I was talking to some friends over there a few minutes ago, and I said, well, seems like it's time for me to go to the class. And they said, well, what's class about? I said, well, it's about being surrounded by lots of suffering and how to respond appropriately to it. And one of the people said, can you teach that in one meeting? And I said, no, it takes seven. So now we're in the middle of the seven lessons. You want to come closer, Linda? Linda, want to come closer?

[01:02]

So here's a basic principle that I offer to you, which is that we are, each of us, living surrounded by all the suffering of the world. That's our situation and Zen sort of like accepts that and then wonders how to work with that in a way. In a way what? In a way such that the most beneficial response to the situation can arise. Or another way to put it is, so the situation can be benefited most appropriately.

[02:13]

So I just thought of an ancient Zen story about this very sincere You could call him a Zen student, but anyway, he was a Buddhist monk yogi and he meditated a lot. But he still hadn't found a place of peace. And a friend of his, to make a long story short, said, you know, just let it come out. And he was ready for that, and from then on, that's what he did. So all of us can do that, but we have to be here completely in order to let being here completely just come forth.

[03:23]

Of course, that's already going on. And yet, if we don't accept being in our position, where we actually are, then the realization of this teaching coming forth somehow seems to be not yet the case. There, have you heard of, you've probably all heard of the term nirvana, right? Anybody not heard that word before? So nirvana is defined often as peace or freedom. And any idea you have about this nirvana is not nirvana.

[04:36]

So you can say nirvana is peace, but that idea that nirvana is peace is of course not nirvana, even though that's maybe accurate. In other words, peace is something that nothing that we say about it is it. Nirvana is beyond anything we can think about it. Freedom and peace. What is it called? The peace which passeth all understanding. That's the King James Bible version, I think. a peace which passeth all understanding. But I would say it's a peace that passeth all ideas we have about it. Nirvana's free of all of our ideas.

[05:39]

In order to be free of all my ideas, I have to, I guess, completely accept all my ideas as such, as just ideas. Is there a rat in the other room or something? Oh, it's a yoga class going up against the wall. So another sort of the principle is that when we get into our actual proper position with all of our yoga props, that the appropriate response will just flow out of us without us figuring it out. One time I was in a kind of theater improv workshop, and I think the instruction was pick somebody and start dancing with them, and then as you're dancing, start expressing a poem together.

[07:23]

And so I was dancing with this, I think it was a woman, and we were trying to do this poetry creation, and I felt like it was kind of like it wasn't flowing very well. And so I felt like I needed to get more into the dance. So I picked her up off the ground and held her above me and danced with her like that. And that required a lot more presence on my part than just the way I was dancing with her before. And then the poetry was unhindered. Of course, it was a temporary poetic expression because I couldn't hold her up very long. but in that sort of right on the edge, a catastrophe, and giving all my presence to holding her safely in the air with the music.

[08:32]

By the way, this poetry just came out. I don't know what it was, but it was really beautiful, and it was effortless, and it was smooth, and I didn't have to think about it. But when some of my thinking power was not being completely absorbed into the dance, it actually got in the way of the poetry. So again, the basic principle is, if we completely settle into our position, we will become free of our position. And when we're free of our position, our position responds appropriately to all the suffering that's around us. We are surrounded by suffering. And each of us has our own position in it, a unique position. And if we can completely accept it, the appropriate response will just flow forth.

[09:37]

And this appropriate response cannot be figured out intellectually. this appropriate response, when our life is completely settled into its position, that is not reached by discriminating, discriminative thought. But discriminative thought, it doesn't reach it, but also it's not, this position is not someplace other than our discriminative thought. It's just that we don't use our discriminative thought to try to figure out how to have discriminative thought. We just have whatever discriminating thoughts are going on, completely. We don't use them to figure out how to live them. We aren't trying to figure out how to live, we are just living. And there is quite a bit of intellectual

[10:40]

history in the terms of lots of stories about intellectual activity in the Buddhist tradition. But today I would suggest that these stories about this intellectual activity are stories about people in conversation trying to settle into that intellectual activity, not use the intellectual activity to be at peace, but settle into the intellectual activity, just like settle into emotional activity. And not too many people try to use emotional activity. It's not so common for them to use emotional activity to try to access peace. But you could. But not use it to do that, but use it as what you are letting yourself completely be, and completely being your emotional activity, the appropriate response will flow out.

[11:46]

We don't usually deliberate with our emotions, but we often do deliberate with our deliberating equipment, with our intellect. So there is records of people having intellectual discussions, and then in the middle of the intellectual discussions, they settle into the discussion. and realize this natural flow. And then they demonstrate the flow by the intellectual activity. But the intellectual activity isn't coming from the intellect. It's coming from settling into the intellect. And then from this non-intellectual place, the intellect comes out, and the intellect proves that it didn't come from the intellect. But it's not an intellectual expression. It's a proof of what is beyond intellect.

