Welcome to the valley, the temple, the teaching. How many people are here for the first time? So maybe it's good to give some orientation to to this temple, to this teaching. One story about this temple is that it's a place devoted to living beings who live in worlds And now many of us are living in a world where there's deep concern about conflicts and crises, situations which can turn for ill or good day after day.

[01:33]

We're deeply concerned about the mind and the bodies and minds of others. And we're deeply concerned about the whole environment. So the question may arise how to What is the way to live? What is the way to live which is most important to us? How to live that way? So one of the aspirations that people have in this world is peace and freedom in the world.

[02:54]

To find some way to be free from concerns and conflicts of human and non-human life. So again, to be free, to be wise, to be free of delusion. So I aspire to a life which receives wisdom and transmits wisdom. And therefore a life that receives freedom and transmits freedom and receives peace and transmits peace with all beings. together with all life and the entire world, every aspect of it.

[04:04]

An often repeated teaching is that the conditions for enlightened beings to appear in the world is a wish to open living beings to wisdom so they can be free and live in peace. And to demonstrate to living beings wisdom. And to awaken living beings to wisdom and help living beings enter the wisdom and live it and be free and transmit peace and receive peace. to open beings to wisdom, to demonstrate wisdom, to awaken to wisdom and to enter wisdom, and thus to be free and live in peace with all beings.

[05:25]

This does not mean that our body and mind evaporates. It doesn't mean we don't still have physical and mental difficulties, illness, aging, and death. It means we find a way to illness, old age, and death. and mental illness and physical illness. It means we find a way to relate to it in a free and wise and peaceful and liberating way. And in this environment it means we find a way to live with our whole world in a wise and liberating and peaceful way. Whatever the problems, we engage the world transmitting peace and receiving it.

[06:40]

Even when we see bondage, we find a way to bring peace and freedom to the bondage and the strife. This is a possibility that the Buddhist teaching offers So once again, how can we live to realize peace and wisdom? Wisdom and peace. So, kind of like two styles of relating to life that has been taught. One style is what might be called the style of a peace, of a freedom, which is already here.

[07:46]

A truth, a peace, a freedom, a wisdom, present all the time. already always present and all-pervading wisdom that never is apart from where we are right now. That's one approach, is to recognize that and practice that. Not practice to go to that wisdom, but practice that wisdom. And practice it by every action of our life. To receive every moment as an opportunity to practice wisdom, which is already here. To practice freedom, which is already here.

[08:55]

So the teaching is a teaching kind of a presence. The truth the Buddha's teaching, and peace is already present. And there's also the comment that if we think it's not, that if we think that peace is a little different from this situation right here, and we believe that discrimination, then it's like this isn't peace here. the presence of peace is someplace else. But the only thing, according to this teaching, the only thing that makes peace and freedom someplace else than here is the thought that it's someplace else. The discrimination between our life now and the life which Buddhas want and Buddhas have realized

[10:04]

The discrimination is all that makes it different. It's present. So one style of practice is just to practice the presence of wisdom. Every thought, with every gesture, and with every word. That presence free of the idea that the presence is not present, is peace and freedom and wisdom. And most of us do have some discrimination that freedom is at least a little bit different than the way we feel right now and the way we So although the practice is presence, we somehow need to also practice being present with the thought that the practice, that the enlightenment, that the wisdom is not present.

[11:17]

The training to realize the presence, which is just the presence of wisdom. That's a practice which is where the practice and the wisdom are the same thing. And only human discrimination makes our own life right now different from Buddha's life. But once again there's a path connected to that presence which helps us get rid of, not get rid of, to let go of the discrimination that the world we want is not the world we have. Which is a path of practices which lead us to realize that presence.

[12:27]

a path of practices which step by step help us realize what was already here. And that style of practice I'd like to talk about today. A path which seems to go to wisdom. which seems to culminate in wisdom and a path to presence, to Buddha's presence and Buddha's awakening. So often we talk about, well, we talk about six basic, kind of like, families or categories of practices which are the path of peace, the path of freedom, the path of wisdom.

[13:43]

And so we call these the six perfections or the six transcendent practices. of those on the path of Buddhahood. So they are ethical discipline, patience, diligent, joyful effort, concentration, and wisdom. Description of a path where you start with generosity, work into ethics and so on until wisdom is fully realized. And today I'd like to talk about another path, a path which has been given to me, that has come to me, and a path that I have come to.

