In the Samadhi Nirmacana Sutra, in chapter 9, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva asked the Buddha, Bhagavan, what is the reason you say that bodhisattvas progress by great vows? What is the reason you say that bodhisattvas carry out great vows? What is the reason you say bodhisattvas produce great vows? So apparently the Buddha says that the way bodhisattvas progress is by means of vows.

[01:13]

They go forward vow by vow. They carry out vows and they produce vows, of course together with each other. The Buddha says these bodhisattvas they know very well, they're very skillful at realizing Nirvana and they can do so very quickly. And they give up both the state of bliss of Nirvana and they give up the quick attainment. And they vow to live together with all beings for their benefit. These enlightening beings vowed to live in openness to all the different types of suffering for a long time.

[02:26]

in order to benefit all the different type of suffering people, beings, humans and non-humans. this is how they practice. They practice this way. So, and then after that, Babalokiteshvara says, well, how do bodhisattvas train themselves? And what do they need to learn as they progress by means of vow. What do they need to learn as they carry out these vows to live for the welfare of all beings? And the Buddha says, well, they need to learn giving, ethical discipline, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, and wisdom. In this light, I propose to you and I propose again that the practice of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is, and particularly the practice of meditation, which is part of their training,

[03:56]

practice of sitting is proceeds, progresses by way of vow. The sitting carries out vows. The sitting produces vows. That's the kind of sitting that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. And the vows that are produced, that are carried out, are the Buddha's vows, the Bodhisattva vows. So in the sitting there is an openness to all beings and there is openness to these vows. These vows are received, nourished and expressed in the sitting. Bodhisattvas proceed on the path of welfare for all beings by means of great, wondrous, unlimited, marvelous, auspicious, sublime vows, moment by moment.

[05:35]

They vow to be open to all beings and to help all beings in any way that's appropriate to their welfare. Every moment is an opportunity to join such a practice. At the same time, I propose to you that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, when sitting and opening to all beings, when sitting and vowing to open to all beings and then actually able to eventually open to all beings, they also sit and open to, they wish to open to, and they finally do open to, the realized universe, Genjo Koan.

[06:42]

Opening to beings, we come to realize that they are the universe realized. Realizing that beings are the universe realized as these beings opens us to them even more. So meditation on the realized universe and opening to beings and vowing to live for their welfare are intimately related. One may seem to be more emphasizing the compassion side or the vile side. The other may be more the wisdom side. But also I wanted to emphasize again that the bodhisattvas vow to open to all beings, but also open and accept and be responsive to all beings. So it isn't just being open, it's also accepting that we are responding to them, to

[07:56]

be to accept we are responsive, we are responding to also accept and be aware of and fully engage our responsiveness to beings, openness and responsiveness. And so already in this session people have come to me and in some cases expressed really sincere gratitude for this teaching of the practice as vow. And then they presented problems they have with understanding the practice as well, and also problems of actually opening to all beings. So one problem which often comes up when we talk about the practice of the Buddhas is, well, what about me who is practicing being aware of my breath?

[09:11]

I'm sitting and I'm following my breathing. Actually, I kind of vow to follow my breathing. I want to follow my breathing, and sometimes I do. And I'm actually intending that practice. And then sometimes I don't. Sometimes I just wander about or run off from the practice of following my breathing. How does that relate to sitting as vow? So I would say this morning, I would say that if you are intending or wishing to follow your breathing or be aware of your posture moment by moment, that when you are aware of your breathing, at that moment, you also, at the same time, open to all beings.

[10:13]

In other words and gestures, it isn't that you're kind of like, leave me alone you guys, I'm concentrating on my breathing. You know, like, that does sometimes happen. Somebody says, I'm trying to concentrate on this breathing, this person next to me is, you know, They're breathing too loudly. They're sniffling, they're wiggling, they're exuding some kind of like bad vibe and, you know, could you get them out of here so I can concentrate on my breathing? Yeah, well, fine to concentrate on your breathing. It's a nice practice. And then also, the Buddha can be aware of her breathing. Buddha, you know, exhaling. I happen to notice that. Fine. Oh, now I'm inhaling. Okay. That was a long one.

