This morning and this afternoon and this evening and tomorrow morning, I want to talk to you about the Flower Adornment Scripture and the Lotus Scripture. Let to relate them. As I've often mentioned, There's a section in the Flower Adornment Scripture where the Buddha has awakened. The Buddha has awakened. Oh, and welcome, Katie. And welcome, tell me his name again. Sandro. Welcome, Sandro. Hi.

[01:02]

Hi. So we often note in the sutra that the sutra is about Buddha waking up, the Buddha becoming perfectly awakened, truly awakened. And when the Buddha becomes truly awakened, in book 37 of the sutra, the Buddha says, Now I see. that all sentient beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. So in Asia, this has been really good news for thousands of years. People really appreciate that the Buddha could see when the Buddha awoke, the Buddha could see that all of us, from beginningless time into the beginningless future, fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas.

[02:15]

And that's the good news, and not the bad news exactly, but the sort of like worldly news is that because of misconceptions, and attachments sentient beings do not realize that they fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. So again the Buddha awoke and could see that we all possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas But because of misconceptions and attachments, we do not realize that. And in a recent book called Nothing to Attain, there's a parable that's authored from the Lotus Sutra.

[03:22]

And it's a parable about a child who wanders away from home. The child, this child who wanders away from home, fully possesses the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. However, because this child is born with ignorance, this child who fully possesses the wisdom and virtues of the Buddha is born ignorant of that wisdom and virtue. were born with the wisdom and virtues and were born ignorant of the wisdom and virtue. So, in the parable, the child who was born with the wisdom and the virtues of Buddha, who was ignorant of it, wanders away, consciously or unconsciously, looking for the path to realize

[04:38]

that the child fully possesses the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. So one might suggest that we're all born this way with the wisdom and virtue of the Buddhas and we're also all born ignorant. More or less. And we're all searching for this realization of what might be called our original home or our original nature. So the parable describes the process of training to get over our ignorance, to get over our egocentric view. We're all born in some kind of a home.

[05:45]

We humans are all born in a uterus. And then we came out of our mother into the world. So we all had some kind of home that we could perceive. And some of us perceived a home where there was unkindness and lack of nourishment. And some of us perceived a home that was supportive and nourishing and compassionate. And some of us were born into a home that we perceived as sometimes kind, sometimes abusive. So we have all these different homes that we perceived when we were born from our ignorant mind. But whether we perceived a nurturing, kind home or an unkind home, we all have gone on a pilgrimage away from our perceptible home.

[07:00]

We are all on a pilgrimage to realize our original home. The Lotus Sutra says we're all on the path. We're all bodhisattvas on the path to realize our original nature. That's what we're doing in this life. But our original home has always been with us. We don't have to move at all to find it. to realize it, but we can also move around and it'll always be with us, our original nature. But we can't see our original nature.

[08:03]

It's imperceptible. It's inconceivable. It's ungraspable. It's all-pervading. and it's also all pervaded. This is our original home, our original nature. We fully possess it, but we have not yet fully realized it. We are on the path of realizing it. The parable tells the story of this person, this child, who wanders away from home. And we're not told what kind of a home this child wandered away from. We're not told there was a child who wandered away from a home that the child perceived of as kind and supportive, or that wandered away from a home that the child...

[09:09]

perceived of as not the right home, as a bad home. We're not told how the child saw the home. We don't know what the child thought the child was doing when they left home. So now I'm suggesting what was going on with the child. That it was born, it saw something called a home, It saw things called parents and siblings, and it wandered away. And we don't know what that child thought, but what the child was doing was looking for its original, imperceptible, ungraspable, original nature. It was looking for its own face before its parents were born. It saw its parents, it saw its caregivers.

[10:10]

Even if it was in an orphanage, it saw people, but it was looking for its face before its parents were born. And so how does the parable proceed? It proceeds with this child going off by herself, looking for her original nature, on her own trying to find it by her own power and she's not successful the more she wanders the more destitute she becomes the more she's trapped in her egocentric view of her life and she just becomes more and more desperate and destitute And then by chance she wanders back and runs into her parent.

[11:14]

And she enters into, in the parable, a process of training to realize her original home. She does not realize her original home. But she meets her parents who is her teacher to teach her what she really is to call her deluded view of who she is into question in the process of working in the stables of the parents estate and then in working in the stables The parent comes to her and asks them what's going on. The parent comes and questions their view.

