So I've heard from many people that they are, they're just sick of themselves. There's a nice seat right here. There's a nice seat right there. One of the most famous Zen stories is about a monk named Xiang Yan. He's the one who was sweeping the ground or raking the ground around the memorial site of the national teacher, Zheng.

[01:11]

a pebble was dislodged and flew and hit bamboo and went and he he woke up to the mind before the self was born. He had been living in and I read one Zen priest commented on this story and said he was really a good monk but he had the problem of having consciousness. So one of the basic human challenges is that we have consciousness. And in consciousness there is I, me and mine. And there's also affliction that comes with my, me, I. And it's exhausting sometimes and sometimes also frightening and sometimes we even feel defensive and violent because of what's going on in consciousness.

[02:32]

And And last, I've been quoting an English writer, D.H. Lawrence, who said one time, this is what I know about my conscious self. It's like a clearing in a dark forest. And I think he went on to say something like, sometimes deities come out of the forest into the clearing and go back. And I wrote this circle with the eye in it as a symbol of self-consciousness of earlier classes. But then I also drew some other circles, right, which also had eyes in them. Now, in this circle here, the eye doesn't refer to the eye over here.

[03:48]

It refers to this eye, not that eye. Anyway, one of the basic things that I want to start off by saying is that human beings are challenged by this situation It's very difficult to be in the consciousness where there's somebody there who happens to be called me or I or me or my. It's difficult. And even the smartest people, the greatest philosophers, some of the greatest philosophers, they've studied their own mind, they've studied the world that's appearing in their consciousness, but their philosophy is still egocentric. They're still trapped in egocentric point of view. Being trapped in egocentric point of view is one of the four afflictions that comes with consciousness. They, because they're very, I don't know what, great consciousnesses, they've discovered a lot about consciousness.

[05:00]

and they're not so confused as most people about this I. They know this I better than most people do because they've studied this self a lot, but still what they teach is egocentric. They have not actually, they still have this problem of consciousness. But some philosophers, like Shakyamuni Buddha, have actually become free of this egocentric consciousness. And the way of freedom from egocentric consciousness is by face-to-face transmission between consciousnesses. the face-to-face transmission is freedom from consciousness.

[06:07]

So, and this face-to-face transmission, which Dogen called Menju, which literally means giving the face, but also understanding, receiving the face, This face-to-face transmission is the mind of the great sage of India. The mind of the great sage of India is not one of these consciousnesses. The mind of the great sage of India is not trapped in egocentric consciousness. It is free of egocentric consciousness.

[07:16]

It is free of egocentric consciousness. It is liberated of egocentric consciousness. And it is the conversation between egocentric consciousnesses. It's not trapped in egocentric consciousness. It's the conversation between the cages, between the traps, between the prisons. It doesn't get rid of the... I don't think it gets rid of the prisons. It is the way the prisons are actually in conversation with each other and the conversation is not trapped in the prisons. And this conversation is a mind.

[08:16]

It is called prajnaparamita. But it's not a mind of like one person. It's not like your mind or my mind. It's the mind which is a conversation between all persons. That kind of mind. And again, it is freedom It's also called in the lineage that we're inheriting in this temple, it's called dropping off body and mind. It's a mind which is dropping off body and mind. But the dropping off body and mind mind is also a conversation between all minds.

[09:29]

The conversation is not stuck in body and mind. It is body and mind dropping off in conversation between bodies and minds. And another word that we use for this is zazen. This conversation is zazen. This mind is zazen. This is sitting in stillness in conversation. It is liberation from egocentric entrapment. And it is using this liberation, this conversation, to facilitate and widen and deepen the conversation.

[10:40]

It isn't just the conversation, it is conversing about making this conversation get deeper and deeper. It's about this conversation is liberation, but it's also commitment to make sure or to promote that this conversation will go on. It's to make a Buddha, which is the assurance that the mind of this conversation will be there in the future. So that's the kind of philosophy. that I offer to you and I also could go into some details about what's involved in the conversation and also what's involved in the description of the

[12:01]

egocentric consciousness being a clearing in a dark forest. I could go into some more detail about that if you're ready for that. Shall I go on? Yes, go on. So yeah, let's see. So this is a clearing and surrounding this clearing is a dark forest. Now the dark forest, this is a mind, which I call consciousness. And surrounding this dark forest is a mind. So the egocentric consciousness is a mind that's surrounded by and supports, and is supported by, a dark cognitive forest.

[13:04]

And the dark cognitive forest supports it, but also the dark cognitive forest is constantly being transformed by the life of this consciousness. Every moment of conscious life transforms the dark forest. Every moment of conscious life rises by support of the dark forest. And as it arises, it transforms the dark forest. As it arises, when it's fully arisen, it's alive. And its life changes its support. So it arises from a support which it simultaneously transforms as it's born. As it lives, it transforms its roots, as you say, or its surround. the dark forest. Dark means that we are not consciously aware of the activities going on in the supportive consciousness.

[14:09]

We consciously understand that there is a dark forest, though. Now we understand that, more or less. We've heard about the unconscious surrounding the conscious. But what's going on in the conscious is not known consciously to the consciousness. It's known indirectly by various kinds of discoveries that have been transmitted to the consciousness. Now, in the dark forest of this consciousness, which I point to this body, in referring to this consciousness in the dark forest, there are lots of other clearings besides this clearing. And in each of those clearings there's an I or a self, there's a me and a mine in each of those clearings.

