I'm beginning by acknowledging again that we are living in the middle of many crises One definition of a crisis is a turning point. And that's like a definition, yeah. And the Chinese

[01:02]

In Chinese, there's a compound which means crisis. It's made of two characters. One character is danger and the other character is opportunity. So the turning point is a place where we can turn when we're surrounded by danger and also surrounded by opportunity. Danger, one definition of danger is the possibility of suffering, harm or injury.

[02:15]

The possibility of suffering, harm or injury. So I'm suggesting at the beginning that we are surrounded by the possibility of suffering, harm and injury. Also, around the possibility, I don't know which is closer, the possibility or the actuality. But I suggest we are surrounded by the possibility of suffering, harm and danger. And we're also surrounded by actualized suffering. So we live in the middle of actualized suffering of harm and danger. That's going on right now. We're living in the middle of it. But also, the turning point is living with the possibility of it, not the actuality.

[03:20]

And there's an opportunity also. It's not just that there's a possibility of more suffering, which there is, and there's not just the actuality of suffering, which there is, but there's also, in the crisis, at the turning point, at the center of all this suffering and possibilities of suffering, there is opportunities, many opportunities for suffering, many possibilities of suffering and opportunities for freedom and peace in the middle of these possibilities. Opportunity to be free and at peace surrounded by the possibility of suffering and the actuality of suffering.

[04:24]

The path of the awakening being, the path of becoming awakened person, the bodhisattva path, is practiced. in this center of all the suffering and the possibility of suffering. That's where the bodhisattvas, that's where the enlightening beings practice. And they vow and intend to practice in a way of not leaning into the possibilities of suffering and also causing suffering. They try to practice in a way where they do not lean into and actualize suffering. And they also practice in a way to be ready. And being ready is part of the way not to lean into the possibilities of suffering.

[05:33]

But being ready to meet the possibilities of suffering is also being ready to meet the opportunity for freedom and peace. Same readiness. The same practice. And it occurs in this place where mistakes, we make mistakes and then we fall into suffering. We find a way to be upright and ready and open and we don't fall into anything and we open to the possibilities of freedom and peace. Just now I put these glasses on and there was the possibility of sticking these supports into my eye.

[06:40]

But I was careful and I didn't jab my eye with it. And yeah, I got the opportunity to put it on and see you better. Not better, differently. Now, in this crisis, which is open-ended, I mean it's open-ended and it doesn't have a beginning or an end. The crisis, the turning in the face of danger and the turning in the face of these great opportunities for peace, it doesn't end or begin. It's where the bodhisattvas practice. And so, for example, most mornings here we chant a scripture called the heart of great perfect wisdom or great wisdom which is even free of wisdom.

[07:42]

We chant this scripture and we chant an English translation of a Chinese translation of a Sanskrit original. So in India, around in the fourth century probably, the Indian bodhisattvas came up with this teaching which they called the Heart of Wisdom Transcending Wisdom. And it describes the practice, it expresses the practice of enlightening beings. It expresses the practice of those who wish to free beings so they can dwell in peace. It talks about how they practice perfect wisdom in the crisis. And it starts off by saying in Sanskrit, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva.

[08:45]

Sanskrit name of a bodhisattva. Another way to say it, translating it would be the bodhisattva who regards the world with compassion. We call this bodhisattva the bodhisattva of great infinite compassion. Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva. Kanan posatsu. Guanyin posa. Chenrezig, all the different countries in East Asia, remember this great bodhisattva of compassion. And now we have a text which talks about how this bodhisattva of compassion practices in crisis, which is where that bodhisattva is constantly practicing. That bodhisattva does not practice in non-crisis neighborhoods. surrounded by all suffering and all possibilities of it and all possibilities of liberation in the bodhisattva practices.

[09:53]

And in this scripture it says, she practices, they practice. It doesn't say actually they or she. It says, avalokiteshvara, practicing, the translation we use is practicing deeply the transcendent wisdom. But another translation would be practicing the deep transcendent wisdom. Is that clear? Practicing deeply the wisdom or practicing the deep wisdom. That word deep could be turned either towards the way of practicing or what is practiced. And I think both ways are true, that practice is deep and what is practiced is deep. And deep also means difficult. This practice is not easy. What practice?

[10:55]

The practice of perfect wisdom. But the bodhisattva of great compassion is ready for it and wants to practice it. Now the translation we chant goes on from there and says, that the bodhisattva is practicing deeply prajnaparamita, practicing deeply perfect wisdom, and sees that all the aggregates of existence lack any inherent independent existence. And the Sanskrit stops there and goes on to other things. But the Chinese adds in after sees that all the aggregates all the objects and passions of our experience, all of them, they don't have any independent inherent existence.

