Please let me know if you can't hear me. Can you hear me in the back, Oscar? Since our last sitting here, a couple of things came up in the world, as you may have noticed. We've had earthquakes and many kinds of suffering, Academy Awards, and some people had a joy to see a woman win Best Director for a movie which is about how to face great suffering.

[01:25]

And also at Green Dragon Zen Temple, there's a practice period going on, and I heard a request from a number of people to talk about or bring up intimacy, which I was happy to respond to. You could say, in Buddhadharma, intimacy is our business, our only business. Which is the same to say, enlightenment is our business. In response to this request, my mind thought of many stories.

[02:54]

One of them is about one of the ancestors in this lineage, whose name in Chinese is Liangshan Yuanguan. And his teacher was named Tong An, the latter. There's two Tong An's in our lineage. So his teacher was the second Tong An. And he was serving his teacher as attendant, and the teacher went into the teaching hall, and the usual ceremony involved him wearing one of these patch robes.

[04:02]

So the attendant, Yuanguan, the student, brought the robe to the teacher, and as he handed it to the teacher, the teacher said, What's the business under the patch robe? You could imagine either that he's holding the patch robe up like this as he gives it to the teacher, what's the business under the patch robe? Or, when we have the patch robe wrapped around us, or we have the patch robe over our heart, the teacher said, What's the business under the robe? Now, I already told you what the business is. And after the attendant gave the robe and the teacher said, What is the business under the robe? The attendant stood. And you could say the attendant had no answer, which is what it says in this record,

[05:12]

but also you could say the attendant stood quietly in the presence of his teacher. What is the business under the patch robe? Then the teacher said, Practicing the Buddha way, and still not reaching, this realm is most painful. And then the teacher said to the student, Now you ask me.

[06:15]

And the student, Hiranguan, said, What is the business beneath the patch robe? And the teacher said, Intimacy. And then it says the master was greatly awakened. And then it says the master experienced tears of joy and frustrated herself to her teacher. And the teacher said, Now that you're like this, can you express it? And the student said, Yes, I can.

[07:21]

And the teacher said, What is the business beneath the patch robe? And the student said, Intimacy. And the teacher said, Intimacy, intimacy. So I offer the comment that the story could have been, What is the enlightenment under the patch robe? The student could have stood quietly in response to that. And instead of business, you could translate it by saying, What is really going on under this robe?

[08:26]

What's really going on under this robe is intimacy. What's really going on under the roof of this temple? Intimacy. Another comment I offer is that it said in the story, it says, After the teacher said intimacy, then it says, The student was greatly awakened. Actually, it doesn't say then. It doesn't say then. It says, The student was greatly awakened. We might think, the teacher says intimacy, and then the student is greatly awakened. I think it's more intimate to see it a little differently.

[09:37]

That when the teacher says intimacy, the teacher saying intimacy, and the student being with her at that time. It's not just that the teacher says intimacy. The teacher and the student together, with the teacher saying intimacy, that is great awakening. It's not like, I'm suggesting, it's not like the teacher says intimacy, and then the student has a great awakening herself. Like, Oh, I get it! Teacher, student, teacher say intimacy, them being together, and one talking and one listening, in this case, that intimacy, right then, that is the great awakening. And they mentioned the student was greatly awakened,

[10:39]

because the teacher was already greatly awakened. So, in some ways, it would be more intimate to say, the student and the teacher were greatly awakened. So, I'm not going to change the text. This is an ancient text, I'm not changing it. It does say that the student, or it actually says the master, because this is a story about the master, who was a student at the time of the story. It says the master, the student, was awakened. But it also does say the master was awakened. But it's understood that the master is the student, and that the student's teacher is called the ancestor. But it says the master was awakened. Interesting. I think today I need to say to you that really what it means is

[11:40]

that the teacher and the student were greatly awakened together. Because otherwise you might think that the teacher was awakened before, and the student wasn't, and then the teacher did something, and then the student was awakened. This is the way a lot of people think about awakening, that it's something that happens to somebody. And if something's going to happen to somebody, that would be a good thing to happen. But that's not what it is. Things like that are delusions. Delusions happen to one person. My delusions don't happen to you. Fortunately for you. But my enlightenment does happen to you. Fortunately for you. There's a form here.