[15:19]

And those clearings also support this consciousness because those clearings are part of the dark forest. I'm not sure I understood that. In the dark forest surrounding this consciousness are other clearings which support, that are part of the dark forest, part of this consciousness, this dark forest. But for them... And they are part of the support of this consciousness. All the clearings. Because they also create, they also are supported by the same thing that supports... They're supported by the same basic situation that supports this one. So their support is my support, so they're part of my support. Is anything supporting the dark forest? Anything supporting... Outside the dark forest? There's nothing outside supporting the dark forest, and there's really nothing outside the clearing supporting the clearing, because the dark forest isn't really outside the clearing.

[16:25]

So there's nothing outside mind. Yes? So would an example of those other clearings be like something that your third grade teacher said to you that you still sort of, without thinking about it, do today? Or... Would you say it again? An example of the other clearings of our consciousness that we're supporting. Would an example of that be something like, you know, something that your third grade teacher maybe said to you that still influences how you are today? Is that an example of a... I mean, are they communications from... That's more like what my third grade teacher said to me is still with me in the form of the dark forest. So it's not the other thing. No. All the past clearings that you have been living in and that you have been conversing with, all those clearings, are actually the dark forest.

[17:39]

The ones in the past. One of the names for the dark forest in Buddhist psychology is the resultant. The dark forest is the results of the past lives of all the selves in the forest, in the clearings. So your third grade teacher and you, the third grader, the life of your third grade teacher and the life of the third grader that you were, those are the dark forest around you, which is around me. the results of your third grade teacher's conscious life and the results of your third grade life are registered as this unconscious cognitive process. Like your third grade teacher taught you English, and the way your third grade teacher's activity of teaching you English is surrounding you is as an unconscious ability to speak English. We are consciously aware that we speak English, but we are not consciously aware of how to speak English.

[18:47]

We got that from our third grade teacher interacting with us. And those conscious interactions have produced minds which can speak English, which support the speaking of English, which the conscious mind can observe, oh, English is being spoken. Now, before you ask questions about the things you don't yet maybe feel clear about, I want to make the situation much, much more complicated. Start off by making it more complicated than I've ever made it before. So there's a lot of these little clearings, right? I just put two up here. And they are, in Buddha's mind, Buddha's mind, again, is the conversation between them. That's the Buddha's mind. So you could say, in Buddha's mind, all these clearings are talking to each other.

[19:49]

But that's what Buddha's mind is, is all the clearings talking to each other. And all of them, there's an infinite number of them, more or less, they're talking to each other. In the dark forest there's unconscious cognitive processes going on. And also in the dark forest there is bodies. Now what's the dark forest again? I said the dark forest is a mind. Consciousness is a mind. The dark forest is a mind. And people say, is the dark forest the Buddha mind? I think someone asked that the other night, the other day. The dark forest isn't really the Buddha mind. The Buddha mind is the conversation between all the clearings and the conversation between the dark forest and all the clearings.

[21:03]

That's the Buddha mind. That's perfect wisdom. the mind that surrounds the clearings is also includes, is also bodies. The mind that supports the clearings, that surrounds the clearings, and that is the result of all the past activity of the clearings, vast cognitive process is also bodies. It is bodies which appear as cognitive process. And it is cognitive process that appears as bodies.

[22:05]

I would even say that it is the surrounding resultant mind that includes all individual consciousnesses, that surrounding vast mind. Again, in some cases it seems to be a body or bodies, but these bodies are actually minds deceptively appearing as bodies. But also this forest is bodies which are deceptively appearing as minds. It looks like minds sometimes and other times it looks like bodies. But when it looks like bodies, it's really minds or a mind that's deceptively looking like a body.

[23:18]

And when it appears to be like a mind, it's actually a body deceptively appearing as a mind. So the conversation between body and mind is part of the dark forest. So the conversation between body and mind is part of the support of conversation, of the clearings which are in conversation with body and mind and with other clearings. So what surrounds us is body-mind in conversation too. So body-mind in conversation supports the arising of a consciousness which does not feel like it's in conversation with some things, but it is. So another way this forest is talked about in Buddhist psychology is that part of the forest is shared and part of the forest is not shared.

[24:21]

And the part of the forest that's shared is what we usually call physical data, like electromagnetic radiation, gases, solids, tastes, anyway, tastes, touch, sounds, sights, tangibles, these physical data are actually mind appearing as matter. And they're shared. And they're the results of the past activity of these clearings, going on in these clearings. and they support the arising of the clearings. The clearings are supported by light, by sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, and audibles.

[25:36]

Those things support the arising of consciousness. And consciousness does not see from consciousness how that goes, but in consciousness we have discovered, we have now discovered in consciousness, and I'm telling you about it right now, that this consciousness arises because it's supported by physical data, which the surround of each of these consciousnesses shares the physical data. And I'm also telling you once again, I'll say this many times, the physical data is matter, is mind that is deceptively appearing as matter. Okay? Not yet. Next, part of the forest is not shared.

[26:39]

And that part of the shared, that part of the forest is bodies. Now not all of the dark, not everything in the dark forest that appears as matter appears as bodies. Like for example, a rock doesn't look like a body. Or the sound of a rat chewing on my tulip bulbs doesn't look like a body. The rat looks like a body though. So the bodies that are in the forest are also mind appearing as a body. And those bodies in the forest are not shared by the clearings. And specifically those bodies are

[27:46]

sense organs. They're physical data and physical phenomena that can interact with the other physical phenomena, which are the data. So you have Physical data, which again is mind appearing as not mind, as matter, interacting with physical sensitivity, which is again is mind appearing as matter, and the interaction between them, the interaction between them, the conversation between the shared and the unshared mind, or the shared and the unshared matter, that interaction gives rise to mind, and in particular to consciousness.