[11:57]

And then it says, and relieves all suffering and distress. So this vision of the deep nature of all phenomena opens on to relief and freedom and peace in the midst of all suffering. So this bodhisattva of great compassion wants to liberate all beings so they can dwell in peace and lives in this crisis and practices this wisdom and this vision of this wisdom this vision of this wisdom is to see the way everything deeply ultimately is and that is that they don't have inherent independent existence and that view liberates all beings liberates all suffering

[13:14]

Somebody did an alternative translation and said that in that vision there is the realization of the extinction of suffering and distress. And yeah, so another way to understand it is that extinction doesn't mean getting rid of it. It means that it doesn't even happen. So instead of extinction, another translation would be that this vision of how things are empty realizes the non-origination of all this suffering. And in that there is freedom and peace. There is peace with the world. And then there is the ability to stay in that crisis, to stay in ongoing crisis. new crisis every moment, to be present in it and transmit this wisdom so that self and others are relieved through the realization of the non-arising of suffering.

[14:37]

Now, how do we practice the perfection of wisdom? like those great bodhisattvas. Then there's another scripture which is important in the Zen tradition. So this is the first one, is the heart scripture of perfect wisdom. Then there's another scripture called the diamond, or the diamond cutter's perfect wisdom scripture. And that one starts out Well, it doesn't really start out that way. It starts out by people expressing their appreciation to the Buddha for being really so kind and helpful to these bodhisattvas who are trying to free all beings so they can dwell in peace. And then it goes on where a monk asks the Buddha, how can a bodhisattva stand and walk and take care of their thoughts on the path of the bodhisattva, on the path of perfect wisdom.

[15:58]

And the Buddha says, well, they should think. They should think in a certain way. And the way they should think is they should think of making a vow. And the vow that they should think is the vow, basically, that this is not what the sutra says, this is my summary of it. They should think the vow, I vow, to free all beings so they can dwell in peace. And peace, there's also this term you know called nirvana. Have you heard that term, nirvana? Nirvana means peace, means freedom and peace. So the scripture actually says that they vowed to help all beings go to true nirvana, to true freedom and peace.

[17:04]

So in order to walk the path of the bodhisattva, in order to practice perfect wisdom, we start with a vow. What's the vow? I vow to support and carry all beings to freedom and peace. That's how to stand and walk and take care of your thoughts. You start by taking care of your practice by thinking this vow. And then after making that vow to free all beings so they can dwell in peace, then the next thing to think is, and yet, even though innumerable beings are cared for and taken to freedom and peace, even though innumerable beings are guided to nirvana, No beings are guided to nirvana.

[18:11]

So the first part is the vow. The second part is the perfect wisdom practice. which is, the vow is, I want to free all beings so they can dwell in peace. The next part is, in order for that to be realized, we have to practice perfect wisdom. And to practice perfect wisdom, we have to realize what beings are. We have to realize that here's a being and I'm devoted to this being, and this being has no existence independent of anything else, including me. In that way, I don't dwell in the beings that I am devoted to liberating.

[19:23]

And I don't dwell in the beings that I'm devoted to receiving their liberation of me. I'm devoted to them, but I don't dwell in them. I don't lean into them existing or not existing. I don't dwell in the beings and I also don't dwell in any of my thoughts or emotions. I stay upright with everything without dwelling in anything. I stay upright with everything that I'm experiencing and all the beings that I experience. This is hard. This is the deep and difficult perfect wisdom. But this is what the bodhisattvas are working to realize because this is what realizes freedom and peace. The not dwelling. the being devoted to something and realizing also that that something has no independent existence, so it can't be dwelled in, it can't be grasped.

[20:38]

Just like we can be devoted to beings who we can't control. If we could grasp them, we could control them. But we can't grasp them, so we can't. But we can be devoted to beings that we can't control. And being devoted to beings and accepting that we can't control them is part of practicing perfect wisdom, is part of realizing freedom and peace. Could you hear that in the back? My voice dropped. And so later in the Diamond Sutra it does say, so at the beginning it says, how should a Bodhisattva stand, walk, and take care of their thoughts in such a way as to practice this perfect wisdom which liberates beings? And the Buddha says, well, first of all, devote yourself to that liberation and then remember that what you're devoted to liberating, there's no such thing.

[21:47]

The beings you take, there are no beings that you take. The beings that take you, there's no you that's taken by the beings. Keep that in mind as you work to liberate beings. And then later it says, it asks the question basically again, seventeen sections later, it says, how should a bodhisattva stand, walk, and care for their thoughts on this path of liberating all beings so they can dwell in peace. And the Buddhist says, they should have a mind that doesn't dwell in anything, that doesn't dwell in self or other. and therefore realizes that self and other are what our life is. Our life isn't self, our life isn't others, our life is both self and other. But we train to not dwell in self or other.