[12:50]

There's a number of forms. There's a form of a teacher, and a form of a student. There's a form of a human being, and another human being. One's playing the role of the teacher, the other the student, who becomes a teacher, because of the relationship with the teacher, as a student. This is a form. There's also this particular form of being an attendant to the teacher, to bring the teacher the robe, when the teacher needs it. That's a form. It's a form to realize what's under the robe. It's a form to realize what's actually happening. Intimacy. The robe's a form, which we can use to realize intimacy.

[13:54]

In making the robe, the making of the robe is a way to realize intimacy, a practice to realize intimacy. Then the giving of the robe, then the receiving of the robe, then the wearing of the robe, all these are forms to realize enlightenment. It isn't that you put on the robe and then you're enlightened afterwards. It's that wearing the robe is enlightenment. It's a form to realize enlightenment. Wearing the robe realizes intimacy. What's really going on here is intimacy. Right? I mean, right, that's what I said, isn't it? I don't know if you agree with me, but that's what I'm saying. What's really going on here is intimacy. What's really going on here is great love and compassion. That's what's really going on. And we can use this robe to realize it.

[15:00]

When we put the robe on in the morning, first thing, when we first put it on, we say, great robe of liberation, a field of virtue beyond all marks, beyond form and emptiness of form, wearing the Tathagata's teaching, saving all beings. It isn't that we put on the robe and then save all beings. It's that putting the robe on, wearing the robe is saving all beings. And in the next moment, we wear the robe and save all beings. But as soon as it's put on, that's saving all beings. It isn't that you put it on and then you go meet somebody and save all beings. It's that you put it on and save all beings, and then you go meet somebody and save all beings. And you're still wearing the robe. Wearing the robe saves all beings.

[16:06]

Wearing the robe is a form to use to realize intimacy. So this discussion here I'm having is a repetition of earlier discussions in response to the question, could we hear more about intimacy-enlightenment? Yes, you can. Here it is. Here's the story from ancient China. There's another one, but I'm going to postpone it until later. What I'd like to say is that something else came up since the last one-day sitting, and that is we had a ceremony called leaving home and attaining liberation. Sometimes people call it priest-ordination,

[17:09]

which is true. It's like welcoming certain people into the order of priests. But the name of the ceremony is also leaving home and attaining liberation. So five people went through this ceremony, and hundreds of people came to support them, and there was a tremendous feeling of something or other during that ceremony. It was one of the longest priest-ordinations that we've had for a while, partly due to doing it a little bit more fully than sometimes in the past. Fully meaning doing things that can be done once or three times, but choosing three instead of one. During the informal comments

[18:15]

I was going to say but forgot, and would you believe this was the abbreviated ceremony. Anyway, it was long and wonderful. It was a real Dharma party, and we used forms to realize intimacy. Forms were used. One of the forms is a form of coming to the ceremony. Hundreds of people came to the ceremony. That's a form for them to express intimacy, for them to express enlightenment. People came from far away, made a tremendous effort to come and witness this ceremony. And that form of that effort is one of the ways we express and realize intimacy through effort.

[19:15]

And then there's all the other forms of the ceremony, like cutting the hair, cutting the hair, and cutting the hair. And saying that only Buddha can cut this hair off. Only Buddha can cut off the clinging. Now I will play the role of cutting the hair. Will you allow me to cut the hair? And saying that five times, three times, and having people sit there and watch that, and perhaps feel like, boy, this is a lot of repetition. And yet, pretty patient with that, pretty intimate with these people, with this event. So anyway, this exercise in intimacy occurred. And then the next day,

[20:18]

and interesting, the other side, you know, whenever there is a... Yeah, so one of the things which you might... You might have noticed, is that when you have intimacy, dash enlightenment, there's light. There's light in intimacy. It's radiant. But when there's light, there's shadow. And the shadow knows. When there's a bright light, then there's a deeper shadow. When there's a great light, there's a deep shadow. So the next day, shadow came up. One of the initiates expressed, or two of them actually, expressed the shadow side of the brilliance of intimacy.