[14:48]

And I see this path as the same path as the six practices I told you about. But it's a path that I came to through traditional Buddhist teachings. I came to it by various causes and conditions in the world, and as it developed, I started to see that it is the same as the path I just told you about, of those six brackets. So I'll tell you the path, and then I'll tell you about how it came to me. Now it's here. I see it as six, or we aspects of peace. First is trust.

[15:51]

Second is relaxation. Third is play. Fourth is creation. Fifth is liberation. No, fifth is understanding. Sixth is liberation. And we could stop there or we could say seventh is peace. Trust, play, creativity, liberation, and peace. One beginning of this coming of this view of practice is about 40 years ago I was in England and I was watching television. I guess it was probably BBC. And the reason I was watching television was because an artist I was visiting wanted to show me

[17:01]

an artist that he really appreciated. I think it was a painter. This person, my friend was a painter, and he wanted to show me kind of his painting inspiration. And this painter was talking and he said, yeah, he said, when we're able to create, then we're able to understand. And I don't know if he said it or I thought it, and he might have said it. I thought kind of like, if you understand, then you can create. So I thought, well, like, you know, maybe painters and sculptors, because they understand, they can create their wonderful works of art. But this artist turned it around from what I kind of was thinking.

[18:04]

He said, and maybe he said, usually people think if you understand, then you can create something like it. Yeah. If you understand the human heart, you can be Shakespeare. Or you can be... But again, he said, if you can create, then you understand. And I kind of thought, well, yeah, I think actually that's a better version of the story. Create and understand rather than understand and create. Tap into the creative process of the universe and there is where wisdom is born. So that had a big impact on me. I already had some concepts, some teaching that when we understand, when we're wise, we become free of not being wise, of being deluded, self-centered, frightened living beings.

[19:26]

So it already would follow from me that part if you were wise, you could be creative and so on. But now you can be creative, you can be wise, and then your wisdom lets you be free to express your creativity. You have creativity, you're creative, you're wise, and now you're free to live a creative life. In living a creative life, in the creative life, there is freedom and there is peace. The next, another phase, I don't know if it's the next phase, but another phase also arose, came to me from another English person, an English psychoanalyst. His name is Winnicott.

[20:30]

And What I got from him was — and I don't know what order I got it — but what I got from him was that in order to be creative, we need to be playful. Activity opens us to reality. But in order to enter creativity, we need to be playful. That was part of what I got from Mr. Winnicott. But then another so to speak, is that in order to be creative, you need to play, and in order to play, we need to be relaxed. So then I saw this new path.

[21:37]

Relax, play, create, understand and be free. And again, if anybody wants to know. This, for me, a little bit now is that the relax and play is very similar to the fifth of the traditional bodhisattva practices of concentration. You're not just undistracted. When your mind is focused in this way, it's focused, it's undistracted, and it's open and relaxed and playful.

[22:41]

Mind that's undistracted, open, playful, and relaxed opens onto creativity where wisdom is born. So I started to discuss this with people. Play and be creative. Now you don't make the understanding. What we have to do is be relaxed, playful, and creative. And when we're creative the wisdom spontaneously arises and the liberation spontaneously arises. So I was working with people on that in workshops. And I noticed that some people they were having trouble relaxing.

[23:44]

So they were having trouble playing, etc. And, yeah, I think maybe one of the people might have said, I don't trust that it's all right to relax. And then it also came to me that Mr. Winnicott said, in order to, we need trust. I don't know, I guess you could say trust that it's okay to relax. So like here with you right now, I feel like it's, I trust that it's all right to relax. Because I trust that it's all right to relax, I'm kind of relaxed with you. I don't know who you are.

[24:47]

But I trust that it's okay to relax, and because I'm all right to relax, I'm okay to play with you, and I'm playing with you right now. And maybe there'll be some creativity right now. And maybe you're trusting that you can relax with everybody here, like I feel like, trust that I can allow the relaxation. And then we can be creative now. You can stay in your seats and be creative. You can get up and walk around the room and be creative. Wherever you are, there's a possibility of being creative, of being relaxed, of being playful. And if you move someplace else, the same people are there. But you don't have to move from where you are to be a great creative person. playful, relaxed, liberated, transmitter of wisdom.