[22:56]

We train to not dwell in colors, sounds, smells, emotions, ideas, And then, yeah, that's all you got to do is just don't dwell on anything and you will realize the way things are and you will realize the liberation of all beings. Now what's the next step? How do we not dwell? Well, we not dwell, which again is not dwelling in anything, not dwelling in the beings we're devoted to, is perfect wisdom. And perfect wisdom is difficult. In order to not dwell in anything, we have to, not have to,

[24:01]

In order to not dwell in anything, any particular thing or all things, we need to be completely present for it. And being completely present for it does not involve trying not to dwell in it. Now, if you're trying not to dwell in things, that's something to not dwell in. The instruction is don't dwell in anything and don't dwell in that instruction. Don't dwell in the thought of not dwelling. And if one had the thought of not dwelling, how would one not dwell in the thought of not dwelling?

[25:04]

By being completely present to that thought. That thought is dangerous. Dangerous is slightly different from the word danger. Danger means the possibility of suffering. Dangerous means likely or able to cause suffering. Now when we hear of a practice like not dwelling in anything, which is part of the way to practice wisdom, we might try to dwell in the practice of not dwelling. So that instruction is kind of dangerous. Because if we try to get a hold of this thing as though it were really something called not dwelling, that would cause suffering. Not the not dwelling, the grasping the idea. So even the instructions are things to not dwell in. Even the instructions of how to practice perfect wisdom.

[26:09]

And how do we not dwell in things or the instructions about how not to dwell? By being perfectly present with it. By not leaning into it or away from it. But it's hard not to lean into instructions which are being told are the way bodhisattvas walk the path of the liberation of all beings. It's hard not to lean into that a little bit because it sounds so good or so horrible to lean away. Anyway, that's basically it. And now, let's see, I just thought I might mention... I'll give you a little snapshot of an example of how this, you know, where we can do this kind of thing. So on Thursday night, yeah, Thursday night, that was my recent encounter with a person who I call my leader.

[27:23]

Now she's an eight-year-old person who accepts being called a girl. And so I get invited to go and take care of her. And I think I didn't ask, but I think I'm being invited to take care of her because her parents want to go away from her and do something other than what? Be present with her. They also try to be present with her, and they're very good. So they invite me to go and try, and they get a break. They want me to take care of her, but they do not want her to If I'm not there, or if I am there either way, but particularly if I'm not there, the danger of her suffering some harm might be pretty great, one might think.

[28:26]

So I go there to deal with that danger and try to help her not get hurt when her parents are away. And also to try to help her not hurt anybody else. And that danger is also there, which you're going to hear about. Mostly you're going to hear about the danger of her hurting somebody else. I think she has not much complaint of the ways that she's been hurt when I'm taking care of her. I haven't heard about her complaining to me or to her parents after I take care of her, that granddaddy granddaddy hurt me. I didn't hear about that. Maybe she says it, but I haven't heard. But granddaddy often tells the parents about ways that my leader kind of hurt me or tried to or was experimenting on what would hurt me.

[29:35]

Sometimes she's not interested in me and she wants to watch TV, but sometimes even more, rather than watch TV or because she can't watch TV, she wants to play with me. And she wants to do dangerous things with me. And I, I'm up for it. And people are often worried, not about her, but about me, when they see what she does with me. So one of her things she likes to do with me, which is dangerous for both of us, but particularly for me, is play horsey, which means I'm the horse, and she is kind of the boss of the horse. She wants to be the boss of the horse. So Thursday night she said, let's play horsey. And I said, I'd love to play horsey with you, but I forgot my knee pads.

[30:44]

I have knee pads that I wear when we play horsey because going around the hard floor hurts my knees kind of. So she wanted to play horsey, which is dangerous for me to do for my knees. And she says, get down, horsey, get down, horsey. And when she says, get down, horsey, I forgot to say She's so energetic and so lovely that when she says, get down, Horsey, get down, Horsey, I kind of want to get down, but I can't because of my knees. It's hard for me to stay present when she makes these intense requests or orders. And part of what I forget to do at that moment is say, I need you to speak to your granddaddy more respectfully. I need you to say, Please get down, horsey. But I didn't the other night. I just sort of made excuses for why I wasn't ready to play horsey.

[31:46]

And then she made up some very bizarre versions of knee pads, which wouldn't protect my knees, but were something to go on my knees, but they wouldn't have helped. And I said, well, those won't help. And then, so finally I got down on my knees, and... which is a dangerous situation. But I was down there, and then she kind of, from a distance, or running and jumping from a distance, she jumps on my back. And it's dangerous for both of us, but she's eight years old, and she landed very nicely, over and over. It felt good to me. She did it. I was trying to be there so she didn't get hurt, and she was skillful. And it felt good the way she landed. It was very firm and nice, and she enjoyed it. And then she starts giving further instructions, some of which I do not feel like doing, like walking around on the hard floor with my knees. So rather than that, I started to rear up and buck.

