I wish to continue in this year also to encourage myself and others to devotedly attend to karmic consciousness, to our own karmic consciousness. In the famous case of the Book of Serenity, case number 37, the ancient master Guishan asked his great disciple Yangshan, or says to his great disciple Yangshan, all sentient beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to rely on. How would you test that in practice?

[01:11]

Yangshan says, ìIf someone comes, I say, ìHey, you!î If she comes, I say, ìHey, if she turns her head, I say, ìWhat is it?î If she hesitates, I say, ìAll sentient beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to rely on.î And Guishan said, ìGood.î This statement is not intended as an insult to sentient beings. Weíre just hearing from the ancestors that living beings, all theyíve got is karmic

[02:34]

consciousness. Thatís pretty much the sum total of their problems, and these problems, these karmic consciousness problems, are basically all that they have to work with, all theyíve got to work with is their problems. However, paying attention to these problems, and testing these problems, and probing these problems, is the path to Buddhahood. And studying this karmic consciousness and understanding it, studying it properly and understanding it, is the work of the Buddhas. This is what I propose to you, it has been proposed to me by the ancestors. But sentient beings who only have karmic consciousness would rather

[03:42]

pay attention to something besides their problems. ìIíve got enough problems, I donít need to pay attention to my problems, I want to go do something thatís not a problem.î Itís understandable, thatís a characteristic behavior of a sentient being. Karmic consciousness does not, generally speaking, want to study karmic consciousness. Karmic consciousness does not want to look at the problems of karmic consciousness. It needs a lot of encouragement to do that. But karmic consciousness can study karmic consciousness, itís possible. But itís not easy. So we have a Sangha, we have ancestors who have sent this message to us, that this is what weíve got to work with, and if we work with it, it will really be a big help to everybody. Matter of fact, we will become Buddhas by such work. And all Buddhas have

[04:46]

done this work. So this year, I donít know if Iím going to be able to follow through the whole year, but at least Iím inspired to vow to start this year by studying karmic consciousness. Or another way to put it is, I vow to start this year and to continue throughout the year to be a sentient being. I vow to be a sentient being. I also vow to realize Buddhahood for the welfare of the world. But in order to realize Buddhahood for the welfare of the world, this year Iím going to vow to be a sentient being. In other words, Iím

[05:54]

going to vow to be a person whoís only got karmic consciousness, boundless, unclear, here all day long. All day long, Iíve got karmic consciousness to take care of, because Iím a sentient being. But Iím not just a sentient being, Iím a sentient being who vows to be a sentient being. Not all sentient beings vow to be sentient beings. I do. And I want you to vow to be a sentient being too, if you happen to be one. And I have a feeling you are. But Iím not going to be pressuring you to be a sentient being, Iím just telling you, as a sentient being I want you to be what you are, and I will try to be myself,

[06:58]

which is a sentient being. Earlier this last fall, the fall of 2009, I offered a course at the Yoga Room, and somebody called it ìA Course on Zen Meditationî and the title I gave was, I think something like, ìDelusion and Enlightenment, or perhaps Enlightenment and Delusion.î One of those two was the title, and the subtext said, ìWe will study the dance of enlightenment and delusion.î And we did. And I remembered and brought forth

[07:59]

a text which I was inspired by in the middle 80s, and the name of the text is ìThe Inactivity of All Dharmas, of All Phenomena.î And one of the teachings in this scripture is the teaching that, for a sentient being to be a sentient being is precisely what we call enlightenment. The condition of a sentient being, the nature of a sentient being is itself immediately enlightenment. And the sutra goes on further to say something like, or

[09:22]

they realize enlightenment. Another way to put it is, when a sentient being is a sentient being, they are not moving. You don't have to move to be a sentient being. Again, we do not have to move to be a sentient being. So for a sentient being to not move is for a sentient being to be a sentient being, and for a sentient being not to move is itself enlightenment. The year 2010 then will be a year of not moving. A year for sentient beings, vibrant sentient beings, to not move, moment by moment, not move, not move. Not

