Thank you for supporting me to go to the city and pay my respects and contribute to the ongoing process of reconciliation between the people of our Sangha. for a few of our meetings here, maybe for a month or two, and longer, I've been bringing up a story about a student of the, what we call, Buddha Dharma,

[01:01]

who met, he met the great teacher Baizhang, and then Baizhang died, and he studied with one of Baizhang's students, major successors named Guishan. And while he was studying with Guishan, at a certain point Guishan said, I don't want you to talk to me anymore about what you've read, or what you think about the Buddhist teaching. I just want you to... Anyway, you must say something from the place before. from the place before your mind discriminated objects. You must say something from there.

[02:09]

And he was unable to do so. He tried, and Guishan said, no, that's not what I mean. And he tried, and Guishan said, no, And he burned all his notebooks and study materials and decided just to go live a simple life. And I would say basically meditate on that instruction, the instruction of saying something from the place before or the time before the self was born. And I was struck by a comment on this case which was that this person, this actually very wholehearted practitioner of meditation and meditation teaching, he had the problem of mind, the comment was.

[03:26]

Didn't say that he had a problem mind, something wrong with his mind. He had the problem of mind. Mind was his problem. I was struck by that a long time ago. So he was studying the Buddha Dharma from the perspective of mind. And from the perspective of mind, he worked really hard studying the teaching and discussing the teaching with his teachers. And finally one of his teachers said, commenting on these teachings from the point of view of your mind, from the standpoint of your mind. I want you to say something from before your mind, from before the mind that's born. I want you to say something before that deals with birth and death. I want you to say something. So at one point, anyway, he's doing some yard work around a memorial site.

[04:39]

As he's sweeping, he dislodges a pebble. The pebble sort of flies through the air and hits a stalk of bamboo and goes pop. And he hears this sound, or sees this sight. But he hears it from the place of being free from the mind. He still hears, but he doesn't hear it from the point of view of mind. And he understands the place that he was instructed to go to, and then he speaks from that place. And he writes a poem or two and sends them via monk mail back to his teacher. His teacher reads the poem and he feels that this poem is coming from the place that is free of the standpoint of mind.

[05:43]

And one of the teacher's other more senior students said, I don't know about that. I'm going to test him next time I see him. And the next time they meet, he does test him. And this monk, his name is Xiang Yang, his first response to being tested was to say that verse again. And his Dharma brother, Yangshan, says, again, that could have come to learn from the standpoint of mind, he felt. Or I should just say that that was his response. And so he asked him to give another poem, and he did give another poem. And that poem goes something like, Last year's poverty was not genuine poverty. This year's poverty is real poverty.

[06:51]

Last year I had a place to go. This year there's no place and no hoe to plant. And his elder brother said, that's pretty good, but still you don't really understand. And then he gave another verse which was something like, I'm here, this is what's happening with me, if you don't understand, That's your problem." And then his elder brother said, okay. And then later he became a teacher and he wrote a verse which I mentioned before which goes something like, The chick pecks from inside the shell. The hen pecks from outside. The chick breaks free from the shell.

[08:04]

And then chick and hen are forgotten. They sing the same song. solo, something like that. So I've been talking about this process of pecking from inside and pecking from outside. Pecking from inside the mind, and when we peck from inside, something pecks from outside the mind. And I proposed that we're always pecking from inside. As long as we have a mind, as long as we're living from the standpoint of mind, which is the case for many of us, we're actually pecking on that mind surface all day long. We say, it's a good day, it's a bad day.

[09:10]

This is good, this is bad. What's going on? Please help, may I help you. Everything we do is actually of our mind. And that which is free of mind pecks back and encourages us to keep pecking. And when we peck, it pecks back. So when the monk was pecking on the surface of his mind, He was hearing Buddhist teachings, which were a response to his pecking, and then he pecked back on the Buddhist teaching, but he pecked back on the mind, his mind's version of the teachings. The teachings are coming all the time, but they're not inside the shell of mind. But these teachings are directed to beings who are living within the shell of mind.

[10:12]

And those beings sometimes sense that something's pecking from the outside. And again, one of the main ways they peck back is to start studying Buddhist teachings, like reading Buddhist scriptures. With their eyes, or saying them out loud, something led this into these words. on the surface of our mind. And when we look at these, when we look at them, we're pecking back at the place this teaching came from. And then more teachings come. Being here, the seeing of other people and buildings and trees and stuff in a way that we know them, The seeing of other living beings is not the way they are.