[11:19]

Buddhists can notice this kind of stuff. It's not that. Just like you. But while they're noticing their breathing, they're open to everybody. They're open to everybody else that's breathing. And also even non-breathing beings they're open to. So it's fine to follow your breathing, but like a Buddha. And it's also fine to follow your breathing not like a Buddha. If you are following your breathing like a sentient being, namely, I'm following my breathing, I don't care about anybody else in the world, fine. That's fine. But it's not the practice of the bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas are like following their breathing and wishing to open to all beings. They may not be open to all beings, but they wish they were. So if they're following their breathing and somebody's bothering them and distracting them and saying, excuse me, I notice that you're following your breathing very nicely. Could you show me how? And I don't want to show you how. They notice that they're closed to assisting their neighbors and they don't want to be that way.

[12:25]

So they confess it and repent it before their bosses, those who have actually got over this problem limitation in their vow and they confess and repent until they melt away until that confession and repentance the power of that confession repentance melts away the resistance to these people these beings who are distracting you from your whatever practice you want to do so it's fine you can also there's a lot of other things you can concentrate on you can do meta-practice, you can do compassion practices, you can do sympathetic joy practices, you can do foundations of mindfulness, you can study koans, you can study dolans, you can study whatever you want. It's fine. But while you're doing it, it'd be nice

[13:26]

I shouldn't say it would be nice. It would be nice, but I'm not... Also, I want to say, this is kind of parentheses, I'm not exactly trying to talk you into this exactly. If you don't want to be a bodhisattva, the bodhisattvas are open to you not wanting to be one of them. They want you to be one of them, but they're open to you not being one of them, for a really long time, and they will be with you. They want to be with you until you want to be with them. And they're not rushing you. They're not impatient with you, not wanting to join their openness and their responsiveness. They're kind of like, hey, I love you. I'm with you. I understand. For eons, I was resisting too. And I resisted people who were resisting. But now I'm not resisting your resistance.

[14:29]

You just go right ahead and resist. You can go right ahead and say, I do not want to be open to all beings. I do not want to love all beings. Fine. And also, some people say, I want to, but I can't. I want to, but when I see some people being cruel, I cannot open to them and love them. I can't. Okay. Then we practice confession and repentance. Some people don't even want to practice confession because they don't want to open to beings, so they don't want to practice confession. And they don't feel bad about it, so they stay in that mode. But if you want to, then you practice confession and repentance, and you will be able to. All the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are rooting for us to open up to all beings and respond appropriately. But they're also patient with us and they'll stay with us until we do open up, until we are opened up through wanting, through receiving the desire to open up and be responsive

[15:44]

and receiving the practice of confession and repentance and practicing it. So I am trying to encourage you, but at the same time I want you to know that it's okay if you're not yet ready to wish. And even if you're ready to wish, of course it's all right if you haven't yet attained this vow where you actually are practicing it. And one person who was following her breath say, well, can I weave these together? Yes, yes. You can weave the Bodhisattva vow together with any practice, any wholesome practice like following and breathing. You can weave them together, definitely. Just as I said, follow the breathing, open to all beings, including open to beings that are distracting you from following your breathing. Like I said yesterday too, some people try to follow their breathing and finally after a long time of trying, there's a time they're suddenly able to follow their breathing easily and they feel so happy that they're finally able to concentrate on it and then the bell rings and they don't want to get up.

[17:01]

So open to the bell and give up your nirvana. And if you can't, at least do you want to? Another problem that comes up often when we talk about the vow to open to all beings, all including the people who are being cruel on this planet right now to other living beings, those who are harming the forests and the water and the sky and the land and human beings and animals. Those people who are, you know, killing gorillas in Africa, not even as poachers, but just to kill them, just to cause trouble for the government. People are doing that open to them. Isn't that difficult?