[10:30]

move from being a sentient being. And not moving from being a sentient being is precisely enlightenment. And it occurs to me as I practice this way, I started before today to try to practice this way, when I practice this way, it does occur to me, this is the most boring possible kind of life. It's the most boring, it's the most uninteresting, the most unentertaining, the most unfun. That's not true, what I just said, those are just things that occur to me when I'm being myself. When I'm being myself, it's kind of like, well, this is very entertaining. Other people are doing all this entertaining stuff, but me, I'm just

[11:32]

being myself. Nobody's going to find that much fun. And in fact, a lot of people agree with that. And they walk away from me and go to be with somebody who's more fun. I don't know what their practice is, but I have a feeling they're not being themselves. I have a feeling they're doing something which is a little bit easier, but much more fun than being themselves. It's not that easy for me to be me. It's not that easy to be green, right? And it's not that hard either, but it's not very entertaining or fun. I don't feel like I'm making a big contribution to the fun in the world. So my grandson doesn't find me very interesting. I accept. Not very interesting granddaddy. He's just himself.

[12:45]

So what? He's just him. Yeah, that's him. So what? Yeah, right. But these feelings of like this is boring or not very interesting or I'm not very entertaining, I'm not very scintillating, those thoughts are just more karmic consciousness. They're not true. They're just more karmic consciousness commenting on somebody who's trying to just be himself. Once again, this will be for me a year of stillness, a year of silence. Even though I'm talking, I'm silent because I'm just being the person who's talking. Silence, stillness, being a sentient being, another way to put it is this will be a year of delusion. I am

[13:50]

just going to be a deluded person this year. I've said this before, I'll say it again if you'll excuse me. The point of Zen is enlightenment. Maybe it's too perverse to say the point of Zen is delusion. So I won't say that. Talking

[14:52]

that way is a typical Zen way of talking. I'm telling you what I'm not going to say. That's called apophatic speech. I'm not going to say that the point of Zen is delusion. However, it kind of is. Because if the point of Zen is to be enlightened or is enlightenment and for a deluded person to be a deluded person is enlightenment, then kind of the point of Zen is for a deluded person to be a deluded person. I'm not saying for an enlightened person to be a deluded person. I'm not saying that. I'm saying for deluded people to be deluded people. For a deluded person to just be a deluded person. That's the point of Zen. The point of Zen is to not move from being what we are and to not talk about it. Just

[15:58]

be a person with no comment. And part of the reason why I feel good about such a practice is because I feel like this is good medicine for the Zen tradition. There's some, I would say, historical record of culpability in the Zen school of overemphasizing enlightenment like mentioning enlightenment but forgetting to point out that enlightenment is totally intimate with delusion. Or, you know, somebody says, yeah, enlightenment and delusion are totally intimate and then forget to mention that for a long time and just say enlightenment, enlightenment, enlightenment. So I don't want to overemphasize delusion and I don't think it has yet been overemphasized. I don't know if one could ever overemphasize it.

[17:00]

I will be looking for ways and I will invite you to do that. I invite you throughout this year to help in authentically living our delusion, authentically living our limited nature. Not to try to get rid of our limits, not to eliminate our limits, but live them wholeheartedly, authentically. How can we be authentically deluded people? How can we be authentically sentient beings? That would be ongoing wonder. We have this famous statement from the Genjo Koan which says, when the Dharma does not

[19:26]

fill your body and mind, you think it's already sufficient. When the truth does not yet fill your body and mind, you think it's sufficient. Like, for example, you think, I understand the truth fairly well. I understand the truth sufficiently well. I have a sufficient grasp of reality. People sometimes think that and that is a characteristic of when the truth does not fill you, you think you understand it enough. When it does fill you, you realize there is something lacking in your understanding. The more we grow in Dharma, the more we grow in enlightenment, the more we clearly discern our frailties and limitations and delusions.

[20:28]

Seeing more about our delusion is a growth in enlightenment. So I hope we can expand our horizons from our personal to the social, to the cosmic, and find that we are, realize that we are, intimately interrelated with all beings. All who have only karmic consciousness, we are related intimately with, and we are one of them. Thank you.