[12:21]

Questions how they see themselves. And gradually they start to break free of their egoistic attitude. point of view of what they are and finally through this conversation with their other being who calls them into question finally in being learning how to be upright face to face with the other and be questioned by the other, with the other who is also questioned by the other. In this process, the child, now really old child, comes to be free of their view and open their eyes to their original nature, open their eyes to that they've always fully possessed the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas

[13:38]

So we've got plenty, we've got all the wisdom and virtue of the Buddhas, and we also have a vast storehouse, a vast storehouse of deluded views, or a vast storehouse which gives us deluded views about who we are. Who we originally are is beyond our view, and we have lots of views to block our realization of who we are. But in meeting each other face to face, upright, flexible, honest, harmonious, conversation, we will see the Buddha telling us our original nature, our original home. And we will understand.

[14:44]

and accept it and transmit it. Right now we are being called into question by others. They're looking to us. They're questioning us. Everything is questioning us. But as humans, we also need to be questioned not just by everything, we need to be questioned by humans.

[15:47]

And we are being questioned by humans. And sometimes when we're questioned, we do not say thank you. We need to learn how to say thank you when people question us, call us into question. By, for example, disagreeing with us. Or even telling us their opinions about us. May not sound like they're questioning us, but they are. They're saying, you are great. You are not great. You are right. You are wrong. That's their way of questioning us. You are right. Did you believe that? You are wrong. Do you believe that? Do you think that's true? In order for this process to work, we have to be willing...

[17:01]

to give gifts to the other. When we meet, we start by giving a gift of our world in words. If you can give your world in other ways, that's fine, but we also need you to give your world in words. so they can be questioned. Basically our awareness is welcoming the other who is calling us into question and inviting us to enter the process of becoming free of our limited, biased view of life. So once again the flower of Dharma scripture says you are now I see you all fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas but you also have limited biased views and we need to have a conversation without end to constantly question

[18:35]

the views of others and let them invite them to question ours. It may be difficult to see, but that's the suggestion that I'm offering you this morning. We can examine our egocentric, deluded, biased awareness together.

[19:38]

And in this examination, in this thorough examination of all the phenomena of our deluded mind, we will realize the reality of all these phenomena. But we must do it together. It must be reciprocal. I see the yellow hands raised. Good morning, Homa. Good morning, Assembly. One more time, thank you for reminding me, and I'm sure the Assembly, for the possibility of seeing every moment

[21:00]

rises from dark and light, clarity and unclarity, simultaneously. As I was hearing your words, in my mind, I either want clarity or resisting not clarity, fighting not clarity. But opening my vision opening my mind that no every single moment is born simultaneously with light and dark it is not one or the other it's yeah it's well it's together and that observation helped me to realize not to fight as much because they're both here.

[22:11]

And knowing that they're both here, it stops the fight in me. Then my next observation was that merely knowing that this clarity and unclarity are simultaneous, There is no thing. There is no practice. There is no this and that. Only this and that happens when I divide clarity and unclarity. No division. None of these things that I create in my head actually exist.

[23:17]

They all exist. They come into this gap when I separate the clarity and unclarity. Observing that separation, in my mind, I think it's the key. You said, observing that separation, what? The key. The key. In my mind, it's important. Observing that separation is the key. It is the key, or it is a key. It is a good thing to do. And now that you've said that you really value observing that separation. Now. Now. Can you, now that you're observing it, can you welcome it? I don't know because now my mind goes in the future.

[24:19]

Can I welcome it? I don't know. No, right now. I think it had been welcomed, otherwise I wouldn't have been. Okay, there you go. It had been welcomed, otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell us about this thing you're observing. Now. I'm questioning you, I'm asking you. Earlier you said you don't want to fight that. So you're observing that you don't want to fight this appearance of separation. I'm asking you, if you aspire, not will you, but do you aspire to be friends with that appearance, to welcome it? Asking that question raises this fear in me. Okay, now, may I ask, do you aspire to welcome that fear? I am, yes, because as I say it, I can see it.

[25:22]

Yeah, so you told me about what's going on in this wonderful mind, and I questioned you about it, and then you responded. Thank you. Yes, and I actually did realize, thank you, that fear is no separate than the light and the dark. Fear is also what fear is. Yeah, so realizations come when you welcome what comes. Yes. Thank you. Good morning. It's a similar question, and it's kind of in two parts. When I think about my own life and my wandering away, and also when I think about some of my friends whose life story I know, I think that I didn't wander away on my own power.