[12:49]

It's not a discriminative, conceptual, conscious activity. It is using the conscious activity to prove that this is coming from a place where conscious activity has dropped off. And similarly, to enter that place, which happens to be where we are, we have to completely embrace our intellectual activity, our emotional activity, our sensing activity, our intuiting activity. We must fully engage them in order to enter the place which is beyond them, and then we use them, again, to demonstrate that we've reached the place beyond them. So here's an intellectual thing to say. It's kind of intellectual.

[13:51]

For me, peace in nirvana is not something that you enter after you leave samsara. So we have samsara and nirvana. Nirvana is peace. Samsara is not peace. Samsara is is war, is stress, is conflict, is confusion, is suffering. It's birth and death and birth and death. That's one... What do you call that? That's one... That's one word for our life. And another word for our life is Nirvana. So one of the teachings for people who are living in the middle of all suffering and want their life to liberate all beings that they're living in the middle of, a teaching for them is that peace and war are the same.

[15:13]

Peace is the way war really is. War is one of the ways peace really is. War is beyond your idea of peace. And in early Buddhism it seemed like a lot of people thought, leave the realm of birth and death. and misery and suffering. You leave that and then you go over to nirvana. So the teaching for bodhisattvas is that, well, I guess one thing is really we don't leave the world of suffering and go to nirvana. If we did, then nirvana would just be another form of suffering.

[16:20]

We don't leave suffering to go to nirvana. We wake up to that suffering is peace. Now, some people say, yeah, so one meaning for the Bodhisattvas is that the suffering is never separate from the peace. The suffering is never separate from great compassion. There's no floating great compassion over here and suffering someplace else. Compassion is always completely, insubstantially in solidarity with suffering. Compassion's always with suffering. It's never someplace else. And I said that before. The other side's harder for people. that suffering is never someplace else from compassion. There's no orphan suffering. Suffering always has compassion with it, because compassion has no place else to be. And somebody might say, well, then if compassion has no place to be, well, then there can just be no compassion.

[17:31]

But if there's no compassion, there's no suffering. There is no suffering without compassion. So that's nirvana and samsara. are inseparable. Another way people sometimes talk about it is there's two different ways of seeing our life. That's okay. Our life is actually not two different lives. There's two different ways of seeing it. And you can say there's two different kinds of life, misery and peace. But I would say two different ways of seeing the life. But there's another way, which is these ways of seeing, like the way of seeing our life, which is misery, is deluded way of seeing. And you could say, and the enlightened way of seeing our life is nirvana. But the deluded way of seeing our life so that it looks like suffering, it also is actually nirvana.

[18:41]

In our delusions, actually, our delusions are actually something to wake up to as peace. And these comments sort of, to me, right now, they seem to go along with, our job is to be totally here. which includes the entire universe. It includes the entire universe. So no matter what it is that you mention, that's something. Basically, anything you mention is an opportunity. Anything you mention is not nirvana, but also anything you mention is nirvana. But let's start with not nirvana, because we have a hard time with not nirvana. So anything is an opportunity to realize with this thing. Anything is an opportunity to realize what is the case

[20:02]

with this thing. And sometimes we have this term you've heard about in Zen, koan. Who has not heard the word koan? Please raise your hand. So koan actually means public case. It's a public example of reality, which are often in the forms of conversations where people are trying to help each other Be the koan, be the case. Realize that this is the current case of reality. To say that this is the case means this is real. This is the case to be realized. Last week, at the end of the class, people were asking some questions and also making some faces.

[21:11]

Right. Last week I was in Europe and people were making faces. But the last meeting here, which was two weeks ago, people were asking questions and making faces, and the faces they were making made me feel like they were struggling. They were struggling. That they were struggling trying to understand their life. And also trying to understand their life in relationship to what I was saying. And I felt the flames being turned up. Just like now I feel the heat being turned up. It's getting hot under here. It's okay, I'll just take some of my clothes off.

[22:20]

You guys can carry on without me, I'll be right back. I don't want to shock you with my immodesty. So now I'm in a different room for the sake of the recording equipment. I'm taking off some of my clothes. Some are excellent. Great. And so, yeah, and I, in response to seeing the struggling people, I was struggling,

[23:34]

to meet them. I guess in lieu of the example I just gave a moment ago, I was trying to find a way to dance with them, you know, that completely absorbed me, so that the poetry could come. But I must admit, I didn't quite get there. I think if I ticked one or both of them up and held them above my head and turned either clockwise or counterclockwise, we probably would have found the right place. And all of our problems would have dropped away and we would have let what's in us come out. But I don't know if I could pick these people up.

[24:38]

I'm not, I'm not as, that was like quite a few years ago that I did that. How big was the woman? She wasn't too big. She wasn't too big, no. She was I think she was pretty tall, but she wasn't very heavy. I don't even know if I asked her if I could lift her. But we were already dancing, so it just sort of flowed into levitation. She just sort of flowed up there. It wasn't like me imposing this. It seemed like that was fine with her. As she started to lift off, she didn't say, She sort of went with it, and it all worked out. So again, each of us is in our position which is composed of psychophysical events, ideas,

[25:56]

all kinds of perceptions, emotions, feelings, and physical sensations, intellectual and intuitive, all that's going on, and all of that's calling for us to be present with it, to be present with it, and again, when completely present with it, the blessings of this life come forth. Being pleasant with the blessings and being present with the not-blessings, if we think something's not a blessing, that equally is calling for our presence as the so-called blessings. Blessings are calling for compassion, too. the good children are calling for compassion along with the naughty children.