[21:31]

So, I bring up my name again, which was given to me by Reverend Suzuki, Roshi, and the first part is Tenshin, which means, in colloquial Chinese, it means naïve, kind of like childlike. But it also means, in Buddhism, in Buddhist terms, it means ultimate reality. Naïve, childish, childlike, and ultimate reality. And when Suzuki gave it to me, on the day he gave it to me, he said,

[23:01]

Tenshin means reb is reb. Tenshin means Mark is Mark, and Jimmy is Jimmy, and Patty is Patty. Tenshin means Carlos being Carlos. Tenshin means a sentient being being a sentient being. Like a child who is being a child, including the child is dreaming that the child is a neurosurgeon, or a mommy, or a grandfather. But the child knows they're pretending to be a neurosurgeon. They know they're pretending to be a dragon. And they're being that deluded little person. And them being them, them exerting their childlike naïveté, that's Tenshin.

[24:11]

And for adults to be more clever, and to think that they're, I don't know what, a lawyer, a priest, an artist, a grandfather, a retired government official. If you completely be that way, that's Tenshin. And that's also ultimate truth. But the second part of my name is Zenki, which means the whole works. Which means that the whole universe is working through you being you. It also means that you are the whole universe is based on you. But if you're not home to be yourself, then you miss the universe that's based on you,

[25:17]

and you miss the you that's based on the whole universe. And this is called, that's a problem. So, the name Tenshin Zenki means that when Reb is Reb, that's the whole works. Or that's the working of the whole. When Karen's Karen, that's also the whole works. When Michael's Michael, that's also the whole works. When a sentient being is a sentient being, when a human being is being herself, that is the whole works. And human beings are deluded. The way they perceive is not the way things are. And they can have valid and invalid perceptions, both of which are not the way things are.

[26:27]

I think it's a valid perception, I think there was a valid perception, that for a sentient being to be a sentient being is precisely enlightenment. That's a valid perception. But that thought is a delusion. So the statement that for a deluded being to be a deluded being is enlightenment is another delusion. And to be the person with that delusion is enlightenment. Whereas deluded people often think, okay, now I've got a valid perception of Buddhist teaching, so when I think of that, then I'm not enlightened anymore. Well, that's another example of a sentient being. And to notice, if you're trying to get away from that, that's another example of a sentient being. And to be willing to be a person who's trying to get away from being a person,

[27:41]

to be willing to be a person who's not willing to be a person, that's enlightenment. And most persons are not willing to be persons. Or even if they say, I'm willing to, they're sometimes too busy to actually practice that. Tenshin Komyo Another name which I was not given is Tenshin Komyo. And Komyo often can be translated as light. Ko is the word for light, and myo means like wondrous. So Komyo could also be translated as wondrous light, or spiritual light, or sacred light. And if you look at that Buddha statue on the altar,

[28:45]

it has an aura around it that's a little bit shaped like flames. The flames that are around Buddha statues, like the Buddha statues that have auras, like over there there's more Buddha statues that have auras, and around the auras they often have flames. Those flames are called Komyo. So that light around the Buddha is called Komyo, Tenshin Komyo. I'm not Komyo, I'm not spiritual light. But me being me is spiritual light. You being you is spiritual radiance. That cell phone being itself, buzzing, exerting its deluded function,

[29:51]

that is spiritual light. The feeling you have about that sound, being itself, is Tenshin, is spiritual light. The working of the universe is spiritual light. Everybody in being themselves is the working of the universe, is spiritual light. And to devote yourself to being a human being means to devote yourself to being karmic consciousness, which means to be the whole works, which means to be spiritual radiance. And to show other people that it's okay to be boring. But it is often times not that interesting. That's kind of my spiritual, or I should say, that's my New Year's spiritual commitment.

