The theme of the practice period is Buddha activity. And Buddha activity is pivotal. It's not just Buddha acting by itself. It's Buddha pivoting with not-itself. or it's Buddha pivoting with sentient beings. So Buddha activity is the pivoting of Buddhas and living beings. It's a pivotal activity. And the Chinese character for pivotal can also be translated as essential, So Buddha activity is essential activity.

[01:08]

And Buddha activity is necessary activity. Did you want to say something? Yes. So you mentioned that There can be pivoting between self and other, and various concepts. So in Buddha activity, there is still concept of self and other in some fashion? Is that possible? In Buddha activity, there can be concept of... Yeah, because sentient beings have concepts of self and other. And Buddhas are pivoting with sentient beings. I think I might have said on, was it yesterday Sunday? Did I give a talk? That a Buddha activity is an unceasing process of liberating beings, of freeing beings, so that they can live in peace and harmony.

[02:15]

I agree with that. Buddha activity is a process, unceasing, also beginningless. And because it's unceasing, endless. It's a beginningless and endless process of liberating beings so that they may live in peace and harmony. That's Buddha activity. And that Buddha activity is pivotal, because it's an activity that pivots of Buddhas and sentient beings are pivoting. That is the process by which beings become free. So ideas of self and other are pivoting with not ideas of self and other. that liberates beings from ideas of self and other, and also liberates beings from... Not too many people have this problem, but liberates beings from ideas of self and other.

[03:21]

Because getting stuck in ideas... Getting stuck in not-ideas of self and other might be worse than the usual situation, which most of us have some familiarity with, of being stuck Anybody ever felt stuck in the idea of self and other? That's where fear lives. But Buddha activity doesn't get rid of that, it pivots with it. It's a pivoting of that. It's a pivoting of being stuck in ideas of self and other, with not being stuck, or it's a pivoting of ideas of self and other with not-ideas of self and other. There's a pivotal word here.

[04:23]

Now, another word I want to put in here is conversation. Great. Now, again, I've mentioned the story of one of our ancestors who was studying with his teacher, and he was the teacher's attendant, and when he was carrying the teacher's robe, and when he gave the teacher the robe, the teacher said, what's the business under this robe? What's the activity? The word, the Chinese character could mean business, activity, affair, matter. Did I already say business? Thing, phenomena. What's the phenomena under the ? Intimacy. But another word we could use, which the Chinese character

[05:28]

means intimacy. The Chinese character in the story means intimacy, and it also means secret and mystery and densely woven. So the business under the robe is intimacy. Another word you could... Not for that character, but another... Answering the question, what's the business under the robe, could be... It's pivotal. The business is pivotal. you could use as conversational. The business under the robe is conversational business. It's a business of conversation, which is another word for intimacy. I also said yesterday, I think during the talk, or if not, I think it was in the talk, I said, you know, like, I'm talking now, and you're listening, And that's a conversation.

[06:31]

And also, I speak and you hear what I'm saying in your mind. And in your mind, you have a response to what you hear me say. So, I'm having a conversation with you and then what you hear me say, you have a conversation with what you hear me say in your own consciousness. And somebody in the audience, when I said that, In his mind he said, No, I'm not. I'm not having a conversation with you. And then he later realized how ironic that is. What appears in your consciousness is a conversation piece. And what I offer you in these meetings, I offer you conversation pieces.

[07:41]

And you pick up on the conversation piece and interact with it. And then I have this thing here, Buddha Pivotal Activity equals Zazen. Now, the Zazen equals something that I'm spending the rest of my life trying to encourage. I didn't understand this Zazen here when I was a youngster. Now I do understand. But the Zazen... The Buddha activity is Zazen. Buddha activity is Zazen. Zazen is conversation. Some people are Zendo and they think they're doing Zazen.

[08:47]

And most people who are sitting in the zendo, most of the time, are breathing. And some people who are breathing in the zendo are being mindful of their breathing. And now, from now on, this group of people will understand that when you're mindful of your breathing, the mindfulness of the breathing and the breathing Now, usually people think, dualistically, and they think that there's mindfulness of the breathing, but there's not breathing of the mindfulness. In other words, they think the conversation is only going one direction. Not even conversation, just like mindfulness of breathing. Not breathing mindful of mindfulness, The mindfulness is mindful of the breathing, but the breathing is not mindful of the mindfulness.

