Is there anything you'd like to discuss? Yes. Would you like to sit up here? Would you like to sit up here and talk to me? Or do you want to stay there? That's fine, yeah. What's your name? Mackenzie. Mackenzie. um i guess i'm kind of still sitting with what you said in particular like the last little bit about the cauldron and putting the forgetfulness into the cauldron is the upright cauldron and so i'm just kind of still wondering a little bit more about that like if the cauldron's not maybe if it's like tipped a little bit, and how to get that cauldron back upright, and just a little bit more about the forgetfulness into the cauldron, because that's kind of a work of upright.

[01:17]

We might hear about being upright, And then we might have received that teaching or that precept of being upright. And we might aspire to be upright. And then we fail. And then we notice that we are not upright, that we're leaning. And then we confess that. and then we see how we feel about it. And if we aspire to be upright, if we aspire to be balanced and remember to be balanced, then if we notice we're not, we feel a little uncomfortable. We don't feel quite lined up with our aspiration. And that discomfort is part of the process. So noticing that we're not lined up with being this upright cauldron, that the cauldron's leaning, contents are spilling out, and the process is not being contained.

[02:31]

I see that, I confess it, and I'm a little uncomfortable with it, and I want to try again. So we say that this process of confessing when we're not an upright welcoming being. We're not lined up with that upright welcoming being. By confessing that and feeling, repenting it by feeling somewhat discomfort about it, that process melts away the root of forgetting and confessing forgetting, feeling a little uncomfortable about it, going back and trying again, that process melts away the root of forgetting. The people who remember a lot are people who have noticed a lot of forgetting.

[03:37]

People who forget a lot sometimes don't notice much forgetting. But some people forget a lot and notice a lot. But the people who forget a lot and notice a lot will become eventually unforgetful. But it's a training process. That's part of it. Now you have it, so take care of it. Lots of notice, lots of forgetting. Lots of forgetting is natural. but noticing it and revealing it and seeing how that feels and then re-enlisting in this, whatever the precept you're working on is. We say that's the pure and simple color of true practice. So becoming proficient does happen eventually but it follows from lots of noticing of not being proficient.

[04:53]

Usually when we're learning something we don't know how to do it. So this applies also to learning Spanish. By noticing that you mispronounced the word or the grammar was off or whatever And so you can feel a little uncomfortable about not doing it correctly, but mostly you actually also feel joy that you're learning, that you're doing the appropriate thing, which is to welcome feedback on your language skills and try again. Esther, would you like to come up? Okay. So when you were talking about becoming intimate with the process of creation, of dissatisfaction, or I think of anything, I think what you're referring to is dependent origination, becoming familiar with the process of this idea of how we think we're separate, and understanding how we create each other and ourselves, be separate in the process of becoming intimate with that.

[06:18]

The Buddha said that she actually came to understand the process of dependent co-arising of the world. Of the world of suffering and also the dependent co-arising of peace. And then the Buddha taught gave a story about how that works. But the story the Buddha gave is just a story about it. The actual process is not these individual entities. The actual process is inconceivable. But to help us, while we're still caught up in the realm of conception, there's this story of ignorance and so on. And then it offers us these different opportunities to be intimate with. And when we are intimate with that help, we were actually open to the inconceivable process from where that story came.

[07:32]

So the Buddha taught twelve links of dependent core rising, but also ten, eight, six, four, and you could also make it two. ignorance and suffering. That's a two-fold chain. But then he can elaborate it up to twelve. Maybe sometimes it went beyond twelve, I don't know. But the most popular one is twelve. The actual one is infinite and inconceivable. But by studying our stories of causation, by realizing that being intimate with our stories of causation is a path to actually realize inconceivable causation beyond our stories. So, for example, I had this story that you were helpful to me.