[11:23]

It's the way we know them. It's the way we construct them into appearances. So now we're practicing with these appearances in such a way as to become free of the appearances, these mentally constructed appearances. And these appearances is, if you excuse me for saying so, egging us on. I just heard that punning is the lowest form of rhetoric. And that James Joyce was very much into punning. The lowest form of rhetoric.

[12:28]

That's what somebody said. It's the lowest form of rhetoric. And James Joyce was really into it. And he made this comment by saying, well, isn't the Holy Roman Catholic Church The pun is, I found this church upon... I found this church... Peter, you are the church. I found this church upon this rock. I found this church upon this pager. So the Catholic Church is based on a pun, according to James Joyce. Which it is. It's founded on Peter, and the word Peter means rock. And so Jesus plays with Peter and rock in this founding of the Church.

[13:32]

So James Joyce is trying to, you know, get some, what do you call it, cut some slack on his punning. In what language is that pun? Latin? Is it Greece? It might be both Latin and Greek. Huh? Greek, yeah. The guy whose name is Peter, the name Peter isn't a pun. It's just his name. But he says, I found my church on you. upon this rock. That's where the pun is. The rock is both the Rock of the Church, but it's also Peter. They sound the same. Also, somebody said that Joyce didn't like psychoanalysts, but he enjoyed the pun that the English translation of Freud's name sounds like it's Joyce.

[14:38]

Do you understand? Joy. Joy, yeah. Joyce. Sounds like his name. Freud sounds like his joy, which sounds like Joyce. That's the one good thing about psychoanalysis. For the lowest form of rhetoric. So the Buddhas are egging us on to keep pecking and break free of our mind, pecking on our mind, but pecking on it in such a way that it will be broken rather than reinforced. If you peck on your mind in an unkind way, it gets tougher. It's like it gets tanned. It gets cured. It gets stronger. The more you're unkind to your mind, the stronger it gets. the kinder you are to it, the weaker its enclosing function becomes.

[15:44]

And when you break free, you're free of the mind. Our problem is the mind, our mind, that's our problem. By destroying the mind, we can become free of it. Because it isn't really enclosing us. It just looks like that. It's just constructed in a way that it says, this is not your mind. Your mind says to you, this is not your mind. This is really, and she's not your mind. All these beings are not your mind. That's what your mind says to you. It makes everybody into something knowable and says, I didn't do that, that's the way they really are. So, someone said to me, how did the teacher know when the student breaks out? It's not exactly that the teacher knows like the person knows in the realm of mind that somebody's out of mind.

[16:59]

The freedom from mind doesn't really know anything. Because the freedom of mind is free of the mind by which we know stuff. Somebody said, you test water, or you measure water, the depth of water, with a pole. You measure the depth of the mind with words. So the mind is the mind of words. And so words test to see if the mind of words has been liberated, if we're free of the mind of words. And you find out by words. So you're supposed to say something from being free of the mind of words. the freedom from the words by words.

[18:04]

And then there'll be a response from freedom from words to those words. But it isn't like the teacher thinks, oh, that person's free or not free. It's that the teacher talks back. But it's not exactly that. It's the freedom that talks back. And it might say stuff like, mm-mm, nope, uh-uh, no way, sorry, So the teacher is saying, say something from before you were born. So someone says, how does the teacher know the student is still enclosed? She doesn't need to know. Because even when the student is enclosed, Pecks back. The freedom pecks back. Whether there's inside the enclosure or outside the enclosure.

[19:06]

But the way you peck back, the way the pecking back from inside the enclosure is free, is different from the way you peck back when the person, when the being has been dropped. It's a different kind of pecking back and forth. It's the pecking back and forth that is the knowing of whether there's freedom or not. It's not like the teacher sitting over here thinking in the way we think, noticing that we are or are not free of our minds. The mind interacts with not being free and interacts with being free. And interacting with not being free encourages further pecking on the surface of the apparent imprisonment. And the freedom from mind but it's functioning and it's saying something so that somebody can talk, so something can talk back to it. And then they start talking to each other outside of mind to demonstrate and enact freedom from mind.