[26:35]

I had a lot of help to wander. And I guess... And talking about the story, we don't often think about that. I mean, it sounds like it's something we did by ourselves, but we didn't. Yeah, well, when we start out, we think we're doing it on our own. We think, I'm leaving home to get out of here, or I'm leaving home to become famous, or whatever. And that route will not work. We'll gradually see, wait a minute, Doing this by myself is not going to work. I need, for example, training to go where I want to go. I need to work with somebody else's views and somebody else's questions other than... Yeah, yeah. I think what I'm saying is that even the leaving home, there are some ways we're setting...

[27:35]

Even leaving home is not done by yourself, but we usually think it is. We go through the phase where we're going to decide what school to go to. We're going to decide who our friends are. We go through that phase. That's part of the deal. It's adolescent. And then the adolescent at some point realizes, this is not working. I can see this is not going to work. Like, I remember when I was in graduate school, I had a vision, you know, which was, okay, I'm doing okay, all right, and if I keep working here, I'm going to get a PhD, and then I'm going to be assistant professor, and then I'm going to be associate professor, and then I'm going to be a full professor, and then I'm going to be head of the department, and then I'm going to be emeritus professor, and then I'm going to die. I could see... this thing about what I'm going to be doing on my own, basically.

[28:39]

Something's missing there. But I had to go on that path to realize, no, I need training, and I need training on my body and my mind. But I thought, you know, I thought I was deciding my path. And it was a pretty good path, but something's missing. And so then I decided, I need teachers, and I need... a community to train in. Of course, that feeling like I'm deciding continues, but then hopefully in the training situation, it gets questioned. People question, do you think you did this by yourself? And one way they question it is by saying, hey, you did this by yourself. And then you think, what are they saying? Are they saying maybe I didn't? Well, and that's the second part of it, because it, you know, as at least the way I think about it now, in my current situation, I'm still getting plenty of help to stay confused, but I'm also getting a lot of help to clarify that both.

[29:54]

Yeah. And so it's just a matter of which of those I listen to, but even that isn't totally under my control. That's right. But both these things are asking you to listen. And if you only listen to one side, you're missing the other side, which is asking you to listen. Even though it's a very obnoxious call, it wants you to listen too. So how do you stay concentrated in listening to both sides? I think it... In your book, in a later chapter in the book, you talk about the room, the robe, and the seat. And there's this beautiful image about opening the windows and doors of the room to let the whole world in, you know, to let everything in. Yeah. And it just makes me very joyful to contemplate that possibility even of letting all of that stuff in.

[31:02]

To go into a room to open the windows. To enter a training to become free of the training. To enter the training to take the roof off the training. First of all, we need to enter a room where we're getting questioned. It's such a beautiful image. Thank you so much. Another image from the Lotus Sutra. Thank you. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

[32:02]

And thank you to the Great Assembly and the people you've talked to so far. Those have helped me see part of what my questioning was about. I have been very stuck in egocentric world and very resistant to the opening. And I'm... Excuse me, I have a question. Can I ask a question? Oh, yeah. Can I ask a question to you? Yes, please. Okay. You said, I'm very resistant to X. And now I'm asking you, can you welcome the resistance? And that must be when I'm having a really hard time, because that's what I got. Can you welcome having a hard time? Apparently not. Apparently I chased myself around pretty good with that one. Okay. You said apparently not. Is that apparently not something?

[33:04]

Can you recognize, can you welcome that? I'm going to need to. You're going to need to. I'm going to need to. You aspire to learn how to do that? Yes, I'd like to aspire to all of this. Thank you. You're welcome. Now what? You are basically, your awareness is basically welcoming. You're basically welcoming everything. Sometimes things come up and say, well, I'm not going to welcome this. Okay, fine. But your awareness of that is actually welcoming that resistance. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you endlessly. And thank you greatly. How do I get out of here? You can just stay where you are. Hello, Assembly.