[08:35]

It's a nice story. And by being intimate with my story that you're helpful to me, I can realize the way you helped me, which is beyond my story of how you helped me." So actually the Buddhas can see, they can have a story, they can tell the story. You are all helping each other, they can tell that story. By being intimate with the story, you're all helping each other. You open up to the reality, the inconceivable reality of how we're helping each other. But the Buddha could also say, you're not being helpful to yourself right now. He could tell that story. You're not being helpful to yourself. But then the Buddha wants to help you be intimate with the story. You're not being helpful to yourself. And by intimate with that story, you become free of the story, you're not being helpful to yourself, and you enter the inconceivable reality of how we are helping each other.

[09:46]

But to realize the inconceivable story of how we're helping each other, we have to be intimate with some stories like, you're not helpful, or I'm not helpful, or what I did wasn't helpful, and I'm sorry. Those stories we need to take care of. And if we take care of the stories of I was helpful, or you said I was, I wasn't helpful, or you said I wasn't, by being intimate with those stories, we open to the life beyond anybody's story. And that story, no, no, that life is peace. I have a question. In the second or the third line, this teaching is intimately communicated to you. And that's the word, intimately. How is it being intimately? Is it because we're all sitting or practicing in that way?

[10:51]

How are the ancestors intimately communicating it to us? As I mentioned, there's more than one Chinese character for intimate. But there's another character which sometimes is used, which just kind of means intimate or close. It's like the character for a relationship between parent and child. So that's another character for intimate. And I'll come back to that one in a minute. Now coming over to this character, this character means intimate, but it also means secret or hidden intimate. So we're close and we're very thickly related, but the way we're actually close and thickly related is a mystery, or is... it's a mystery. Like sometimes you may feel, you know, like she used to live here at Zen Center.

[11:57]

So maybe you have a story. We used to be closer. We used to see each other more often. So we had that story. Now I don't see you so much. So it looks like we're not so intimately woven anymore. So we take care of that story. with the understanding that the way we're intimate is not appearing to us, maybe. And if now I think, oh, now we're intimate again. I see that. Well, it's true that we are, but what I see of how we're intimate is not how we're intimate. So to want to see how we're intimate is a normal human feeling or wish. But you're not going to be able to see how we're intimate. How we're intimate is how we're helping each other.

[13:00]

We cannot see how we're helping each other. It is inconceivable. Although we can't see it, we can realize it. So in that sense we see it not with our eyes or with our ideas, we see it with wisdom. Wisdom realizes it. I have a story that you're helpful to me today, and then yesterday I had a story you weren't helpful to me. But grasping either of those stories is not peace. it's actually dissatisfaction to grasp the story, you were helpful to me yesterday, you are helpful to me today, or whatever. But the day before yesterday you weren't helpful. Grasping any of those stories is not intimate. It's not intimate to grasp things. The process by which I grasp is in actuality intimate.

[14:10]

But I can't see why I'm grasping this story and why I'm grasping this story. The way we're grasping, we can't see the reason for it. So in that way, intimacy is suchness. The teaching of intimacy. The teaching of intimacy is entrusted suchness. But we can't see such. So one of our stories in one of our collections of stories, the first story in the book of 100 stories, the Buddha comes in and sits on a big seat, and there's the teaching. And the great bodhisattva of wisdom

[15:13]

hits a gavel, and says, hey, look, there's the teaching. People couldn't see it. It was right there, being demonstrated. The wisdom was being demonstrated, but they couldn't see it. So Amman Joshi said, boom, there it is. We need that. But it's leading us, it points out, it was there before I told you it was there. I'm telling you it's there. I'm telling you it's here. But by the way, it's here before I tell you. And after I stop telling you. The way things are never stops, never starts. Can't go anywhere. And now you have it. That's intimacy. You can't get away from our true relationship. You can't get closer to it. You can't get farther from it. But it seems to be necessary that somebody tells you, by the way, you have it.

[16:23]

And it's good to learn how to talk in such a way and make hand gestures in such a way that all your words are words of confirmation. Confirming what? Suchness confirming intimacy. Yes. Want to come up? Would you like to use this? Sure. Thanks. My mother is dying. How are you?

