May I say something that I said before? The Heart Sutra starts out, Avalokiteshvara, when deeply practicing prajnaparamita, clearly saw that all phenomena are empty and thus relieved all suffering and distress. Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of great compassion, practicing perfect wisdom, sees that all phenomena are empty And seeing this way saves all suffering, liberates all suffering and distress.

[01:03]

And there's also a teaching by the great ancestor Nagarjuna that unless you're well grounded in conventional in the conventional truth it's not appropriate to teach the ultimate truth of emptiness. But without teaching the ultimate truth of emptiness liberation is not possible. So helping others in order to help others we must realize the ultimate truth for example that others do not really exist as entities that's the ultimate truth or the ultimate truth is also that all truths including the ultimate truth are contingent

[02:21]

or others who you wish to help are yourself. We need that kind of vision in order for beings to be really helped. But that understanding, that ultimate truth should not be taught until you're well grounded in the conventional. in form, in feelings, in emotions, in perceptions, in consciousness. So, practicing deeply Prajnaparamita means the practice of getting ready for this kind of vision means that you're really a loving form and feeling and perceptions and so on. So disciplined form is emptiness.

[03:32]

Totally engaging form, totally engaging feeling is emptiness. So I wrote up on the board this morning, disciplined form is emptiness. Loved form is emptiness. And I drew a line from emptiness down to helping others. But also a line from disciplined form or loved form to ritual ripeness. So these forms, you cannot realize the ultimate truth with conventional forms. But if you take care of conventional forms, if you love them, that loving of them, or that disciplined relationship with them,

[04:54]

as ritual, realizes emptiness and helps others. And it's early in the morning, so I can give you this really difficult teaching. Last night, Rose asked, I think she asked something like, is there really no such thing as helping others? Is that what you said? Pardon? Speak up. Yeah.

[05:58]

There is realization of helping others even though there's no such thing as helping others. There is realization of ultimate truth even though there's no such thing as ultimate truth. Ultimate truth is that all truths, including ultimate truths, are contingent. Ultimate truths are dependent. There's no thing and so after we say that talking about phenomena all phenomena are non-dual therefore none of them are really real However, even though that's the case, that doesn't mean that there's nothing being discussed.

[07:06]

What is being discussed is the reality which those who detach from words realize. And those who are detached from words use words to help others move towards the reality which is detached from words. Or use forms to help others move towards the reality which is detached from forms. And how do you detach from forms? How do you detach from forms? Practice them wholeheartedly.

[08:12]

Be disciplined with them. Love them completely. And you will detach from them. And that kind of relationship is what helps others. And again, we've been talking about actually many ways to really love forms, to love conventionalities like words, to love words, to love rules, to love forms, to love precepts. and love them so completely that you don't abide in them, that you don't attach to them. And that's where beings are helped. And beings are helped. Beings are helped. There's no beings that are helped.

[09:16]

And that's how you help beings. And you need to realize that, or that needs to be realized in order for beings to really be helped. and any other way you try to help beings again, like giving them a seat or giving them water just supports them to live a little longer for the day when they'll be really helped. So all the ways you support beings to continue to live they're fine but it doesn't really help them because they're suffering and they're distressed until they enter into total engagement, total love, disciplined relationship with form, and so on. So that they also can realize there's no such thing as form, there's no such thing as feeling, there's no such thing as compassion, there's no such thing as emptiness, there's no such thing as helping people.

[10:30]

when you realize there's no such thing as helping people. Through loving people completely realizing there's no such thing as people through loving others completely you realize there are no others and that's what helps others. And part of loving others completely is to love all others Because if you love some others completely, you might think that that's possible. But it's actually not possible to love one other completely unless you're loving one other completely for the sake of all others. So again, total engagement in colors, sounds, smells, humans, non-humans, fear, jealousy,

[11:32]

hatred, total engagement in these things is only possible if it's total. And when it's total, you won't abide in the thing you're being totally loving. When you practice the forms totally, you won't imbibe in them. This is the discipline which is ultimate truth. This discipline is the same as ultimate truth. And not only can't we love something completely unless loving this thing is for the sake of all beings, but also we can't love it completely unless we do it together with all beings.

[12:43]

So not only do we do a thing for all beings, but we do a thing with all beings. It's not just for them, it's with them and with their support. I cannot love something. I cannot discipline something completely by myself. It's only with your help that I can completely take care of something for everything. And again, that's what I mean by a disciplined form. And to use forms in that way is the form to become ritual. So I'm picking up a cup for the sake of all beings. So I'm not just picking up the cup to get the cup at a higher altitude or to get some water. Although I did bring it to a higher altitude and there is some water here and I can drink it.