[27:00]

And some good children give up on being good because they think they'll get more compassion if they're naughty. Even though they're good children, they're not that good that they're not doing some calculations on how much love they're getting. And one pattern is that the firstborn child plays the good card, and that's working pretty well, and they're getting a lot of love for playing the good card. They're playing the good card as a way of saying, please listen to me, compassionate parents. And then the next child comes along and says, you know, I see that that works for her, But I think if I do it, I'll get sort of like the leftovers. So I'm going to try a different technique from what they're doing, and then the parents will listen to all their good cries, and I'll do all the nasty, naughty cries, and I'll get all the attention to the nasty cries, because I'm the only one who's doing those ones.

[28:13]

Uh-oh. I have a young granddaughter, and one of the first words she learned was, Uh-oh! And I think I'm going to have an uh-oh here. Yeah. Somehow, these hearing aids got closed, and therefore, they're dead. I have batteries. I have hearing aid batteries. Can you show me the kind you have? Anyway, so far I haven't had too much trouble hearing because I've been doing all the talking. I've been listening. Well, let's try. Let's see. I think mine are smaller.

[29:16]

Can you show me one? Too big. Okay, so, that's that. Thank you very much, Linda. Thank you, Kim, or Barry. And I'll wash your lips. Another way of saying this is, which I've said before, is observing all living beings, which means, for example, you, or you observe all of us and beyond with eyes of compassion, That means eyes of compassion... Well, I'll just finish the sentence. That observing with eyes of compassion creates an ocean of blessing.

[30:23]

It doesn't say eyes of compassion eliminate living beings. Eyes of compassion observe living beings. It doesn't say... Living beings, by the way, means not Buddhas. means people who haven't yet become Buddhas. So they're still suffering. So actually, eyes of compassion are observing suffering beings. And the suffering beings can be like other human beings, but also it can be observing your own struggles. It can be observing, like that your hearing aids got closed and they aren't operating. It can be observing. Earlier today I was charging my car at Michelle and Linda's house, and the charging cord went into their garage, and then Michelle closed the garage door, and then he came out and he couldn't get the garage door open.

[31:33]

That was a little struggle we had with the garage door. And we felt a little struggle there, right? Like, Michel started tearing his hair out. Oh my God! I've trapped this guy here! And I'm thinking, no, he's got my charging cord forever, etc. We were having a little struggle around that. The way I felt, the way he felt, and then Linda, did you agree on that? You also got, you had some feelings about that? Yeah. Those feelings that we had, those emotions that arose in us, those are living beings. Those are suffering. Not too bad, but... And also the suffering we had at the end of class. Not too bad, but it was significant. It was the flame of the hour.

[32:34]

These are the opportunities, how we feel and how other people feel. This is what we can observe with eyes of compassion. And when that observing is really fully operating, then blessings arise and develop into oceans of blessings. And the eyes of compassion are eyes that really like, they really look at the suffering. And they don't look at it too hard, and they don't look at it too easy. So like the example I gave of looking at my daughter's face when I said to her, if you don't get a job in a week, I want you to move out, I really like, I didn't so much think I was looking at her with eyes of compassion, but now I'm telling you I think I did, because I was looking at her knowing that what I was saying to her was not particularly comfortable for her to hear, to hear her father say.

[33:40]

First of all, her father said, your mother and I would like you to move out of the house in a week if you don't get a job. And her mother said, I changed my mind. It was just, okay, it's just your father, me. I'm looking at your face, telling you not a real fun message. What is the message? I want you to move out of this house at the end of the week, at the end of a week, if you don't get a job. But I looked at her, and I didn't expect the face to be smiling or at ease. I didn't know what it would be. I didn't know what it would be, but I really looked at it. And she could tell that I was really looking at it, and she gave me back her face. And then this wonderful happy ending happened, but before the happy ending happened,

[34:51]

the blessings were arising from me just telling her who I was, which is who I am. And I had the job of showing her that. And when I show it to her, though, to look at her when I give it, and to see how she handles it, and depending on how she handles it, depending on how she handles how I give myself to her, then I will give her, depending on that, I will give her another version of me. Because the job doesn't end there, it goes on. And to see who the next person I am, I'm the next person either who's looking at her or who's not. So looking at your own struggles and the struggles of others, with eyes of compassion, I think, take it all the way, that you really are there for the person, and you're facing how they are dealing with you, and how they are dealing with other people.