[28:56]

Consciousness is the interaction between the shared and unshared aspects of the dark forest. between sense organs and sense fields. That interaction is mind. And the organs are not shared by the different consciousnesses. The organs go with particular consciousnesses and those organs interact with the shared mind or the shared physical reality and the interaction between the unshared and the shared gives rise to an unshared consciousness. The consciousness is not shared. The organs of this consciousness are not shared.

[29:59]

But what the organs are interacting with is shared by all the other consciousnesses. And again, you can watch the physical interacting with the physical. It is mental. The interaction between these physical things, the organ, the organs, and the sensitivity of the interaction between them is mental, but really it's physical. It's an interaction between physical things. It must be physical. Well, it is. But it's actually not. It's mental. It's mind. Mind is not the physical. It is the interaction between them. So this consciousness is actually, of course, mental, but actually it's the interaction between the physicals, different types of physical. Sensitivities, which are not shared, and fields to be sensitive or be sensitized by, which are shared.

[31:09]

Giving rise to individual consciousnesses, transforming the shared and unshared basis of individual consciousness, and the shared and the unshared are interacting with each other. The shared and the unshared are interacting with each other all day long. The shared and unshared physical processes are interacting to create unshared physical process and the whole field of this interaction is a mind which surrounds all individual minds. And what's going on in the individual consciousnesses is constantly transforming the forest. And some people are like remembering stillness in consciousness. and going, I just, I'm so committed to remember stillness that I actually am remembering stillness and actually I'm remembering stillness so fully that I'm not even, that really it's just not even me that's remembering stillness.

[32:22]

It's just remembering stillness. It's just mind remembering the stillness of mind. And, oh yeah, and mind and objects are entering realization and going beyond enlightenment. How nice. Other people are not remembering stillness. Even though they're just as still as the ones who remember it, they're not remembering it. They haven't received instruction. They're not even in third grade yet. The teacher has not yet told them, remember. Or they haven't even gotten into a class where they're not even told to remember. They're begged to be remembered. They're begged. They're asked to remember because we don't want to rob these consciousnesses of their responsibility to do the work and not think that Buddha's going to do the conversation for them.

[33:24]

So Buddha says, please remember stillness. Please remember to accept the responsibility of this consciousness so you can have a conversation with others and join in the process of face-to-face transmission of Buddha's mind. So I think now you've got most of the complicated aspects of this. So you probably do have some questions. I'll just call him Ernst, even though he's ahead of other people. Yes? Which is that the shared physical phenomena which are aligned except for the clearings matter. In what sense are those also the result of past activity within the clearings? Well, they're equally the results of the past activity of all the clearings.

[34:28]

They're equally the result. But there's different types of result. I think Leslie had his hand raised quite a while ago. Yes? I think it may have been clarified to some degree, but just kind of with pertaining this analogy, kind of the transition from, say, like an I consciousness that is embodied in a clearing. Which I? Do you mean this kind of I? This I. OK. A self-consciousness. Yes? Did you say embodied in a clearing? Yeah. The clearing is an I consciousness. A self-consciousness. Okay. The transition from the I consciousness to the conversation

[35:35]

Conversation is the enlightened consciousness. But it's not consciousness. I'll use a different word. An enlightened mind is the conversation between this self-consciousness and perhaps another self-consciousness. But also there can be a conversation, now make it a little bit more interesting, there's also a conversation between this self-consciousness and the conversation. So that it's not exactly a transition from self-consciousness to enlightened mind. It is a practice of the self-consciousness. in face-to-face transmission. So it's not exactly a transition from not being in the conversation to being in the conversation.

[36:40]

Well, in a way there isn't really a transition, it's just you're enjoying the conversation and then you're in it. When you're enjoying the conversation you are enjoying the enlightened mind. And if you're not enjoying the conversation then you're not enjoying the enlightened mind. But this isn't exactly a transition, it's just, it's like you're doing one and then you're doing the other. You say, well, but there also is kind of a transition that you could say, well, do you get better at remembering to be in this conversation? I say, well, yeah. So is there a transition from doing it once and then taking several years off and then doing it again? and then doing it twice a week and then six times a day and is there a transition there? In human history it seems that people do get better at this practice. But it's basically the enlightened mind is the practice of the unenlightened mind, the deluded mind,

[37:47]

in conversation. That is the mind. So as soon as the conversation is being entertained, enjoyed, engaged in, we have the enlightened mind. Is that like perfectly clear now? Alright. There are many other hands. Matthew. What does mind mean? Well, one meaning of it is awareness. And then again, we have different types of awareness. There can be awareness of objects. That's like what I would usually call consciousness. But another meaning of awareness is know-how. You know how.

[38:50]

Like, if you can play the piano, I would say there's a mind there. There's an understanding, which is demonstrated by these fingers moving in relationship to those keys. That interaction there is demonstrating a mind, an awareness, which is that somehow these fingers and this piano know how to do this together. That's what I would call mind. It isn't just fingers. It isn't just pianos. It's the interaction between them, and I would say that interaction is mind, and in that mind there's music. So I guess I would say music is an example of awareness. And sometimes it doesn't seem like there is the music awareness, and then there is. Can I ask another question? When mind appears as a physical object, like air or dust or whatever, what is that mind that's arising?