[31:23]

And I laugh because I thought of what somebody said one time, what the definition of a Zen priest is, it's somebody who when you ask them a question they give you a half an hour answer. So when you ask me what my New Year's resolution is, I talk for 40 minutes. But really, that is it. That's my New Year's commitment. And I wish to do it not just for the rest of the year, but for the rest of my life. And I hope you do too. I hope you have a year of stillness and silence every moment. I hope you have a year of being yourself for the welfare of all beings

[32:27]

who need encouragement to be themselves for the welfare of all beings. And as Smokey the Bear says, only you can be yourself. Only you can be you. Nobody else can do that for you. Nobody else can do that for you. And you cannot do it by yourself. I cannot be myself by myself. I can only do it with your support. And I'm so happy that you support me to be myself, including that you keep telling me how boring I am. Or how I should be more boring. So, as usual, I welcome your feedback. I welcome your opposition. Or I vow to welcome your feedback. I vow to welcome your opposition.

[33:32]

I vow to welcome your disagreement and your happiness and unhappiness. I vow to welcome your unhappiness about me. How can one not be oneself? By dreaming that you're something else. And not noticing that that's you dreaming of being someone else. So, basically, by inattention and lack of mindfulness, you cannot notice what you're up to. Yes? So, can I be myself and have aspirations to be slightly different? Yeah. And you can notice if you're a person who has an aspiration to be slightly

[34:35]

or greatly different. Like you can aspire to be a supremely omniscient Buddha. You can aspire to that. And you can think that that's somewhat different from the way you are. And then you can realize, Oh, here I am, aspiring to be that, and I'm willing to be this person. And, by the way, I'm kind of garden variety. Essentially being variety deluded while I make this aspiration. But I'm not just making this aspiration and forgetting that that was karmic consciousness, that that was a delusion. I honor that, I recognize that, I accept that. I'm limited by this kind of process. And I say thank you to this process. I welcome this process of me being somebody who wants to be something other than what she is,

[35:40]

even though I know that's not enlightenment. Yes? What do you mean by boring? Actually, I don't get it. I usually don't go any further than that. I stop right there. I kind of know what boring is, in the sense of I know what the comment is. The comment is to distract me from my work. I don't like to have a dialogue with... I usually don't have a dialogue about whether I really am boring or not, or the positive sides of being boring. I usually don't do that. I'm not criticizing that. But I just say, Oh, there's this resistance to me being me, in the form of boring... Resistance in yourself? Yes, resistance in myself. There's some part of me that resists being me, and it manifests as boring, or enough of that, or oh, not bad again. It's the most uninteresting thing to study from the point of view of the established resistance to enlightenment,

[36:45]

is the self. Or to put it more simply, the resistance to enlightenment is the same as the resistance to studying the self. So if you're studying the self, resistance comes up to try to stop you, and want you to flip around and go back towards not studying yourself. Study other people. Study other problems. Don't pay attention to yourself. That's the usual program. That's the momentum of sentient beings. If you turn around and start studying yourself, the momentum says, it's boring, boring, uninteresting, you're not going to get invited to the prom if you go around being yourself. And in fact, you can say, yeah, a lot of people who do that do not get invited to the prom. They say, look at that weirdo. She's just sitting there, being herself. A lot of people will not want to hang out with you. There's some justification to it. But people who are trying to be somebody else,

[37:49]

some people don't want to be around them, too. It's hard to say who is the most boring from other people's point of view. But for me, when I'm being myself, and I think, well, this wouldn't be very interesting to people. That's me trying to dislodge myself from my job. That's me trying to get myself to move off my seat. So I don't actually get into, am I really boring? I don't say, do you think I'm boring? I usually don't do that. And people will often say, yes, if I ask, I'll find that out. So it's a demon. I appreciate homage to, what's his name? Baudelaire. Charles Baudelaire. At the beginning of his Flowers of Evil, he points out that, you know, when people get over, like, greed, hate and delusion, and they start, like, just being themselves, then the big guy comes.

[38:50]

Ennui. The big demon is boredom. That's the one that comes when you're, like, getting close to the reality. What's reality? Your essential being. When you get close to being just an ordinary person like you are, then the big demon comes and says, this is not really going to be very attractive. People won't like you if you're just like everybody else. If you're not a little bit snazzier than them. Well, hi, demon. Hi, boredom. I mean, hi, accusations of boredom. And it's just not that much fun being yourself. It's hard. But it is the path to truth. I know what you mean when you say it's hard.