[25:56]

But this person said, I don't trust that it's okay. So I tried to find out from him what he would need in order to trust that it would be okay to relax in this workshop with these people that he didn't know very well either. He didn't know me. But he somehow, somehow he relaxed enough. He relaxed enough to tell me, to play with me, to play with me, to play with me and tell me he didn't trust. Creative contribution to my life to show me that although I found this picture of the path to wisdom really accessible, he had a problem. And then I realized that I needed a part of the relaxation, which is trust.

[27:03]

And then in conversation with him and other people I found out that the trust part comes with these practices that I told you before. The trust comes with practicing generosity, and patience, and diligent, careful attention. Ethical discipline means to be careful Heroic effort means to be enthusiastic about being careful, about seeing the joy in being careful. If we are generous with our life, with our body, with our world, if we allow it to be, and then we're careful and gentle and attentive to it, and patient with the stress and pain of it, and enthusiastic about these practices, then the situation.

[28:21]

What situation? The pains and stresses of having a body. The pain of accidentally falling down the stairs and breaking many bones and going to a hospital or not. The pain of all our illnesses that come, that are what are called air of the flesh. All of our problems. Relax with them? No. No, yeah. Relax with them? If we can relax with these then we can play with them, no matter how horrible they are. If we can play with them, then there can be creativity with them, and wisdom with them, and freedom . It isn't that when you're free, your broken leg evaporates.

[29:25]

It isn't that when you're free, your cancer evaporates. As a matter of fact, the proof that you're free is that you're at peace with your illness. And you can show other people that you're at peace with your illness and you still are free and relaxed and joyful with your illness. We can be creative with bodies that are broken and bodies that are not broken. We can be creative with minds that are broken and minds that are not broken. But in order to be creative, we must allow ourselves to play. And we need to be relaxed in order to do that. But the relaxation is based on

[30:28]

Be generous and careful and tender and respectful and non-violent and patient pain. And then, again, be diligent. Again, I didn't see it today so much, but sometimes when we're talking about the horrors of the world, if you have the idea of relaxing with them, many people say, no, no, we can't relax. We won't be able to encounter these horrors if we relax. I don't agree. If you're stressed and tense, you can encounter the problems of the world. As a matter of fact, some people say you've got to tense up to go through immigration at the airport. You've got to tense up to face difficulties.

[31:32]

Tensing up to face difficulties, tensing up to face the challenges of life isn't... But I'm suggesting that relaxation with these problems is an option which will bring us to being playful, creative, and correct understanding of the problem, and therefore free of it. But again, it's hard to trust the relaxation and being playful. That's why we need to do these trusting practices, which are generosity is a kind of trust. I'll work with this situation. Carefulness is a kind of trust that this situation really is calling for me to give attention and gentleness and respect. That's what's being called for. I trust that. And I trust not the pain, I trust being present with pain. Patience. With that kind of practice, I can trust relaxation.

[32:37]

is that most of us need somebody to teach us this. I'm talking to you about it as an opportunity for you to learn this and for me to learn this. We need to help each other learn this process of liberation and peace. So Mr. Winnicott shows an example of this, more than one. So there was He was in a hospital. He's a doctor. He works in a hospital. And he worked with children. And there was a girl in the... I can't remember the details exactly right, but anyway, she had problems. She had digestive problems. And, yeah, she was a stressed little girl. And she was so stressed that she went to the hospital. And also she started to have fits. And just generally she was having these fits two, three, four times a day.

[33:51]

And she was having trouble sleeping. And she was just generally stressed and unhappy and having these stressed fits. And then she got to meet this person, this doctor. And he watched her, and yeah, she seemed very unhappy and very stressed, frightened, pained, really, really having a hard life. And she didn't know how to relax with it and be playful with it. There was very little playfulness in this girl. She was like really... imprisoned by this body and mind. So at some point in the process, she got onto his knee. I don't know if he said, I took her onto my knee, but anyway.

[34:58]

And I think he had, in America we call them tongue depressors, those flat pieces of wood. that doctors often have in their pockets. And then they put it on your tongue and say, they say, say ah. You know those things? Are they still wood? And then they're disposable, right? So he had these tongue depressors in his pocket. They're one of the main toys in this story. And another toy in this is Mr. Winnicott's knuckles. He had knuckles on his hand. And the little girl sitting on his knee, she, with all her discomfort and so on, she bit the doctor's knuckle.

