from on top of the hill. Is there anything you wish to discuss? Yes? Thank you. Practicing secretly, working within, like a fool, like an idiot. Can you just talk about that a little? Yeah. I think one thing that comes to mind is that earlier in the song that ends with secretly working within like a fool like an idiot earlier part of the song says it is bright just at midnight it doesn't appear at dawn so it is in terms of today's talk, it is the Buddha mind seal.

[01:03]

And one of the meanings of seal is like to put things together, to seal things, right? That's another meaning of the Buddha mind seal is that it's the way all beings are practicing together. It's the way we're, the Buddha mind seal, the Buddha mind is the way we're all helping each other. And the way we're all helping each other is not, is imperceptible. Like you may think that you're helping me or that I'm helping you. You may have a perception of that. Like you might say, oh, that was helpful. Or you might have a perception, oh, that wasn't helpful. So we do have perceptions like that. But the way you and I and all of us are working together in peace, the way we're liberating each other on an ongoing basis, that's the Buddha mind.

[02:17]

And that mind is bright at midnight. And then it says, it doesn't appear at dawn. The way we're helping each other is not an appearance. The way we're helping each other, it doesn't get rendered down to something that appears or disappears. When it says it doesn't appear at dawn, it means the way we're working together, assisting each other to become who we really are that doesn't appear in consciousness. But there could be an appearance of it, like, that looks like people are helping each other. But that's just an appearance of it. It's not actually how it's going. How it's going is inconceivable. But that can be realized. And the way you realize it

[03:21]

is to make everything you do for the sake of that realization. But in a way it's kind of foolish, you know, to be dedicating yourself to a practice that's occurring at midnight that you can't see with your conscious mind. It's kind of foolish, it's like an idiot. Like to go around and make everything you do just pointing to the inconceivable way we're all in harmony. It's kind of like an idiot. So keep it secret. Of course you can tell other idiots. The Zen Center is full of such idiots. At the Zen Center you can say, you know, I'm working with something that's very bright at midnight. But it doesn't mean we ignore dawn.

[04:27]

It doesn't mean we ignore our consciousness. We practice consciously too. And we practice with consciousness in order to enter samadhi. With our conscious mind, enter samadhi. And there we listen to the teachings like what we're trying to express is something that's not appearing here. And the Buddhas have realized peace. And they're teaching peace. But they also say that this peace is inconceivable. But they keep teaching it. And they teach people how to take care of their conscious mind so their conscious mind can open to this inconceivable. So even though it's foolish in a way, And then after it says practice secretly, working within like a fool, like an idiot.

[05:29]

If you can achieve continuity. Earlier it says, before that it says, when the wooden man begins to sing, the stone woman gets up dancing. That's earlier. Earlier. So of course, the wooden man singing is something that's happening at midnight. We can't see the wooden man sing. In consciousness, we don't see wooden men singing. And we don't see stone women getting up and dancing. But in the wisdom mind, amazing things like that are going on. Wooden men are dancing with stone women. And then it says, this dancing and singing is not within reach of feeling or discrimination. So this actual process of freeing beings so they may dwell in peace, the way we're working together on this is bright at midnight and it's not within reach of feeling or discrimination.

[06:46]

And then how could it admit of consideration and thought? And then it says, a minister serves the Lord, children obey their parents. So even though it's not within reach of feeling or discrimination, still we should practice it. So like for example, I sit in that seat and I'm devoting that, the sitting, I can see the sitting, you can see the sitting. Now I'm sitting in this seat, you can see me sitting, I can see me sitting. That's within reach of feeling indiscrimination. But what I'm devoted to is of singing wooden man. That's what I'm devoted to. And dancing stone women.

[07:48]

I'm devoted to an inconceivable process of liberation. And it's not within reach of feeling discrimination. So again, I'm a fool to be practicing a way that's not within reach of my intellect, of my intelligence. So I'm intelligent, but I'm devoted to a way that's not reached by my intelligence. So in that way, what I'm devoted to is kind of stupid. But I still must serve it. I must serve this Lord, this this master. What's the master? The Buddha mind. I'm a servant of an unceasing effort to free all beings. I'm a servant of that. And I'm a servant of something that's inconceivable, so I'm a stupid servant. And I keep the stupidity quiet. But now I'm telling you, it's not a secret anymore that I'm devoted to a realm beyond my intellect.