[09:58]

Well, that's not true. Zazen is the truth. The truth is, everything in your mind is in conversation with everything else. What is the difference between conversation and communion? The difference between conversation and communion is spelling. When I hear conversation, when I hear you speak, rather than feeling like I'm communing with you, I feel like I'm answering you in my mind. That's communion. Communion is questioning. Hey, God, how are you doing today? And God's saying, how are you, boy? God's questioning you. Buddha's questioning you. He's questioning Buddha.

[11:01]

You may not notice that, but... Sometimes I feel like I do notice, and it's unsettling. Your unsettlingness is in communion with not unsettledness. This conversation doesn't mean that nobody gets unsettled. It just means if anybody's unsettled, nobody's doing that unsettling by himself. He's in communion when he's unsettled. This is the reality of our life. This pivotal activity is the reality of our life. This communion is the unceasing process of liberating beings from, for example, being unsettled. ...beings from being settled.

[12:03]

Other people are, like, trapped in being settled. You know, like... Very sad thing, like, they're squished into being settled. They can't move from being settled. This meditation, this zazen, liberates people from being settled and liberates people from being unsettled. It liberates people from being falsely accused of crimes and correctly praised for virtues. Some people do something really good and people notice it and say, that was great. And then it's like falling through a pit. And then, of course, some do things they didn't do, which feel terrible, and they fall into the pit of that.

[13:08]

There's a process by which we can become free when we're falsely accused of crimes. And there's a process to become free of when we're correctly accused of crimes. And when we're falsely accused of virtues and correctly accused of virtues, this is the draw. It's a conversation. And everything in your consciousness is a conversation piece, which we often miss out on. That's the composition piece. And before I forget, I just want to mention something that came up in the question and answer yesterday over in the Zender. Part of one of the main playing fields for Conversation is consciousness.

[14:12]

It may be the playing field. Consciousness has words in it, and conversation going on. And if you, if we, if one, if there is awareness of this consciousness, which is the place where we generally speaking need to be The liberation occurs in or for the sake of consciousness, where we're usually trapped, where we don't necessarily understand that what's going on is a pivotal activity. So we watch and we start to imagine this... There is a sense of self in the prison, of consciousness. If there's not a sense of self, then we have some other kind of awareness.

[15:13]

In the unconscious, there's nothing. I'm not in my unconscious. The support for the idea of me is in the unconscious. I'm not there. Where I am, I call consciousness. So I'm there. There's also activities going on there, which are basically the structure or the pattern of that moment of awareness. It seems like there's a thought to do something, or to not do something. And then there's a thought, I'm going to do something. And then there's a thought that I'm going to do something that's correct. And that's really true, that I'm going to do that.

[16:14]

If there's a conversation on this, it's possible to... Well, for example, somebody else could talk to you about that. You could say, I'm going to do something, like I'm going to do Zen, and somebody could say to you, Is there a thought in your consciousness of you? Yes. Is there a thought of Zen in your consciousness? Yes. Is there a thought that you could do Zen? Yes. Is there a thought that you own your activities? Yes. Okay. Can we have a conversation about this? What do you mean? What's going to happen? It'll be okay. Okay, let's have a conversation. Can we also say that Zen is going to do you? Can we also say that Zen owns you? Well, I guess maybe we could.

[17:19]

Say, I practice Zen, and Zen practices me. Okay. As we start to see other possibilities through conversation, then, as somebody used the term, the coupling between self and activities maybe loosens up or melts away, so we have a situation which is So, ideas that self owns things, that self does things, but the idea that self does things is not the self, right? It lives in the self, in consciousness. And then the things are going on, and then the idea of self does them, So we've got the them, the activities, the idea, self does the idea, the activities, the self.