[36:11]

How did she handle? Louder. How did she handle your daughter? You missed last week. I was not there yet. You missed the last class. Anyway, just let me say briefly, a very happy ending. But I was talking to, I think, Katie maybe, or maybe I was talking to Carmen, and I thought maybe I shouldn't tell the happy ending. Because it's not like when you do look at somebody like that, there will be a happy ending like in the next day. But in this story, Well, actually, the happy ending happened that night. The happy ending was, of that conversation, was she stayed there with me, and she did not, I did not flinch and turn away from her, and she stayed with me, and then she got up and walked into her room, and did not slam the door. That's already a blessing.

[37:12]

And then a whole bunch of other blessings came. after that. But maybe I shouldn't tell all the blessings, because sometimes you can't see them. You can't see how the person changes inside. Sometimes you can see how you change inside, and then sometimes, if you do change inside, you might change what you give. So you might say, if you don't get a job by the end of the week, I want you to move out, and you look at the person's face, and then you say, no, I don't. Because somehow, When you look at him, you change, and somehow you're not that person anymore. So in my case, yeah, I said, your mother and I, and her mother said, I'm not there anymore. She wasn't on that page. But if I had changed and looked at her and said, okay, your father wants you to move out of the house if you don't get a job by the end of the week. and I look at her, and something about her face and something about the way I'm feeling, between us, this thing happens, which is our relationship.

[38:21]

It's not so much her or me, it's this relationship. That's the truth, and the truth can change. And then I might say, oh, I'm not there anymore. And then her mother say, I am. Now I've changed, but I do want you to move. But you have to be there to move, So the poetry keeps coming, because you're with it. And I had had many conversations before where I told her something which I didn't think she wanted to see, and I turned away. And in those cases, I feel like I didn't do my job. I have to deliver the message of who I am to her, and then I have to be there for the consequences, which I think might be kind of like a not very happy face. in the location where you want happiness. You want that person to have a happy face. Because when their face isn't happy, you're not happy. But it's not so much that you're not happy, it's that it's painful.

[39:24]

Because I was very happy to do my job of being her father. And later she said, Dad is tough love, not hard line. So I gave her a firm thing, but hard line is like you put it there and you won't let it move. I think she could feel that I was, this is just my offering for the moment, and this is it. But again, it's hard to deliver that message to someone you really love and who you don't want to see the slightest bit of pain in the face. But that's our job. Our job is to look at people's faces. Because we've got a face looker. This is the meeting faces.

[40:26]

It's our responsibility to use this, to look at faces. And sometimes we look at the face and the face says, would you please stop looking at me? And then we go, okay. Like my daughter's son, when he was about seven, he was having breakfast and I was looking at him, adoringly. And he goes like this. Would you please stop staring at me?" And I stopped. I took my face and turned it up towards the ceiling. And that's what he asked for, and I was okay with giving that. It was easy for me to look away. And then, after he saw that he could take that look away if he wanted to, then he re-engaged me by making some critical comments about his cousin. But it was an invitation to come back.

[41:31]

I just want to know that I can turn that face off if it gets to be too much. And when the loved one says this is too much, I think generally speaking, we can take a break, look away. But not because we're chickening out, but because they want us to look away. And we have the courage to look away. We're not looking at them to feed our narcissism. We're looking at them to meet them and to be there for the consequences of our face and what comes out of our mouth. Yes? Earlier you said something, yeah, that living beings, we can have faith that there's something. We what? We can. It's just hard. It's hard to face, to look in the face of suffering face, especially if you really are in touch with how you want this person to be at peace.

[42:40]

It's hard. We can do it. We can. We have that responsibility, which means we have the ability to respond to a face with a face. But it's hard. I guess I'm confused how you're so confident that all faces include suffering, but that it's... Yeah, basically you're saying all perceptual... everything that we're receiving is involved in suffering. Is that what I'm hearing? Is that what you're saying? You mean like the perception of blue involves suffering? Well, you said all living beings. Yeah, I think I can go there, like the color blue, which means the perception of the color blue, because there's no blue floating out in midair separate from perception.

[43:43]

So the perception of blue, I would say, yeah, that's suffering. How is it suffering? Because it looks like it doesn't include all the other colors. It looks like it doesn't include the whole universe. And that's suffering. Why? Because it does include the whole universe. But why is it suffering? It's suffering. I guess it's suffering if there's a holding to that thing does exist without including everything. That's suffering. That's stressful. It's like resisting. It's like something that appears, a foreground event is rejecting its background. And for a foreground event to reject its background is stressful.

[44:49]

Blue has a background not just of all the other colors, but of the entire universe. So you can see the blue But when you look at the blue and adhere to it, the blue being the blue, independent of other things, is suffering. So blue in context is not suffering. Just like me or you in context is not suffering. Because you are in the context, you are the foreground, of the background of you. The background of you is the entire universe. And the foreground of you is the entire universe as you. And when we look at something in isolation and don't realize that everything that surrounds it, which we can't see, is included, when we ignore that, that ignorance is suffering.

[46:02]

I guess the first time I heard that, it seemed like you were imputing something into a person or into a being. And now I'm hearing more that's the whole relationship. You could say I'm imputing to ignorance suffering. You could say that. which I don't want to do, but in a way, ignorance is suffering. And ignorance means, again, that we basically ignore how each person is the center of the whole universe, and includes the whole universe, and is included in the whole universe, and this is why each person is actually ungraspable. And in that ungraspability, we have freedom from suffering without getting rid of it, because even the suffering is the same, because suffering includes everything too.