[39:56]

There's resistance. But since we are sentient beings anyway, and we're wholeheartedly sentient beings, whether we're half-hearted about it or not, in a way it's just letting it fill you up, right? Yeah, but you have to practice letting it fill you up. So, sentient beings who try to be half-hearted are wholeheartedly a sentient being who's trying to be half-hearted. You cannot get away from it. And that's right. You cannot get away from it. Even if you try, the harder you try to not be a sentient being, the more completely you're... Not the more. It's not more. If you try to be wholehearted, you're a sentient being. If you try to be half-hearted, you're a sentient being. If you try to be a sentient being, you're a sentient being. If you try to avoid being a sentient being,

[40:58]

you're a sentient being. No matter what you do, you're a sentient being if you're a sentient being. So you can't get away from it. However, if you don't practice that, you can miss it a little. And if you miss it a little, that's sufficient to basically missing it entirely. People who miss it a little can suffer extreme misery and cause tremendous problems. People who miss it a lot can suffer extreme and cause a lot of problems. No matter how much you miss it, miss it a little bit or a lot, no matter how much you don't practice it, you can miss it in a major way. So we have to practice. That's all. So this is the practice of being a sentient being. This is the practice of studying delusion, of analyzing it, of getting to know it, of becoming intimate with it. And when you become intimate with delusion, you are becoming the other thing

[41:59]

that's intimate with delusion. Enlightenment is intimate with delusion. So if you're intimate with delusion, your intimacy with delusion is the practice of enlightenment. That's what enlightenment does. It hangs out with delusion all day long. It sits in the treetop all day long, hopping and bopping and singing its song. All the little birds on Jay Bird Street love to hear enlightenment go tweet, tweet, tweet. Enlightenment is always intimate with delusion. If you're intimate with delusion, then the sentient being is intimate with enlightenment. But if you're not intimate with delusion, if you're intimate with enlightenment, then you're delusion. Then you say, oh, I'm enlightenment, whatever. That's a pretty good idea. I'm not so bad. It's okay to be a little bit more interesting than me. Okay.

[43:00]

If you don't want to be intimate, then you're delusion. If you want to be intimate with delusion, then you're enlightenment. If you don't practice it, you miss it. You've got to practice it. Enlightenment is, in that sense, practice. It's not just the theory that enlightenment is intimate with delusion. It's the practice of being intimate with delusion. And it turns out we have delusion to be intimate with right now. And I want to take care of it graciously, mindfully, gently, energetically, heroically, honestly. Yes? What I feel is the delusion changes. And that's because I cannot change with the delusion as mine,

[44:04]

so I get into this trap. And I'm wondering... Well, you say you can't change with the delusion, but you do change with the delusion. But there is a skill in learning to be abreast and be close and sort of to let go of the delusion you have now and now be ready for the next one. So again, you think, now I think I'm with this delusion, but then this one changes and I'm not ready for the next one because I'm still holding on to the last one. So we can get better at being with the rhythm, you know, of being with the rhythm of the dance of the changing delusion enlightenment dance. But you do, when you change, your delusions change. When your delusions change, you change. You are actually with it, but you have to get with that rhythm and that's how we get better at practice is by going with the change and also not missing too many moments of delusion

[45:06]

that's changing all the time. Yeah, but? Yes, yeah, but? I'm more like, I want to get it all. Yeah, you want to get it all and that's a delusion. Are you intimate with that as a delusion? I want to get it all. I'm very intimate with it and that's getting it all, it's holding me. That's not getting it all, no, no. Getting it all, there's no such thing as getting it all, but there is the delusion of getting it all. Delusions are not real. Getting it all is not real. That's not real, that's a delusion. And not getting it all is also not real. Getting it all, it gives me a sense of... That's another delusion, is now you have getting it all plus you have what it gives you, you have what this delusion gives you. And that's right, it does give you, but those are delusions and we're talking about karmic consciousness here, we're not talking about reality. There's something about the way you say that