[34:16]

Hello, Maggie. Very nice to be here again. And thank you very much, Rep, to allow me to come back with, to ask again the question about Book 10. So my question... Is the name of the chapter, A Bodhisattva Asked for Clarification? Yeah. So again, the name of the chapter she's bringing up here now is a chapter which is saying, A Bodhisattva Asked for Clarification. Bodhisattvas question the Buddha, right? Well, actually, in this case, the Bodhisattva is questioning another Bodhisattva, right? So she's bringing up a chapter from the Flower Adornment Scripture. called a bodhisattva named Manjushri, questions a bunch of other bodhisattvas.

[35:19]

And the first one that the bodhisattva questions is foremost in awakening or chief in awakening, right? Yep. So I want to get the assembly on board for this sutra. So you're in the chapter. The great bodhisattva Manjushri is going to ask a whole bunch... This bodhisattva, in this chapter 10, the great bodhisattva of perfect wisdom, Manjushri, calls many bodhisattvas into question. Right? And the first one he questions is foremost or chief in awakening. And he asks this bodhisattva the following questions. Maggie's going to tell you the questions now. The question was, since the nature of mind is one, What is the reason for seeing the existence of various differences? And such as, then there are a lot of examples of differences.

[36:22]

I'm not going to read that. Chief of the Awakened answer... Stop there, that's the first part of the question. Okay, let's just stop there. The next section is different. And the next section was the part you were having trouble with. So the first question is, since the nature of mind is one, what's the reason for seeing all these differences? And then there's examples of that, like the earth is one, or whether water is one, but we see all these different drops and waves and currents. And so it gives many examples of something that's obviously one, like water, but it appears also as infinitely different. So the answer to the first question is basically, once the question again is, since the nature of mind is one, how is it or what's the reason for seeing all these differences?

[37:26]

And the answer is basically, because that's the way it is, that we look at something that's one and we see differences. That's the first part. And let's just stop for that question and see if you're okay with that, Maggie. Does that work? Yeah. All of the examples are examples of something that's one, and then we see all these differences. But that's just the way the water is. That's just the way the earth is. The earth is one, but it's infinite variety. It's just the way it is. So the reason, in some sense, is that that's the nature. of mind is that it's one and appears as many. It appears as many, but it's one, really. The next part is actually more complicated and more relevant in some ways, in a way. Go ahead. Next part of the question is, why is it that activity doesn't know mind, mind doesn't know activity?

[38:34]

We can stop there. There are several questions now coming up. And these questions are about about our biased egocentric consciousness in which there is activity. And what is the activity in Sanskrit is called karma. Every moment of biased human consciousness ignorant consciousness, which is pervaded by our original nature, every moment of that has a pattern, which is its karma, its action. So in our mind, every moment there's karma, every moment there's an activity of having a certain shape of our mind. And what it says here is, how come the mind which has this activity in it.

[39:36]

The mind doesn't know the activity. And also the activity doesn't know the mind. Right? Right. So let's look at that. It appears to me that this word knowing is something that differentiates What is original nature versus phenomenon? You're right. So the mind that knows original nature is not this knowing. This is the knowing which knows in a, again, in a narrow way, like perceiving. So our original home which we perceive is not our, our home which we perceive is not our original home. Our original home has been present with us before our parents were born. Our original home is imperceptible.

[40:38]

So this is talking about in a mind that knows things in the sense of, for example, I know action. Action knows me. But we don't usually think action knows me. We think I know action. But if I know action, action should know me. And then it goes on. Why is it that feeling doesn't know mind and mind doesn't know feeling? It says in Cleary's translation, why is, I think, reception? Yeah. Why is reception doesn't know mind and mind doesn't know reception? That word reception means to receive, but it's also the character that's used for feeling. So why doesn't mind know feeling and feeling know mind? Usually when there's a feeling in consciousness, we think the mind knows it or we think I know it.

[41:44]

So there's a painful feeling, there's a painful feeling and I know it. Or there's a painful feeling and my mind knows it. That's a usual way of seeing things. Actually, the mind doesn't know. That's right. The sutra says the mind doesn't know it. Right. That's right. And then the answer is... But without getting into the answers that he gives, actually he gives the example of a river has all this water and all the water is the same and the different waves or... drops of water don't know each other. They flow along together. That's the way our mind really is, is that our mind comes up, it's like a river, it flows, and the different parts of our mind don't know each other. They're flowing along together. They're actually one, but they don't know each other.