[08:55]

But I still take care of my intellect. And I say, you can just sit down here next to me while I sit. Or you can even sit on my lap. Intellect. You can be here, but you're not in charge. What's in charge is the Buddha Mind Seal. And I must serve it. It isn't just... I devote myself, not just that I'm stupid, I serve this singing wooden man and this dancing stone woman. I serve them. I must serve them. It's no help if I don't. And I continue this way. And I only tell people who want to know the inner workings of liberation. And sometimes I tell people who don't want to know about it, it doesn't go too badly.

[10:00]

Like one time, my grandson got, his parents bought him a new bicycle in San Francisco and he lived in L.A., so I brought him the bicycle as far as Santa Barbara. And I met him there and gave him the bicycle. He got on it and rode it around. And I said, do you like your new bicycle? And he said, I like it. And his mother at that time was pregnant with what would become his little sister. And even before she was born, he said, but she's not going to ride my bike. And I said to him, well, by the time she's old enough to ride it, you'll be off to college and won't need it anymore.

[11:09]

And he said, I still don't want her to ride it. And I said, but the person you'll be there won't be who you are now. So this won't apply. And he said, that's totally incomprehensible. So you know, sometimes people don't want to hear this stuff. But that didn't hurt him. And of course, in the intimacy of grandfather and grandson, this was transmitted in a way that I cannot see, which doesn't appear at dawn. But we listen to these teachings and we practice samadhi and we devote ourselves to a process of liberation which is not reached by our feeling or discrimination and which our feeling and discrimination cannot interfere with.

[12:19]

But if we don't let go of our feeling and discrimination, it's like they can interfere. because then if we hold on to our feeling of discrimination we won't calm down and enter the realm where we can understand this teaching. Any other things you want to bring up? Yes? In Zen Center we have a lot of long sutras and now long songs and teachings for them. Which parts are important? How do you decide where to start? Or how would you decide if you had just read them? What's important? Where do you start? Well, if you're practicing here and you come to our service, you don't have to decide where to start.

[13:25]

Everybody else is going to start, and you can join us or not. We start with, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when deeply... That's where we start. But you can say, I don't want to start then, I'm going to start later. And wait for a couple of lines, and then start then. But probably you will, even if you don't want to start, the start will be right in your face. And so then you'll chant that. What's most important? Let me tell you, I don't know. But Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, that's pretty important. Who is that? Is that you? Is that somebody else? But you might be chanting that and chanting that and chanting that and suddenly one day something stands up and you say, oh, this is really important.

[14:30]

Then for you that's really important. So then you can calm down and when you're calm you can look at what you think is really important. And if you ask me, what's really important, then I say, that's a good question. And you might say, but is that an important question? And I might say, that's another good one. So basically, what's important is what's in your face. This is your current opportunity to watch how you respond And then see if you can remember that this is an opportunity to practice a way which directly points.

[15:37]

Whatever the moment is, is an opportunity to practice directly, a way that directly indicates, that directly demonstrates. Every moment is opportunity. And so the scriptures are running by you all day long. And some of them look like scriptures and some of them don't. But this teaching that you heard this morning is, express it in your daily life, in all your actions. So there's no unimportant action. Every action is an opportunity to express the Buddha Mind Seal. And practicing that way intimately, inconceivably, makes the whole world that way. So you don't need to select when to do the practice. Yes.

[16:59]

Could you explain what is the problem that I experience in just sitting down and doing Zazen? When I have also experienced repeatedly that it's like the medicine that cures illness. What is the problem? Why would somebody not sit down and just sit So she's saying, I feel that sitting still is beneficial, and yet I seem to miss some opportunities. And she's wondering, how does that happen? Why would one avoid it? Yeah. Well, let me say, What I said earlier, I don't know. The workings, the causal process of our actions, how that works, will be revealed to you when you sit very deeply.