[18:21]

But really they actually coexist. They don't own each other. So we usually don't say the idea, the self can do something, owns the self. I can talk, because you don't think that idea owns the self. But we might think, the self owns that idea. It's my idea. What's the idea? I can talk. So the self owns the idea, I can talk. And there's also another idea, which is that's true. And the self owns that one too. And there's another idea which is true, that the self can do these things. These are ideas which live together with the activity and with the self. But they could be reversed. And if we have a conversation, we could consider the possibility of saying the activities own the ideas, and all the ideas own the activities, and all the ideas own the self.

[19:23]

Because actually that would be equally... I'm saying that's equally reasonable and also equally nonsense that talking owns the idea that the self does the talking. That's nonsense. But it's not nonsense that there is talking the idea of self, the sense of self, and the idea that the self does the talking. They live together. That's not nonsense. They do. You can actually... I mean, take away you. There can be a revelation that these things live together in consciousness. But we usually need some conversation like I'm having with you right now to start to see that, that they live together and none of them own each other. But the idea that some own each other and some don't, those ideas can also live there.

[20:38]

And the ideas that I own you live together with the idea that I do own you. And the idea that I don't own you doesn't own you and doesn't own me. But again, I can say, The idea that I own you owns me. There is the idea, usually, I own those actions. I possess them. They're mine, not yours. That's a common, I wouldn't say normal, that's a common thing you'll find in consciousness. So I can go into more detail on this, and maybe I will. I just want to point out that someone noticed that if of the self with the actions, and with the possession of the actions, that the sense of responsibility, I think he said, might collapse. And I said, yeah, it might collapse, because we don't understand responsibility in terms of the self being coupled with actions.

[21:46]

So here's self, and there's an action, and here's an idea. The self owns or did that. They think, if I have self, the idea that the self owns the action, that the self did the action, then there is responsibility for the action. Many people feel that way. Also, another version of it is, if you have self, But the self did the action, and also the idea that the action was the action which the self wanted to do, just like it happened. In other words, the idea that the action was controlled by the self. Then many people would say, well, then the self is responsible. Because not only did it do it, but it controlled it. If you say the self did it, the self did the action, but the self was not in control of the doing of the action, then people start to deflate the responsibility.

[23:10]

A little bit. Maybe not completely, but somewhat. which I understand. So if there's the belief, if there's the misunderstanding that the self does the actions that are appearing in consciousness, if there's that understanding, and that if the self does do them, there's responsibility, and even more responsibility if the actions were under the control of the self. That's the normal understanding of responsibility. But what I'm saying is Responsibility is there all the time. Because responsibility is another word for pivotal activity or conversation. If the self is uncoupled from all this stuff, and all this stuff is uncoupled from the self, by seeing the way they sit together,

[24:21]

And if the sense of responsibility goes away, we have to stop here a minute and resuscitate the sense of responsibility, find a new sense of responsibility, which is the self. Conversation with actions. The self is in conversation with the action. The self is not in control of the action. The action is in conversation with the self. The action isn't in control of the self. Do they influence each other? You could say yes, but really they live together. You cannot have the self without this particular action at that moment. They live together and they are pivoting on each other. Now, what happens here is you have responsibility, but this responsibility has no horizon.

[25:23]

Whereas, again, normally people think that the self does the thing, the responsibility has a horizon. The responsibility only applies to the things that the self does, and even maybe that the self was in control of. Those are the things I'm responsible for, and the ones that I didn't do, or that I did, but I wasn't in control of, I'm not responsible for. Take away that miscoupling, and you're responsible for everything. But also, everything is responsible for you. Nobody is getting outside the responsibility conversation. And if you start to think that you're not responsible, then you're basically saying, I'm not in conversation. That thing happened, but I wasn't in the conversation. Yeah. And that's what many people say.