[20:17]

And they're mutually measuring each other's depth of freedom by the conversation. And before that they were mutually measuring the freedom that was there. And, yeah, so one could imagine that all the Zen stories are about perhaps two beings inside of two eggs, and one's pecking from the inside of this egg and sort of falls over and bumps onto the other one. The other one like pecks back, and that peck resonates through the shell to the other shell. That's one possibility free of the shell. and somebody else is pecking, and the one who's free naturally responds to the way the pecking resonates from the shell.

[21:29]

So our bondage is not really a bondage, it's a sounding board, like a guitar. So when we bang on it, we actually make a sound which resonates beyond the containment. And the beings who are beyond the containment resonate back. And we just keep doing that, hopefully, until we notice a tarp. And we fly out and catch our neck on the string and fall back in. All the while, the resonance is going on. What's been going on? We missed it. It's not just the resonance of the plucking of the string or the banging on the guitar case, but the way the sound goes off from the guitar touches other things which bounce back to the guitar.

[22:40]

What do you think a guitar sounds like in space? I don't think it makes any sound, does it? No. Sounds are mechanical waves. If you peck on a guitar from the inside, that pecking, if there's some material outside the guitar case, it will hit that material, that gas, and set up a mechanical wave in the gas, right? Which is, that can touch somebody, and they call that a sound. I think it's basically a similar thing between freedom and bondage. Bondage hits something, and freedom picks up on it and resonates back. But the back resonance from the freedom, it seems reasonable, it would be somewhat more subtle.

[23:50]

But enough to encourage more picking. Hopefully. So here we are. And just wanted to mention that the freedom isn't inside or outside of any enclosures. The freedom isn't like outside. That wouldn't be real good freedom. And of course the freedom isn't inside the enclosure either. The freedom includes the one who imagines that she's inside pecking. It totally embraces and includes that. So we have a possibility here now to peck and here and peck back.

[24:57]

I just can't resist. So why did the little chick just out of the egg cross the road? Why did the little chick just out of the egg cross the road? The road from the first thing I thought was the road in the river. Why did the chick cross the road? It's in the genre of, why did a chicken cross the road? Yeah, right. Why did a chick cross the road? Did you hear it? Yes. Anybody else that can't resist? We need the eggs. Pardon? We need the eggs. We've got the eggs. We've got the eggs.

[26:05]

Are we kind to the eggs? Are we kind to the eggs, our eggs, his eggs, her eggs? Are we kind to them? Only when they're scrambled. Only when they're scrambled? Are we kind to that limited kindness? Yes. Yes. No pecking from you, huh? Just you moved your arm a little bit though, didn't you? He's pecking at his chest. Yes?

[27:11]

So you said you use a pole to measure water, and then you said you use words to measure what? Mind. Or you could say living beings. Thinking about practice, being silent, as a respite from words. And maybe that words are the vehicles track control by establishing means of ensuring a sense of reality. But the words are the, not the outer line, but the inside the egg, security, the naming. The stillness of sitting or traveling away, in my mind it tends to be a lot of words, that the interior of the shell has less to obstruct one from pecking at it.

[28:24]

That the stillness is a... a form of motivation, sort of pecking? You're saying the stillness is a form of motivation for direct pecking? Okay. Or you could say stillness is a form of compassion towards the shell. and the shell is covered by words. To the extent that we know the shell, it's words. So stillness with words is a fundamental part of being compassionate with words. If we're compassionate with words, giving and bringing compassion to the words, which are know the shell, The shell will reveal its emptiness to us.

[29:30]

The shell will say, this is not something to believe. It will tell the secrets that it's been kind of magically hiding. the secrets of freedom. So stillness and silence with words is a basic part of the way of working with them to become free of the mind of words, the mind of knowing things as appearances and imagining the appearances are what things are. our actual life experience is not an appearance. But all we know about our actual life experience is appearances dash words. So somehow through this

[30:35]

Through the world of appearances, an appearance has come to us to tell us to be kind to the appearances as the way to become free of believing that the appearances are something more than that, which we naturally do. When we're born, we have appearances. Our actual experience is not birth and death. Birth and death is our life of appearances. There's the appearance of birth. So when we're born, we're born into appearances. Or we could say, when we're born, we're exiled. From what? From our life experience which is not in a show. So when we're born, we're born into a shell. The shell of birth.