[39:57]

Why do we call that mind appearing as a physical object? Well, one reason I would call it that is because the object we're usually talking about is the object as it appears in consciousness. It's not the object as it appears, for example, to other people. It's the way it looks in your mind. So it is clearly a mental phenomena. And if you close your eyes, you can see physical objects, right? But you can't see them in three dimensions. So there's something about our mind which, for example, when I have my eyes open, I can see three dimensions. And there's something about my mind that I can see three dimensions, but also there's something about my body that I have eyes in the front of my head rather than on the sides. I think maybe the beings who have, like whales, are really smart, but I think they have their eyes, you know, on either side of the head, I don't think they have three-dimensional vision.

[41:07]

I don't think so. I don't think their mind creates it because their body is different. So, yeah, so on the first level of response to your question is that In this enclosure, what you're seeing is only, you only see mental constructions of physical data. However, this consciousness arises by support of more actual physical data interactions. But these are in the forest. We don't actually see how our sense organs are interacting with the sense data. We do not consciously see that. And of course that's much too fast for any conscious being to be aware. Again, if I said, if we had privy to this extremely intense interaction between our eye and its data, we would pass out.

[42:17]

It would just overwhelm consciousness. But unconsciousness has another version of the data that the sense organs are interacting with. But it's not the data that the sense organs are actually interacting with. it's a representation of it. That's one kind of mind, but the other one too is a mind. The actual first level interaction between sensitive physical tissue, which is actually, I would say, a deceptive version of mind also, but this kind of mind which seems to be sense organs interacting with this kind of mind which seems to be sensitive, that interaction is another mind. It's another awareness. it is a type of awareness. It's like knowing how to play the piano at a more basic level. And almost everybody that's alive, almost all humans, can actually have that know-how, they have that mind.

[43:22]

Okay? I see Louie and I think E.J. was next. Well, he was very sincere. He, living in this consciousness, he was in one of these consciousnesses, and he was really, he studied Buddhism a lot, and, yeah. And he met... a wonderful teacher and they had some conversations about Buddhism and the teacher said, you know, I'd like you to say something to me that's not just from here. And he ran around inside that enclosure trying to find something that wasn't from the enclosure and he told the teacher again.

[44:27]

The teacher says, no. And he kept trying And then finally the teacher says, I want you to say something to me from before this was born. I don't want to hear more about you, more from you, about what you got in your consciousness. Even though you got some really great stuff in there, I don't want to hear any more about that from you. And he just couldn't figure out how to, he just was at a loss. And so he either gave away or burned all his Buddhist literature and he just went and hung out at a memorial site for a great teacher, just tidying up and cleaning up and not trying to look in his consciousness for what's before that consciousness.

[45:30]

The teacher said, I think, before, but I think what the teacher was asking him, the teacher is Wong Mo, the teacher was asking him, say something to me from this conversation. The conversation isn't exactly before the self-consciousness. It's actually simultaneous. But he wants him to talk from the conversation He wants them to speak from the creative process rather than the created, which just happens to be a trap, a big deception. It's a reduction of our life which says, this is not a reduction. This is actually your life. It's a reduction of our body. and our body's interaction with the environment, which is like, it doesn't say, this is like a very simple version of it that you can deal with. It says, this is actually your body, this is how you're interacting with people.

[46:33]

It's a place where models are appearing, models are appearing, models, [...] and the forest is delivering the models. We're seeing the models. We can't consciously make the models, but we can enjoy them. And the models have written subliminally underneath, this is not a model. This is not a model of the world. this is the world. And because of that we're trapped somewhat in the model. The teacher's saying, say something to me that's free of this model. And he's just trying to take care of the ground and he hears this sound and somehow he enters. What does he enter into? enters into this conversation with his teacher. They had a conversation.

[47:34]

He enters into that conversation, but he also enters into the conversation of the forest. The forest is the conversation too. He enters into the conversation. He enters into the mind before the self was born, or the mind free of the self. And then the teacher, oh I forgot to say, the teacher says, you have to say something to me from there. And then he could say something. One more detail was when he couldn't figure out how to speak and say something to the teacher from before the self was born, he said, please tell me. And the teacher said, if I would tell you, you would later hate me for telling you. So the teacher could have... The teacher can do the work for you sometimes in a way. Anyway, the teacher did not. And when he gave... when he realized entry into this realm, I think, I'm not sure, I think he turned in the direction of his teacher and did prostrations and said, thank you so much for not telling me how to do this.

[48:49]

If I had, if you told me, I wouldn't have been able to have this now. And then he took a bath and again made offerings to the teacher and then he made some poems to demonstrate what it's like when you talk from the conversation rather than from the self-centered trap of consciousness. And he sent them to the teacher. The teacher was happy with them. And one of his senior Dharma brothers heard about the poem and said, you know, I think he could have written that from the enclosure. He said, next time I see him, I'm going to check him out. So he did. He said, you know, what you sent the teacher was satisfied with, but I'm not. Your big brother is not. Let's hear another poem. So then he gave him another one. And he said, you still could have written that from the enclosure.

[49:50]

How about another one? So he gave him another one. And finally, the elder brother Yangshan said, OK. Now you're talking it. Now you, now you, not you, [...] now you, not you is talking. So this not you can talk. But it's not just not you can talk. It's you, not you, that can talk. Really, when we speak from self-conscious, it's not really the self that's speaking, and it's not really the not-self. It's you, not you. It's self, not self, that's talking, really. And we need to have a conversation to realize that. I think, I don't know, I'll just say the names of some people, okay? Louie, Patty, Jack. Jared, Kristen, Simon, Yuki.