[42:50]

How do we know that they don't know each other? Well, we can investigate. You can look in your mind, you can look in the mind and see if pain, the feeling of pain, knows awareness of pain. You can see if the pattern of the consciousness, the karma, the activity of the consciousness, knows what's going on, knows the mind. It seems not. The sutra says not. And if I look, I don't see that the karma of my mind right now is knowing my mind. However, the karma of my mind and my mind are flowing along together. What appears to be happening in my mind is inseparable from the mind.

[43:53]

You can't have a pattern of what appears to be happening without a mind. And you can't have a mind without an appearance of what's happening. They coexist. They're flowing along together. They arise together. And when they arise together, it isn't one side can know the other or reverse it. But we think in that mind there are delusions. Like, for example, the mind can know the feeling. And most people do not have the feeling. Feelings can know the mind. We think feelings of pain, yeah, is pain. But we don't think pain knows the mind. But, and it doesn't. Pain does not know the mind. We think mind knows the feeling. And we also think I, there's also maybe an I floating around in there. We think I knows the feeling. But I know... It's just an idea.

[44:54]

Yeah. And ideas arise with feelings. But the ideas don't know the feelings and the feelings don't know the ideas. And feelings, ideas and consciousness arise together but they don't know each other. But they're intimately flowing along together. They're arising together and ceasing together. But it isn't like one part knows the other part. And then And we don't need examples like the river and so on, but if you look at the examples of the river in the sutra, you can apply it to what's going on in consciousness. In, what do you call it, in ego-centric consciousness, we have things going on like this, and we have delusions that we think one part knows the other part, but also if you reverse it, If we think this part knows that part, and we reverse it, you realize, no, I don't think the reverse works.

[45:56]

Again, I know the feelings, but the feelings don't know me. I know pain, but pain doesn't know me. Well, actually, you're right. Pain doesn't know you, but you also don't know pain. There's you, there's pain, there's awareness, but all that stuff doesn't know each other. This examination is part... is part of questioning. This is calling the mind into question. So is this... You brought this up. You read the sutra and you questioned the sutra. Right. And the sutra is questioning you. Can I understand in a way that this knowing, that phenomenon does not know each other, but this knowing is something... is what the original home would have that capability of knowing. Say it again.

[46:59]

It looks like the answers suggest that this knowing capability is not possessed by any phenomena, any activity in mind. But it seems to me that it implies that This capability of knowing is possessed only by the original nature, original home. Does original home know? Say again, original home know? What did you say? Because phenomenon does not know phenomenon. Right. But does original home know phenomenon? No. Original home is how the phenomena are relating to each other. How they're actually including each other and giving rise to each other and arising together and ceasing together.

[48:07]

How that works is our original home. The actual way that all this phenomenal world is occurring is the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas the actual way and the kind of knowing that we have in ordinary consciousness doesn't really know anything but it's a type of knowing which is called deluded deluded knowing deluded It's a deluded mind. It's a mind full of delusion where the delusions have not been questioned thoroughly. So our job is to investigate all this phenomena. The investigation is the wisdom of the Buddhas. The investigation doesn't grab any of the phenomena.

[49:09]

It doesn't grab how they're working together. It is actually investigating. how they appear to be not working together, and it investigates how they are working together. And the investigation is done with you and me and Stephen and Angela. We need to do it together. And you're demonstrating that by bringing your questions and... And you told me your view. You gave me a gift of telling me what you thought the original home was, and then I'm calling that into question. This is the process of studying the true nature of phenomena. Thank you so much for reading the future and bringing your questions. Thank you very much. Dr. Chen, Manjur Sri asks these wonderful questions of these wonderful bodhisattvas.

[50:09]

Hello, great assembly. I have a question for you that... I think the answer may be in what you said to Maggie, but I have to ask. I'm not sure. It definitely is. Yeah. Well, I had a dream recently which was very powerful, and I'd just like to tell it to you because I think it relates to this, and it reflects a... kind of a resentment I've had my whole life that I... Can I ask a question? Yeah. Did this dream help you see a resentment? Yes. Good dream. Thank you, dream. Okay. All right. The dream illuminated something for you.