[26:34]

Well, they didn't talk to me, so I'm not responsible. I don't know by myself, because I don't own the rain. The rain doesn't belong to me. I don't make it happen. I don't control how much it falls or where it falls. I don't. But whenever it rains in consciousness, I'm there. When it rains in consciousness, I'm there. I'm in conversation with whatever's happening in consciousness, on droughts, tornadoes, war, whatever. I'm in conversation with it. I'm responsible for it, and it's responsible. And, again, the wonderful word, the wonderful English word responsible means able to respond. So it's not just that you, that your actions have contributed to what's ever happening, but

[27:39]

that you are responding to whatever's happening. There's nothing that happens, like this guy... No, not. Yeah, right. There's nothing that comes in there that you don't have a response to. It's not like it comes in and you control it, or you control... Like, you walk by some food and you salivate. You're not controlled how much saliva comes out, but you do. we're not in control, and we think sometimes we are, and that thought distorts our understanding and limits our understanding of responsibility. The clear vision of the conversation The full participation in the conversation takes away the limits and takes away the horizon of responsibility.

[28:47]

And we now enter the realm where we're all working together, mutually responsible for each other. And this is an unceasing process. The way we're working together doesn't have a beginning and will not have an end. And it liberates beings and brings a life of peace and harmony. Intimacy, Buddha activity, liberating activity, mutual liberating activity. I was just going to say that conversation also has that activity in the word, con, turn, first yell.

[29:52]

Turn with, not communion, join with. It's also part of the etymology of the word conversation is to be familiar or intimate. But again, it's not like, I'm intimate with you and you're not intimate with me. So, yeah, so Zad... Zazen of the Buddhas is a conversation between... The Zazen of the Buddhas is the conversation between you and it's a conversation of all beings and you. That's the Zazen of the Buddhas. Which is also a conversation of Buddha with Buddha. Yes?

[30:55]

This self, when you say, so I have a self and that self is responsible, I have heard other ways of thinking about it, to say like part of inquiry in other traditions would be to say, well, really, That self, and even in Zen, that self is a concept. The self can be a concept. It's true. But the self can also be a feeling. The self can be a smell. The self can be a touch. The self can be an emotion. It can be a perception. We have five aggregates in the Heart Sutra. All five aggregates are empty. Those five aggregates are five aggregates in consciousness. One of them is consciousness, where there's a self.

[32:04]

But also there is... Feelings, perceptions, many mental formations like greed, hate and delusion, and all kinds of smells, touch, taste, all those things could be said to be... That's my smell. Or they could be said to be components of... that this is our idea we've constructed around the feeling that we're having those... ideas, or we're having these sensations, when it's only a sensation. Right. Well, no, there's not just only a sensation, there's a sensation, and there's an idea of the sensation. We have five ideas. We have a sensation, it could be, you name it, what sensation do we have? Well, but where is the self? All right, taste. Taste. Okay, you've got taste, and then you have the idea of taste.

[33:06]

The taste is the form factor. And you have the idea of taste. And you could have a feeling, like pleasure. And then you could have a perception of the taste. Various emotions in relationship to it. And then you have an awareness. And also you have a sense of self in that space. All those things are going on. in a normal moment of consciousness. And it also could be the thought that the self owns that it's my taste, or I have the taste. There can be that thought. And that thought, that attitude, coexists with the sense of self. Now, you could say that the self is the taste, is my taste. How do you know there's a mind? How do you know there's a mind? A mind. Oh, just the word.

[34:08]

Just the word. Just the word mind. Which also is an acronym for Mahayana. So there's a sense of self. And the sense of self is this thing, I, and what goes with I is mine. These words in consciousness. It's common. They're concepts. They're concepts. However, we can also confuse or conflate a smell with I, or mine. That's my smell. and confusion. And then there's confusion. So also, as I mentioned, sometimes there's confusion, and the self in a consciousness, which we always do, it comes with four afflictions. I know it, but I feel like we're... I guess like the last time I was here we were studying this, what was that, the thirty... like projection,

[35:19]

Or the self is just a projection that's... Yeah, so everything that appears in consciousness, you could say, is a projection, is a mental construction. Okay? And so the self is a projection or a mental construction. The I is... the mind is, the color is, the smell is, they're all. And so there isn't really something that actually connects the projections other than another projection. We often believe the projection or the idea that the self owns the color, that the self actually is a mentally constructed I, a mentally constructed idea of ownership, and then a mentally constructed color or smell. And when we see that, we start to see that these mental constructions live together, and they're in conversation, and they're not stuck to each other.

