made what I gave him into his idea of what I gave him as he did. So then we use words actually to try to liberate us from that sense of, I want to give something that I don't want him to convert into something else. I want him to receive our actual relationship. That's the struggle here. That's a good example. We do want to give ourselves, and we would like someone just to receive us rather than converting us into their story of us.

[78:05]

And then we know, well, most people will do that, though, or almost always they'll do that, so how can I work with that? And so we actually talk to get ourselves free of the way we talk ourselves into our story of each other. We have to use words to get free of the words where our mind throws into our actual physical relationship, which is our life, which again starts the story over again. But I also wonder if we talk so that we have something to do while we're connecting. Because I feel like you did receive me, but I can't just sit here and do this receiving thing because I'm supposed to be asking a question. So there's your story. But you could come up here, you could come up and say, I'd like to make a space where I can offer something to you and not know whether you received it or not. And would you please time it?

[79:08]

I'd like to offer something to you for five minutes. without verifying whether you got it or not, or whether you messed it up or not. And if you did mess it up, to accept that. But I'd just like to give it to you, and not tell you what it is, but I know I've got it to give, I really feel like I want to give it to you, I want this to be given to you, and I don't want to say anything to make sure you didn't mess it up, or that you got it right, or anything like that. You do that for five minutes. And I'm going to say, help, you know, five minutes to your five talents at a time, and time's up, and you gave it, and you did give it. You do come up, we do do it, but we have trouble just like entering that space of the mountains and rivers of the immediate present. It is happening, but we have trouble leaving it alone. Because it's very important to us. So what's really important to us is something really big, so we want to make it little so we make sure that we're taking good care of it.

[80:12]

But that is not it. That's our suffering. And it's allowed. And there's a way to take care of it that liberates it. And it is suffering, because sitting over there, I was feeling this longing, suffering, and there was a moment of connecting that was joy, and now it's back to, I can't do what I want. And on the one hand, it feels way too big to put into words. And on the other hand, I don't understand why we're confining it just to mountains and waters of the immediate present. Why not just the immediate present? Why did you say that all we have is... constructs and thoughts when don't we have experience, too? Or do we convert that into, like, isn't there immediate present experience?

[81:20]

The immediate ... In the language I'm using, the immediate present is experience. But we do not know experience. We are experience. We do not know ourselves. We are ourselves. We cannot get ourselves out to know ourselves. But the kind of beings we are, we think we can do that. And that's part of our imagination. It's a false imagination. It's incorrect to think that you can separate yourself from yourself and know yourself. You can't. But we do, we do, and we believe that and we suffer. But all the while we are actually, our life is our experience. but we just don't get to know it as the constructions we make out of it. But we try, we try to know it, and we're successful at knowing it, but what we know is not it, what we know is our story of it. But we are, our life is experience, our life is the mountains and rivers of the immediate present.

[82:25]

But I say mountains and rivers rather than just our present experience, because our present experience is our relationship with the mountains. Our present experience is not just my experience, but it's my experience sponsored by being touched by all beings. a reciprocal event. I give myself to others, others give themselves to me, and I'm alive. Without that interaction, there's no life. And that is our life, that is our experience, and freedom is right there. Freedom from what? Freedom from what that life sponsors, namely a story of that life which does not reach that life but only stresses it. However, once it's stressed, the process by which it was stressed, namely imagination, can receive input from the environment, which is a message from freedom, from those who have practiced with this confinement, with this stress, and have become free of it, and their freedom naturally comes back and touches those who are not yet free.

[83:47]

and touches them in such a way that they convert that touch, which is a direct life experience, they convert that into words, and other people who are working with these same teachings interact with them to clarify how to use those words to contemplate the teachings about the situation and become free of the situation. And there's two situations. There's a real situation and there's an imaginary situation. Our life has a real part and an imaginary part. That's the deal according to certain teachings. Our actual experience has an unreal part that doesn't really exist and it has a real part. And the real part is that the way our life is is that it's free of our stories about it.

[84:48]

That's the real part. The real part isn't something substantial. It's just the freedom from our substantiating our life. Our real life isn't a story. It's the absence, it's the actual absence of our stories of our life in our life. And our life has that freedom and it has that defilement or that limitation that our imagination creates. But those who have seen the freedom teach those who have not yet seen it. But they're both about the same life. And, yeah, it's the same life. It's just basically two different ways of seeing it. And if you see it this imaginary way, that's problems, but somehow those who have seen how it's free of that send messages to those who have not seen it and tell them how to work with their imagination in order to liberate their imagination.

[86:08]

And they say, contemplate these teachings. For example, contemplate the teaching that what you know is your imagination. Remember that. Contemplate that over and over, that you're working with your image of things. And you're working with an image about how to work with the images. So even the practices that you do with your imaginary life are your imagination of the practices. But still it works. It works to use the imagination of the practice in relationship to your imagination of your life. And these words that the imagination of the practice comes in, you could talk to other people who are doing the practice and clarify the way to use the imagination in a liberating way. That's what we're doing here. we're talking about how to use the imagination to liberate the imagination.

[87:14]

And again, the way of using the imagination to liberate the imagination is also... We are aware that we're using an imaginary version of that, but it still works to do it. After you're free, you do the same practices that you had an imagination of before, but now you just do the practices without any idea of them. They just unfold from your freedom from the imagination. It's the same practices. Same mountains that were there before. It's just you're free of the same mountains, same life. It's just now you're free of your idea of them. But the ideas are still there. It's just they don't confine you, which is really... That's called freedom. That's called... Yeah. Life has this quality of an imaginary side and a real side. Our life has the constant production of things that don't exist.

[88:19]

The mind naturally does that. And our actual life produces a mind Our life has a mind which produces unrealities, and the mind does not produce realities, it's just the mind has a real aspect. So our life actually has three aspects. One aspect is illusory, unreal, and defiled, and limiting. The other is pure and unlimited, and the other is both. The center of gravity of our life is both imaginary and free of imagination. That's the center of gravity. And then there's the freedom and the entrapment in imagination. If all beings were converted into perfectly enlightened Buddhas, that would be a different story. And now maybe it would be nice to have some walking meditation for you to reflect on your mind and body and the mountains and rivers of the immediate present, which are the path of the ancient Buddhas.

[89:40]

So Alice told you about one of these walking meditations that will take you away for several hours. Maybe you could do the closer ones and do the longer ones maybe at lunchtime. Do the ones in the building at this time so I can call you back before lunch. How long would you like to walk? How about 20 minutes? I'll ring the bell? Yeah. So don't get so far away you can't hear Alice's bell. Well, let's say 18 minutes. Come back at 11.

[90:23]

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