[18:07]

Yes. I'm not saying I could do that. But I'd like to be able to. I'd like to be able to love murderers. I actually do know some people who say they'd like to kill some people who I do love very much. The fact that they can tell me is part and parcel of them not pulling off any of these murders. But I do love some people who actually say, I would like to murder that person. But some people who want to murder people, who are murdering people, I would have a very hard time loving them, opening to them, sharing my life with them. But I want to learn that. In that way, I'm connecting with the bodhisattvas who want to and actually do love all beings and want to live with all beings. So someone is concerned that if we open to all beings, in other words, if we open to evil, cruelty, and so on, that we'll be passive.

[19:23]

Receptive and open does not mean passive. It's just, in some sense, the center of the relationship is receptivity. and then around that receptivity is responsiveness. So the martial artist receives her partner and then she helps her partner become harmless. She opens to the aggressive energy and responds to it in a way that beings are protected from harm and edified If she tightens up, she's less able to convert this aggressiveness into harmony. Sometimes if the tremendous aggressive energy is coming, it takes tremendous skill to open and also to respond in such a way as to protect beings from this aggressive energy.

[20:34]

But bodhisattvas want to learn that. Part of our vow is Dharma, Geta, Boundless. I vow to enter them. I vow to learn them. I vow to learn all the different ways to convert cruelty, to disarm cruelty. But first I open to it, then I respond to it. I want to open to it and respond to it. And I mentioned before that starting with, well not starting, but anyway, the ancestor Dung Shan said it's like the double split hexagram. And the double split hexagram is made of two trigrams, like an I Ching, and one of the trigrams is the water trigram, and the other trigram is the water trigram. So two split trigrams. And what the trigram is made out of is a solid line, a broken line and a solid line.

[21:37]

That's the water trigram. At the center of the water trigram is this broken line. It's the receptive line. It has opening in it. At the center is the receptivity. And around the receptivity are two active lines. So this is what I propose is the meditative structure. of the ancestor, Dung Shan. At the center, receptive, surrounded by activity. First open to everything and then respond. Or not even then, but at the center is receptiveness and surrounding is all, many, many infinite types of responsiveness. But some of those ways of responsiveness we have not yet learned. And we honestly admit, I don't know what to do in this case.

[22:41]

I can't see a way right now. Sometimes, according to stories, our ancestor Shakyamuni, open to all beings, loving all beings, he saw actually a mass murderer and he was able to meet that person and convert that person. But in other cases, for example, with his cousin, he couldn't convert his cousin who wanted to kill the Buddha. So even the Buddha, in some cases, couldn't find a way to help somebody. But he wanted to, and he tried over and over with his cousin. And one time an army was coming and he actually was able to turn it around. Came again and he was able to turn it around. Third time he couldn't. But anyway, there are also many stories of where somebody opens to somebody who's got a lot of cruelty in their heart and is acting it out and snaps them out of it.

[23:57]

So one person that was concerned about this receptivity or this receptiveness and openness who was concerned that, how can I open to evil? Won't that aid it? That person also read this story about, what is it, the wise family, which I cited in Being Upright. The Jewish family who opened to the to the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Lincoln, Nebraska. But when they first were attacked by this hateful, frightened person, their first reaction was to close and to defend and to hate back. But gradually they woke up and said, let's practice our religion. of opening and loving our enemy. And they practiced it, and they practiced it, and they practiced it, moment by moment.

[24:59]

And finally, Michael, the Grand Dragon said, I couldn't resist the love anymore. I never saw anything like that before. I couldn't resist. I had, it broke me down. Is that easy? No. Do you want to be like that? Do you want to find a way to meet aggressive, cruel energy, to open to it and to harmonize it, harmonize with it? The bodhisattva vow is to open to all beings and then respond to them in a way that neutralizes cruelty. There's this song, you know, what is it? Summertime and the living is easy.