[46:10]

that supports me to have a delusion that you think that that's real. Yeah, and you don't notice that that's karmic consciousness you just told me about. No, not only I notice it, I don't even want to notice it. It's interesting. I don't even want to notice that as a karmic... I want to notice it as it is, not a karmic consciousness. I want to notice it as it is. Yeah, I want to notice it as it is. I want to notice it as it is. That's an example of karmic consciousness, which is calling for some intimacy with somebody. The usual way is, I want to be whatever, I want to be whatever. The usual way is to go with that rather than turning around and looking at yourself

[47:10]

who is thinking that. I want to go, I want to take a walk. Okay, fine. I want to get it all. Fine. Are you watching the person who is thinking that? Are you noticing that you're thinking that? Or are you just thinking it? Yeah, so I'm saying, now turn around and notice that you're thinking that. And then the next one. Don't lose track of studying yourself while you're thinking. You are thinking. Human beings think all day long, hopping and a-bopping, singing their song. They're doing that. They do, but they don't very often turn around and look at themselves doing it. They are hopping and a-bopping. That's fine. We can't not do that. And you have a certain style of hopping and bopping, like I want to be intimate with this, I want to get it all, blah, blah, blah, I want to be grounded. That's your song. Okay?

[48:12]

Now, what we're talking about is, turn around and watch Homa sing her song. I'm watching you sing your song, but that's easy for me to watch you sing your song. What's hard is for me to watch me sing my song, and what's hard for you is to watch you sing your song. But I'm here to say, Homa, watch Homa sing, up in the treetop, hopping and a-bopping, watch her. I love the way you hop and bop, and I would like you to watch Homa hop and bop. If I watch, I don't exist when I want to. Ah, yeah. If you watch, you don't exist. That's part of the reason why we don't want to watch. Because when you watch, you lose track of holding on to your existence. I know. So, watch yourself when you say you want to exist, and then you won't exist. But then you can recover and say, okay, now I take it back. I want to exist,

[49:14]

and also I don't want to look at myself exist, because if I look at myself exist, then I won't. If I look at my desire to exist, I'll lose track of my existence. I won't be able to grasp it. Yes. That's why it's so hard, when you study yourself, you can't grasp yourself. When you first start, maybe you can, but when you really get into it, you lose track, so then you tend to say, boring, boring, stop this, call it off. Don't do this. This is not good for you. Go back and just sing your song. I want to be a good person and help all beings. That's better. But there's nothing wrong with that song. It's a wonderful song. I'm just talking about, please study the person who's singing that song. If you sing the song without studying the singer, you miss the path to reality, which will realize what you're singing about. If you're singing the song of the welfare of all beings,

[50:16]

that's a good song, but if you want to realize the welfare of all beings, you have to watch the singer. If you're vowing to save all sentient beings, great! Now study that person. Avalokiteshvara wants to save all beings, and he's got this really consistent song. Every moment, save all sentient beings, listen to the suffering of the world, every moment, totally tuned in, and studying yourself. Not just studying, oh, I love you all, I want to help you all, but studying the person who wants to help everybody. Study the caregiver. Study the caregiver. If you don't study the caregiver, you undermine the caregiver's practice. And it's hard to study the caregiver. Because when you start studying, you lose her. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Or, and you lose her. Boring. Stop this.

[51:16]

Just be a good caregiver. Okay, yeah, it's much better. Unstudied. Unexamined good person. That's easy. Just be a good person. Don't look to see what that is. And I'm not talking about looking to see if you really are a good person, because that can distract you too. Just study the person who is looking to see if she is a good person. Study the person who is trying to verify that she's actually helpful. It's okay to verify, was that helpful? Did that help you? That's okay. But when you ask, study yourself. Study the deluded person who is trying to find out if she's helpful. Study the deluded person who thinks she's not. Study the deluded person who thinks she is helpful. Study the deluded person who doesn't know if he's helpful. Whatever, but study the one that's happening now.