[31:43]

Birth is a trap that's constructed upon any life experience which is not a birth and therefore not a death. So still silence with all this stuff with all these appearances is proposed as a path to freedom from appearance. This is appearances, a freedom from knowing, from our addiction to know. Addiction to appearances because we can know them. We think, we feel a little insecure with not knowing, We feel a little insecure with just being our life experience because in the past we have also not been our life experience. And that discomfort motivates us to make an appearance so we can know something.

[32:53]

But then we have other problems. It's that we would like our experience back. Life experience, we want, we really want that. That's what we want. And the stress of our life is kind of reminding us of that. So the compassion that you're suggesting to the words is the opposite of that is that attachment, and therefore not being able to experience the freedom, but that compassion toward it is a form of letting go? It's a form of letting go, and it also is wisdom which lets go. So to be compassionate towards knowable things, like appearances, and then be compassionate to the attachment to the appearances, be compassionate to both, leads to a wisdom which realizes that there's nothing to get a hold of.

[34:03]

There's actually no place to get a hold. There actually isn't a shell. But the way of pecking on the shell is, it's not a mean pecking, it's a related pecking which lets the shell break open, rather than hardening it by trying to control the shell of trying to control. Rather than fighting and trying to defeat of our impulse to control, we accept our impulse to control really generously. Generously accept that, like you accept a child who's trying to control their fruit salad. Any other peps? Yes? In my life, I'm combining two stories.

[35:05]

And one of them is the story of packing. And one is the story about the storehouse, or some time ago. Yeah, storehouse. And I'm thinking that all that packing is information about the storehouse. And then at some point, which is not in our control, something else emerges out of that. All the pecking we do is based on the consequences of pecking. And when somehow the shell resonates back to us and suggests to us that we peck in a generous and compassionate and careful way, when the shell resonates back and says, practice tranquility, and we practice that way with the shell,

[36:10]

that transforms the basis of the construction of this shell. It makes the shell construction more and more likely to have a sign on it saying, this shell is just only mined. And which again encourages us to now look at the shells telling us, be kind to me, be kind to this. We keep practicing compassion to it. And finally we realize, oh, it's not actually out there, that shell, or in here. And we realize that the shell is completely ungraspable. And so it really isn't there. But the ability to relate to the shell in this way, which is wisdom, which is also called being free of the shell, doesn't get rid of the shell.

[37:19]

Because you can't get rid of something that's not actually there. And if it actually was there, we should just get used to being in prison. But it's not. We're not actually in prison. We just like to be in prison because we know it. Whereas being free you don't get to know anything. So I've told you the story about releasing the chickens, right? Have you all heard that story about releasing the chickens? See if I can tell it quickly. I was in Japan, and they were going to do an animal release, a traditional thing to do in Asian Buddhism. I don't know if they did it in East Asian Buddhism. I don't know if they did this practice in India. They probably did. So anyway, the practice is, if you have any animals that are in captivity, you let them free, let them go. you put them in the lake or the ocean.

[38:23]

If you have fowl that are in cages, you open the cages and let them go. So I was at the ceremony, they brought in these cages of chickens, these crates of chickens, and we did some chanting. And then at the climax of the ceremony, we opened the cages and the chickens flew out. And this ceremony was held right at the edge of a golf course. So shipments flew into a golf course. They were released. And they went into the golf course. And then the humans who attended the ceremony were offered a lovely vegetarian feast in the temple. So they went into the temple and I was helping with the ceremony, so I was cleaning up the the altar and so on. Notice the chickens, you know, who were on the greens and the fairways and in the sand traps.

[39:26]

The chickens were gradually, you know, didn't know what to do with the freedom. They didn't know where they were. They don't know what a golf course is. Right? They weren't like golfers. They didn't have caddies or membership in the golf course. They didn't know what was going on. So the chickens gradually started walking back towards me. And me in their cages. And they crawled back into their cages where they knew, although in captivity they knew where they were. In the freedom of the golf course, they didn't know. Whereas golfers, when they're on the golf course, they know where they are, so they're in the cage of the golf course. But there's trees and stuff like that, so they feel pretty happy. So those chickens were doing their job. Those chickens were doing their job.