[18:19]

That will be revealed to you. in the direction you're heading, you're heading in a direction of someday understanding how it is that people who understand that something's good sometimes don't do it. And how it is that people understand that something's good and then they do it. How does that work? The Buddha says that process which is the Dharma, is inconceivable. Even for Buddhists it's inconceivable, but Buddhists have realized the inconceivable process. So they can demonstrate it. They have realized it. So we have stories about how it is that somebody who knows something's good passes up on it, and how somebody else who knows, or the same person, the next day they know something's good and they don't pass up on it.

[19:27]

And they're very happy that they didn't pass up on it. They're very happy they did what they thought would be good. So happy. And then the next day, again, they don't do what they feel was good and they feel bad. How that works we have stories about. But the stories are not how it works. There are opportunities to meditate on the stories and use the stories as a way to calm down and use the storytelling as a way to express that which the stories don't reach. So we use the conceivable. We work with the conceivable to understand the inconceivable. But how this all works is inconceivable. So I don't know. But I'm very grateful to have heard a teaching which says this is inconceivable and it can be realized. Yes?

[20:32]

What is the place of separation in freedom? You've spoken about realizing or manifesting or expressing the Buddha seal. Yes, expressing it through all your actions of daily life. And that peace is created in our unity, in our harmony, collectively. Yes. Where is separation? Separation is in consciousness. So normal human consciousness is a radical reduction of our psychophysical vitality. However, it's a very wonderful place to learn things. So consciousness should be honored, but also consciousness is deceptive.

[21:38]

And in consciousness there is the appearance of something which doesn't exist. A lot of things appear in consciousness which don't exist. For example, we see other people in consciousness and what we're seeing is appearances of them. But you are not the appearance of you that's appearing in my consciousness. You are a living person. You're not an appearance. But in your consciousness there are appearances of living people. But the living people are not the appearances. But in consciousness the appearances look like they're really somebody. They look like they're a person rather than they look like their mind. Everything that appears in consciousness is consciousness. But there's a subliminal message written under all the appearances.

[22:43]

And the message is something like, this is not an appearance, this is real. So the you that, the appearance of you that's appearing in my consciousness doesn't exist except as an image. You exist. You're a real living woman. But the appearance of you only exists, is just an appearance and nothing more. There's a teaching about that. So the teaching we have to write on top of the appearances. Teaching on top of the appearances, this is an appearance. And also another teaching is, and there's a subliminal message under the appearance which says, this is not an appearance, this is real. This person really is beautiful. This person really is disgusting. or the appearance of this disgusting person is not just an appearance.

[23:45]

That's subliminal. And that's consciousness. And one of the big things that appears in consciousness is the appearance that other living beings are separate from us. So there's you, and in addition to you, there's all these different appearances, but with each appearance, this phantom, this fantasy that they're separate. And that separateness is appearing in consciousness. So in consciousness there is an appearance of somebody and there is an appearance that the person is separate. And also, again, written under the separation is there really are separate. But the teachings are also coming into consciousness, and the teachings are saying that appearance of separation is just an illusion.

[24:46]

And if you believe it, then you're deluded. The teachings are in there too now. The teachings have gotten in there saying the appearance that other people are separate from you, it's there, but it's an illusion. Don't believe it. If possible, just be nice to it. It's powerful. but it's just an illusion. That's where the illusion of separateness lives. Outside of consciousness there is no separation. There's no such thing. But there is the appearance of separation in consciousness, and the Buddhist teaching is to help us deal with that appearance of separation in a compassionate way so that we can become unfooled by it. Consciousness is like a magic show, and we need to learn the magic.

[25:46]

We need to join the magic, the magician. We need to learn to be magicians, which we are. Yes? You had your two fingers together? I did. There's a way of looking at it from both sides. Yeah. Where we certainly are unified and in this cosmic soup together, thinking in very coordinated, even caught ways, where upon separation from one. catch, caught state is the point at which you see something. See what it is. So you're proposing that if we have a caught situation, that separation from it would be involved in seeing what it is.