[51:24]

Definitely. Definitely. It's something I've felt my entire life and it brought it into clarity. The dream helps you look at your own mind. Yes. Yeah. It's kind of like a visitor that came and helped you, showed you something about your mind. Yes. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. Well, I feel like it's a version of the story you told today. It is. May I tell you briefly? Yeah. Yeah. In the dream, I was standing on a hillside and I was looking down at these gloriously beautiful twinkling lights of a city. They were brilliant white and twinkling and shining. And it was just perfect. And I knew it was perfect. I like had an awareness of how amazing it was. And then somebody came along and made me move down the hillside.

[52:26]

No, you have to go down here. And down there. I looked out at the view, and it was a muddy, kind of dingy orange light, and I couldn't see any of the twinkling brilliance. And I thought I was hopping mad. I had been robbed, which is a part of me. I think a young part of me has felt that way my entire life. I grew up in a very abusive place. lonely, neglectful home. And on an emotional level, part of me thinks, well, there was some sanity in me that knew that wasn't right. But I wonder if this is a version of, you know, the person leaving their home and needing to find it again. Does that make sense that there's a spiritual...

[53:28]

interpretation of this dream well you could say first of all that a spiritual interpretation of this dream has already occurred and I'll remind you of it is that this dream it's kind of a spiritual thing the dream is you didn't make the dream the dream came into your mind and it pointed you to an ongoing problem in your past. And it gave an example of a kind of, it sounds like a not very friendly situation of somebody forcing you to go do something, which actually you didn't find that so appealing or so wonderful. So that's... It shows you that there's this pattern in your mind of some people, beings, are asking you to give up this view and go into that view.

[54:32]

Yeah. Now, here's the part, is that you want to find the way to deal with the situation. And you could, like... go away from home to deal with it. But what are you looking for? You're looking for what was already there. It was already there when you were looking down from the hill, but it was already there when somebody said, come over here and come down here. And then you did go down there, and it was not very, it was painful, it sounds like, uncomfortable, painful, difficult to say thank you to. So this is the path to finding the original home that was there when you were up on the hill. But the original home didn't go away when you went down the hill.

[55:37]

And so you didn't see the original home when you were up on the hill. You saw something very lovely and pleasant. You could say you had a beautiful home on top of the hill. Yes. Beautiful, loving home. But your original home was there too. But you couldn't see it. Because your original home is not the same or different from your beautiful view you had. Then you went down the hill into this mucky situation. You could say in the sutra, this shitty situation. And also you felt resentment about somebody influencing you to go down there, which is also kind of mucky. But your original home was there still. So the spiritual thing is to see if you can find the wish to find the spiritual home.

[56:43]

Which means you have to deal with being up on the hill with a beautiful view, you need to learn to treat that basically the same as down in the muck. So this is a very spiritual dream. It's saying, can you appreciate the top of the hill? Yeah. Can you appreciate the bottom of the hill? No. You desire not to appreciate the top so much and not to not appreciate the bottom so much, but learn how to treat both the same. So when you're on top of the hill, somebody needs to come up to you and say, Gail, do you think this is real? And you go, well, actually, I do. And then, really? you know maybe I'll have to look at that and you're down in the muck somebody needs to come to you and say do you think this is really mucky and you go I guess I do really in order to find your original home is on top of the hill and the bottom of the hill it's in beauty and the ugliness it's present with both it's neither one of them it's not beautiful or

[58:13]

ugly it's present with all beauty and ugliness that's also in that chapter we just saw in the sutra it's present with you all the time but if I treat the beauty differently than the ugliness my eyes will not open to it you don't have to just live in the muck but you have to notice there's muck and also there's resistance to muck which is more muck And I'm going to study the muck as thoroughly and exhaustively as I study the beautiful view. Is there any attachment to the beautiful view? I think there is. Study that too. So the sutra is telling you, can you find the way to treat the top of the hill and the bottom of the hill the same in order to realize what's always with you? I am so glad I asked you this question.

[59:16]

I am too. I am so grateful. You know, once I helped my daughter by telling her a story, and it relieved her greatly, and she sang a line from Willy Wonka, which is, I've got a golden ticket. I feel like you just gave me a golden ticket, Rem. Study everything together with everything. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you for your gift. Thank you. Thank you, Dream. That's true. Thank you all. I wish to enter the room. Come on in. And I think The reason is I'm resisting. And I notice fear.