[36:27]

They're not stuck to each other. They're not stuck to each other. That's where I think the space kind of comes in. Yeah. So you could say that a lot of space starts to arise because all these things are happening in space. but sometimes we squish some of the stuff together and there's no space between them, even though they're both in space, we forget about the space and squish the car together with the me. Or the thought, thinking that I keep having this... We squish that stuff to... It's a persistent projection. It's a common projection, or actually it's a projection, and then there's another projection, which is that this thing is common. It's not... Did you fall again? No. The I is common? Well, you name it. You name it. You have an X, and then you have an X, and you have another X. You have a Y, and the Y is that the X is common.

[37:32]

Here's the thought that this happens a lot. It's not that it doesn't happen a lot, but if I did say, no, it doesn't happen a lot, that would be another concept. Well, I just mean that you can say, I feel like I have a problem with... Excuse me, you said something, I just want to point out that what you said, your comment on the projection, it was persistent. But the comment that it's persistent is another projection. You kind of missed that at that moment. Now I'm just pointing out that your comment on the projection was another projection. Which is fine. But what we're often doing, we notice, oh, these are projections, then we... And then we get sticking together again when we forget. So, all the things that are going on, you can call them projections, You can call them mental constructions.

[38:34]

I'm emphasizing that they're all conversation pieces, that they're in such a way that they're not stuck to each other. So I might feel like I'm kind of stuck with this guy, but then when I realize I'm stuck with this guy, that pulls me away from this guy, and this guy pulls me away from that guy. Pretty soon, things are not coupled anymore. I'm actually not coupled to anybody, and I'm in relationship to everybody. So, I don't own all of you, and you don't all own me, and you don't own each other, but we all are living together, and we're in conversation. We can't live without the other ones, and that, again, is thought construction, or projection. However, it's a projection... that's being offered as a teaching, a teaching projection.

[39:36]

to turn the light around and shine it back into this space of consciousness, because this projection is saying, you may notice that these things are stuck together and that there's stress and fear. And then they're kind of like, uh-huh, yeah. And you may notice the process of liberation starting to unfold as you get more and more into the conversation. Which is already going on. It's already going on. So how do we get into it? Yes? You say that what you call a conversation is enduring Zazen? Is it happening during Zazen? Or not? I wouldn't say it's happening during, I would say it is Zazen. It is Zazen. Yes. Compounded or uncompounded?

[40:44]

The conversation? I think the conversation is uncompounded. The relationship between things is not put together. The things are put together but the way they're related to each other, that isn't being put together. That's one of the differences between Buddhism and some other religions, where they think somebody's putting together all the things that are related. Zazen is the conversation. It's not that the conversation's happening, and then the conversation's happening. It's not the Buddha activities occurring in Zazen. It is Zazen. It's not that the liberating activity of Buddhas is happening in satsang. Satsang is the liberating activity. Is there a point at which the relationship between perception, for example, and mental formation ceases?

[41:51]

Is there a time at which the relationship between something and something ceases? No. There's no such time. We don't have that kind of time. Also, there's no not-time of that. There's never a time when things aren't related. There's nothing that exists. There's nothing that exists that's not in relationship. However... Non-duality? Isn't that... Singular? Is it singular? Yeah, it's singular, it's relationship. Yeah. Conversation is singular. Conversation is singular. Zazen is singular. The liberating activity of Buddhas is singular. It's the way everybody's related in such a way that they become free.

[42:53]

That's singular. There's one process of liberation, not several. And everybody's included in one process. The liberation of you includes everybody else's liberation. You don't have three different liberation processes. It is something... Once again? No, I'm just going to listen. She says she's just going to do that. However, her listening is going to be a conversation with us. Yes? Since you're referencing... You said you're going to listen, right? And then I talk to you about that. Yes? Okay, I'm speaking now. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. In other words, I'm talking to you about that.