[26:06]

Fish are jumping and the cotton is high. Your daddy's rich and your mama's good looking. So hush little baby, don't you cry. I like it up to the last line. I suggest changing the last line to, Rest, little baby, even while you cry. Meet that pain. Meet that fear. Meet that aggressiveness. Rest with it. Don't fight it. Don't fight the evil. Open to it and Harmonize. Bring harmony to it. Find harmony with it. Is it easy?

[27:09]

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Do you want to do it when it's easy? Yes. Do you want to do it when it's hard? Mm-hmm. Want to do it when it's so-so? Yeah. When something good comes, open to it. Relax with it. Be gentle with it. Be gentle with the good. When something evil comes, open to it. Be gentle with it. If you stiffen up around good, you won't see the way to help. You won't see it clearly. If you stiffen up when evil comes, you won't see the good thing to do. If you relax and be honest and upright, you will see the Buddha and the Buddha will tell you what to do. Is it easy to relax and be upright and honest in all encounters?

[28:18]

No. Do you want to learn how? I'd like to learn how." And then the problems come, lots of problems about how to practice, lots of things we need to learn. We need to train at giving precepts, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, and wisdom. But in all these trainings, we proceed by means of these vows. That's the context of this process. And that's the heart of this process, this vow, these vows, these extensive, vast, unlimited vows. that are carried out in walking, in sitting, in eating, in talking.

[29:23]

Every moment's an opportunity to carry out these vows, to remember them, and to train, and to allow them to be trained to their fulfillment. And again, I, [...] I would call it kind of warn you that I'm still sort of on the verge of wanting to bring up the vows of this amazing Bodhisattva Samantabhadra. I brought them up in the class in Berkeley and, you know, people had a lot of resistance to them. I mean, they're really far out, but I'm probably going to bring them up. Just, you know, tell you beforehand, these are going to be really... amazing things which you're probably going to have a lot of resistance to. But I think it'd be nice to bring them up just to give you a taste of how difficult it is to open the mind of a bodhisattva of that level of liberation.

[30:34]

I brought the book down but it was so big I couldn't bring it in today. But tomorrow I think I'll bring it in. It's really a big book. What? Let's have one? One vow. Oh, by the way, this vow, this one vow which Arlene mentioned that she wanted to have is coming to you by means of Arlene's request. You know, I don't just go up and tell people this Samantabhadra's vows. And he didn't either. Sudhana, the wonderful student, begged him, and then he told him. So now Arlene, the wonderful student, is begging me. Right, Arlene? Yeah, so she's begging. So the first vow of the Samantabhadra... Did I tell you all ten yesterday? So there's ten. So Sudhana says, well, how do you proceed in the practice...

[31:43]

O great sage Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, how do you proceed? He says, I proceed by these ten vows. And so the ten vows are the vow to pay homage to all Buddhas. One. To praise all Buddhas. To make offerings to all Buddhas. Excuse me, to praise all Buddhas and their virtues. And three is to make offerings, to make infinite, extensive, marvelous, wonderful offerings to all Buddhas. To serve all Buddhas. That's three. Four. This is the practice of Samantabhadra. To reveal, to confess and repent the shortcomings in our practice. Samantabhadras have some shortcomings.

[32:50]

This is his practice, to reveal and disclose the shortcomings in our practice. Number five, to rejoice in the virtues and merits of others. Number six, to beg the Buddhas to teach, to turn the Dharma wheel. Number seven, to request the Buddhas to stay when they seem to be making the gesture of leaving. stay and teach number eight serve no number eight imitate the buddhas do all the practices that all the buddhas have done the infinite wholesome practices vowed to practice them all Number eight, number nine, serve, accommodate, assist all living beings in any way that helps them.