[26:50]

Now, here's another perspective. If you're in a caught situation, if you see what it is, that doesn't require separation from it. But we naturally think in consciousness that to see what something is we have to separate from it. But in fact, in consciousness there is no separation because consciousness has a knowing part, a subjective part, and an objective part. They're not separate. But the subjective part sometimes thinks it has to be separate from the objective part in order to know it. And that's one of the things that the subjective part knows. It knows that idea that it needs to be separate from the objects, including that one. So if you study that, you don't have to separate from that situation in order to understand it. But there could be the thought that you have to. And another comment on this being caught

[27:54]

It's by being intimate with being caught that you realize that you're free. But we sometimes resist being caught, and that keeps us being caught. So again, part of the training with every time we feel caught, practice generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, and samadhi with being caught. And when you're in samadhi with being caught, then you're ready to realize that if you are caught, you're not caught. I think I heard this from a wrestler, any situation you get into, you can get out of. Another story is, a Zen story is, who can untie the bell strings around the tiger's neck? I guess sometimes, we don't do it now,

[28:59]

But for a while there, we had bell strings around some of our small tigers here. We have some major feline hunters in this valley. And some people wanted to put bell strings around them to protect the birds. So if you have a small feline animal, you can go up to them and tie a bell string around their neck. And then people have warning that they're coming. You can do that with tigers too, I guess. I don't know. Maybe they used to do that in India. No? You don't know? Yeah. Or maybe the Chinese tigers got bell strings. But anyway, the person who ties the bell string is the one who can untie it. if you're the one who tied it, that's your pest. You can go up to it and untie it. But if you don't know the tiger, you probably feel like, well, I can't take that.

[30:02]

I can't. No, you've got to get close to the tiger. And if you understand your intimacy with the tiger, you can untie the bell strings. But of course, now at this point, we've forgotten that we tied the bell strings around the tiger. We think that this powerful mind You know, that we've been so long not intimate with it. It's kind of like scary now. It's powerful. But you can be intimate with powerful things. And in fact, we are intimate with powerful things. So in samadhi, we're ready to be intimate with powerful things. And again, samadhi is part of the reason why it's ready to be intimate is because it's flexible. It can play. It can move. It doesn't have to be rigid and stand up in front of a powerful being who's coming our way.

[31:06]

It can say, please, can I use the equipment? Please. Can I be where you are? Sure. Sure. there's some big strong beings in this world, and we can be intimate with them. And when we're intimate with them, then we're not afraid to be with a big powerful being. When I was a, not too little, but when I was about Around seven or eight, I don't know what happened, but dogs started attacking me. Not a lot of them, but they seemed to come from long distances to attack me.

[32:12]

And so around that time, I became afraid of dogs, even little ones. And then when I was about 12 or 13, 14, my sister got two German shepherds. And she got them when they were puppies. So I grew up with these German shepherds. And there was a male and a female. And they were quite different. And the male was quite a bit bigger than the female. And... If people came to the house, the male would sometimes bark at them or growl at them. And because I grew up with this, I remember the female was named Tina. And I think, I don't remember the name of the male after my sister.

[33:17]

But anyway, I grew up with these German shepherds, so I wasn't afraid of them. Even though they barked and growled, I wasn't afraid of them because I grew up with them. I felt intimate with them. My friends would come over to visit and they would growl. Maybe his name was Mike. He would growl at them and I would say, he won't hurt you unless you move. And that's a basic Zen principle. Nothing will hurt you unless you move. And it's possible to not move, so you're fine. But I had to grow up with that, with that powerful animal, so I was comfortable being with him. And I knew that, and so now when I meet other big, powerful things, I can say, I have a chance, I know it's possible to become intimate with them, and I have confidence that when I'm intimate with them,

[34:22]

it's going to be fine, even though they are powerful. And if they're afraid, they're dangerous. But I can be intimate with large, powerful, dangerous forces. We can learn that. But we have to train to learn that. And if we can learn that, then we can transmit this intimacy to them. And intimacy is another word for the seal. The seal is... The mudra is the intimacy of all beings. Does that make sense? But we have to train to take care of it so that when a big powerful thing shows up, we can remember it and use our response to convey the seal, the intimacy of the Buddha mind. So it requires training and again training so we can remember, remember, remember.