[21:21]

Actually, it could be quite a big shadow. But one part of the shadow which was expressed, is that this intimacy, using these forms for intimacy, and when it's actually successful, it becomes, in a sense, an exclusive radiance. Or those who get to practice the forms, and play the role of performing the forms, they are kind of... They're different from the people who are not doing the forms. Even though everyone is welcome to do the forms, some people say, my karmic situation is such that I cannot do these forms. I cannot spend the time it takes to learn to do these forms.

[22:25]

You know? And not only that, but now these people who are ordained, now they're going into another phase of training, where they're going to... You know, because when they put the robes on, it was very sweet, they had all trouble getting them on. Some of them got amazingly, wonderfully entangled in their robes. Some of them got tangled in ways I never saw before. And we even practiced beforehand, and one of them was putting the robes on, and I said, you'll probably never put your hand in that part of the robe again. I mean, I never saw anybody put their hand in it. It's amazing that you got it there. Anyway, and then... There was some amazing ways of wearing the robe that occurred in that ceremony. To me, amazing. And the reason why they're amazing to me is because I've seen the robe put on so many thousands of times. If you've never seen it happen,

[23:35]

you can kind of tell. You can kind of tell. Those people seem to be entangled in their robes. You can probably tell even without ever seeing it before. But the details, the really amazing details, were revealed only to those who've seen it many, many times. And the impact is stronger on those who know the form well. And again, this impact, the penetration of the intimacy of the form, is strongest for those who practice it a lot. So then again, you can say, well, the people who don't get to watch the form don't enjoy the show as much. There was a movie recently, a fairly recent movie called, it's called Enlightenment Guaranteed. And it's a German movie. Did some of you see it? Anyway, it's a German movie made about,

[24:38]

it's in German and Japanese, maybe a little English. It's about these two German guys who go to Japan to study Soto Zen. So they don't just go to study Zen, they go to study Soto Zen. So people who practice Soto Zen, when they watch it, they got to see these Soto Zen forms. And if you know the forms, it's a very funny movie. Because these people, who happen to be Germans, did the forms in unusual ways. And my wife is not a priest, but she's done some Soto Zen forms, so she also could appreciate how funny the movie was. And at the end of the movie she said, I didn't know Germans could make funny movies. Anyway, in tea ceremony, one of the implements of tea ceremony,

[25:39]

how many of you practice tea ceremony? One of the forms of tea ceremony, one of the forms is, you could say, it's an equipment, tea equipment, tea utensil. It's a tea equipment, and it's called a Kensui, which is a waste water container. And the person who is doing the tea ceremony brings the waste water container in, and the way they hold it, it's a waste water container. You don't put your thumb into the tea bowl, but you can put your thumb into the waste water bowl, like this. And you carry it in your left hand, forward, like this. Like this. I'm walking in this way, I carry it like this. It's bigger than this cup. So you come in carrying it down to your side, with your left hand, and the front of the container is facing forward.

[26:42]

So one day, someone came in, with the bowl, facing this way. Facing this way instead of this way. Just turned it around that way, walked in with it this way. And some of you are kind of smiling, but none of you are laughing. But when I saw that, it was like the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. And the other people too, who were the guests watching this, it was really funny. But only because... It was actually a tea ceremony, it wasn't a movie, is that correct? Oh, this is like something I'm going through. This is something at Zen Center, at Green Gulch Farm, tea house. So one of our Dharma, one of our students, one of our older students,

[27:44]

who had been practicing tea, came in with it turned around, and it was very funny. But it's only funny... Other people thought, well, why not this way? You might actually think it was probably better to hold it the way they usually hold it, but the other way, to those of you who haven't seen it, many, many times the other way, when you turn it, it's not that funny. Or like, there's a tea whisk, you've probably seen those tea whisks, they're bamboo, and then they're flayed into many little tongs, or teeth, which make a beautiful kind of like flower arrangement coming out of the bamboo. And it's used as a whisk, to whisk the tea. And then after you, and sometimes, after you whisk the tea, you just set the bamboo upright, with the head going like this. You just set it down after you use it.