[40:31]

Those chickens were doing their jobs of teaching me the Dharma. That's their job. These are Dharma chickens, right? They work for the Dharma company. People go around getting released in various ways. Release them again. Everybody's happy. They have their snacks. And one or more priests realize what's going on in this world. You know, like, oh, when you release beings, they can't stand it. When they're released, they're released from knowing. They're released from knowing, so we crawl back into knowing. Which is fine. Because we're not really imprisoned unless we know we're in prison. We don't know we're in prison if we're kind to being imprisoned. Everybody's doing their job. Yes. Everybody's job, they're doing their pecking, yes. So, I have a story and I heard you say a little bit ago

[41:34]

Is somebody downstairs? Who is it? Who is it? Oh, my God. Jim Hare. You can come up here, Jim. Oh, you're taking your shoes off. Okay. Yes, you have a story. So I heard you say a little bit ago that freedom is not inside or outside. Freedom is not stuck outside of the enclosure. To be free of an enclosure doesn't mean you have to be outside of it. Okay, so when I'm struggling, I'm in a situation where I can hardly stand it. You can hardly be patient with it. You can hardly be generous with it. You can hardly be ethical with it. You can hardly be calm with it. So you feel trapped by it.

[42:39]

Yeah, and this thought, there is freedom. Yeah, you're screaming inside. I can hardly stand it. And then something tucks back. And you say, freedom? Where did that come from? So my mind says that there is suffering, and I'm suffering. And within that suffering is freedom. So help, can you help? Well, in a way, you know, you could say, when you hear there is suffering, that may be the response to saying, I'm suffering. So you say, I'm suffering, and then you hear, I'm suffering, or there is suffering, or I'm not going to... I'm suffering. Then the response back is, I'm not saying you are suffering, you just said that. And I'm not saying there is suffering.

[43:39]

I'm just saying, what is the truth of your suffering? And then you say, I don't know. And then the response is, well, if you would be kind to your suffering, you will know the truth of your suffering. And you say, well, I can hardly be kind to my suffering. And then the response is, It's normal to have a hard time being kind to suffering. Suffering is because we haven't been kind to suffering in the past. The original suffering was the suffering of like, it's kind of uncomfortable not knowing what's going on. But anyway, that was the suffering. It's not comfortable not knowing. Maybe if I knew I'd feel more comfortable. I'm a little uncomfortable. Maybe if I knew more or had more control, I'd be less uncomfortable. Rather than... Before I get into getting less uncomfortable, I want to be kind to the discomfort I've got.

[44:42]

So, there we go. That's the pecking back and forth right there in that example. I can hardly be kind to my suffering. And I would say that it doesn't usually peck back to you. There is suffering. But more like, I am suffering and then it pecks back. You are suffering. There is suffering. And the text is back saying, you say there is suffering. And then you say, there might not be. No, I'm not saying that either. What are you saying? I'm saying be kind to the suffering you've got. That's your gift to work with. And if you're kind to it, you'll realize the truth of it. The Buddha didn't teach there is suffering. People say the Buddha taught there is suffering. Buddha did not teach suffering. Buddha said, I teach the truth of suffering. Of course, everybody knows there's suffering.

[45:47]

Buddha didn't teach that. Buddha says, I'm teaching the truth of suffering. That's what I'm here to teach you about. The truth of the suffering is the truth of its origination. And the truth of its origination is the cessation of suffering. It's the freedom. When you understand the origination of suffering, you're free of suffering. The way to understand the origination of suffering is by being kind to the suffering. When you understand the origination, you become free. When you're free, you understand the truth of suffering. The truth of suffering is the freedom of suffering. The truth of suffering is the origination of suffering. And the freedom of suffering, which is free of suffering, is based on being kind to the truth of suffering and the origination of suffering. And sometimes it's kind to be honest.

[46:50]

When you're suffering, it's kind to be honest and say, I'm suffering. And then listen to somebody say, I hear you say you're suffering. Or I say, I'm suffering, and I hear myself say, I'm suffering. Upstairs we have a room where the figures in the room are the ones who listen to the cries of the world. Compassionate bodhisattvas listen to people say, I'm suffering. And sometimes they may say, I heard you say you're suffering. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. But sometimes we have trouble just listening and saying, I hear you. I hear you. You say you're suffering. Thank you.