[13:46]

But it's a ritual when this is an offering to all Buddhas. It's a ritual when this is an offering to all beings. It's a ritual when I'm imagining that you're all helping me. And it it's a more, you know, ungraspable experience when I'm offering it to all beings and all beings are helping me. So the ritual is not something I think I'm really like getting a hold of. It's an imaginative act. And all our actions are imaginative, but we don't necessarily notice it. So again, ritual is like play, especially play for little children. And ritual brings you back

[14:49]

the play of young children where they're playfully creating worlds. For example, children might play they might play mother and daughter or mother and son. So one of the children plays the child and the other child plays the mother. But the the child who's playing the child is now aware that they're playing a child. Whereas ordinarily they're playing the role of a child, but they don't notice that they're playing the role of a child. But when they're playing, consciously playing, they realize they're playing the role of a child, which they were before, but they didn't notice it because they weren't aware that they weren't. Children aren't always playing. I mean, they're always playing, but they aren't always conscious of it.

[15:52]

adults also are especially social adults are always playing but they don't necessarily notice it and of course the child who's playing the part of the mother they also know they're playing the part of the mother but they may not notice that when they're not playing the part of the mother they're playing the part of the child when we do rituals it takes us back to the possibility of realizing that we're playing a part all the time, that we're imaginatively inhabiting our life. So, for example, I may play the part of a teacher, you may play the part of a student. And it's possible that some teachers think that they're actually a teacher rather than that they're playing the part of a teacher. And because they think that they're actually playing the part of the teacher, some people hesitate to play the part of a teacher because they think that they'll forget that they're playing, that it's a ritual.

[17:02]

So then they go around perhaps holding back and thinking there's such a thing as a teacher. And the students also maybe hold back and think there's such a thing as a student and such a thing as a teacher. So I'm suggesting if you play the student-teacher thing and you realize that this is a play and you're doing it for the sake of all beings, you might be able to remember that it's a play as you get into it and that it's a ritual. It's a ritual to help you realize emptiness. It's a ritual to help you realize helping all beings even though there's no such thing as helping all beings or ritual or you or other. Yeah, so a couple things came up this morning.

[18:19]

I got a note saying, it said can, crossed out, and then changed to will. You talk about the difference between being playful with love and kindness and poking, sometimes hurtfully, sometimes hurtful play, poking play, sometimes hurtful play, that many of us learned growing up. Actually, I don't know if you learned it. I think it kind of... You don't need any instruction, I don't think. I think being human, you can come up with that from innumerable past lives. Some of our ancestors, you know, like our mammalian ancestors and mammalian cousins and so on, like dogs and bears, they play Some people say that some experts say that ants don't play.

[19:25]

Ants. Not the ants that go with uncles, but the other big species on the planet besides the humans are the ants. So some ant aficionados say, I studied them very carefully, I don't think they play. But a lot of other animals do play, and we play. And we know how to use play as a cover for trying to do something unplayful, like hurt somebody. We know how to even trick ourselves into not noticing that. So one of the things I would suggest in this regard is, along the lines of disciplined form, or using ritual and play, is to be, the more intimate you get, get more formal.

[20:38]

So as the discipline of the form intensifies, get more formal, spend more time clarifying what the rules are, what the precepts are, what the regulations are, what the forms are. Not to get things tied down, but to be clear about whether you're actually be relaxed, or whether you're actually taking something that's tied down, like trying to hurt somebody, and slipping it into the game secretly. Not to control the situation, but to make it clearer so you can see if anybody's trying to control. So I was talking actually to some adults about their intimate relationships and how they need form and then I was also talking to someone about some children who actually are very intimate and they need form.

[21:58]

We need forms in order to draw our attention to whether there's playfulness, whether there's playfulness. And so in the example of poking fun that might be hurtful one of the key elements in play and ritual both play and ritual are fragile things. And to love a form involves being calm Part of loving a form is to be calm with it. Part of loving a form is to be gracious with it. But sometimes when children are playing or adults are playing and you get excited

[23:03]

with the play, in that excitement, if you're not calm with the excitement, or if you're not present and balanced with the excitement, in that lack of presence, unconscious elements slip into the situation. And they're unattended, and they act through the play. you're being playful with someone or some people are being playful with each other and suddenly this strange hurtful remark just pops out and I would suggest that if it pops out with attention it's different than if it pops out without and also it might not pop out at all if there was attention in the first place so playfulness actually requires attention otherwise it slips into not playfulness but manipulation and it can slip from playfulness into manipulation very easily if you're not calm and relaxed so relaxation is necessary but then along with the relaxation is