[17:28]

Not well. You're not well? No. How are you feeling? It's hard. Hard, yeah. You have a wonderful mom, right? I do. And the idea that... Is she having a hard time? Well, my mother is very careful about her family and how we're all feeling. And I'm very careful about what I say to her. Like, we don't talk about death. You say that to her? We don't talk about it. But do you say that to her? No. Well, you don't. Mm-mm. Well, me too. It's very silent. So despite that intimacy that we have, I've never brought it up, and neither has she. She'll call me and say, daughter, I'm okay.

[18:31]

You know, I did this today. I have an idea. Want to hear it? I do. You do? My idea is, would you like me to say something about that? Would you like me to ask you a question? Yes. Do you think it would be helpful for you to bring up the topic with her? Do you think it would be helpful? I think that's why I'm here, to ask you. I'm not comfortable bringing it up. Right. How about bringing up my death? How about telling her... No, you could... Yeah, so you could say to your mother, I'm a little concerned about one of my friends. He's getting kind of old. And I'm just getting kind of concerned that he's not going to be around forever, that he might die. I actually have been concerned.

[19:34]

Yeah, so you could actually tell her about this concern you have. And she could help you with your concern about death. And you might even at some point be concerned about your own death or your former husband's death. And you're concerned about that too, right? You could talk to her about other people's death that you're concerned about. And she could counsel you about it. In this way, you'd be starting to talk about it. Without bringing it up, you'd bring up somebody else. And then in that way, you may be you know, it might just flow into talking about another death. But it might be, maybe you feel it's maybe too rough or too abrupt or something to bring it up so obviously. But maybe indirectly, by talking about mine, his, yours, you can see that she's willing to talk about it and maybe have some thoughts about it.

[20:41]

and hear your thoughts about it. So you start to talk about it. But maybe not in such a direct way. Sometimes a direct way is too intense. Like I think of this story about this Greek myth about Amor and Psyche. She actually had this good, Psyche and Amor had this really nice relationship, but for various reasons she was too direct with Amor. You know, she brought this big light to him, which he told her not to do, don't be so direct. And she brought the light and spilled some oil on him and then he ran away. So she had to do these various tasks to get connected again. And one of her tasks was to collect the golden fleece from some rams in a field. And so she was approaching the field to get this thing she's supposed to get.

[21:46]

And the reeds that she was walking through said, don't go to see the rams at noon. Go at twilight. So noon is kind of like just directly bringing it up, maybe too much. But if you have Twilight talking about some other people's, you can start to get the discussion that you need to have. It's not so much that you need to talk to her about death, but it's that you need to be intimate with her and So this is a topic which, if you avoid it, it might hinder your intimacy. But you don't have to go at it through this door. You can go through these other doors. And in this way, you're really talking about it, but nobody's going to... We don't talk about it, but we can still talk about it. So the important thing is to be intimate with her.

[22:49]

How about closure? Well, if there's a lack of closure, be intimate with a lack of closure, and that will be contributing to intimacy with closure when closure is being offered. How do you offer it to the other person indirectly? How do you offer being intimate with a lack of closure? How do you... How do you reach closure with someone indirectly? Closure is going to happen not by your power or hers. It's going to happen. I don't know when. But if it happens and you're not intimate with it, it kind of doesn't count. If you can be intimate with a lack of closure,

[23:52]

with an incomplete process, then when closure comes, you won't miss it. But if you're not taking care of lack of closure, then you're distracting yourself from your real work, which is that you feel a lack of closure now. That's, like I said earlier, there's no shortage of opportunities for intimacy. Your current opportunity is a lack of closure. If you take care of that one, then when closure is coming, you'll have a better chance of taking care of that one. It doesn't mean that you, if you're not, if you don't do your work now, it doesn't mean you won't be able to do it later. You might. But rather, if you do do your work now, it increases the possibility of you being able to do the closure thing intimately.

[24:54]

So if you feel like the time for closure has not arrived, I would say, okay, thank you very much for this situation. And if you can really be intimate with the current situation, or you can enter that, then you're not in charge of closure. Buddhas are not in charge of closure or lack of closure. They're in charge of being intimate with the situation. And then closure comes and goes. But if we don't train, we're going to not be there fully for it. You're welcome. Anything? Yes. Would you like to come up? I have a question about dissatisfaction and suffering.