[35:33]

Remember whatever comes, remember to be still. Boom! Still. Boom! Still. Attack! Still. Welcome. Still. Whatever. Meet it with stillness. Practice stillness and then transmit the stillness. So we're training at that. And some moments it's not so difficult to be still. Other moments it's really hard. So I've been very fortunate to have training opportunities, chances for me to learn how to be still with difficult things. When I was a little boy, I was the one in our family who cleaned up the vomit.

[36:38]

So when people vomited, I got to go clean it up. So I learned how to be with vomit, you know, by repeated exercises of coming over to the vomit and cleaning it up. the other people in the family couldn't be still with the vomit. Actually, now if I could go back, I'd say, wouldn't you like to learn how to clean up the vomit? I'll show you how to do it. If you have this training, then people can vomit on you and you can go, you can be still with it. It's good. Rather than, how dare you vomit on me? Or, you know, be afraid that they're going to vomit again and No, it's like, oh, vomit, oh, nice. Not nice, just, oh. Not nice, just not nice, not bad, just vomit.

[37:44]

Can you teach someone? You said, come here, if I could do it again now, I would say, come here, wouldn't you like to learn? Can you teach someone that stillness with vomit? Yeah. I'd say, now watch how I do it. See, there's the vomit. I see you're backing away. It's okay. You can back away. Now watch how I do it. And it's an internal thing. I mean, the other person watching could be experiencing fear, right, about that vomit. So they would have to deal with their own internal fear before they could... Yeah, not necessarily before. They might be feeling fear of the vomit. And then I might say, okay, now watch. They might be afraid and they might say, how do you deal with that? Or they might say to me, are you afraid of the vomit? And I might say, I don't feel afraid.

[38:48]

Say, well, how do you deal with the vomit? And then I would go deal with the vomit. They would watch me. They might still feel fear, but they might watch how I did it. And they see he did it, and it was OK. He didn't get killed by the vomit. And then that might feed back on their fear. So I was fortunate that I got to deal with a lot of vomit when I was a kid. And a lot of people, that's one of the advantages of being a parent, you get to deal with a lot of shit and vomit. But even my mother, who did deal with it still, she didn't know how to be still with it. And so I got this assignment. And when I was, yeah, so I feel it's fortunate when we are supported to become intimate with situations that some people have a natural aversion to.

[39:58]

Like again, some things little infants don't have aversion to, but then they learn to have aversion to it. people teach them that somehow it turns from being a certain kind of smell to being obnoxious. So they get taught that. And you can watch them go from having no problem with it to suddenly finding it yucky. Well, now that they've learned it's yucky, how can we relate to the yuckiness so they can see that it's not really yucky? So again, if I remember stillness with yuckiness and practice yuckiness, I practice stillness with yuckiness, then the yuckiness, then the stillness gets transmitted. So I have to remember the stillness. when yuckiness comes, when obnoxiousness comes, when violence comes, I have to remember stillness and then practice it.

[41:02]

And then while practicing it, it can get transmitted. And then when it's transmitted, then the beings that it's transmitted to, then they have the opportunity now to remember. It might get transmitted, but then they forget it. Well then, I continue to remember, practice, and transmit. So then I transmit a second time, and then they get it a second time. And the more times they get it, the more they start to remember it themselves. So sometimes the transmission happens quite a bit before the other people, other beings, start remembering it on their own and practicing it on their own and then transmitting it. But this is the process that we're devoted to is remembering, practicing, and transmitting, remembering, practicing, and transmitting stillness with everything, with all the gory, messy, challenging, frightening things that can appear in our consciousness.

[42:09]

We have this great opportunity. and it's kind of difficult, and it's ongoing. And if we take a break too long from dealing with this stuff, it might be that we have to start training again to get back to the level of intimacy we attained before. And we should accept that that's normal, that we don't just learn it and that's it. We learn it, and if we stop practicing it, we kind of lose it. We can. At a certain point, there is a kind of stage where the insight is developed and you don't lose it anymore. Your understanding naturally refreshes the process of the practice of intimacy. But until that stage, which is very advanced, we have to keep exercising the same way we did in earlier phases and be happy to do beginning practices.