[47:13]

So it also is not suffering. But in order to realize this, we have to do the job of seeing blue and seeing pain and feeling hot and feeling cold and feeling confused and feeling righteous and feeling disappointed. You name it again. If you're completely that thing, you will realize that everything is included in that thing, and that thing is included in everything, which is similar to the more you accept this color blue, the more you realize it's not blue. It's the whole universe as blue. And that is peace, that realization. And not realizing that,

[48:14]

Ignoring that is suffering, but again, if you apply the same practice to the suffering, suffering is not suffering. Yes? Well, I wasn't here two weeks ago, so I'm going on what you just now said about your daughter, that story, okay? So I have a daughter, too, and we struggle too, and it's painful too. If I were facing her in something like that, a difficult situation, you seem very, very confident that you could be there, you could present yourself fully. I say something to my daughter in that situation, I'll think, oh, maybe that was too judgmental, and meanwhile she'll go and slam the door. You know, you have a kind of confidence that you can be appropriate in that situation.

[49:20]

I'm an ordinary living being, I don't have that. It's not so much that I have a confidence that I will be, I have a confidence that I can be. I'm with you. That's a kind of a concept. Well, I mean, in other words, I have sometimes looked her in the face and then looked away because I didn't want to see. I didn't want to see unhappiness in the face. So I didn't look at it. I could have looked at it, but I didn't. So when you say, I have confidence that I will be, it's more like, sometimes I can be and sometimes I can't. And if I can't, then I practice confession and repentance. I say, I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. That seems to be your answer to me frequently, practice confession and repentance. Practicing confession and repentance is the pure and simple color of true practice.

[50:24]

It's the true mind of faith, the true body of faith, which is, I want to be here for you and just now I flinched and looked away and I'm sorry. And actually one time back in the 70s I was there for you and I was really glad. Like one of the things that women sometimes have the great opportunity of delivering a baby without too much medication. And oftentimes I've heard that in the middle of the pain, it sometimes happens that they stop resisting it. They stop thinking about, let's go someplace else, shall we? They learn that this pain is to be present with, not to try to get away from, and they give up trying to get away. And maybe for one time in their life, they're totally there. which is called nirvana.

[51:27]

And so a mother might remember, I was totally there for a few seconds when I was giving birth to you. And so I know I can be, I know it can happen. And every time it doesn't, I'm sorry. So I have some confidence. I have some, actually, belief that I am occasionally quite present. which I always feel good about. I have some experience that I'm sometimes less than that present, which I feel sorry about. But I also have confidence that everybody can be fully present. But I know that some people are rarely pleasant. I talk to people sometimes, and they're sitting right in front of me, you know, in a little room, nobody else is there, and they're trying to get away from me. There they are, you know, and they're just... They're not leaving the room, but they're trying to, like, hide, and I sometimes say, this is not a good place to hide.

[52:35]

If you want to hide, go outside. I won't be able to see you. And even so, they're still trying to get away, and they're just totally wiggling and running. It's like they just don't want to be there right in front of me. But I know they can learn that. But sometimes I feel like, it's going to take a while. This person really, they came into this room, but they didn't realize what they were getting into. And now they're saying, maybe I'd rather get out of here and go be with somebody who will let me hide. Because some people kind of say, yeah, if you can hide, then I can hide. So we can be in the same room and hide from each other, okay? Let's play hide and seek. We can think of that, right? Even little children can think of that. Like, okay, you can't see me now, granddaddy. And so maybe granddaddy says, yeah, where are you? And then they go, I'm here.

[53:37]

Or, can't see me now, now you can. That one we know how to do from little, but to actually be there and face somebody, we have to learn that from somebody who can do it. at least occasionally. So my greatest confidence is that when it's that way, that's the way I want it. That's the life I want to live, is the life of being there. I don't have some sense of what percentage I am able to do it so far. But when I feel like I'm getting there, I feel good, and when I don't, I feel sorry, because I'm not doing my job, which is to be here for you and me. That's my job. And if I'm your father, it's to be your father. And if I'm your friend, it's to be your friend. If I'm your husband, it's to be your husband. I have all these different responsibilities, all of which are fully calling me to do. And they're calling me to do it wholeheartedly, not half-heartedly.

[54:42]

Unless the other person, even if the other person says, don't be wholehearted, because then I would have to be. That's still calling me to fully listen to that. Let me hide is saying, listen to me say that I want to hide. Like really pay attention to me trying to hide. In other words, really make it impossible for me to hide. while I'm trying to. Watch me try to hide and show me that you love me even when you see I'm trying to hide from you. That's what I want. Could you speak up, please? Do you sometimes try to look at people on the street, for example, Hey, buddy, but in Berkeley there are so many suffering sick people on the street. I try to look at the people on the street.