[24:32]

concentration. And concentration is part of it, but it's a relaxed concentration. So playfulness does take some effort. Or I should say it comes with giving effort to the situation. Playfulness isn't the same as carelessness. there's a sincerity in playfulness. You know, children are playing quite sincerely, quite concentratedly, but also relaxed. And part of what can help the concentration is to be spend energy, give energy to clarifying forms so you can see if you're being playful and concentrated if you're being relaxed and attentive not a relaxed and careless relax can go with careless

[25:55]

But that is not the relaxed that goes with playfulness and disciplined form and total engagement. Total engagement requires relaxation, playfulness, concentration, patience, generosity, energy, devotion, and also precepts. So maybe later this issue of the precept ceremony may come up. So these precepts are like, don't kill. When you're playing, don't kill. Or rather, practice the precept of not killing while you're playing. Real play is practicing the precept of not killing. Don't take what's not given. Again, sometimes children are playing, and they seem to take something that's not given and the other person they're playing with doesn't think it's play anymore I was just playing well the other person doesn't see it that way and also some other people observing doesn't seem like play because they lost concentration they lost the awareness

[27:17]

that they should ask for that before they take it even though you're playing you can still ask for that in a playful way. Can I have your clothes? Can I have your toothbrush? So I think of that now somewhat famous story of me being with my grandson and he wants to eat the orange and he's trying to peel it and having a hard time and I ask him if he wants to help I want some help peeling it and he says yes so I take the orange and I bite the top off and he totally freaks out you put your mouth on my orange and he just really freaks out I was kind of I wasn't doing it to be funny I was just I was doing the grandfather ritual But I wasn't careful enough, you know.

[28:19]

May I bite your orange? May I put my mouth on it? May I put my fingers in it? May I use a knife? So if I'd been more careful, I wouldn't have such a nice story to tell you. But still, I wasn't really careful. I said, well, I asked you if you wanted to help me with the orange, and I'm helping with the orange. But that's not maybe formal enough. If I wasn't so close to him, if it was some other little boy that I didn't know so well, and I asked him if he'd like me to help, I might not have bitten the orange. I might have thought, hmm, would it be all right if I bit the top off to get You know? More formal. So someone, you say, yes, someone, would you like me to help you? And they say yes.

[29:21]

And then you start helping them. And they say, what are you doing? You know? Well, I asked you if you wanted me to help you, and now I'm helping you. But still, you should ask me how you're going to help me. And then you might say, well, that's too much. Well, then you don't really want to make the effort, so you don't really want to help them. May I help you? Yes. Now, how should we proceed from here? I have some idea, but you may not think that's helpful. So, in this process of total engagement in the project of helping the person, you find out there's no such thing as helping You can't get a hold of what it is because you can't decide and they can't decide. They can tell you, but neither side can decide by themselves, so neither side can get a hold of it. So if you're, again, if you're playing with somebody, the play is going along really well, but you can lose it if you lose your concentration and lose... and you can take what's not given.

[30:36]

You can violate a precept. you know, again, may I help you? Yes. And then you take a bigger assignment than they meant to give to you. And you didn't mean to take it, but you didn't ask what it was. Let's have pizza together. You want to have pizza? Yeah. So let's have pizza. And the person says, have a piece. And then you reach and take a piece. And they say, you took the big one. You know? I asked you if I could have a piece and you said I could. That's not playful to think that you ask if you can have one, they say, and then that's the end of the story. No, playful is, well, which one should I have? Do you really mean that? Well, actually, no. I didn't really mean that. I was just playing. I don't want you to have a piece. So being playful is high energy. It's very intense. It's intense.

[31:37]

That's why children like it. That's how their brains develop, is in the intensity of human relationships. It's not like, well, I'll play. Okay, well, I'll play the way I think we're going to play. No. Well, how? What is play? What do you mean by that? Well, at this rate, we're never going to start playing. That's right. It takes a long time to even get set up to start playing. like in this retreat it takes a lot of work to be able to play a lot of play to establish play setting up and the more intense it gets the more formal you need to get basically the more agreements the more you need to like not assume what the other person wants and again if you think how can we proceed well that's not the point to proceed To get somewhere isn't the point when you're playing. What we're doing now, setting up the forms, this is the play.

[32:44]

It doesn't seem like play, but play doesn't seem like play. Play is not supposed to be like play. Forms, rituals are not supposed to be like ritual. Because if ritual is supposed to be like ritual, then you think there's such a thing as ritual. But ritual is to realize there's no such thing as it. if it's Buddhist ritual, if it's ritual about realizing ultimate truth and helping people. If it's about helping people, it's helping people realize that mind and helping and clients and patients and doctors and there's no... they don't exist as entities. They only exist relationally. That's what helps I think it's breakfast time, right?