[50:59]

That's quite a few. Wow. Thank you so much. Should I do it again? No, thank you. Okay. Louis. I see my question. Lui cedes, c-e-d-e, right? That means give up. He gives up his body and mind. Also known as question time. Patty? If two people are having a conversation, they're both really afraid. Really afraid? Yeah. And then suddenly one of them offers compassion. Is that conversation then a waking one?

[52:08]

The conversation between two people, each one, it's got fear in here. Fear. There's usually fear in here. I've got some fear over here, too. Fear. Fear. So these people are in conversation. And he said, if... You know, really, yeah, really. And also aware that... Are they aware that they are? Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not. So we have different possibilities. We have really afraid and not aware, and then we have over here afraid and aware. A lot of possibilities here, but let's just say neither one of them are aware. But if they're not aware of the fear, it's going to be hard for them to have compassion for the fear. But before we get to that, while they're conversing,

[53:10]

while this frightened self-consciousness is conversing with this frightened self-consciousness, the conversation is the Buddha mind. The conversation with two people pulling their hair out or trying to pull their hair out, the conversation between them is the Buddha mind. Now, what about, but however, if they're not aware of their fear, then they're not aware of the conversation. I just said that, and I would say that's an important point that I just said. But I didn't really say it. It just arose in his consciousness because a deity came out of the forest and said, what did it say? What did I say?

[54:14]

It's something to do with awareness. Without the awareness of fear, there's no awareness of the conversation. Close. Without awareness of fear, we don't have the conversation. Not really. Really, we do have the conversation. But if we're not aware, this is an important point, if we're not aware of the fear that's going on in the consciousness... We're not fully participating in what's going on, which is this conversation. What's really going on is the conversation. But if I'm not taking care of this spot wherein there's fear, then I'm not really fully participating in the conversation which is going on. So people who are afraid and not aware that they're afraid are in conversation. That's reality. But in order for them to enjoy reality, they have to enjoy the fear. You can't give your face to the conversation if you're not willing to take the seat

[55:24]

of the fear of this face. This face is a face of a frightened creature. Of your own fear. We start there. This, you know, fragility, impermanence. This is a fragile, impermanent thing here. And if we're willing to, and therefore it can be frightened. And when it's frightened, it can be defensive and aggressive. If we're not willing to take the seat here, see here this sound? This is kind of a version of a much louder sound. This is a version of like, take your seat at this place. Fully accept being a person who is afraid.

[56:27]

And afraid because you kind of have a glimmering that you're fragile. Fully accept being a fragile being. Then you get to accept the conversation. Buddha mind. If we don't accept being a fragile, trapped, frightened consciousness, then we don't accept the conversation, which is don't accept the face-to-face transmission of Buddha mind. Now, then you give another example of how about two frightened people and compassion arises. Well, the compassion would be like help you take your seat. So now you got fear and compassion coming in to help us take the seat here. Now if you got fear, which you don't have to have fear, but you might. And now you've got fragility.

[57:29]

You definitely have fragility all the time. Always have fragility. You've always got fragility. You're a good friend for agility. You're not going to lose that. However, you might not be compassionate all the time with it. You might not be watching it all the time and taking care of it all the time tenderly. But if you did, if you were tender with this fear and this fragility, then you would realize more of the conversation which is already going on. So you have two people who are frightened, they're in conversation. If they're not being compassionate to their fear, they're not enjoying the conversation. in the conversation there's a full enjoyment of the fear. Not liking it, just totally embracing it. That's called stillness. Not trying to get away from the fear, not trying to go towards the fear, just completely taking care of it.

[58:32]

So when there's that, then it's like, oh my god, there's a conversation. Illumination comes into the consciousness, oh, there's a conversation. with the Buddha mind while I'm talking to another human being. One of my encouraging messages which has come to me and I'll give to you is Dogen Zenji said, because body and mind dropped off, I was able to have face-to-face transmission with my teacher. But I would say, because you have face-to-face transmission with your teacher, you're able to have body and mind drop off. They're actually a circle. This face-to-face transmission is pivoting with body and mind dropping off.

[59:34]

Body and mind dropping off gives you access to this face-to-face transmission. But for body and mind to drop off, we have to like fully sit still with our body-mind. When we fully accept stillness of our body and mind, it drops off and we're able to have face-to-face transmission. But also, if you're in face-to-face transmission, in that conversation, body and mind, you do accept your situation. You accept that you're afraid of your teacher or whatever. You completely are willing to be who you are with this other person. That's body and mind dropping off. And then you have the face-to-face. The face-to-face going on, it helps you drop. They're kind of the same thing. So Zazen is the same thing as this. Zazen is taking your seat and letting your seat drop off. but it's also taking your seat, having the face-to-face transmission, body and mind drops off.

[60:38]

They're the same thing. Okay? I think maybe Jack was next, I'm not sure. There's a wish to clarify the understanding of this metaphorical model. Is there a wish like that in one of these consciousnesses? Yes, in my consciousness. wish, Jack's wish. So is it accurate to say that any mental object constitutes a clearing in this forest? So I was thinking initially that the clearings were other sentient beings, other sentient consciousness. I would say it's constitutive, an object, because there's objects in here. So if there's an I, there's an object or objects. So objects, when objects arise, consciousness arises with self.

[61:45]

When self arises, it arises with objects. When self arises, consciousness arises with objects. When objects arise, they're not objects of nothing, they're objects of a subject. They're objects of the self. So when objects arise, that means a self has arisen. When a self arises, that means there's no self here without an object. There's no objects without self. When those arise, we have consciousness, self, subject, objects. So then this face-to-face transmission, I'm wondering if, I'm thinking of grass trees, walls, tiles, pebbles. Can you receive, am I receiving right now transmission face-to-face from grass, trees, walls, tiles, pebbles? Are you? Yes. I mean, you're receiving it, but also you, what is it, you arise from that conversation. Okay? The self-consciousness arises from the conversation between grass, trees, mountains, rivers.