[28:45]

When there's tea, when there's actually tea, after you make the bowl, you just set it down vertically like this. And one day somebody set it down like that, vertically. They put it down, and it tilted and fell over. And that also was very funny, I only saw it once. Usually people put it down, and it stands upright. This time they put it down, and it fell over. But it was like, you know, excuse me for saying this, it kind of maybe seemed exaggerated, it was like seeing a giant redwood fall. You know, when they fall, they don't just go, they go, right? You've seen them? That's how that thing fell over. It was like, the whisk, the whisk seems to be falling, and it's still falling. That whisk is actually

[29:46]

going to fall over and hit the ground. All that happened, you know, faster than the redwood trees fall. But it was almost like that, because when things are that amazing, you really look at them, and you see this thing, which is only three inches tall, you see it falling for quite a long time, and the whole thing is really amazing. But it's only amazing because you have set that thing down yourself, over, carefully, over, and [...] you've seen people set it down over, and over, and over, and now when somebody sets it down, and it starts to teeter and fall, it is a major event. And you know it's not like an earthquake, but, in another sense, it's like, well, it's like a happy earthquake.

[30:48]

The person who's doing the thing and has it falling over, they might be a little embarrassed, because they know that they never saw this before either. And so then they feel like, oh, I made a mistake. So that's part of it too. But, the main thing is that these forms, when you practice them, you become intimate with them, and every little variation, especially like big ones, I should say, not every little one, but some of the big variations, like falling over or backwards, are major. I mean like, never seen before in the history of the world kind of thing. So this is all nice, but the shadow side is, some people don't get to go in the team room, because they're busy taking care of their kids, or, I don't know, cleaning up after earthquakes, or, whatever.

[31:51]

And the intimacy, the point of the intimacy, the point of the intimacy, is to help all beings. So here's the shadow side, is you're doing something which actually, the point of it, is to realize a life where you're amazed. You're amazed by the great enlightenment. You're amazed by intimacy. You're amazed and enlivened, and liberated, and totally ready to serve all beings, and this is all good, but what about the people who can't do it? And then you start to have a problem with that. So part of this intimacy business, and this intimacy training, which we are practicing here, because the form of sitting that you're doing here is one of the main forms of this school. One of the main forms you use to realize, not to get enlightened,

[32:56]

but to realize it, to embody it, to embody enlightenment by sitting. All of you can do this, but some of you can't do the tea ceremony, or some of you can't do the head shaving, yet. Even though I'm not trying to get you to shave your heads and become priests, but basically you're all welcome to be priests. And then after becoming priests, you're welcome to do the training which follows, the intimacy training. So, if everybody got ordained, then there would be no exclusion, except if people say, what about kids, little kids? Well, then they would be excluded. What about if we ordained kids too, and have a special form for kids?

[33:59]

Well, then ants would be excluded, and banana slugs. We had, at the beginning of this year, we had a ceremony which we called Zai Kei Bodhisattva New Year's Greeting. And we also did that on the 3rd of January, and earlier on the 3rd of January, before the sitting we had here, where we did that New Year's greeting here, we did the New Year's greeting at Green Gulch, which for the Shukke Bodhisattvas, the leaving home Bodhisattvas, we did it at Green Gulch for the priests. So, we did one for the priests, and one for the Zai Kei Bodhisattvas. So, part of what's going on in this Sangha

[35:02]

is negotiating what forms we can use, what forms are appropriate, both for so-called priests and householders, what are the forms we can use to practice intimacy, and whatever forms we use, whatever forms the priests use, whatever forms the householders use, whatever forms we use, there is an element of exclusion to all beings who cannot use these forms, and this, to some extent, probably pains us, because it pains some other people. Some of the people who are using these forms are pained, because they don't like elitism. So, there are different layers of elitism, but even you folks, who can sit in this way today, in some sense you're in an elite, and to some extent that may bother you,

[36:02]

and the people who are in priest training, to some extent you can say they're in an elite. Now, what I offer you is not exactly that I believe this, but somebody told me this one time, who used to work in hospitals, and I thought it was really interesting, she said, in a healthy, maybe she said healthy, I don't know, maybe she said healthy, maybe she said living, but in a living organization, there's insiders and outsiders. And I don't know if she said this, but I think that that should not be static, but I actually, if there's no insiders or outsiders, then I think what's going on in the organization, or in the community, is dead. I kind of think that.