[55:44]

I do. And that sometimes is difficult to look at that suffering face. And some people notice I'm looking and they see I'm smiling and they appreciate it. Other people are frightened. And I don't walk up to people on the street and say, are you present? I don't walk up to them and say, would you like me to adjust your posture? I don't say, this is not a good place to hide. But I do look at them, and if they seem to not want it, I look away, or look down. But a lot of times they really like it. And I often am walking down the street smiling. I don't know why, but I am. And people see it and they smile often, usually. But some faces are really difficult for me to look at, partly because I think the person's maybe saying, don't look at me.

[56:54]

And I respect that, but I still watch to see how they're telling me not to look at them. I'm watching enough to see that they are saying, please don't look at me. but I need to watch a little bit to see that. And then, if I feel like they're saying, would you please look at me, I also look at that, but not necessarily the way that they want me to, but the way I think is appropriate. My second question... I said think appropriate. Really what I'd like to do is to look at them in a way that is appropriate without me thinking of it. If I'm doing my job, I don't have to think of what's appropriate. The appropriate gaze just comes out of me. But that means I have to walk down the street taking care of myself, listening to my own struggles. observing my own struggles with eyes of compassion, including my own struggles, saying, would you not look at me now?

[57:55]

You're looking too closely, okay. That doesn't happen so often, but. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. You reached me. You didn't reach me last week, did you? I mean, two weeks ago. Now you've reached me. All right. Well, one way is that Buddhas are those who understand delusion. They're greatly awakened about delusion. Or you could say they're greatly awakened about suffering.

[59:01]

And sentient beings are greatly deluded about awakening. Are Buddhas living beings? Or can a Buddha be a living being? Or is living being a definition of not being Buddha? Yeah. And bodhisattvas are living beings who are in the path to become Buddhas. Well, that's fine. That's a perfectly good delusion that you have. So living beings have delusions which they have not yet fully understood. And one of their kind of interesting delusions is what enlightenment is.

[60:05]

Like a lot of living beings, they don't all have this, but many living beings have the delusions that you need to leave suffering in order to enter peace. That's a common delusion that living beings entertain. Buddhas have understood that that's a delusion. they see that's not the case, that you have to leave, you don't. This is the bodhisattva, to become a Buddha, you walk the path of realizing that you don't have to get away from the suffering to have peace. The peace is back here in suffering land, because suffering is actually freedom from suffering. Buddhas have awakened to that. And some sentient beings, bodhisattvas who are on the path to Buddha, they've gotten over some of their delusions, but they haven't awoken to the delusion, to all the delusions yet.

[61:11]

There's some delusions which they're still kind of like not seeing what they are yet. The path of the bodhisattva is to go through all the delusions, and one by one, you could say, Oh, it's a delusion. Oh, it's a delusion. Oh, it's a delusion. Buddhists are thoroughly awakened to delusion. And they've gone through a long practice of practicing observing delusion with eyes of compassion, observing delusion with eyes of compassion, and generating these blessings the blessings, which mean more observing with eyes of compassion, which make more blessing, which make more Buddhas. They've gone through that path. So now they're greatly awakened, thoroughly awakened to delusion. All of them, they've nailed all of them onto delusion and become free of all of them.

[62:15]

The other sentient beings are on this path to Buddhahood. And I'm currently of the mind, which is that we're all on this path to Buddhahood, we're all bodhisattvas, and Buddha's teaching is for us who are on the path. The path to Buddhahood is the path of not getting away from samsara in order to get into nirvana. There's other paths, which in early Buddhism there was the path of get away from suffering and enter freedom from suffering. In other words, freedoms and sufferings here, over here, and being stuck in sufferings over there. And you go from there to here, or here to there. That was the early version. And later teachings saying, well, that was just a skillful means to get people to start to practice. If you told them at the beginning that it's not about getting away from the suffering,

[63:20]

That's not the real freedom. Real freedom is found in the suffering, not going someplace else. And that teaching is for living beings who are not Buddhas, who are becoming Buddhas. It's not for living beings who are not Buddhas, who are going to actually successfully get out of suffering and go to nirvana. It's not for them. There's other teachings for the people who are trying to get out of suffering and go to peace. A lot of early Buddhism is like that. You leave birth and death, you escape it, and then you go over to freedom, peace, over here, great! But in order to get here, you have to get out of there. And the later Buddhism is not about that path, but the path of Buddhahood, which is you find the freedom in the middle of all the suffering. which is where we happen to be, and where Buddhas are sitting in the middle of all suffering, turning the wheel of Dharma.

[64:28]

They're not turning the wheel of suffering in the suburbs. Is this all pointing in the direction of the idea that suffering is eternal? I don't know about eternal, but certainly omnipresent, for the time being, omnipresent. In every moment, it's here. I am aspiring to not move away from it. That's my aspiration. The Bodhisattva aspiration is, I vow to not turn away from suffering. Which is similar to, I vow to liberate all suffering beings. You don't liberate them by turning away from them. You liberate them by looking at them with eyes of compassion, and you're in the process with them. So yeah, the path I'm on is not turn away from it, not get away from it, and also not go towards it.