[62:52]

It arises from a conversation with that. So grass, if there's grass, there's some grass sensor. If there's mountains, there's a mountain sensor. So there's a conversation between mountains and some sensitivity to them. That conversation is mind. And then that mind supports the arising of a self-consciousness, which might not even know about this conversation between the mountains and the body. between the eye sensitivity and the Blue Mountains might be unconscious, but still this consciousness is rising from that interaction. But there also might be like a little pipsqueak version in consciousness of these beautiful mountains. Wow! And then there might be a full participation in that, and then you open to the conversation.

[63:55]

which includes everything but much more. OK? Yes. So my assumption is that you don't need two clearings to have this conversation. Well, the conversation is also going on in the forest if there were no clearings, which it is sometimes the case that there's just a dark forest. Or at least there is the case that sometimes some of the clearings are turned off. Well, I'm just thinking of an example. I'm sitting Zaza and the thought comes up. And then I look at that thought and I... That's the clearing you're talking about now. Yeah. And I look at that thought and I say, that's a biased thought. And that seems to me to be part of the conversation. Definitely. So there's also a conversation inside There's also a conversation inside the — thank you, it's important — there's conversations in the self-consciousness.

[65:04]

However, the conversations in the self-consciousness, even though they get sometimes intensely brilliant, they just keep feeding back into the enclosure, almost always. Even that one, if it were just within the thing? Yes. We still need to be in conversation with the other. We cannot get out of it just by our own internal process. We need to be in conversation with others. Now if that story you gave was a story where you really, maybe, accurately sensed that some message came to you and you actually were in conversation with something outside this, something that totally surprises the whole system, then that would be a conversation for more than just in the enclosure.

[66:19]

The conversations in the enclosure, however, can encourage you to do the kind of work in the enclosure which will make you willing to have a conversation. Again, we have so many Zen stories like that where you have the nice teacher and the stupid student, right? And the student and the teacher says something and the student gets really angry, you know, doesn't like the conversation and wants to call the conversation off and goes away from the conversation. the conversation, which is the Buddha mind. They don't want it. The way the Buddha mind is looking to them is like, it's going to blow this whole thing out of the water. I don't want that. I'm enlightened. This is an enlightened self-consciousness here. And now this guy is talking to me and it's really, I don't want to see her ever again.

[67:21]

Then the student walks away and while they're walking away they say, Well, maybe I should reconsider. Maybe a conversation would be good. So there's this conversation in their head of going back to the conversation with the other. They were having a conversation with the other, which was for the sake of freeing them from this enclosure, and they didn't want some of the implications of the freedom. Like, for example, that they didn't understand very well. They didn't want to hear about that. they were in a conversation and it was coming to maturity and they said, no way. So they went away. But they continued the conversation in their head and they said, okay, I do want to do it. So in our head we actually do sometimes say, I want to talk to somebody and we go back to the very conversation that we didn't want to have anymore because it was too, we thought it was going to overwhelm us or you know, refute our whole worldview, which refuting the worldview is one way to become free.

[68:32]

So, yeah. This is saying we cannot get out of that just by ourselves. We need, actually, other, we need other self-consciousnesses and we need the conversation with them to get us free of our enclosure. But there still can be Helpful conversations within the enclosure... Correct. ...lead you to... Yes, and those are called, helpful conversations are called wholesome karma. So the karma is happening in these enclosures and the kind of karma that opens you to have liberating conversations is called helpful to liberation conversations in your head, in the headquarters. There can be conversations which are wholesome, which are encouraging you to take the chance of actually talking to somebody. Yes.

[69:32]

So there is wholesome karma in these. And technically speaking, this is the only place there's wholesome karma. There's not wholesome karma in the dark forest. We're getting kind of like traditional Buddhist technological information. Also, the only place there's unwholesome karma is in these enclosures. This is where the karma is. Okay? Okay? This is where the results of the karma are. So, the results of good karma transform the forest to promote more internal, wholesome conversations. And this wholesome karma gets us ready to have a conversation which is Buddha, which is not karma. I'm not in control of conversations. If I'm in control, they're not conversations.

[70:35]

I'm just thrown back into self-centered karma again. But there can be a conversation in the realm of wholesome karma which is saying, it would be good to let go of trying to control. That's a conversation which you can keep having and get you ready to like leap into the actual conversation, leap into the life which is not under anybody's control. The teacher's not in control of it either. Does that make sense? Thank you. Yes? When the dark forest is transformed, what is it transformed into? Well, the ultimate transformation of the dark forest, when it's fully transformed from the point of view of an individual consciousness, The first step in the transformation of the individual consciousness is to free the individual consciousness of a belief that there's an individual self.

[71:37]

And then from that position where you no longer believe this I, it's still there, but you know it's something to be creative with, not something to hold on to or promote or whatever. you're free of believing that it actually is the way it appears. So from now on, you always are transforming the storehouse consciousness. But once you stop believing in the existence of an independent self, you start transforming the storehouse consciousness in a different way. And this process leads to transforming the storehouse consciousness completely into perfect wisdom. In which case, the perfect wisdom no longer supports the individual consciousness or the unshared body.