[26:07]

I've always loved a beautiful quote by Martha Graham, the choreographer, that talks about divine dissatisfaction. What dissatisfaction? Divine. Oh, divine, yeah. Dissatisfaction. And as an artist myself, I really... I am intimate with that. She also talks about a queer restlessness, a divine dissatisfaction that made her more alive. Did you say clear? Queer. Queer. She talks, that's the word she, queer restlessness. Queer restlessness. And a divine dissatisfaction. I was also thinking of Mick Jagger, I can't get no dissatisfaction. I guess if I hear the word medicine or relieving dissatisfaction or suffering as if those are sort of negative things, that's where I have some question about it.

[27:11]

if everything is suffering, there's also, and yet, I mean, just that idea, there's also joy. So I never quite understood that everything is suffering, but... I don't think the Buddha said everything is suffering. Oh, good. The Buddha said, there's a truth of suffering, and what is the truth of suffering? And then he lists everything that's suffering. And after he lists all the things that are suffering, he says, in short, the five aggregates of clinging are suffering. So the experiences in karmic consciousness come in five categories. And if you cling to any of them, that's suffering. But if you don't cling to these, then there's no suffering. He didn't say everything was suffering.

[28:20]

But he did say anything you cling to, the clinging to anything, will be a condition for the arising of suffering. So it just seems like there's a desire to get rid of dissatisfaction and that that's a goal is to relieve myself. But I kind of love dissatisfaction as well as satisfaction. Loving it, there's two ways of loving it, or many. One way of loving it is to hold on to it. The other way of loving it is to donate it to somebody who might want it. Don't make it. Like, would you please give me your stuff? My dissatisfaction? Yeah, would you give me your dissatisfaction, please? Sure. Thank you. Yeah. I would say that's very loving of your dissatisfaction, is that I asked you for it, you give it to me. It's mine. So I think, yes, love dissatisfaction. We're not trying to... The teaching of...

[29:24]

In other words, I don't like the idea that suffering is bad or disaster is bad. It seems like... Yeah, but again, it's okay that you don't like the idea that suffering is bad. That's all right. But I'm not trying to get you to stop thinking that it's bad for you to think suffering is bad. I'm not trying to stop that. All that stuff goes into the cauldron. Mm-hmm. So everything goes in the cauldron, including ideas of good and bad. If you don't think suffering is bad, you just think it's suffering, put that in. If you think it's bad, put the thing that's bad in. If I don't like that people think it's bad, put that in. What do you think, though? What do I think about what? Do you embrace dissatisfaction and suffering?

[30:28]

I guess it's more about embracing it. Do I embrace it? So I love the intimate. You know, I do sometimes. And so far, I've never regretted it. Embracing it. Embracing it without suffocating it. embracing it and if somebody else wants to join, you're welcome to join. It's not mine. I'm embracing it without possessing it. I'm embracing it to nourish it. To nourish it into peace. All dissatisfaction can be nourished into peace. I try to give up pushing dissatisfaction away And I also try to give up holding on to it. I got dissatisfaction. And if I feel that way, I try to embrace, I got dissatisfaction.

[31:28]

I got more than you. I can't get no dissatisfaction. Thank you. You're welcome. To me the key is intimacy. Intimacy, yeah. If I'm intimate with my suffering and intimate with my joy and intimate with my dissatisfaction, intimate with my satisfaction, that really hits home. That's how Buddhas practice intimate with all the stuff. And that is the teaching. And you have it. So take care of it. Yes? Want to come up? Okay. So where I feel confusion at times is... There's hurt in me and pain, and I notice that I'll bring attention to it and presence.