[60:20]

And this resisting to entering the room of the possibility of being called into question. Good. So do you aspire to be kind to the resistance? Yes, I do. Yeah, I do too. I support your aspiration to welcome resistance to being questioned by another. Angela can also question you, but question by another, by husband and son and friends and enemies. Can enemies question you? I have some resistance to enemies questioning me. Okay. Can you welcome that resistance? I can't, but I aspire to. I aspire to. I think I'm sitting with that and practicing a lot of confession and repentance with that.

[61:32]

Noticing sometimes that... Oftentimes the inability, those that I don't, that don't seem like-minded to have resistance towards and yeah, just maybe praise myself at the expense of others because I don't understand. Good point. Sometimes we praise ourselves at the expense of others because we don't understand them. Yes. Yes. So I thought I heard you say when talking with Maggie that the mind and feelings, they don't know each other, but they flow together. Yeah.

[62:36]

And is it when... So when hindrance arises, resistance arises, it's because we're not remembering that. Well, we might remember it, but not really have understood it yet. So we've heard that, but if we understood it, there would be... we'd be free of resistance. And free of resistance could include resistance. Resistance which we welcome. Actually, when resistance comes, it is being welcomed when it comes. So it's good to be aware. Well, it's here, so there must be welcoming somewhere in the neighborhood. Yeah, that's a possibility that...

[63:38]

I have not thought of. And maybe Yuki was saying something about that. It just expands my... The first word that comes to mind is my bodhisattva boat of riding the waves of compassion or riding the waves of... It contributes to your being free of your idea of the bodhisattva boat. Yeah. The bodhisattva boat is really already big, but we have a narrow view of it. And this practice will free us from our narrow view of the bodhisattva boat, the bodhisattva vehicle. But not by getting rid of the image of that beautiful little boat. But welcoming it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're welcome.

[64:39]

Thank you. Thank you for welcoming. Thank you for your gifts. So I can say thank you for your gifts. You're welcome. You say in your book, although diluted consciousness is supported by everything outside itself, it cannot think of anything outside itself, no matter how hard it tries. And would that be the same of supreme consciousness? The first part's the same. Supreme conscience. Did you say supreme? Yeah, I just said, I just consciousness supreme or whatever Bodhi or, you know, whatever the thing is.

[65:48]

Yeah. Yeah, it would be the same. However, Bodhi doesn't really, usually doesn't try to think of something outside itself. Bodhi is to wake up to that, that it's to wake up to how the deluded mind, uh, is supported by everything. It's being awakened. It's been clearly awakened about deluded minds. Yeah. Do you think that it would be helpful to... Why? You know, it seems to me what... Why does Buddhism not have a... It doesn't... Well, it doesn't... Why do you think Buddhism... Why does Christianity have the Book of Revelation? And does Buddha have... Does Buddhism have that?

[66:55]

And why are they so different? Are you asking Buddhism has a Book of Revelation? No, but it has an apocalypse of sorts because it has the... conflagration. I don't know about Buddhism, but there's one of the cases in the Book of Serenity is called the Aeonic Fire. So part of Buddhist mythology is that this Aeon is going to burn up sometime. It seems to me that Christianity gives us this narrative by which we get back up on that hill that that woman was talking about in her dream and somehow we leave the muck.

[68:03]

Somehow what? Somehow we leave the muck and we... and we perceive it as muck because it is muck and, you know, Christianity has these problems, but it does seem to, you know, not, you know, it does seem to give us a, uh, a, a, a journey by which, you know, we resolve this, you know, really apocalyptic situation. And Buddhism seems to be, seems to be interested in not really, you know, confronting the apocalypse as the apocalypse. But in fact, it is pretty apocalyptic. Well, my granddaughter in her school, her, what do you call it?

[69:05]

Her, middle school class, they were studying Buddhism. And I said, well, what did you learn about Buddhism? And she said, I learned there's two kinds. One kind is nirvana, and the other one is helping people. So in Buddhism, there is this thing about peace and freedom. It's just, you're just completely free of the world and at peace. The other one is helping people. And the Buddha, I would say, Buddha has both. Buddha has nirvana, has peace and freedom, but also Buddha completely is present with the muck. Buddha is totally intimate with all the muck, with all the apocalypse, and at peace and free with the muck. the two kinds of Buddhism freedom and helping people Buddha is about helping people to learn how to be in the muck and that's what that that's what the parable is about learning how to be in the muck by having somebody come and encourage you to and praise you and support you in shoveling muck so you can become free of your

[70:34]

free of the muck and therefore able to help other people be free of the muck. But you had to be in the muck to help them as a skillful means. So we have this meeting now to help each other. Right. It's pretty mucky. Thank you, Stephen, for your gift. Thank you. Hello, Roshi. Hello, wonderful people. You were receiving such great questions today. I really had delight listening to all of those. And, you know, the topic of leaving home has been so much on my mind and my practice because I'm an immigrant.