[65:35]

Don't go towards it. It's already here. You don't have to go someplace else to find suffering. You have enough. And if you don't think you do, you can come and see me, and I'll help you find it. But I mostly meet people who think they have a lot of suffering, and they're just wondering how to deal with it. And they're tempted to try to get out of it. And if you want to get out of it, I can refer you to somebody who is into that. getting out of suffering. I'm into not getting into it, I'm into accepting it. You've got enough. You've got a whole universe of suffering. And you don't have to move into a worse neighborhood. This is a bad enough neighborhood. And if you open up to the suffering, you'll realize there's more suffering than you realized before.

[66:42]

And then your reward for that will be to see more. And your reward for that will be to see more. You don't have to go someplace else. Buddhists actually have learned to open to it all, and accept that all of it's always here. But to get into the eternal thing, I think that's another class. Maybe that's a summer class about the eternal. the eternal. But this is more like the omnipresent. It's always here. You can't get away from it, really. And really accepting that you can't get away from it is enlightenment. Not only that you can't get away from it, but it's here. So one is anti-negative, anti-trying to get away, and the other is accepting that it's here.

[67:50]

And it is calling to us. All the suffering is calling to us. And the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas are sitting in the middle of all the calls, and the Bodhisattvas are trying to learn to listen. The Buddhas already know how. And they're teaching us to learn how to listen wholeheartedly to the cries. They're teaching us how to observe wholeheartedly with eyes of compassion. Yes. But fortunately, we have a little bit more. Koan? Well, literally koan means public example.

[68:51]

So it also meant like a judgment of a judge. It's a legal term originally. So it means this is the case. So case means example, but also means this is what's going on. So koan in one sense means reality. And so the koans are stories that are examples of reality being enacted by people, which then we study to see if we can observe them and awaken to the reality which they're trying to reveal to us. Some people think they're riddles, but I guess they're riddles before you understand them. I guess I just need some correction if I'm off base here, but a koan is presented to a Zen student as sort of an opportunity to make a jump, a synaptic jump from a delusion to the reality that you're speaking of.

[70:10]

A koan is like a delusion that's offered to the student to wake up to a delusion, It's an opportunity to leap free of what's being offered. And it might be offered repeatedly until the person leaps. Like the person might try this and say, you're still stuck in the assignment. You haven't been able to let go of it. And I'm pushing you to stay with it, which makes it harder for you to let go of it. But really I'm pushing you to stay with it, to help you let go of it, But I don't want you to trick yourself into thinking you let go before you really did. Going back to your daughter, one way I had sometimes thought of it is situations like with your daughter, and this situation is a koan. Yeah, exactly, it is. It's a koan, it's a koan manifesting. I've got this daughter, 19 years old, strong, healthy, intelligent, energetic,

[71:14]

unemployed, partying all night, and also saying, I want to work. I want to get a job. This is the situation. This is the reality for me to understand. What's the reality here? And part of the reality is I have a response to this. And am I stuck in my response? So some people, they feel a response, but they don't accept it fully. So then they get stuck in it. So then they can't give it. Yeah. What is it? Are there compassion-enhancing... Is there compassion in...? Are there compassion-enhancing exercises? Drugs? Are there compassion-enhancing exercises? Yes, there are compassion-enhancing exercises. Here's one. homage, we say, KAN-ZE-YAN, BOSATSU.

[72:24]

No, we say, KAN-ZE-YAN, NA-MU-BUTSU. KAN-ZE-YAN is short for NA-MU-KAN-ZE-YAN. It's like, you can't even say NA-MU, which means homage. You forget to say homage, and you just say KAN-ZE-YAN! which means listening to the cries of the world. So that's a compassion enhancing exercise is to say, listen to the cries of the world, listen to the cries of the world, homage to listen to the cries of the world, homage to Buddha, homage to listen to the cries of the world. Meditators sit still and they are thinking in their heads sometimes. Listen to the cries of the world, which is the name of a bodhisattva, but it's also an instruction. Listen to the cries of the world.

[73:26]

Listen to the cries of the world. Listen to the cries of the world. Kanze on. Kanze on. Kanze on. Listen to the cries of the world. And so we have this chant, and the end of the chant goes, nen nen, nen nen, which means, moment after moment, kan ze yan, moment after moment. But also, that character for moment, which is a Chinese character which has two parts, the top part means now, and the bottom part means mind. So it means, now mind also means a moment, but also means remember. Remember, remember, remember, remember, listen to the cries of the world. Remember, listen to the cries of the world. Remember, listen to the cries of the world. Moment by moment. At night, listen to the cries of the world. In the morning, listen to the cries of the world. Moment by moment.

[74:27]

That's a compassion-enhancing teaching. So. We sit still and silent in this class, and while we're sitting, we are remembering the cries of the world, while we're sitting. Because that's the class is about that. We're here, sitting, listening to the cries of the world. We're remembering that. Which you can also understand, we're remembering a great being, a great enlightening being, who has that name, but that great enlightening being is that practice. The name of the being is the practice of that being. And we can remember that when we're sitting. And then we can get up and walk and remember it when we're walking. We can learn that. But we have to exercise our memory. What is it that we're supposed to do? Oh, yeah.