[72:40]

That's over. But this wisdom, which is the transformation of all these bodies, all these minds, this wisdom then just, all it's doing now is relating to all the other beings who have not yet finished their process of transformation. That make sense? So, you know, and you may then become a third grade teacher. Yes, Jared? So does being aware of our breathing body all day long helpful or give us ample... maybe this is a comment. I think being aware of our breathing body could be helpful giving us ample opportunity to enter into conversation. Yeah. Being aware of your posture and your breathing is part of taking your seat here. People who are aware of their posture and their breathing are more ready to be aware that they're afraid.

[73:47]

And then if they're willing to be aware that they're afraid, they're more ready to be compassionate to the body and the breath and the fear. In other words, they're more and more taking their Dharma position responsibly. And so some people are pretty good at maybe taking their feelings, being responsible to their feelings and being mindful of those, but they're not paying so much attention to their body. So it would be good for them to give more attention to their body, and that will actually enhance their awareness of their feelings. And then their emotions, and then their attitudes and ideas, All this is basically wholesome karma, which gets you ready for the conversation. So some people hear about the conversation, the Buddha mind, they say, okay, I'm up for it, but they aren't willing to do the hard work of being this suffering, fragile person surrounded by other suffering, fragile beings.

[74:57]

You know, one of my friends, her house disappeared in mud. You know, we have such a fragile life. And it's not about making your life not fragile, it's about being tender to this fragility. And your breath is fragile, your body's fragile. Being mindful of your body and your breath helps you be mindful that your body and breath are fragile. And your mindfulness is fragile. And your feelings are fragile. All this is like wholesome karma. And the more you do this wholesome karma, the more you're ready to give your karma, to let all your karma be the conversation. Because if I'm not taking care of this pain over here, part of me is not ready for the conversation, because I'm putting energy into not taking care of this pain. So I'd like to have the conversation, but I can't.

[76:03]

I mean, I think I can, but the teacher says to me, well, would you please, you're not taking care of your pain. You can't have a conversation with me if you're denying the pain you're in. And the person takes care of their pain. The teacher says, okay, now we're talking. So, yeah, taking care of these things is really wholesome. Was there any other questions? Yes. When you are talking about clearance, consciousness, transform the unconscious mind, the word transformation, is it the same as change, or transformation as more than change? Change is okay. And since that karma, exist in a conscious mind, is there any positive transformation or negative transformation when the unconsciousness is transformed since there's no good or bad in an unconscious mind?

[77:05]

There's no whole, there's no karma in the unwholesome mind. There's, excuse me, there's no, there's no karma in the unconscious mind. But there is the results of karma So good result and bad result? Yeah. Wholesome karma is the karma that has the result of supporting more wholesome karma. And the point of wholesome karma is not just to make more positive results, but rather to make us more ready for face-to-face transmission. So, the more wholesome karma, the more the forest is transformed, and the forest supports the arising of self-centered consciousness, which is willing, more and more willing and able to remember wholesome ways of thinking and talking, which means getting us more and more ready for the real conversation.

[78:19]

So if there is such a thing, our unconscious mind is transforming unwholesomely too. Once again? Our unconscious mind is transformed unwholesomely. Yes, it's also unwholesome activities, like not being mindful, not being mindful transforms the forest. So a lot of little kids are transforming the forest in negative ways because they have not yet learned how to be mindful. So they're actually spending some of their time being unmindful and they're transforming the forest in a way to promote more unmindfulness, which means less readiness for conversation. So that's going on. We have to put a lot of energy into the wholesome to promote the conversation. Because every time we're not, we miss the opportunity to be responsible to this mind, every time we're not tender to our fragility, every time we deny it or get aggressive towards it,

[79:38]

that has consequence, which make it harder to be tender in the next moment. But if I notice that I'm not being tender towards my fragility, I can notice that because it is here that I'm not being tender. And if I notice that and then I confess I wasn't tender just now and I'm sorry, that also transforms. So I I'd kind of harmed the unconscious by not being kind to my human fragility. That was kind of harmful. But then if I notice it, that's beneficial. And if I confess it and say I'm sorry, that makes a positive contribution after the negative contribution. And this leads to a process of promoting more and more

[80:39]

wholesome and more and more readiness to let this drop away. I think I've said a number of times, one time Dogen Zenji, I guess, came upon a term which it could be translated meekness or flexibility or tenderness of mind. he asked his teacher, what is that? What is the bodhisattva's tenderness of mind? And his teacher Ru Jing said, it's the willingness or the readiness for body and mind to drop away. So if we can be tender and gentle and meek with our tenderness, with our fragility, that tender mind is a mind which says, okay, I'm ready for body and mind to drop off. Body and mind really is dropping off. It's a question of allowing it, of being ready for it.

[81:44]

It's reality. And being tender with fragile beings helps us be ready for this wonderful thing called dropping off body and mind, called face-to-face transmission. So your tenderness with animals, you know, you're aware of how fragile they are, and you want to be tender with them. That tenderness helps your consciousness get ready for face-to-face transmission. When you say conversation, that is the reality, more like not a human conversation, but anything Human conversation is in conversation with Buddha conversation. Human beings are in conversation and human beings can tell when they're not being wholehearted about conversation. Like that story I just told you.