[71:48]

I not only left home... physical home but my whole country and when you said leaving home I thought well it's not necessary for people to leave home to truly realize their true nature but in my case it was and when you said you can't do it yourself that's right even in the Odyssey Athena showed up to Odysseus saying, a bunch of gods decided you will go on a trip, like it or not. And they ushered him. And so it happened with me. I didn't know why. I had no idea why I wanted to leave Poland. I didn't have any negative views or whatever. But somehow I was ushered and impossible things had become possible for me to leave. And I'm now realizing that I needed that because for two reasons.

[72:55]

One reason is that becoming an immigrant is truly a powerful practice. You really have to leave the old conditioned shell behind and totally naked and vulnerable. You have to step into a new life. And so that's one thing. And the other one is that when I came to this continent, I was able to meet you and all the other wonderful beings who were teaching the Dharma. I really feel truly, truly fortunate that it happened to me, that the universe had put me on a boat. Not literally, but a flying boat. Very good. Thank you so much. Yeah. I can tell you something more. What else I was thinking? Excuse me, but there's a few people. Hello? Okay.

[73:57]

All right. Thank you so much. That was, I would say, hallelujah. Absolutely. Hallelujah. Amen to that. Amen. Hi, Reb. Hello, Great Assembly. Thank you for the extraordinary questions and, Reb, your extraordinary teachings. I have a question in regard to approach. I have a different approach. Because our original home, the original mind or whatever, and our perceived home are not different. They're not different, no? our perceived home is not a delusion, it's our wiring. In order to survive as an individual or as a species, we have to see objects in the world.

[75:04]

But if we believe that what we see is the objects of the world, then we treat them as being real. And millions of years ago, dinosaurs, eight other dinosaurs, and they had to see the world as real. And when we were living in caves, we had to see the world as real. But here we're in our comfortable homes, not necessarily threatened. So the question is, how are we seeing the world? Yeah, that's the question. How are we seeing the world? I look at it more as an optical illusion. Because you've said that it's all one thing, the mind arises, things arise together. And they're together because they're the same thing.

[76:05]

Our wiring, our thoughts coming out of that wiring, arise together with everything else unfolding. So the entirety, this oneness, is an unfolding of causal process. And that's the way I see the world. It's mutually unfolding. It's causally unfolding. And it's engaging. And it creates this, but we put it together as things in our heads that are realities. So my sense on your teachings today has been about that. And my only question to you is, it's the same thing, but seeing in two different ways. One, seeing things, and two, realizing the unfolding. Yeah.

[77:08]

It's exactly the same thing, but it's just seen in two different ways. Yeah, this is the process to see the truth, for you to give us your world as you just did. Thank you so much. I hope it helps. It's part of the process of realizing the truth. Thank you. grab the assembly. So, is the neighborhood all sentient beings? Yep. So... And all Buddhas. And all Buddhas? They're not someplace else. They're not outside the neighborhood.

[78:09]

Right. So, when the Buddha woke up, could he basically say that the neighborhood... is full of the wisdom of, what did you say in the beginning, the wisdom and virtues of all the Buddhas? Yep. And also when the Buddha woke up, the Buddha said, Oh, now I, together with all living beings and the great earth, realize the way. Because he's the neighborhood. I, together with the whole neighborhood, realize the way. Right. And the neighborhood sometimes ends places that don't think that way, who disagree. So, Mr. Rogers was right. It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood. Exactly. That was really, when you said that there must be welcoming in the neighborhood, is it, would be more...

[79:14]

correct to say that there must be welcoming in the neighborhood, there's always welcoming in the neighborhood? Basically, yes. Fundamentally, there wouldn't be a neighborhood without welcoming. We need to get with the program. Hallelujah. Thank you. So, thank you every day for this again, again, having an extraordinary day may we continue to have extraordinary meetings and may our good health continue so we can come and meet each other face to face and question each other face to face this is and question each other face to face all right Thank you so much

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