[43:54]

So in the conversation, you're using Yogacara framework here, and I'm just wondering where this conversation... of the Yogacara. Is it in the Manas, which is the basis of the ego, or where is this conversation taking place, or is it all the six standards with the mind and air? Now, anybody who doesn't know about the Yogacara, try not to listen to what I'm going to say to you. Manas is a type of... that thinks that it's a type of thinking which is thinking that things are not conversations. So that's what manas is. It thinks that things exist by themselves. Like it thinks that I can do zazen. All my activity is mutual. All my activity is the conversation between me Like this activity here of this hand and this marker is not being done by me.

[45:13]

Even, yeah, I'm right here with this, you are too. Everybody's doing this together. Bonus, thanks. You people might think that Red's doing this. Again, it's a free country, so you can think that. But when you think it, you didn't do that by yourself. I helped you. And it wasn't just me. Everybody helped you think that I did this by myself. Whenever you think I did something by myself, whenever you pull the horizon of responsibility down onto me, and say, I'm the one who's doing it, everybody helped you do that. Everybody's responsible for you blaming me for what I'm doing. And the I Ching says, no blame. It's one of the great teachings of the Book of Changes.

[46:15]

No blame. It's not that I'm not... I am responsible for these hands moving with this marker. I am responsible. But I'm not talking about myself. I couldn't do it without your support. You're responsible from now on for the rest of your life. You are responsible for everything I do. You always were, and now you know. And for the rest of my life, I am responsible for everything each one of you do. And nothing you do, nothing you ever will do without my support. You will never be able to do anything that I'm not supporting. And you never have been able to do anything unless somebody here is older than me. Oh, Patrick!

[47:19]

And everything everybody else does, they will do with your support. And therefore you are responsible for everybody, with no limit. And you are not to be blamed for anything, and nobody else is either. Sharing life with all beings you're sharing responsibility, and we are training to open our mind to that unlimited responsibility. But we have this, in Yogacara, we have this specified type of mind which does not believe in this teaching, which thinks that... that thinks that it can do something by itself. It is the locus of self-centeredness, which means the locus of denying that the sense of self coexists with . And all things make possible the sense of, I am here by myself.

[48:25]

Everybody supports that. Yes? A few moments ago you talked about stress and fear. And I noticed that what I'm most grasping or holding on to, whether a thought or feeling or a sense of myself, comes together often with that. The more I'm holding it, the more afraid I am about it. And I just wondered if you... And you can take away the thing about you seeing. There can be an awareness of what you just said, and that's exactly part of the process of liberation. It's that vision, the clinging to the self, the sense that the self is doing things by itself, is where the stress and the fear are coming together. They're living right with that thing. We're not trying to get rid of that. We're trying to wake up to that actually what's going on is a conversation.

[49:30]

So now we want to have a conversation with that misconception which has all these afflictions around it. And that conversation with this misconception where all the fear and stress is, the conversation is the liberating activity of Buddhism. What is it? Not trying to get rid of the self, in whatever form it takes, and not trying to get rid of the suffering that's all around it. The Buddhas are the conversation with that. And everything's in conversation with what thinks it's not in conversation. And what thinks it's not conversation is actually in conversation with stress and suffering. But when the conversation starts to be exercised, the stress and the suffering don't necessarily go away, but they're not stuck to the self, and the self's not stuck to them, and they never were.

[50:37]

So now we have liberation without getting rid of anything. So that's why my mind, like I said on Sunday, that's why my mind is not under control, nothing. control of my mind. But even though you're not in control of my mind, by the way, I'm not either, we're all responsible for my mind. So my mind comes to chat the Bodhisattva vows at the end of the talk, and my mind goes like this, beings are numberless, I vow to end them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to save them. Because my mind isn't under control. from my mind, which chanted those verses in that strange way. But it's a wonderful way. But yeah, I'm not going to kill anybody, I'm just going to end everybody. Everybody's going to end with me.

[51:39]

When I end, you end. So I'm going to end you. Ready? One, two, three, end. And that's the same as I'm going to save you. And it's the same as I'm going to save all the delusions. I'm not going to take away the delusions. I'm going to save them. How am I going to save them? Conversation. And that's how they already are. And also my mind not being in control because it's in conversation. I can't control a conversation. That's not a conversation. And there's nothing like that. Nobody's in control of a conversation, because conversation is reality. So I'm not in control, you're not in control, and we're doing this together. Big, big, big, together. Would you... I'll give you both. Think about freedom. Speaking this is the exercise of freedom, this kind of... ...together, not together.