[32:49]

And she liked that a lot. She really enjoyed that. So that was like, you know, I was in there with her. I was present, doing my job, not abiding, and being free of suffering. And it was great for the moment. And then she wants, she has this thing which is something like something you would tie around a horse's neck or head to pull the horse around, and she wants to put that on me. But fortunately, it wouldn't fit, so I didn't get it on. But if she got it on, she would have started trying to drag me around by that thing. And I was about to say, I don't know about having that around my neck. But anyway, other times she's found something that did go around my neck. Then we had to negotiate how to kindly pull on the thing. Because she likes to tug with some energy, which has some possible difficulties for my neck.

[33:54]

But I'm up for this, to work this out. Yeah, so it went pretty well, actually. She didn't get hurt. I didn't get hurt. I expressed my needs, she expressed her requests, and we worked it out. Then she moved on to doing some other things, like she wanted to, basically she wanted to drop hand weights on my head. These hand weights, I guess, are made of iron. And they have kind of a rubber coating, so it's not just flat-out iron. She wanted to kind of drop them on my head from above. And I told her that she could do it, but she has to do it very gently. She didn't really say, can I drop them on my head? She wanted to put them on my head. And I said, but do it gently.

[35:00]

And she, I don't know, she did not just drop them. She kept told them, but it was too hard. And then I said to her, it's too hard, do it more gently. And she did it again and it was too hard. And she kept doing it too hard. But I didn't quite get to the point of saying, I actually need to stop this game because you don't seem to be able to learn how to touch... The name of the game was Touch the Head with the Weight. And I said, you can touch it, but not got to touch it gently. And so she never really got to the place where I felt like she gently touched me with the weight. And it wasn't that the weight was too heavy and she couldn't have done it. She just wasn't being careful enough. And so it hurt my head, but not a lot, but kind of. And I said, that really hurt. And I said, well, I think, but I was about to say, I think we should maybe take a break from this game because you don't seem to be able to

[36:02]

to do it in a way that doesn't hurt me, it's too much. A little bit of hurt's okay, but I would like you to learn how to do it in a way that really doesn't hurt at all. Like when you jumped on my back, it didn't hurt, it felt good, like a good contact. Neither one of us got hurt, it was fine. But this is like, hmm. So this is an example of practicing perfect wisdom. to get in there with people and if they say you're being too if they tell us that we're not being careful enough that we listen to that and try to be more careful. And if they're not being careful enough for us, we find a way to tell them what we need, that we feel uncomfortable, and we need them to be more careful and to listen to us and to say please and all that stuff. And sometimes it's like being with an eight-year-old, if they have a lot of energy and things are changing very fast, it's hard to keep up with all that we need to offer back to our partner.

[37:14]

But that's how to not dwell, is to find that way, that way of being present and meeting the constantly changing situation. And it's very hard, but if, when we find it, then we don't dwell. When we find this way of doing our part fully, but not too much, or not too little, which includes helping the other person find how to do their part fully, but not too much, And they cannot find their way and I cannot find my way without being questioned, without the person telling us, calling us into question, you know, by saying, you're not being gentle enough. You're not being respectful enough. I need you to respect me. And to say that in a respectful way. This is how we don't dwell. in our relationships with people, with our own thoughts and emotions, to respect them, to be present.

[38:23]

And it's hard to keep up because things are changing all the time. The intensity is going up and down, left and right. It's hard to be there. But the bodhisattva vow is in the back of this and saying, I vow to do this. I vow to engage with these people and go to Nirvana with them, which means I vow to not dwell in them. I vow to be close to them and be called into account by them, and to call them into account, and tell them I need them to call me into account, and tell them they need to let me call them into account. And we can start with little kids and work up. And it's tough, it's tough. It's tough, it's tough. That's like that statement, it's tough, it's tough, is the end of one of our famous Zen stories.

[39:26]

At the end of the story, the teacher says, the student says, I can't, I can't. The teacher says, you must, you must. The teacher says, I can't, I can't, I don't get it. The teacher says, you must. And the student says, I can't. The teacher says, it's tough, it's tough. And then the teacher says, the boat of compassion is not rowed. The boat of compassion, which is also the boat of perfect wisdom, perfect wisdom lives in the boat of compassion. And the boat of compassion is not rowed over pure water, over clear water, It's rowed over rough, unclear, impure, dynamic waters. But to ride that boat and be present in that boat is where perfect wisdom and liberation are living. I just saw an eight-year-old run out of the room.

[40:37]

our intention.

[40:41]

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