[32:30]

Yeah. And there's definitely a drive in that for healing, because it does, it shifts, it changes. Yeah. And then I've gotten feedback sometimes that, well, place your mind, maybe it's a little out of balance, you know, because I experience the pain a lot in my body or emotionally. So place your attention on like appreciating life or something that's cultivating joy or something. So I don't know the skillful means of that because I feel relief from the physical and emotional pain when I embrace it often. Yeah. But then I hear that it's too much of an emphasis. Sorry, I forgot that feedback. Yeah, so I'm wondering, like, you know, you hear the teachings on, like, you know, being mindful in the moment, appreciating all the elements that are alive and present to us here, and there's a lot of happiness that comes from that, and peace, and joy, and I just, I feel confused there around my practice in what place.

[33:42]

Could you hear her by any chance? No. Some people could, but way in the back they couldn't. So let me see if I can sort of say it like you said it somewhat. What's your name again? Lisa. Lisa said sometimes she practices... Did you say embracing? Embracing feelings of dissatisfaction or pain? She practices embracing pain and actually she finds some relief in that. And then some of her friends are giving her feedback that maybe it would be good if you embraced some... what? Something else? Yeah, just more looking into the moment. Rather than embracing what I'm experiencing emotionally or physically in my body, doing a practice where you're like appreciating nature, looking at the beauty around you. Okay, so just a moment before you said something about look into the moment.

[34:51]

Yeah. Look into the moment. Yeah. Look into the moment. Don't look over there. Don't get distracted from looking into the moment and go over there to look at nature, beautiful nature. If nature comes to visit, look into the moment. If nature goes away and a garbage truck comes, look into the moment. If pain comes, look into the moment. If a glorious sunset comes to visit, look into the moment. So, If you're looking into the moment of pain and you're feeling like, I think this is what I want to do. I want to look into this moment of pain. And then somebody comes to visit you and says, look at something beautiful. Then in the moment you look into them giving you that instruction. You say, now I'm being instructed to look someplace else.

[35:57]

But I'm looking into this moment of getting this feedback. Now I'm feeling confused. Look into the moment. Pain? Look into the moment. Feedback? Look into the moment. Sunsets? Look into the moment. Confusion? Look into the moment. Be intimate with whatever comes. That's the practice of taking care of the teaching of suchness. The teaching of suchness is be intimate with whatever's happening, and then you practice trying to take care of that try to look into the moment without thinking I shouldn't say without thinking look into the moment of thinking and even when thoughts come up like you should be looking at something other than this that's occurring in the moment that thought so now I'm looking at the moment am I supposed to be looking at something other than this but I'm going to look at this

[36:58]

instruction that I shouldn't be looking at this. Yeah. People tell you you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. So now that's what I hear, this is what I'm going to be intimate with. And now they say, you're doing exactly the right thing. Continue. Okay? Look into that. And they say, I'm just kidding. Don't do that. This is reality helping you not get stuck in your practice. And if you think, if somebody comes up to you and says, Lisa? Lisa, you're really off track. Then you might say, I hear you. Maybe I am. Or, I hear you telling me that. And I'm not going to grasp what you're telling me about myself. If you say I'm a good person, I don't want to grasp that. If you tell me I'm a bad person, I don't want to grasp that.

[38:01]

I might, but like somebody said, you do practice this? And sometimes I do. Namely, I'm intimate with people telling me that I should be a better person when they do. But when they're not telling me that I should be a better person, I don't necessarily try to remember every insult somebody told me. But I might remember. People told me I'm not so good. I remember that. I don't want to grasp that. I'm open to the possibility that I'm way off track. But I don't know if I am or not. I don't know if I'm on track. I don't know if I'm off track. I don't know if I'm even open to being on track or off track. But I want to be open to being open. And I want to be open to being off track.

[39:02]

And I want to be open to being on track. But if I ever am on track and I'm not open to being on track when I am open to being on track, then that's suffering. That's my training. To not abide in any story. and thereby open to the reality of suchness by being intimate with all stories. Like, you should be doing something else with your life or you're doing just the right thing. So again, I've told you before, sometimes people tell me that I'm not being helpful. Sometimes people tell me I am being helpful. And sometimes people tell me, you do not know how helpful you are. They don't tell me usually, you don't know how unhelpful you are.

