Huh? This is a great day, huh? So this is children's day. Do you know what this is? You know what this is for? What is it for? Yeah, right. This is for walking because I broke my leg when I was riding a bicycle. I was riding a bicycle and then I fell on this side, on the sidewalk, and broke my leg. So now, then I had an operation and they put a rod down the center of my thigh, down the center of the bone in my thigh. And then, so now the leg's back together, but it takes a long time to heal, so I need to use this walker, so it can help me balance, and I don't have to put so much weight on my leg, which isn't healed yet.

[01:10]

So I fell. Part of the Buddhist practice, part of the practice is to admit when we fall, I fell. And I got hurt. But I got up with all your help. And you know what happened yesterday? Guess. I fell again. I fell again. I fell on the grass. I was doing some yard work with my walker, and I was bending over to do some yard work, but then I fell onto the grass, but I didn't get hurt.

[02:15]

So I have to be careful when I'm walking and when I'm riding my bicycle so I don't fall down. But I might fall again. And if I do, I'll tell you. Yesterday, Nancy Petran called me. Do you know who Nancy Petran is? That's Nancy over there. See that lady there by the door? That's Nancy Petrin. She called me on the telephone. And she said some very nice things to me. One of them being that she was happy to talk to me and she was happy to have an excuse to call me. And the reason why she called me was to tell me that you were coming today. She wanted me to know that all the children were coming, so I should be ready. And she told me about the program today.

[03:19]

And the program today, I think, I'm not sure, is to take tennis balls and make them into worlds, make them into planets. Did you know you live on a planet? And what's the name of the planet? Earth, right. So you already know. In the children's program, you can take tennis balls and make them into Earths. Okay? If you want to. You can also make them into Saturns, I suppose, or... Is Saturn a planet? You could make it into Saturn, I guess, if you want. That's a world, isn't it? Or you could make it into Pluto. Or Venus. Or Mars. I guess, is that okay? You could make it into the sun or you could even make it into, the Zen way is to make it into a tennis ball.

[04:21]

So that's one of the things that you'll be doing later. Do we have enough tennis balls? Oh, anyway, also we'll be learning by sharing. Sharing planets. Okay? And also, I think Nancy said they're going to try to teach you about gratitude. Is that right? Do you guys know what gratitude is? What is it? What's gratitude? What is it? Being thankful. Do you feel thankful sometimes? What do you feel thankful for? You feel thankful for your mommy? And the rest of your family?

[05:32]

You're glad you have one? Yeah. Do you say thank you to your family sometimes? Yeah, so you know something. So you're going to have exercises in gratitude later. And another thing they want to teach you is peacefulness. You know what that is? What is that? What? No, you're not going to say. What is peacefulness? Yes? No wars. Yeah. Giving up war. How about that? And think about giving up war and being peaceful. What's good about peaceful? Yes. People should stay in their own country. Yeah.

[06:39]

Unless you're a paying tourist. But basically, stay in your own country, stay in your own area, don't go invading other people, right? Unless they invite you. Well, I hope you have a wonderful time making tennis balls into worlds and I hope you learn about these practices of peacefulness and gratitude and I'm really happy to see so many of you. It's great. Thank you for coming. Bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye-bye.

[08:07]

Bye-bye. Hi. Congratulations. May I take your seat?

[09:07]

Oh, yeah. An unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect Dharma. is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Sometimes I use words in an attempt to share a sense of what I feel is most important in life.

[13:59]

In one sense, I actually enjoy, it's actually fun to use words to talk about something that's most meaningful, but at the same time I feel some discomfort in using words to talk about something so much greater than the words. So, one side I'm happy to do it, the other side I'm a little uncomfortable and I feel a little foolish to be talking about what's most important to me and maybe to you. I try to remember that the meaning is not in the words, but if we're present and ready, the meaning can come forth as we hear the words.

[15:37]

In the meeting, in the presence of the meeting, the meaning can come. So the big words are the words for the big thing that I want to bring up today. I want to talk about one big word. It's a Sanskrit word, which I will quickly translate. It's the Mahayana. which can be translated as many ways, but one way is the great vehicle, the universal vehicle. How many people have not heard of this term Mahayana before? Would you raise your hands? So it's a name for In a sense you could say it's the name of a Buddhist movement that originated in India, spread to China, Tibet, Korea, Mongolia, Central Asia, a little bit to Southeast Asia, did I say Korea?