[37:03]

I think if there's no insiders or outsiders in a community, I mean, if there's no illusion, it's not really, but if there's no sense of insider-outsider, excluded-included, if there's no sense of that, then I think the community is dead. If something is happening, and people don't even notice that anybody is inside or outside, whatever is happening must not be very interesting. There are things that are going on that are not interesting to any of you. And when you look at those things, you don't think, well, who's included and who's not? But if there's really a nice meal, you know, served graciously, then you kind of think, well, who gets to eat and who doesn't? Or, you know, is anybody excluded? When there's really a feast going on, then being excluded comes up. And in fact, somebody will be excluded. The kids either do sit at the table or they don't.

[38:08]

But if they sit at the table, then some other people can't. There's some exclusion that appears and if there isn't, then the thing must not be that good. And even if everybody gets to the table, who gets, what do you call it, the drumstick? Or who gets seconds? If it's really good, there's never enough for everybody to get the same amount. There's some insiders at this feast and there's some outsiders. And I think that it should not be static, that you should be able to train places in a healthy organization too. In other words, if we want enlightenment, I'm proposing, if we want enlightenment, if we want great wisdom and compassion, we seem to need training.

[39:09]

Children seem to be frightened and greedy and deluded, but they don't seem to be able to work with that stuff in a compassionate way and manifest intimacy. They need a lot of education and with it they can learn to be intimate. So, if we want to realize enlightenment, we want to realize intimacy in such a way that all beings are benefited, we need forms. And when we have forms, there's some inclusion and exclusion. And then how do we deal with that is also part of the way we develop intimacy. So I offer this to you, I invite you into the dance of intimacy and therefore the dance of working with forms and therefore the dance of who gets to dance with who, how.

[40:14]

Like, you know, some people say, well, the Jija is closer, the attendance is closer to the master than the non-attendance. Somebody said to me recently, somebody told me, a priest in training told me, some people tell me that you don't like me as much as you like the other priests. One of the priests told me that somebody, some people are watching me with the priests and calculating which ones I like best and then sometimes going to the ones they think I like less and telling them that they think I like them less. So, in the priest group, there's the included and the excluded in the priest group. And then in the included group, you know, I don't know how many is in the included group, but in the included group, there's the really included and the not so really included. Who's the one who's really, [...] really intimate? Who excludes everybody else?

[41:20]

Who's that one? Is that the Buddha? Is the Buddha the one who gets to be totally intimate and never excluded? It's amazing to me that this is going on. It's amazing. Someone came and told me that you aren't as nice to me as you are to the other priests. And I just said, that's just really... This is like amazing. This is like the whisk falling over. Like, wow! Right here in the inner chamber of priest training, we have like envy and jealousy. Oh, it's amazing. And then some people think, you know, oh, he really likes the priests more than the non-priests, you know, and so on. I feel excluded. Now, if I would tell everybody that really I like the non-priests better than the priests,

[42:21]

then the priests have a problem with that. I really like the non-priests better, but the priests are the only ones who want to be priests, so they get the priest training. But, you know, I'm not denying likes and dislikes. I'm not denying them. I really do like so-and-so best of all. It's true. And so-and-so is really my most unfavorite. It's really true. However, this has got... I should say, all this is just food for intimacy. All this likes and dislikes. It's just stuff that intimacy comes and practices with, with these forms. I'd like this period to be a little longer. This is really a cool one. Let's extend this one a little bit. I'd like this period to be a little shorter. I'd like it to end now. I'd like this talk to be a little longer.

[43:23]

This is a good one. Keep going, keep going. I'd like you to shut up now. This is enough. Likes and dislikes arise when we have forms like sitting, talking. All these forms. People's likes and dislikes are flaring up around all these forms. And then those are new forms to be intimate with. This is normal. And again, this whole wonderful thing can be seen as exclusive. But it's pretty clear that the party line is all these forms are just not to eliminate exclusivity because eliminating exclusivity is another kind of exclusivity. In the great openness of Buddha, exclusiveness is allowed and inclusiveness is allowed. We don't make a situation where there is absolutely no possibility of any exclusion. No, we make a situation where we can open to the pain

[44:29]

of the slightest bit of exclusion. Which is similar, you know, usually when we put the T-whisk down vertically, in a sense we're excluding it falling over. Because it's not falling over, it's standing upright. When you put it upright, you're excluding falling over. So you can feel sorry for all the fallen over T-whisks that don't get to do their thing. Whatever thing you do, there's an exclusion in it. And there's some problem there which we can embrace with compassion and realize it's ultimate truth. But it's hard. It's a struggle. It's a struggle. So, if the dead organization, we don't have any exclusion, but that's because nobody's even paying attention to it. Really, the illusion of exclusion