[82:46]

The teacher is trying to have a wholehearted conversation with the director of the temple. And the director of the temple says, well, you know, I don't need to have a conversation with you. I've already entered reality. And the teacher is talking to him, but in a way that starts to crack open his body and mind. And he's not willing to let his body and mind crack. So he tightens up. He's not tender. He gets angry and goes away. So that human conversation opens to the Buddha conversation. they didn't talk they just they did talk they did talk but they weren't you don't have to talk non-stop you can smile and wink and then say I have the treasure store of the true Dharma eyes I now entrust to Mahakashipa they talked

[83:54]

The whole process. And before that time, they were actually talking about the weather before that. Anyway, the conversation isn't just verbal. It's also... It's winking, it's smiling. It's winking and smiling and holding up flowers. And it's Ka Shou. It's not just words. But we need to use words One more question. When I see that diagram, so often you say, explain, like, beauty is supported by not beauty, while red is supported by not red. So when I think those, like, red and beauty's recipe is the same, but we are really, each individual is so different. How could it happen if every individual is supported by not it?

[85:00]

The way it happens that everything supports you is like this. That's the way it happens. The way it happens is like this. Is the same thing supporting you and me? No. No? No. Thank you for your question. There's one key difference between what's supporting me and what's supporting you. I'm not supporting me, but you are. And you're not supporting you, but I am. That's the difference. Yes, and you're influenced to me, but you're not influenced to yourself. The difference between you and me is that you're not influencing yourself, but you're influencing me. And I'm not influencing me, I'm influencing you. That's the difference between us. That's the difference between all individual things in the universe.

[86:07]

Simon, I think, was next. It seems like the idea that I've had is that There's lots of examples in the Buddhist tradition where people walk up with the face of, they saw that original face, not necessarily in the conventional face of another person. So, you know, and Nidhama, nine years of all sitting, Something about what you're talking about here, the importance of the conventional face of another sentient being or another being and oneself.

[87:17]

Okay, so an easy place to start is with him. He saw like another human face. And another human face saw his face, apparently. Just regular Wang Bo's face, Xiang Yan's face. They were looking at each other. That's what started the whole process. He was struggling along. Xiang Yan was struggling along in his enclosure. But somehow the other face, the other human faces were not getting to him. He was just spinning his wheels here. thinking he was going to figure it out by reading enough Buddhist scriptures. So they had a face-to-face human interaction that got him not looking here, got him looking not there for how to have the conversation.

[88:19]

So all the time he's not looking there to have the conversation, in there he also has the instruction, don't look here. give this up. That message came to him through a face-to-face meeting with a teacher. But he wasn't yet ready to accept it. So now he's trying to give up looking here for the answer. And then when he actually gives up, then he meets Wang Bo. Not the face that he saw with his eyes, but the actual Wong Bo. He gets to meet him. In other words, he finds his original face. He finds his self before, he finds himself, or he finds his life before he was born. But the conversation with Wong Bo was essential in it. And then when he wakes up, Wong Bo comes back very strongly in this new way. And now he understands his teacher.

[89:23]

Now he sees his teacher's original face. but also his own. So Wang Bo wasn't within ten feet of him, wasn't within three miles of him when he understood who Wang Bo was. That's true. But what he understood was what Wang Bo asked him to do. He understood how to do what he was being asked to do. So now Wang Bo is really alive in his life. Now the conversation is coming to maturity. And he even realizes what Wang Bo didn't do so that he could have this realization. So the face is more and more strongly present than this one that appears and disappears. Now the real Wang Bo's face is there, which means his own real face is there. That's another way, that's one story.

[90:24]

Shakyamuni There's some stories about Shakyamuni's awakening where he's all by himself. But there's other stories in the Zen tradition where Shakyamuni Buddha wakes up. When he's not awake, he thinks he's by himself. In some ways, his immature awakening could be represented that he thinks he's sitting by himself under the tree. He wakes up from that dream and realizes that he's practicing together with all beings. And that's who's realizing the way. Him together with all beings in the great earth. That's what's real. He wakes up to that reality. He wakes up to face-to-face transmission. He didn't wake up to, oh, I was by myself the whole time. He thought that before he sat down. I'm by myself, I'm going to sit down by myself. And then he woke up from the dream of, I attain the way myself.

[91:30]

And he woke up into another dream, which is, I attain the way with all beings. But I don't think he could see all the beings in the universe. All he could see was the star and the ground. But he wasn't thinking that that is really what's going on. That's not adequate to the situation. He could see more than that. So that's another version of the story. Is that enough for this morning? Any outstanding? Yes, one more question? I was curious some support. I mean, kind of support to help him realize this conversation. But he said that it would be better for him to realize it by himself.

[92:32]

I don't know if I said by himself, but, you know, to accept responsibility and don't think somebody else is going to do it for you. So he was asking Wang Bo to like, Wang Bo was saying, you know what he was saying, right? You got that part? Wang Bo was saying, say something to me from before yourself was born. And he was looking around within the realm of where his self was to find a way to do it. And Wang Bo says, don't do this anymore. And then he says, would you please show me how? And Wang Bo said, you know, you would really be upset with me later if I did this for you. Why would you be upset? I was thinking because he would undermine his ability to be responsible. I think he wouldn't have realized it.

[93:38]

And then Wang Bo would kind of, in some sense, have ruined his realization by confusing him even more. ...do it for you, and you can't do it by yourself. You can't do it by yourself. Wang Bo is helping you, but he's not going to do it for you. you know, if you're not ready for it, he could do something with this old pattern, but that wouldn't be appropriate for realization. He puts you into a place where you could say something from this other place. He could shove you into the realm before you're born. He has ways of doing that. And in some ways, the story I told before, maybe the teacher pushed the person into the realm before he was born and the guy couldn't handle it. But it worked out because he recovered and came back. And then he got into the conversation again.

[94:44]

And basically the conversation was just repeated, but then the person was able to be responsible.

[94:53]

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