[47:55]

Yes? I want to explore the anxiety, the real anxiety Can I say something? Yes. Exploring anxiety could be an act of kindness. So exploring could be an act of kindness, could be a compassionate response to the anxiety in the belly. I hear you. Well, I'm saying it could be. In other words, another way to put it is, a positive way to put it, okay? The other way to caution you, don't explore to try to get something to get control of this anxiety. Don't do that kind of exploration. Don't try to explore the anxiety into annihilation.

[48:56]

Yeah, so don't explore trying to get freedom. Okay. I know you do. It's okay to want to be free. It's actually pretty good to want to be free because that's an opportunity for you to be honest and say, I want to be free. Free of what? Free of this anxiety in my gut. Okay, if you want to be free of the anxiety in your gut, then be kind to the anxiety in the gut. But kindness doesn't mean I'm going to be kind to you if you go away. And if you don't go away, I'm going to switch from being kind to you know what. So you have a difference between my initial kindness and how long you have before you go. And I'll tell you approximately how long you're going to get. I'm going to be kind to you, and I'm tired of being kind to you. I don't know how much longer I'm going to keep it up. But right now, I'm telling you the truth. I'm getting tired of this.

[50:02]

I'm tired of this anxiety. I'm tired of being kind. But right now, I'm still trying to be kind, but I'm just warning you that I'm feeling fatigue in the kindness department. Pardon? I want to be kind to you. But I'm getting tired of hearing that I want to fly. So I might be even mean to I want to fly. You know, shut up. Don't talk about wanting to fly. You say that all the time. Stop that. No, it's like, oh, you want to fly? I hear you. Yeah, I want to fly now. I hear you. I'm impatient about when's this flight going to be enacted. I hear you. I hear you, I hear you, I hear you, I hear you. I'm getting tired of just listening. I hear you." Avalokiteshvara does not get tired of listening. And she hears people who are saying they're getting tired of listening.

[51:05]

But she keeps listening and keeps listening. Honestly speaking, if she lost her patience, she should say, I lost my patience. But we have an ideal figure who doesn't get tired of listening. Do we aspire to be that ideal person? Maybe we do, because that's actually necessary. You have to finally get to the point where you're like not arguing anymore, but you get to the place of not arguing anymore by being kind to all the arguments. Right now, to some extent, we're still arguing. We're still in a hurry for the anxiety to go. And when we want to fly away from the anxiety, we sometimes do not practice kindness towards the wish to fly. And then we get into trying to fly behind to the wish to fly. Avalokiteshvara doesn't fly.

[52:07]

She listens to the cries of those who wish to take off. And if they watch this response, they say, I want to fly, but I see this person just listening to me say I want to fly. And they look really happy being with me who wants to fly, being with me who doesn't feel free and wants to get away from bondage. She doesn't seem to be trying to get away. And she looks really, really, that looks really good the way she's not trying to get away. I want to be like that. That's why we have to practice patience, so we can tolerate the pain. We can learn, we can become more skillful at tolerating pain. We can become more skillful at experiencing pain in the present moment only. Not the past moment, or the past five minutes, or the future moment, or the future five minutes, but really learn to be present.

[53:11]

We train and train and train, and we feel like, I'm pretty present, and now I can be present, and I can bear pain I didn't yet. And then your reward for that will be more pain, a greater pain, which will force you into a more radical presence. We must be very good at patience to be a Buddha. And the historical Buddha said, I really got good at patience and told some stories about her patience practice, astounding practices of patience. And so the Bodhisattva leading to the Buddha could be subjected to experience without hating the source, the cause of the pain. That takes a lot of training. We have to learn that. And we should be honest when we feel like, I'm reaching the limit of my ability to be present.

[54:17]

That pain would be so... I wouldn't be able to be present enough to bear it. So please don't put me in that pain. I've been in situations like that where I just thought, this pain is beyond my level of patience at this point. Like when this leg got broken, my leg was broken and my knee was in a bent position and they wanted to straighten my leg to do the x-ray. And I said, you know, I just can't go along with that. I just, I can't let you straighten my leg. You know, because it was broken. The femur was broken, so he had these shards in my thigh. So if they straighten, if they would move the lower part of the leg at all, the shards would be moving around in the thigh, right? Two little swords moving in my thigh. I said, that's just too much for my patient's practice. Please don't put me through that. Please do not try to straighten the leg.