[52:50]

Together, not together. The conversation between together and not together is an example of a conversation. Not being stuck in together, not being stuck in not together. Bye. allowing a conversation to happen and being equally responsible to together and not together. If it's inside, sometimes I think I struggle with the internal conversation. Maybe when I talk to you out loud, I can get a reprieve or rest or turn, but then privately, my conversations suck. I know that probably goes with not suck. Internally, Sometimes you can't seize a conversation. Do you think my conversation sucks?

[53:53]

That's why we have to exercise the conversation with others. That's why we need to talk to others about our conversations, because some of us think there's no conversations inside here. So that's why we need to talk to others who will help us wake up to the conversation that's inward by having an outward conversation. And also to have an inner conversation to wake up to the outer conversation. To thoroughly exercise this reality. That's what we're doing in this class. We're exercising conversation to realize what's already going on. And so you can tell us that inwardly... Did you say your conversation sucks? I think you remember what I said. Yeah, that's part of the conversation, is that you don't remember what you said.

[54:55]

See, there we go again, it's a conversation. There's no way to really get away from the conversation. And with training you can realize, like that guy did, when I said, I say things to you and then you go into what I say and he said, no I don't. And then he goes, wait a minute. I did. And then it just happened again. We're in conversation. And I think that there's something else in this life besides conversation, and that's another example of conversation. But it's not true that there's something else, except it is true that there's something else because you can say so, and then we can talk about that.

[55:57]

So the point is conversation is the process of liberation. And all these end stories are stories about conversations that people were not stuck and then they had a conversation and got stuck and then got unstuck. Or they were stuck and they got unstuck and then they got unstuck from being unstuck. And the story I told yesterday and the day before was about somebody who was stuck and then he got unstuck and then the team kept talking to him and he refused to get stuck and then he got stuck and then he got unstuck. Yes? How do we put all this into practice and train that conversation?

[56:59]

Doing it right now. And, yeah, can you see that you're having a conversation right now? This is how you're doing it right now. And this is how I'm doing it. This is how we're doing it. And you can ask that question over and over again. And every time you ask it, it'll be another conversation piece. You can specialize with that question. without getting stuck in it. It has to stay in question and every time it's fresh and new. And every time you say it, it's responsible for you and responds to you. And there was a little pause there where neither one of us were talking. And you were nodding to me over and over.

[58:03]

And now you're smiling. Conversation is going on even though you're not talking. You know, I can shut up now. And it keeps going. You can't... It doesn't stop. It's unceasing. The conversation of, excuse the expression, creation. Creation is constantly working her loom and shovel, incorporating the patterns of spring into the ancient brocade. The creative process never stops. And it's the process of creation and it's the process of liberation. But it also creates this wonderful resistance to the process of creation. And that resistance wonderfully creates, together with everything else, stress and fear. But the process goes on. And that process recalls Dazhen in this school.

[59:23]

So maybe many of you thought that maybe there were some conversations going on in the last hour or so. And part of the conversation was the statement that when you're sitting in the zendo and nobody's talking, there's a conversation going on. In words, but also your body is in conversation with all the other bodies, and all the other bodies in the zendo are in conversation with you, and all the conversations of all the bodies in the zendo are in conversation with everybody in the universe. And that's Zazen. And that's the process of liberation. We're all in silence, in stillness, doing this great conversation together. Do you hear it?

[60:50]

I stopped talking, but it went on, didn't it? Didn't it go on? Weren't you like... Quite a variety of things were going on when I stopped talking. I don't know what they were, but I imagine that many people were thinking many things. Yes? Yes, this word conversation, and very often I think you speak about conversation as words, but just when you mention the bodies in the sandal and so on, very often... There's something beyond conversation. I don't want to say it's beyond... I couldn't say it in words, I couldn't say it in feelings, but it's a... I don't know. Yeah, I don't agree. There's nothing beyond conversation. No. But conversation... But conversation doesn't need words?