[45:30]

and the illusion of inclusion, they come up naturally. The question is, can we meet it with compassion and realize intimacy? And these forms, like these robes, are offered in this way. And, yeah. Is there anything anyone would like to say at this time? You're welcome to do so. Yes, yes, [...] yes. I'd like to confess maybe I had a T-whisk moment very recently

[46:37]

that I'd like to tell you about. Okay. Maybe something that often catches my attention that may not catch other people's, which is that when we were reading a sutra, there was the beginning of a sentence and a letter was not capitalized. And so I just thought maybe somebody could respond to that in the future. And I wanted to offer that some people do tea ceremony and some don't, but all of us work with language sometimes all day or very often. So I just wanted to offer that. And I notice a lot with emailing and things like that that people maybe don't seem to be checking their language. And language is a form that has a lot of power, negative and positive. And I just have a request or a wish that we really engage with that.

[47:40]

I hear your request that we fully engage with language. And I'd just like to say something very subjective, which is that my observation when I lived at Sense Center and I trained with you is that you were pretty remarkably equitable in your relationships with people. Perhaps you couldn't stand me or someone else, I don't really care. But you were quite good about how you moved among people. Why, thank you. Thank you. So you use the term couldn't stand. Couldn't stand means challenged to be patient, perhaps. Someone's doing something and it's kind of like

[48:46]

they're tipping over tea whisks in various ways with the way they perform the forms or don't perform the forms, which is one of the ways of performing the forms is don't perform them. One of the ways of relating to sitting meditation is don't do it. Do walking meditation instead. But whenever you do those things, if you have a relationship with somebody around the form, it affects him or her. Someone was making me tea recently and she did something unusual with the tea. I wouldn't say it was like a dagger in my heart, but it didn't really hurt. It was more like for somebody who's into physical contact,

[49:47]

it was like being tackled as you're running down the field with a football or something. It's like a real strong contact. It was wonderfully, amazingly penetrating. So in that case, really I wasn't challenged to be patient and I expressed lots of amazement. But sometimes people do things which are kind of painful and then I'm challenged and have the opportunity to be patient. And certain people have come to me after practicing with me for a number of years and thanked me for being patient. Now I might wish that they would thank me for being wise, but they thanked me for being patient with themselves. And sometimes when they say that, I think,

[50:50]

you're welcome. And then I even say you're welcome. And I even think, yes, I have been working at that for some time. And you have been a great opportunity. And you've really helped me because you've given me all these chances to be patient with you. And I've been graced with that ability quite a few times. And it's really wonderful. Don't tell anybody I said this, but a certain person who I've been married to, one of her nicknames for me is Polly. Polly is short for tolerant. She calls me Polly. I'm not saying I'm tolerant, but she calls me Polly because she thinks I'm quite tolerant. And sometimes she says, you are really tolerant.

[51:51]

Now sometimes I'm not. And then she tells me I'm not. But don't tell her I said this, okay? Polly. So, I hope to live up to my name Reb. I think it's a good name. I hope to live up to the name Tenshin. It's a good name, Siddharishi gave me. I hope to live up to the whole name Tenshin Zenki. I hope to live up to the name Polly. I really want to be tolerant of all beings. And, yeah. My wife also says, you're pretty good. You have just the students you deserve. Yes. Yes. I'm kind of wondering,

[52:52]

when you mentioned about compassion and whether the kindness of it, how can we be compassionate? I feel as much as I like to practice it, I like to take every opportunity to bring that up. But I don't know how practical that could be. Or is it even practical? Or is it, you know, my limitation is... You're asking what is practical? To be compassionate. To take everything that comes up, to totally be still with it. Now, when you say you don't know if it's practical, what do you mean? If I can do something like that. Oh, are you saying you don't know if you can do it? Yeah. Oh. So, compassion, practically speaking, can I do it?