[75:28]

Listen to the cries of the world. Kanzeon. Kanzeon. Bodhisattva, enlightening being, listening to the cries of the world. Listening to the cries of the world is becoming enlightened. That's the path to Buddhahood. Buddhas do that, and they became Buddhas by doing that. Buddhas remember to listen, and they become Buddhas by remembering to listen. And we are learning to remember to listen, aren't we? And sometimes we forget. And when we forget, we're sorry, maybe. But then we start again. Yeah? There's a little gap from what we've been talking about all night and where we are right now, which is listening to the cries of the world, but earlier tonight I felt like

[76:33]

You can listen to the cries of the world, if there's suffering everywhere at all times, you don't need to go anywhere else to find it. And so, I know, and I feel like that's your message, but then my question is, then where are you or where are we about social justice, or what now comes in at the very end, listen to the cries of the world, but is it... If we're saying there's suffering all around us all the time, we don't need to listen or open ourselves up. You slipped off the boat there. You just said you don't need to listen. We don't need to look for other suffering. You don't need to look for, you look at. From what I can tell tonight, at every moment, like right now, there's suffering all around. I don't need to worry about the guy in the street. You don't need to worry about the guys in the room either. Observing with eyes and compassion isn't the same as worrying. The bodhisattvas aren't worrying about us, they're watching us. They don't have time to worry.

[77:35]

They've got enough job to be with us. They're completely with us. They're not worried about us. They're working on us to teach us how to listen. And you said, we don't have to listen. I'm not saying you don't have to listen, and I'm not even saying you do have to listen. I'm just saying that's what bodhisattvas do, is they do listen, and they listen to the guy in the street. They listen to him or her in the street. And if he calls you, if you're in the yoga room, and he's in the other room, sounding like a rat, you listen to him. And if he says, Tracy, would you come over here? You might respond by saying, OK, I'm coming. That's the way you respond sometimes when somebody says, would you come over here? You listened. They said, come over here. And you went over there. Other times they say, would you come over here? And you say, nope, I can't do that. But I'm listening to you.

[78:36]

And they feel heard, maybe. They really feel heard, even though you say, I want you to move out at the end of the week if you don't start doing your job. So you don't have to move to do this work, but if you're not moving and you're doing this work and somebody says, would you move? You very well might say, how do you want me to move? Tell me about it. Say, I want you to stand in place or I want you to take big steps. And then if you forget to say, Captain, may I? They say, go back two steps. So the point is, if you're doing this work, you can respond appropriately. And there's nobody that you're not listening to. And there's many cries which you don't really feel like you can hear. You aspire to learn to what you can't see.

[79:49]

You aspire to learn to listen to what you can't hear and to see what you can't see. This practice is a way of conduct. It's a way of deportment beyond hearing and seeing. But that doesn't mean pushing away hearing and seeing. It means by fully engaging with the cries you could hear, you open to listening to cries you cannot hear with your ears. And by observing beings that you can see with your eyes, with eyes of compassion, your wisdom eye opens to the invisible beings that you can't see right now with your eyes, but you can see them with wisdom. Excuse me for saying it, Buddha can see everybody. Seeing everybody is enlightenment. and you open to enlightenment when you accept the omnipresence of suffering in whatever form it is appearing to you. And if we resist the omnipresence, then we resist being able to hear all the cries and see all the suffering beings, which is Buddhahood.

[81:00]

But you don't have to move to be in... Buddha doesn't have to move to open to all the cries and all the sights. But if you ask Buddha, If you say to Buddha, would you please look at me, the Buddha might go, yes, what do you want? But before you called, they didn't have to turn their head. But when you called, they turned their head. Like that story I often tell, Suzuki Roshi said, sometimes when I'm sitting, I feel like I can sit forever. In other words, it's quite peaceful. And I'm doing my job. I'm not just at peace in nirvana, I'm with everybody in nirvana. I'm fine. But when the bell rings, at the end of the period, I get up and walk. So the response is, we have periods when the bell rings, we don't keep sitting, we get called to get up and walk with the group.

[82:03]

And we do it. But you didn't have to move before the bell rang. And you don't have to go in the other room before somebody calls you. you've got a full-time job here. And then, when somebody asks you to do something, you've got a full-time job listening to them and responding appropriately. And if you're fully here, that's where the appropriate songs will flow out of you, which might be to do what they ask, or it might be to give them something different. Like somebody may say, can I have money? And you say, well, I don't have money, but I have a really good apple. or I have a really good lunch that I just bought, I'll give it to you." And they might say, okay, thanks. Or they might say, I don't want that. And then you deal with that. Are you like okay now? It's a work in progress?

[83:06]

Yeah. All right, well, sorry to keep you late. I'm not blaming anybody. I accept responsibility, that's why I say I'm sorry that we went late. Please forgive me for my responsibility in going late, and whoever else is responsible.

[83:29]

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