[17:03]

Japan, Vietnam, United States, Europe, Mexico, South America, Canada, Iceland, and so on. And now it's heading towards the Middle East with great difficulty. But in, I think, a more true sense, it's not really a Buddhist thing, it's just the way It's the way that living beings are working together in the world for the salvation of all living beings. It isn't really the Buddhist onus thing. Any process of the way beings live together that liberates beings from fear,

[18:09]

and cruelty and suffering and bondage, that process of liberating beings, not just helping them through the difficulty, but actually setting them free, the process of setting beings free on the level of all beings, that's the universal vehicle. of salvation for all, every single living being, not just human, but all beings. This is the Mahayana. Whatever that is, however that works, the Buddhists have raised that issue, but not just the Buddhists. Other religious traditions have raised the possibility of a way we are that liberates all of us. And that prospect, a lot of people are kind of at ease with that possibility.

[19:21]

They think it's a nice idea. Universal freedom and peace and happiness of all beings. Now, the next part is kind of a difficult part, difficult to understand part, but I wanted to raise it today. Again, it's a big topic. It's a word that refers to a big thing or important thing, and it's to say that this process, this possibility of life a way of living that liberates all beings, this Mahayana is a profound understanding, it's a wisdom, it's a deep understanding of what we call emptiness.

[20:28]

that the liberation of all beings, the salvation of all beings is a deep understanding of emptiness. To understand emptiness is to understand the Mahayana. To understand emptiness is to understand how beings are liberated, and to enter into and be intimate with emptiness is to enter into and be intimate with the salvation of all beings. Similarly, if if one who is working for the welfare of all beings, if such a being with such a vow would fall away from emptiness, would get out of touch with this thing called emptiness, then that being who wants to help all beings would fall away from the actual process of helping all beings be free.

[21:54]

So those who wish to promote this universal salvation, who wish to be intimate with this process, need to be intimate with emptiness. Zen Buddhism is a form of this, is a particular form of this limitless movement of universal salvation. It can have infinite forms. It could be, it could appear, it could look like Christianity, it could look like Islam. One of the forms of liberation of all beings is Zen. So Zen can be called a religion, and you can also call Zen not a religion.

[23:01]

But let's just start out in a positive sense. Zen is a religion of emptiness. Sometimes they say Zen is the religion of emptiness. I think that's a little proprietary. It's a religion of emptiness. which means it's a religion of wisdom. But it is also a religion of precepts, which means it's a religion of compassion. It's also a religion of giving, of generosity. which means it's a religion of compassion. It's also a religion of patience, which means it's a religion of compassion.

[24:10]

It's also a religion of heroic works and effort for the welfare of all, which means it's a religion of compassion. And it's also a religion of samadhi, a religion of realizing a non-dual state of consciousness, which means it's a religion of compassion. Zen is both a religion of wisdom and a religion of compassion. But today I'd like to, again, put a little bit more emphasis on how it's a religion of wisdom. And it's a wisdom of emptiness. I'd like to talk about emptiness. I've just talked about how important, not the word, but how important this, whatever this thing called emptiness is for those who wish to benefit all beings.

[25:17]

Emptiness is a word we use to indicate ultimate reality. It's a word we use to indicate the way everything is. In other words, in order to realize the salvation of all beings, there must be an understanding of the way everything is. Or put it the other way, when there is an understanding of the way everything is, then there is the salvation. excuse me, when there is an understanding of the way things, everything is, coupled with great compassion. So for a being who is devoted to the welfare of all beings, when that being has a deep understanding of the way everything is, then there is salvation.

[26:25]

And the way everything is, is that everything is empty. All things are empty. And empty means many, again, words, words, words, emptiness means that everything depends on everything else. that nothing exists independently of the rest of the universe. No thing independently exists. Nothing has inherent existence. Everything, everything is ultimately ungraspable. Superficially you may think you can grasp something like your baby your girlfriend, your car keys.