[53:56]

Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know, practically speaking, if I can do it. However, I think it's good to remember that you will be able to do it. You will be able to do it. You will be able to do it. That's one thing I would say. The other thing is, when you are able to do it, you will be able to do it. And when you are, you will be able to do it because you are being supported to do it. By what? By your past karma. Your past karma will support you someday to be compassionate. And if you're compassionate today, your past karma is supporting you to be compassionate today. And all beings are supporting you. If you can be compassionate today, it's because all beings are supporting you. You cannot be compassionate by yourself. Practically speaking, can I be compassionate? The answer is, I don't know. I don't know. And I don't know.

[54:57]

But also, I do know that I will be able to be compassionate when everybody supports me to be compassionate. When everybody gathers around me and says, be compassionate to him, if there's enough people asking me, OK, I'll be compassionate. This person is really maybe rude to me, mean to me, hates me, tries to hurt me, and I feel like, well, I don't really want to be compassionate to this person because of my past karma. I may feel like, well, no. My past karma being like thinking that he's mean to me. I don't want to be kind to him. But if enough people gathered around me, I can imagine Suzuki Roshi coming, and Chakyamuni Buddha coming and saying, come on, be kind to him. Even though he's done all these things, be kind to him. OK. And when you're kind to somebody, it's because whether you know it or not, everybody really wants you to do it.

[55:59]

Everybody does want you to be compassionate. And when that comes together, you will be able to be. But sometimes it seems like the conditions aren't there. Our past karma or whatever things, the situation is complicated, we're not clear that, it's not clear to us that everyone's supporting us. But when it does happen, then, they are supporting us and it's clear to us, and so we can be compassionate. But we can't do it by ourselves. We cannot be compassionate by ourselves, and nobody else is going to do it for us either. Yes. I want to express something that came up while you were talking, which is that I wasn't able to shave my head and put on some robes last weekend, but I felt included in my friends doing that. So I didn't feel excluded by my inability to be there.

[57:02]

Yes, it may be that none of the people who weren't ordained felt excluded. It's possible. Did anybody who was there feel excluded? I don't know, it's possible. But the people I'm talking about who felt the exclusion were some of the priests. They feel like, Oh, now I'm really included. And they felt bad that, you know, they don't want to be in an exclusive club. And in fact, I think we should be open to being in an exclusive club. We should be open to it. If we're open to it, then we have a chance of not attaching to it and giving it away. But if you're close to it, you're already caught by... you're caught. And the thought did cross my mind, you know, now with these five new priests that have been engulfed, so there's more priests in the Zen, though. The thought did cross my mind, could we have too many priests at Zen Center? Like, would it be really bad

[58:04]

if everybody who lived at Green Gulch was a priest? Would that be like a bad thing? And I kind of thought, at first I thought kind of like, Yeah. But then I thought, No. And now I think, Yeah. I mean, you know, it's dynamic. It might be really neat to have everybody at Green Gulch is a priest. And then people just go there and say, Wow, this place is really a bad thing. Just priests. Oh, yuck. And some other people go, Oh, it's so beautiful. You know? It's all priests. It's real. It's really, you know. Either way you do it, you know. No priests. Half priests. All priests. Something is getting moved around there. Do you feel it? I say, let's feel it. And let's be honest. And let's be kind. And supportive of each other. And including when we feel exclusion or we're accused of excluding,

[59:05]

let's open to that. Because again, when there's a vital event like that, like last Sunday, there was a very vital event. Very bright. There is a shadow. Don't pretend that it's just light. There is shadow. And it's good that we bring it out when we see it and welcome it. And if we welcome the shadow, then we get more light. And we get more light, we get more shadow. This is, I think, this is what the tradition is telling us. And so there is a light. It's great. And there's shadow. Great. Yes? When you were talking about likes and dislikes and working with forms, I was thinking, like, okay, so I teach yoga. And people sometimes ask me a question on what to do. And I think about, well, you want to limit people, you want to limit, I want to limit myself, but I don't want to limit myself so much. Because it seems to me like my mind,

[60:08]

if I get too small, I want to limit myself so I can enjoy the beautiful, silly things falling over. If I'm like, blah blah blah, who cares, eat whatever, talk to whatever, do whatever, then I don't appreciate the small little falling overs. But, if I'm too limited, if I don't allow myself to express and explore and do, then my mind will become, becomes catty, or you like her better than me, or blah blah blah. So, it seems to me there's some sort of, like an appropriate limitation. Yeah, there's appropriate limits. But another thing I think you were hinting at, but didn't say, it's not so much that we're too limited, but that we're attached to the limits. In some sense, we can't be too limited. In some sense, you could never be any more limited than you are right now. You are completely limited