[61:56]

No, it doesn't. Well, like I said, I was just talking to Brian and he stopped talking, and the conversation went on. Maybe you couldn't see it, but I just referred to it. We kept conversing with each other. He was making these faces, and I was making faces back at him. In the center, we can't even see the faces. I can see your face. Even though you can't see mine, I'm watching you and having a conversation with you, and I'm watching all the other people. But if you have a conversation with me, I mean, it would be the accurate round as well. That's right. Exactly. And I see that you're having a conversation with me. You're sitting in the zendo with your... Not your... Like... I do it very often, yes. Your body's in the zendo and I can see it with my eyes and you are conversing with me and I'm conversing with you and I'm also watching you converse with...

[62:59]

I'm watching you in conversation while you're not talking very much. But I'm watching you in conversation, and you're in conversation not just with the people on both sides of you and me, but also with Yuki, who lives out of town. You are in conversation with the whole universe, and I'm watching you do that, and you're doing a really good job. However, Oh, that was a nice second. You can't see it. You can't see it. And I really can't see how you're in conversation with the whole universe. Except with this wisdom eye, which I don't own. The wisdom eye sees that you're in conversation with all beings when you're quiet and when you're talking. When they're quiet and when they're talking. Whatever we're in conversation with, Whatever we're doing, we're in pivotal Buddha activity.

[64:05]

We're trying to wake up to what Buddhas have awakened to. Because it's not just that it's really cool, it's that this is what liberates beings. And there's a type of liberation which means peace. And the type of freedom which is harmony. Because we already are in this harmonious conversation. And isn't it right... The more stillness there is, the more the feeling of interdependency evolves somehow? Yeah, there was a conversation piece. But I think it looks like you missed it.

[65:06]

What you just said was a conversation piece. It wasn't true or false, it's something to talk about. And by talking about it, we become free of whatever you said. What you said was brilliant, it was a conversation piece. Some of the people, other people... She's not the only one that has brilliant things to say. It's okay, you can have brilliant things, it's all right. But the point of them is they're conversation pieces. They're things we can use to become free of being brilliant. Because some people get trapped in being brilliant. You may have seen some people like that. But we're not really trapped. It just seems like it. So again, I'm offering ... and so they have been offered, and we've been having a conversation, and the conversation we've been having is Buddha activity.

[66:11]

Yes? I suspect it keeps going when you go to sleep. It does, but if you go to sleep and you go so deep asleep that your consciousness is turned off, although the conversation goes on, you don't know about it. So consciousness is where we really resist the conversation. It's where we're afraid, it's where we're clinging, and so on. But it's also where we learn. And we learn that we're refusing to have a conversation. And we're holding on to what we think is true, rather than using what we think is true as a conversation piece. But it is sometimes... Consciousness does get turned off sometimes.

[67:18]

Okay. It's not the end of the world. It's quite restful. But it's in consciousness where we learn how consciousness has trouble learning. And seeing that, and allowing that to converse with everything, is liberation. And there's also special yogic trances, and people go into them, And in those trances there's no consciousness, in the sense of high consciousness. They get a break. But when they come out they're no more enlightened than when they went in. Because there's no karma to study or to be created when the consciousness gets turned off. So the Zazen school, the school of Zen, does not really encourage going someplace where the conversation gets turned off.

[68:18]

consciousness. But even if it's turned off in consciousness, it still goes on. Even if you're in a coma, you're still in conversation with all beings. But it's hard to learn anything in a coma. Well, it's almost impossible, I think. Whereas in consciousness, it's also hard to learn Jonathan brought this up, how hard it is to learn in consciousness. It is hard. It's normally quite hard. Because the stuff that's happening often says, this isn't a conversation piece, this is truth. This is not to be discussed. This is to be adhered to. Well, that's an interesting truth that we cannot discuss. I'm so sorry we can't discuss that. Wait a minute. Now you're discussing it again.

[69:22]

And I am too. Maybe that's enough for tonight. What do you think? Okay? Thanks for, you know, what? Thank you.

[69:45]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_84.18