[40:08]

But I don't think we know how helpful we are. But I want to realize how helpful we are. I want to realize how helpful we are. That's what I want to realize. I want to realize what I don't know. Which is how we're helping each other. And I might want to know, but that's not my main agenda. My main agenda is to realize love, not to know it, not to get another story about it. So I feel very... It feels very true to me, very real, in the sense of ongoing availability, possibility, if you will, of intimacy with suchness.

[41:18]

Excuse me, can I say something? Sure. It's not intimacy with suchness. It's suchness which is intimacy. the way the suchness is transmitted, the way it's entrusted, is intimacy. So it's not intimacy with suchness, it's not suchness with intimacy. They're the same thing. The way we realize intimacy is such. The way we realize such is intimacy. Please continue. You may have answered my question. The part that I don't get We started with the hundred thousand billion office. That seems very, very great. What was the question? He said the part he doesn't get is the chant when we say an unsurpassed perfect dharma, perfect teaching is rarely met with

[42:28]

Yeah. And here's another one. The unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment is rarely met with. Now you have it. So keep it well. Here's another one. An unsurpassed, complete, perfect dharma of suchness is rarely met with. now you have it. So the rarely met with is to help you appreciate that it isn't just now you have it, but this is really a great thing that you've just been given. Just to emphasize how wonderful it is that you have it. So it isn't, maybe you won't, it's kind of a scare tactic. Maybe you won't get it in the next moment. So Really you will, but maybe you won't.

[43:41]

So that's a little problem of that chant. Yeah, this other chant is, this perfect teaching is being given to you now. You have it now. and not even perfect, the teaching of such. You have it now. It's not saying how rare it is. So, you know, rare, and also it happens every moment, so it's kind of a problem. Sorry. Yes, do you want to come up? Or do you want to stand up? You're so far away from me. Hi. So, I'm feeling a little bit confused and my question is... She's feeling a little confused and her question is,

[44:55]

Loving this beautiful image of the cauldron. Does the Dharma go into the cauldron sometimes too? Yeah. Okay then, because I'm writing this book and the whole philosophy of the book... Does the cauldron go into the cauldron? Yes, does it? That's a good question. Does upright go into the cauldron? Yes, does it? Everything then must go into the cauldron, correct? Nothing's excluded. So then there is no Dharma or there is no truth. Is that what you're saying? Well, yeah. There is no Dharma or the Dharma we have, we don't have any Dharma. So we don't have any Dharma. It's maybe slightly different from there is no Dharma. We just don't, you know, like one of my friends teaches Vipassana and he also practiced at Zen Center and the Vipassana students said, do the Zen people have concentration?

[46:16]

Is there concentration in Zen practice? The word Zen means concentration, but anyway... Is there concentration in Zen practice?" He says, yeah, it's just that they don't get to have it. So we don't have any Dharma, you know. I don't have any Dharma and now you have it. And the way you keep it is by not having it. Don't hold on to it. Give it away. Or put it in the cauldron and let it get transformed into the next useful, next use. Next way to help. So then, on the one hand, we live in a society where there's supposed truths everywhere, including Buddhism, I would have to say. And at the same time, in this perfect moment, when we're in this perfect place with the Dharma or the truth, and we feel that perfect moment,

[47:20]

Perhaps it even isn't for an individual or for in that moment. Maybe what I wrestle with is I have this belief that we all need to figure out what's correct for ourselves and that that can even change moment to moment or time to time. And we come up with that decision based on a zillion trillion things and then there's supposed truths out there and I just repeatedly get confused about even I start to believe sometimes that there's a truth even if it's my truth but I think it's helpful for me today to hear that everything can constantly go into the cauldron, even the cauldron.

[48:24]

And the cauldron could melt and drip and everything, the drippings could, we don't even know, it could magically go back into a cauldron. So everything absolutely is a mystery and a miracle. Yes? We put that in the cauldron. And put that in the cauldron. Okay. Thank you very much. Is that enough for today? Thank you very much.

[49:07]

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