[27:30]

But if you look deeply, [...] you will see that you can never really get a thing called the car keys. The car keys are an ultimate reality, ungraspable and unattainable. And so is every feeling, every motivation, every sensation, every idea, everything is ungraspable, unattainable, insubstantial, unknowable in itself. You can relate to things, but ultimately when you relate to one thing, you relate to everything. And when you see that, you can't get that thing by itself. This vision, this understanding, this, when deeply realized, liberates beings, is the liberation of beings.

[28:34]

So those who wish totally for the welfare of others, and not just the welfare, but the complete salvation of others, they must understand that there's no others. independently exist. There are others, but they don't independently exist. There's no others without a self. But this is difficult, this teaching. The word emptiness is difficult. The other words that kind of convey it, like not knowing, are almost like definitions of anxiety and fear.

[29:40]

So again, you can say Zen is the religion of not knowing. And some people feel not knowing is primal fear or primal terror. So, in the process of liberating all beings, or the process of liberating all beings is the place or the way that we are able, that there's facing, that there's the ability to face, in a relaxed way, face, not knowing. to face everything that happens, to face everything that happens without knowing, without grasping.

[30:50]

So, in order to get to that place where beings are saved, we have to go through facing fear. Because as we approach not knowing, not always, but often, anxiety and fear arise, terror arises. There is, which I haven't mentioned before today, but there is a well-established kind of sense of a separate self in the human tradition. And the sense of separate self is a sense of basically of seeking and grasping.

[31:56]

So to consider, to look at, not grasping things, affronts this separate self, which has all kinds of alarm systems that go off when we contemplate a non-separate self. So I know that the word emptiness is kind of not a comfortable word for a lot of us, that not knowing or the unknown is difficult to look at, even just the words.

[33:07]

even to spend our time considering the word, not knowing, not thinking, which also means to look at the words, not Zen, not religion. Most people come to a Zen center for Zen. They don't come for not Zen. But Zen is a religion of not Zen. but we put a nice sign out saying Zen Center and you come inside and we say not Zen Center please get used to not Zen Center but not Zen Center is not just the opposite of Zen Center it's that you can't get a Zen Center there's no Zen Center here and now we want you to be centered on no Zen Center to try to like be able to keep your eye on no Zen center.

[34:13]

Which doesn't mean there isn't a Zen center, it just means there's nothing there you can get as, where is the Zen center? Where does it begin? Where does it end? There really is no Zen center at the Zen center. This is hard to look at. You don't get anything for this. You might say, well, don't you get the liberation of all beings? I say, well, yeah, you do actually get the liberation of all beings for looking at the teaching that there isn't a Zen center, that there's no such thing. But we don't, you know, you don't get it, I don't get it, everybody gets it.

[35:22]

Again, I was going to say, some people tell me they don't like that word emptiness. But I don't want to say some people tell me they don't like the word emptiness. I don't want to have me like it and them not like it. So I just say, I think a lot of us have trouble with this word emptiness. It's not a real cozy word, is it? It's not real warm. It doesn't have a lot of warmth, does it? Matter of fact, a lot of people come to Zen Center and they say, well, where's the heart? Say, well, we have a Heart Sutra. But actually, if you read the Heart Sutra, the Heart Sutra is really heartless. What does it say? It says, we have a Heart Sutra that says, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste. Then it says, no suffering, no origins of suffering, no end of suffering, kind of heartless. That's the Heart Sutra we got. Where's the heart?

[36:49]

Emptiness is the heart? No, it's not. Is love the heart? Yes, love is the heart of Zen Center. But to realize that love for all beings, you've got to look at this real cool thing called emptiness, which is, you know, kind of like, it's nobody's. You don't get to have it, I don't get to have it, we don't get to have it. It's like totally selfless. We need this totally selfless thing to realize this love center of Zen Center, which isn't even there. And because it isn't there or here, it can save all beings. Because it's already there in nature. We just have to like stop grasping after things and the realization will be there.

[38:01]

But it's hard to look at the unknown. So this is, well, first of all, thank you for letting me talk about this obnoxious topic of emptiness. Thank you for letting me tell you how it's basically equal to the Mahayana. Emptiness is basically equal to it. It's the same thing. Or if you want to, you could say, a love whose essence is Emptiness is the Mahayana. But I didn't say exactly that... I don't want to say actually that emptiness is the Mahayana. Okay? It's not insubstantiality that's the liberation. That's the liberation of all beings. It's the understanding of insubstantiality that is the salvation of all beings. It's not that not knowing is the salvation of all beings.