[33:57]

And number ten, turn over the merit of all these vows and all these practices. to the welfare of all beings, all sentient beings. Those are the nine, those are the ten. So number one is the paying homage part. And if I just stop there, people don't have... Please don't stop. And they... If I stop there, people say, oh, okay, paying homage to Buddha, that's okay. But that isn't all that Samantabhadra said. He didn't just say, pay homage to all Buddhas. He said some other things. And then when I start to say that, that's when the minds start going, whoa, what's going on here? But before I do that part that we might have resistance to, I just want to mention that homage is slightly different from praise.

[35:03]

You might praise someone but not pay homage to them. and it's possible to pay homage to somebody but not praise them. In this case, we're going to do both. Samantabhadra is teaching us to do both. But first is homage. If you see a great, I don't know, if I see a great ballerina, I might in this lifetime not wish to be like her. I think it's fabulous if she can do that, but I don't wish I weighed 85 pounds and could go up on my toes like that. But it's wonderful that she's that way. Or if I sometimes, you know, there's certain things I see which I think are beautiful and wonderful, but I don't necessarily want to be that way. A mother, it's a little bit different. Sometimes I see a mother and I say, I want to be like that. Some ways that a mother is, I want to be. So homage means more like, you don't just think something's good, you want to be like that. You want to join that. You want to align yourself with that way of being.

[36:06]

So It's like I take refuge in Buddha. I want to go back to being like a Buddha. I want to be like a Buddha. That's the homage kind of feeling. And there's many ways to pay homage. A traditional way is to bow. But there's many other ways to, in your heart, in your voice and your body. So with the body, we prostrate ourselves. In our mind, we think, I want to be like that. In our voice, we say so. And there's millions of ways to say so. So with body, speech, and mind, we pay homage. We align ourselves with all the Buddhas. So then, Samantabhadra says, O good person, Sudhana, O good person, if you want to pay homage to all Buddhas, if you vow, then you should think. The first thing he says is, you should think.

[37:09]

In other words, you should use your mind in a certain way. You should think that there are in every particle of dust as many Buddhas as there are particle of dusts in all worlds. You should think that. Just start out with that one. See what you did, R.P. Wonderful. Start out thinking that there are many Buddhas in every particle of dust as there are particles of dust in infinite worlds. Now, if that's too much, skip over that one. But anyway, and that you will pay homage to all those Buddhas.

[38:16]

And by the way, all those Buddhas are surrounded by a rather large number of bodhisattvas. Every one of them is surrounded by lots of bodhisattvas. So check them out too. Think about them. And then pay homage to all those Buddhas. Of course you can pay homage to the bodhisattvas while you're at it. All those bodhisattvas are open to all beings. Pay homage to them. And by the power of Samantabhadra's bodhisattva, by the power of Samantabhadra's, Samantabhadra is saying this, by the power of Samantabhadra's vows, it will be as though you're meeting the Buddha, or that you see the Buddha face to face. And in that meeting the Buddha face to face, you pay homage to the Buddhas. opening to all beings and being responsive to them and being upright and honest and very gentle and harmonious, you will be able to see the Buddhas.

[39:42]

And then, in that meeting, there is the possibility to pay homage to the Buddha which you're meeting face to face. That's the first, that's a short version of the first vow of Samantabhadra. And someone last night at the yoga room said, are you saying that, are you telling us that there are as many Buddhas in every particle dust as there are particle dusts in all the worlds. I say, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that there's a vow to think that. There's a vow to think that. I vow to think that way. It's different than saying that, just going around saying, well, there are that many Buddhas, see you later. It's thinking that. It's not just, oh, everybody you meet is the universe realized as that person.

[40:56]

It's not just that. It's thinking that whenever you meet someone. Every time you meet somebody, realize that this meeting is the universe realized as this meeting. To think that over and over, to think that, to think that with your mind and to express that with your body and your voice. Now think this way about all the Buddhas and think about meeting them that way and then think about in that meeting, lining up, signing up, bowing into the Buddha, bowing, homage, and cutting through the duality of you and Buddha, partly by thinking in a way that you never thought before. a very strange way of thinking. Is there anything you'd like to express at this time?