[52:18]

That's the one to study. And that's the hardest one to study. It's easier to study the one yesterday. Studying the one yesterday is better than nothing. But then, how about today? Some people come and tell me about themselves yesterday that they were studying. I say, great. How about now? Whoa, boring. Is that a little too self-centered? Always be looking at yourself. The thought, isn't that a little bit self-centered, is the thing I'm asking you to look at. So when you said that, I was hoping that you would be looking at yourself when you said that. And if you do look at yourself when you say, isn't that a little bit too self-centered, you will not be able to find, I mean, you will not be able to find the person who is too self-centered, the person who isn't too self-centered, the person who is just the right amount of centered. You won't be able to find any of those people. And then, you realize

[53:20]

that it's not possible to be too self-centered. That's not really a reality. Well, I have this person that I live with and he tells me that I'm always in my own little world, or always in my glory world. He would like me to come out of my self-centeredness. Yeah, and I would say to him, welcome, thank you. Thank you for talking to me. Welcome him. And while you're welcoming, while you're saying thank you, study yourself. When you say thank you, be aware of yourself when you say thank you to this person who is telling you that he wants you to come out. And then you might even say, did that seem like I came out there? And he might say, no. And then say thank you. But when you say thank you, study yourself when you say thank you. When you say thank you,

[54:22]

or when you say no thank you, that's a sentient being. What I'm saying is, be that person. And in order to be that person, you kind of have to pay some attention to her. If you're always looking out, you're not fully being yourself. You can be, because you have the capacity of watching yourself when you're doing things. So, is it delusion to practice acceptance and sincerity in order to cause enlightenment? Is it deluded to practice sincerity in order to cause enlightenment? Yeah. Sincerity is enlightenment. Sincerity doesn't cause enlightenment. But it can't be both delusion and enlightenment simultaneously, can it?

[55:23]

They are simultaneous. Delusion isn't before or after enlightenment. They're simultaneous. They live together. And sincerity is enlightenment, because enlightenment is sincere. But is enlightenment delusion? Enlightenment is being sincerely deluded. Like, you're sincerely deluded, Reb Anderson. And some other Buddhist priests say, See? See, he's deluded. He admitted it. Whereas, I'm not. But it's not like when I admit that I'm deluded, then the people who don't admit they're deluded, that they are and I'm not. When I admit I'm not deluded,

[56:25]

I'm still deluded. It isn't like, OK, if you admit you're deluded, you're not deluded anymore. No. It's just that when you admit you're deluded, you're greatly enlightened. But you're nevertheless deluded. If you don't admit you're deluded, you're not greatly enlightened. You're just deluded. Half-heartedly. You're missing the show of your life as a living being, as a bodhisattva. And some people do not admit they're deluded, so they miss their enlightenment. Or they think, OK, I'll admit my delusion and I'll admit it and I'll admit it and I'll admit it and finally I've admitted so much, I'll be enlightened. And there won't be any more delusion. No. The exertion, the partial and complete exertion of delusion does not precede or follow enlightenment. They're simultaneous. But to realize that requires

[57:28]

being ourself completely. And being ourselves completely turns out to admit that we have some problems. You can't really be yourself without admitting that you have at least a little bit of a problem. There aren't any sentient beings like that, that have no problems, that have no karmic consciousness, or have such excellent karmic consciousness that it's not the slightest bit of an obscuration. To sincerely be obscured, to sincerely exert our obscured vision is an essential element of the Buddha way. Thank you.

[58:36]

By the way, Gloria, when you asked that question, you came out. Thank you. You're welcome. Come again sometime. Well, we could have a lovely January lunchtime now. We're blessed with... I just got back from New York City, where it's a little colder than here. It's wonderful there, but it's wonderful here too. This is a wonderful, wonderful universe that we live in. And we have this very challenging job of being ourselves to do in order to appreciate that fully. So I really want us to do this, and I don't know what I'm going to do,

[59:37]

but I commit to do it. I don't know if I will, but I commit to be myself for the rest of my life. Please join me. May our intention unequally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Visions are impossible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable.

[60:38]

I vow to become it. Thank you.

[60:53]

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