[39:06]

It's understanding not knowing that is the salvation of all beings. It's the wisdom of emptiness that is the liberation of beings, not the emptiness. Ultimate truth is not the liberation of all beings. It's understanding of ultimate truth that's the liberation of all beings. Okay? Now the other side is that in order to work to understand the liberation of all beings, in order to be willing to do this this meditation of facing, not knowing, in order to be willing to do the work, the activity, the job of meditating on perhaps the most terrifying thing of selflessness. In order to do that, we have to have great compassion.

[40:10]

So I'm trying to say, oh, understanding emptiness is really great. It's really great. Now I'd like to say that we have to have great love to look at it. Because it's hard to look at it. But if we love enough, if we love beings enough, and understand the importance of this understanding, we will be able to gradually face selflessness. But nothing is more difficult to face than selflessness, than no-self. Because we are beings who naturally have self-clinging. And we have the potential to realize our already true selflessness. We already have and are selfless. We don't have to become selfless.

[41:15]

We are selfless. Already. But because of our attachment to self, centeredness, it's frightening for us to look at what we truly are. But if we love enough, we will gradually be able to face this terrifying ultimate way we are. And in that sense, Zen is a religion, or a not religion, of compassion, because we have to have great compassion. So at the beginning I said to the children, and I say to you, I fell. I fell. You know, what's that? A Zen priest falls down, so what? But still, you know, I felt somewhat embarrassed to be smashed on the sidewalk in Houston, Texas.

[42:25]

really like drilled to the earth and like I could not get up and it's good that I didn't try. I felt the time between riding the bicycle and being on the ground was very short, it seemed to me. So, what happened in that space? I'm supposed to be a meditator, right? Why wasn't that an infinity of time between riding the bicycle and being on the sidewalk? Where was I? What was I doing? What was I looking at? Why wasn't I, like, noticing every little step of the way down to the ground? I fell. I fell. I fell from being totally present with every little moment of that fall.

[43:31]

This is a slip in my practice. And when I slip in my practice, I get feedback. In this case, a broken femur and also a fractured lesser trochanter, an intertrochanter fracture and a broken femur. a broken femur shaft. This is the kind of help I get in my meditation. Don't be present, feedback. Then yesterday I fell again. I wasn't being so careful. I wasn't like, you know, really into the every little minutia of the flow of the chi as I was doing the yard work. So part of the practice, part of the way of getting ready to face emptiness and enter into the liberation of all beings is to be very careful of everything you do, to be very present with every step you take, with every rotation of your bicycle wheel, to be present and

[44:54]

Maybe to stop the bicycle or not even get on the bicycle if I'm not ready to be present every stroke of the way. As I move from here to there, not to get caught by getting from here to there, but be with each little step. Again, one side of Zen is, you know, like we often see these circles, right? These big circles that the Zen teachers make. Big empty circles. This is like emptiness. But also, it's the practice of minute attention to every little movement, every little thing you say. And confessing when you fall. So I confess, I've fallen. And from my fallen state, I'm not so afraid to look at emptiness.

[46:02]

Well, from my confessed fallen state, if I'm hiding, if I'm embarrassed to be smashed onto the ground, if I'm not confessing, my fallen state, then I'm afraid if I would tell you, you wouldn't think I was a good meditator. The thought may have been in the airwaves around the Zen world. Hmm, he fell off a bicycle. Is that like a sign of a great yogi? Was his meditation practice really good? Who is responsible for this accident? The lawyer inside maybe says, well, we weren't doing so bad. And now that, another thing I must admit is when I hit the sidewalk, I didn't say thank you.

[47:15]

I didn't say thank you, Buddha. And I'm kind of sorry I didn't. But at the same time, I accept that not only did I fall, but after I fell, I fell again. I kind of said, no, I didn't want this to happen today. Falling is not the main thing. It's the admitting that you fall, when you fall. And if I look, I think that when I see how fallen I am, and I'm comfortable with that, and I face that without wishing I wasn't fallen,

[48:21]

I think I'm ready to look at the unknown. I'm not so afraid then. When I don't feel fallen, I have to accept that I don't feel fallen. And then, if I would look at the unknown, I might fall. So I'm afraid. But if I look at the fear and relax with it, my eyes open to the unknown, and I learn to live with it. And it's very similar.