[36:03]

And she bit it. He said she bit really hard, almost broke the skin, almost tore the skin. She bit so hard. This is like a two- or three-year-old. And she bit her knuckles a few times. And then she moved on to grab the spatulas, the wooden tongue depressors. She grabbed them, took them out of his pocket, and threw them around the room. And then bit him some more. So that was like their first, you know, up close, or to go, play date, as we say these days. I don't know if he knew at the beginning of this encounter with this girl, I don't know if he knew at that point in his evolution as a healer, I don't know if he knew, oh, here comes a play date.

[37:10]

But by the time he finished this story I think he realized that he had play dates with that girl. He came back again and she sat on his knee again. And again she bit his knuckles. Again, in a nice hard bite. And grabbed the tongue depressors and threw them around the room. When I was older than her, like quite a bit older, I had some wooden toys, and the wooden toys were painted bright colors. like yellow and red and so on. And I like to bite my toys. And I bit them hard enough to sort of like break the paint. The paint would kind of go crinkle, crinkle. I was never into biting those wooden pencils.

[38:14]

A lot of kids do though, right? They like to bite them. Some like the feeling of biting things. And pencils, wooden toys. You know, biting a metal toy is okay, but they don't give, you know, and crinkle. It's a much more sensuous experience to bite the wooden toys. The problem with wooden toys is that after you bite them, they're kind of dented, and the paint falls off. So there is a drawback of biting your toys, because before that they were nice and shiny and smooth, and now they have these dents in them. But I did it anyway. I never completely . Anyway, the little girl did that. And then she came back another day and she continued, she bit him, she threw the tongue to pressers, and then she was like, you could say, touching her toes, but you could also say she was playing.

[39:19]

She was biting his fingers, throwing the tongue to pressers, playing with her toes. And her toes were inside her shoes. And inside her shoes she had socks on her feet. So, The doctor took the shoes off, took the socks off, so she could touch her actual toes. So then she was playing with biting the doctor's hands, throwing the tongue depressors, and playing with her toes. And she was starting to... More and more, I don't know if he said this, but I could see in the story she's more and more relaxed and playful. And then he said, she seemed at some point to have this kind of like big surprise. Realize the tongue depressors come out of the pocket and you can throw them, but if you pull on the toes, they don't come off.

[40:27]

It's like this is a big realization to her. And I thought reading that, yeah, she was like, she got creative with her toes. She had this insight about reality. And she seemed to be really moved by it. And then the report is that after that session, the seizures stopped. And then for like two weeks more, they stopped. And he saw her, and she wasn't happy. She seemed to be relaxed and happy. and she was discharged from the hospital. And he saw her a year later and she seemed like a very bright, happy, relaxed and playful little girl.

[41:37]

Part of what I'm bringing this up for is that the doctor showed this little girl that she could play with his knuckles and his spatula. and her feet and her shoes and her toes. It was okay in the situation that he didn't punish her for biting him or for throwing his spatulas around the room. He didn't punish her for playing with her feet. He showed her she could trust, she could relax, she could be playful. she could be creative. And then she was, for a little girl, wise. And that wisdom liberated her from her seizures and her misery for the time being. And then maybe as she grew to other, like the seizures of, you know, like being a teenager,

[42:48]

our brains kind of like are going through seizures when we were teenagers, that she had this transmission of how to allow ourselves to relax with our life and so on. So we have the opportunity to Be really careful. Like yesterday, I was working in the yard of the house where I live, and I was pulling up vines from the ground, and suddenly I felt a pain on my body. And then I saw some, I didn't know if they were bees or wasps, But anyway, they were on me. And my smart body thought, maybe run away from where you are.

[43:53]

But they came with me and kept biting me. Maybe you can see my hands. This hand is all swollen up. So they bit my hands, my torso, my arms. They bit me, [...] bit me. And I thought, well, you know, I wasn't being when I was working in the yard. I didn't know there was a wasp nest underground or a bees. Did bees ever have underground nests? Huh? Huh? So anyway, these are pretty tough little creatures. But I thought, well, you know, I wasn't really being careful of them. I wasn't like, okay, here we are on the earth and we're going to pull up some vines. But wait a minute, we should be careful. Now, probably in the future, I will be careful and gentle with the situation.

[45:02]

I feel kind of relaxed again to go back in the yard. But I did tell my granddaughter to not go over in the corner where the nest is. So yeah, we have some responsibilities to take care of. And when we diligently take care of our responsibilities, when we take care of our situation, when we're patient and generous and respectful and so on with it, then it may be time. Artists of wisdom. Thank you very much. Meh.

[45:54]

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