[33:51]

I'll just tell you one quick story. When I was a little boy, I wasn't so little actually, I think I was eight years old, and I was quite developed at eight years old. If I look back at what I was thinking about, I was really into religion. and play. And my play and my religion were closely related. I used to play by myself in a beautiful room I had with windows on three sides. I used to play up there by myself and think about Jesus and stuff like that and conscience. I'll tell you this other story later. It's the story of the ringing in my ear that happened in that room. Anyway, I used to play in that room. My parents got worried because I used to play up there so much by myself. They thought it was strange that I was up there playing and, you know, playing religion with my toys.

[35:03]

I was like, you know, I used to bite some of my painted wooden toys. I used to bite them because I liked the experience of biting and feeling my teeth sink through the paint into the wood. And it probably had lead in it, right, which accounts for the way I am. So anyway, I was up there biting my toys, and then after I bit them I would feel great sadness for them because they were now dented toys, but I really liked to bite them. But they seemed to be more accepting of it than people. So I was up there by myself having a pretty good time, I thought, but my parents were worried about me, so they sent me to have my ears checked. They thought maybe I was hard of hearing or something. And my ears are alright, so then they sent me to a psychiatrist. And his name was Dr. Hansen. And I would go to see him and he would say, is there anything you want to talk about?

[36:09]

And I would say, no. And then we would build things. We would play. We would make airplanes, ships, cars, model cities, forts. And I got to take the stuff home. And also, I could make these things much better with his help, because he's, you know, he's a doctor, a grown adult doctor. So we can make really nice model airplanes and stuff. And then at the end of the session, he would say, is there anything you want to talk about? And I would say, no. And I used to, at eight years old, travel all the way across Minneapolis by myself to go see him. I really liked to go see him. And once a month all the crazy kids got together to have a party. And we played Old Maid and Monopoly and they gave us ice cream and cake.

[37:17]

Yes, being crazy, being a disturbed child was not that bad. And then I'd go see Dr. Hansen and he'd say, is there anything you want to talk about? And I'd say, no, and we'd make something nice. And I'd say, anything you want to talk about? I'd say, no, and then I'd go back home. And so I, but then I, at some point I stopped going to see him because it was soccer season and I didn't want to miss any soccer games. But I actually really enjoyed going and playing with Dr. Hansen. And I think maybe he enjoyed playing with me too. I don't know. I was blessed by lots of kindness from many beings. And I want to share that blessing with you. And I want you to receive it and share it with all beings.

[38:23]

I want you to play with all beings and learn how to do that in such a way that you're really completely loving them with the aid and for the sake of all beings while you're playing with them. And you use all these practices to check on your love. Are you concentrated? Are you patient? Are you generous? Are you ethical? Are you energetic? Are you relaxed? Are you creative? And do you have some forms that you're using that are clear? And are you willing to make the effort to clarify what the forms are and maintain the understanding of the forms in order to play There's forms in putting those little decals on those airplanes and wrapping the paper around the balsa wood structure.

[39:29]

There's forms. We were working with forms, you know. And as you know, some kids when they're doing this play therapy, they break the toys. Or they're too concerned with the toys not getting broken. one of the airplanes I made I brought home and my little brother put the airplane on top of a lamp and it melted over the lamp but because of Dr. Hansen's playfulness with me I just realized my little brother is just a little boy he didn't know that the airplane would melt on the lamp so I didn't beat him up Because Dr. Hansen taught me to be kind. And we need to be taught to love.

[40:35]

And we need to learn to love. It's not something that comes with being a baby. It has to be taught. We have to learn it. So we need to play the game of learning to be kind with these forms. And that's ritual. the ritual of learning, rather than the actuality of learning, the ritual of learning, the playfulness of learning. When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbing along, Along, there'll be no more sobbing when she starts singing her old sweet song. Wake up, wake up, you sleepyhead. Get up, get up, get out of bed. Cheer up.

[41:37]

Cheer up, the sun is red. Live, love, laugh and be happy. Though I've been blue, now I'm walking through fields of flowers. Rain may glisten, but still I listen for hours and hours. I'm just a kid again, doing what I did again. Singing a song when the red, red robin comes by. Bop, bop, boppin' along. Bop, bop, boppin' along. Yeah! Good luck in the breakfast area. Remember, there's danger in play, so be careful. No unauthorized food fights. If we want to have that form, we can use that form.

[42:44]

But we have to be carefully arranged at the form.

[42:47]

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