[55:20]

And they didn't. They took the x-ray with my leg bent. And that was good enough for them to find out that I was broken. And how I was broken. It wasn't the way they wanted to do it, but they respected my wish to not put me into a place I could allow them to do. I wasn't... Maybe I could have stood it, but I didn't think so. And then they gave me a sedative and then they straightened it. They took me out of the picture. and my inability to be patient was temporarily not an issue. And then they straightened the leg, and then they lined up the shards and got ready for the operation. But my conscious mind could not allow that pain. But there are some pains I can, and I'm looking at extending my ability to stand more and more pain.

[56:24]

I'm working on that. That's a practice I'm doing, but not by inflicting pain upon myself, but trying to be more and more present with the pain that's given to me. Try to keep remembering the gifts of pain that are given to me to be more and more present and less and less into the past and future of my pain. Like someone insults you, That's enough. You don't have to think about the fact that they insulted you yesterday, too. And that they've been doing that over and over for weeks, that they've been insulting you. Just deal with this one. This is enough. Isn't it? It is. It's enough. Now, if you want, I guess you could say, well, I want to test my patient's level by thinking about how long they've been doing it, because that would increase the pain. I wouldn't recommend it. Don't do it. Try to get more pain by being not present with the pain you've got.

[57:29]

If you're not present with the pain you've got, it will get more painful. But don't do it that way. Just try to be more and more present with the pains that are given to you, and you will be given more pain. The people who are given the more and more pain are the people who are more and more present. The people who are not present try to, they do things to, they pull pain towards them by their lack of presence. And then they say, I didn't want this, I don't need this. So like stop saying, try to give up saying, I don't need this pain. It's not really, you don't have to get into that at all. You've got enough to deal with, don't you? If anybody doesn't think so, no. Yes, Stella, and then Amanda. I'm trying to understand.

[58:30]

I understand being present, and I understand being patient. Kind of the same. Yeah, but when this whole Well, faith for me fits in that I believe in patience. I trust patience. However, I'm not too much into hope because the English word hope has two parts. One is a wish and the other is an expectation. I'm kind of like generously relating to the expectations, but I'm also encouraging myself and others to let go of expectations in this life. And the word hope is, excuse me for saying, infected with expectation. So I feel fine about wishing for everybody to be at ease and at peace, but I don't expect it. And if I expected it, I probably would have, I don't know if I could have kept living to this point if I really expected it.

[59:36]

But I don't expect it, so I I stand to live in this world where everybody's not at peace and keep wishing for it. And I trust, I have faith in wishing for it, but I don't have trust in expecting it. So I don't trust hope. I trust wishing. As I said this morning, bodhisattvas are aspirational. They're wishing beings. They're wishers. They're aspirers. They're aspirants. They're not expectational beings. They don't expect the world to be free. They want it to be and they believe it is. They believe the teaching which says we can't see how it is. until we're kind to how it looks like it isn't. If you're kind to how the world looks like a sea of misery, again, abhilaukiteshvara looks at the sea of living beings.

[60:40]

There looks, there appears to be, it sounds like there's lots of suffering. Listen to that. with eyes of compassion, with ears of compassion, with fingers and noses and tongues of compassion. Listen to the appearance of suffering. This assembles it and happiness. Avalokiteshvara does not fix the world of suffering. She listens to it and looks at it with eyes of compassion. She doesn't hope, she doesn't expect an ocean of happiness. The observing the ocean of suffering with eyes of compassion creates an ocean of happiness. Believing in bondage. That's bondage.

[61:41]

I wish to joyfully receive the yoke. You wish to joyfully receive the yoke. You wish to joyfully receive bondage. So that's a compassionate response to the belief in bondage, to the appearance of bondage, which we know. may you continue to joyfully receive bondage. This is the path. I believe. But I don't expect. So if we don't all become free in the next hour or two, I'll just keep hoping. Wishing, wishing. I just... May our intention equally extend to every being and place, where the true Mary doth love this way.

[63:01]

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