[43:16]

That's one of the things that attracted me to Zen is I sensed that it was a way of living where you could do the program even when you're really old. Which means the really old people can do the practice that they did when they were really young. And it was hard in the beginning and it was hard in the middle, and it's hard in the end. But also it was good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end. But this path grows on difficulty. It's stimulated by challenge. And as it grows, when it grows and it's reached a certain level of maturity, then there might be a few moments there where it's not challenged. Kind of like, this isn't too hard. And then the universe says, oh, somebody is not being challenged.

[44:22]

Let's reward her so she can grow more. Well, look at that person. They seem to be so unchallenged. That would be a good person to ask for help. Yes? I'm going to go up a little bit on the limb here. About during the Iraq War, I remember I was sitting in this room as a guest, out there at question and answer, and there were going to be some big demonstrations, and somebody asked you or said, you know, I'm going to go demonstrate. Don't you think, you know, Isn't that what we should be doing now? Can you all hear what she said? If you really, really know that the action you're about to take is going to make a difference, yes, you have my blessing.

[45:26]

But the way you said really, really made me realize you probably didn't think there wasn't anything that that person could do or was going to do. So anyway, it was a great pause for me. It kind of stopped me in my tracks. And since then, I've been studying about how we don't really know the effects of anything as long as it's all intercontinental and you can see how it all works together. I have a better understanding of that. And yet still, when you open the talk today about the gun violence and about what's going on in the world, I guess I'm asking you here, is Somali, you know, my development and my own ability to be flexible and open and everything, and all that, is what really I want is that all there is to do?

[46:27]

Do you take that into the world? I do. Or is that step not part of Zen? Taking it into the world is totally about Zen. Because this is, again, all your daily activities is about Zen. Zen is about all your daily activities. But which activities? Go to the professor, go call your congressman, which activities? Which? Did you say which? Which all? All which? All which? Is that grammatically correct? All which? All. But should we do more stuff? Do more stuff. So should we do more stuff? That's one of them. That's one of the things you're doing.

[47:35]

You said, should we do more stuff? You made that sentence. So that's the current opportunity. Right now, that's what you're doing. Right now, that's your life. That's the one now. Is that directly pointing to peace and harmony? Is that what you want it to do? Or do you want to wait until the sentence is over and then start working on peace? When you're asking questions, if you are, do you want to practice at that time? You do? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's being still. you're thinking something, you're talking, you're asking a question, that's the opportunity. You're thinking about gun violence, that's the opportunity that's arising.

[48:41]

Now, the practice is to be still with that thought and to practice stillness with that thought and transmit stillness with that thought. The transmission of that stillness transmission of samadhi around that question, the questions of gun violence and how to protect people from harm, that is what we're transmitting. That's what we wish to transmit. And when the wish is there, when you just, instead of saying that question, when you just simply, you don't have a question, what you have is, I wish to protect beings from harm. And when that thought arises, we practice stillness with that thought. And we transmit stillness with a thought, I wish for peace. When the thought, is that enough, arises,

[49:42]

practice stillness with, is that enough? And transmit stillness with, is that enough? If the thought arises, this is enough, we did enough, we helped enough, then practice stillness with that thought. We didn't do enough, practice stillness with that thought. In being still with thoughts of, is it enough, it is enough, it isn't enough, Practicing stillness with that is transmitting the unceasing effort to free all beings so they can live in peace. That's how the peace is transmitted by the Buddhas, by being still with all questions and opinions about guns and violence and peace and are we doing enough or not enough. Whatever our daily activity is, What's my daily activity? This is enough. What's my daily activity? This is not enough. What's my daily activity? Is this enough?

[50:44]

This is like examples of daily activity. I hate you. I love you. That's daily activity. I want to help you. I don't want to help her. That's daily activity. Okay? Daily activities are boundless. I vow to save them. whatever the daily activity is, whatever we're doing together, I want to save it. How do I save it? By being still with it and using this as the opportunity to express the Buddha mind seal. As usual, I'm laughing at something that occurs in my mind which you haven't heard yet. And here's what you didn't hear yet, but now you're going to hear. I rest my case.

[51:45]

Or I rest the case. Koans are called cases. I rest the koan. Thank you very much for your brilliant presence.

[52:03]

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