[61:10]

to being yourself. You couldn't be any more limited. However, you don't have to attach to that. Anything you do, you put your hand here, you don't put it someplace else. It's your limited. So, we don't really have to be any more limited. But we do need to some forms to tune in to our limits. Like yoga, yoga postures and yoga forms are ways to be mindful that you're a limited being. That you've got a limited body and a limited mind. Now, too limited, I think what you mean by too limited is that you cling to your limits. And that's basically what we're trying to learn how to let go of, is clinging to the forms of Zen, the forms of yoga, the forms of compassion, the forms of law, the forms of society. We're trying to relate to them in a compassionate way so we don't cling to them. But we have to get intimate

[62:13]

to test to see if we're clinging. Because if you're far enough away from things, you can say, I'm not clinging. When you start to get closer, you start to notice, Oh! Oh my God! I think I own the yoga tradition. I think I'm the teacher, which is true, but I'm clinging to that. I think I'm not the teacher and I'm clinging to that. Both student and teacher, with any form, can cling to their position. So I would say when we wholeheartedly exert our position, our limit, we won't cling to it. But if you don't wholeheartedly exert it, you can be clinging to it and not notice it. And again, if you're using a form and exerting it wholly, in some sense, it's exclusive. Only you get to work with your body in certain ways.

[63:15]

Other people can work with your body in other ways and you can't. Like the surgeon can work with your body in a way that you can't. The massage therapist can work with your body in a way that you can't. But you can work with your body in a way that other people can't. The way you can is exclusive. Only you can do it in certain ways and those are your responsibilities and your opportunities for intimacy. Those are your opportunities to realize that you're clinging to your body being this way. You're clinging to your body being this way. Other people are clinging to your body to be in another way. Like the mother is clinging to her body in one way and the baby is clinging to the mother's body in another way. The baby doesn't care whether the mother is fat. She likes lots of flesh to get a hold of. The baby doesn't want the mother to get too skinny. The mother maybe wants to get skinny. So she's clinging to her body in a different way

[64:15]

than the baby is. They both need help to be devoted to each other in such a way that there's no clinging. Yes? I was just thinking about the role of commitment. And the role of commitment, yeah. And creating exertion. Right. How that exertion or the commitment is met and how that excludes or includes. Exactly. So these forms... Everybody got to see these forms last weekend. These priests were doing these forms. They were receiving these precepts. Everybody got to see what they were. But they also saw that the priests committed to these forms. They committed to training these forms. And then again, some people could feel, I want to commit to these forms too, but other people would feel like, I'd like to, but I can't. I'm excluded from committing to these forms because of some situation. So the commitment is part...

[65:16]

The commitment to the form is part of the way to realize the intimacy. Commitment to it is part of the way to realize if there's any clinging. If you don't commit to something, you may think you're not clinging to it. When you commit, you say, Oh my God, I'm clinging. You don't notice it before you cling. Just like some people who are living together and not married, they get married after living together for a long time and they are just amazed by what happens. Which is the point of getting married, to be amazed, right? And one more thing just came in my head was, somebody came to see me recently and he said, I'm wondering what I'm doing here. He was in a little room with me. He said, I'm wondering what I'm doing here. And I said, What do you mean? What you're doing in this world? And he said,

[66:17]

No, I mean, I'm wondering what I'm doing in Buddhadharma. And I said, Wondering what you're doing in Buddhadharma is one of the traditional forms of Buddhadharma. To wonder, what am I doing in Buddhadharma? What am I doing in the Buddha way? What am I doing? It's okay to answer the question, but keep asking it. What am I doing in the Buddha way? What am I doing in the Buddha way? Lots of answers, but the question is wisdom working. Thank you very much. May our attention equally extend to every being and place. With the true merit of the Buddha's way, beings are numberless.

[67:20]

I vow to save them. Divisions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. I'll adjust by taking this off. And saying that now we have lunch. So please have a delicious lunch.

[68:22]

And then we'll probably have a little work period. Thank you.

[68:44]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