[49:25]

It's inseparable. from being fallen. So again, if I don't feel that I've fallen, if I feel like I'm not broken, I'm not broken, I'm standing up, I'm okay, everything's kind of like okay, I'm kind of like together here in one piece, I'm healing, which means holding back into one piece, one like little integral little walking person. Here I am, all fixed up. Then, if I look at the unknown, it's almost like falling. It seems dangerous. There's something about being ready to fall, being ready to break,

[50:28]

or having already been broken and already fallen, opening to this helps me open to the unknown or to not knowing. And again, I feel for myself, I must learn to live with, intimately live with not knowing. If I want to be intimate, with this wonderful thing called the Mahayana. The price of admission to the salvation process is to face the ungraspable, unknowable, but omnipresent emptiness. Now again, people who don't like the word emptiness, when they hear of the word interdependence, they like that word better.

[51:40]

And it turns out that emptiness and interdependence are equal. So then these people say, why don't you just talk about interdependence? If they're the same. And they really are. And in fact, I do talk about interdependence and so do a lot of other people, which is no problem. Why bring up emptiness ever? Well, the reason is that when people hear interdependence, sometimes they think that what they're hearing has a self. They think there's a thing called interdependence that they can get. Because they think interdependence is all this great, beautiful web of interconnectedness that supports us all Right? It's true. There's this wonderful interdependent net that supports you every moment. You're never disconnected. You're never alone. You're always together with everybody.

[52:43]

So there's really no problem. Nothing to be afraid of, because of interdependence, interdependence, interdependence. Okay? But the problem is people make that into something they grasp. they make it into something knowable, and then they fall away from the Mahayana. So the emptiness is to help us not make this wonderful interdependence into a thing which we grasp. So if emptiness gets to be too heavy, look at interdependence for a while, but really, not too long. Try to Try to face this way of being with things, of not grasping them. When you meet a feeling, a person, a tree, a thought, see if you can meet it without grasping.

[53:59]

And then when you become afraid as you're meeting someone without grasping, see if you can not grasp the fear. See if you can relax with the fear. And then you will realize your true selfless nature. And if you have trouble doing such a meditation, than practice compassion in the form of practicing the precepts, which includes admitting your shortcomings, admitting your distractions from what's happening, admitting that you're falling often. Falling isn't the practice, but admitting the falling is the practice of compassion. The practice of precepts is to admit when you slip away from them. And the more you practice confession, the more you confess that you're slipping away from compassion, the more you come back to compassion.

[55:15]

And the more you practice compassion, the more you'll be able to look at what you have to look at if you want to participate in the salvation of all beings. The Mahayana. I was just thinking, you know, that I confessed today that I fell, I gave you two examples, and of course there's others, and we could go on with me telling you about all the ways I've fallen, but, you know, it's not so important for you to listen to me telling you about how I've fallen.

[56:20]

It's important for me to be willing to tell you that I've fallen, and tell you how if you want to know. The most important thing is that I confess my falling and you confess yours, so don't spend too much time listening to me talk about my lack of practice. I was just doing that for myself and also to show you how to do it. Although I don't know if I did a good job. So if you have any feedback to me on my confession practice, I'd appreciate it. I mean, I don't know if I'd appreciate it, I welcome it and I'll try to relax while you're giving me feedback. Because a lot of people come and tell me about their falling, and I listen, I mostly listen and give feedback sometimes, if I don't understand what they mean.

[57:22]

Mostly all I have to do is understand what they're saying, that's good enough. then that takes care of the process of confessing the falling. And as we confess the falling, confess the falling, the root of the falling melts away, and gradually we learn to stay on the beam of compassion. And if we stay on the beam of compassion, always like on the beam of compassion, always thinking of how to be kind to all beings, and including this being right in front of me now, then we dare to face not knowing the beings that we feel compassion for. And then the Mahayana, and that's the Mahayana. Thank you very much.

[58:30]

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