[42:04]

Any feedback to me about This bodhisattva vow. Could you put those push-ins on, please? Could you push it a little bit more that way? When you said to think that there is many Buddhas in a dust, particle of dust, when you said that whole thing, I had two thoughts that I'd like your feedback on.

[43:26]

Can you hear her? If you can't hear her, raise your hand so that I can... Would you maybe say the last part again, louder? Two thoughts. when you describe that as many Buddhas in a particle of dust, dot, dot, dot. One was that that could be a definition of luminosity. I don't know where that came from. And the other is that it could be a way of describing dependent co-horizons. So I just wanted your feedback on those thoughts. I agree, basically. And then I would just say be very gentle with that interpretation. Be very gentle with that and upright with that.

[44:29]

Don't lean into believing that. And you also don't have to lean away from believing it either. Don't believe or disbelieve it. Just receive it and watch your response to it. But my response is, I agree. That's a perfectly reasonable response to that. And I like that you don't know where it came from or what it was about. You just received it and you responded to it by expressing it with your voice and body. You're welcome. I just wanted to share a point of confusion.

[45:30]

I was hoping you could help me clarify. I work as an engineer, and I end up thinking pretty obsessively every day. And is there a contradiction, or is it possible to practice openness, like you've taught, in an environment where there's such a tremendous amount of focus on thinking, so much to the extent that I think it goes along with what you're saying, crazy mind. It's very intense all day long. I was just wondering if you could comment on that. I don't know if it's possible, but I want to be open to that mind. And I think that mind is very difficult to open to because that mind sort of, it's a mind which says, put everything onto this thinking project and forget about your neighbors.

[46:40]

But you could say, slightly change it slightly, I'm concentrating on this engineering problem for the welfare of my co-workers and my company. They probably would feel okay about that. They also might think you're crazy. But, you know, I think your bosses probably would say, it's okay, you can think that you're doing this obsessive thinking for the welfare of our company, that's fine, go ahead and do it. But that you actually make a space in your heart and mind to open to, that's the reason you're really doing this, that you're doing engineering. to help the world. And as you know, sometimes engineering does help the world. We have these bridges falling down, right? And so the engineers could maybe help now make bridges safer for people and so on and so forth, that you could actually be doing engineering to help the world. But you can also forget about that that's what you're doing the engineering for.

[47:48]

And even, like, get angry at people, or other things that seem to be interfering with your obsessive thinking. In a sense, in the core, deep in the core of your activity, there really is a receptiveness. And do you want to open that up? And again, many people might think, if I open that up, the containing structure of mental activity might deteriorate or blow apart. It's possible that you wouldn't be able to think the way you used to think if you actually now discover the receptivity at the center of your thinking. It's possible. But it might push you to a new and more interesting level of work, too. I don't know. But if we miss the center and just get on the activity around it, we may be afraid that if we went to the center, it would change the structure of our activity.

[48:57]

There's a fear of that and a tightness around that. I would like myself and all beings to open up and take the chance that our thinking structure would be altered that we would have new understandings. But it's understandable that it's a very difficult work. Also, I think writers, people who write, have a very difficult time. Even people who write about Buddhism have a very difficult time. Even people who write about bodhisattvas have a difficult time writing and expressing their thoughts while remembering the actual practice of what they're talking about. to be open while they talk about openness. It's an art. So thank you for your question. Like you can hardly find your seat now.

[50:05]

If I open up, I might not be able to find my seat. It's possible. Yesterday, when you told the story of Suzuki Roshi sitting on his pad in a state of nirvana and hearing the bell for Kingpin, I recalled a poem that I'd like to recite. Okay. A poem. He wants to recite a poem. It's called, I Saw Myself. I saw myself, a ring of bone, in a clear stream of all of it, and vowed always to be open to it, that it all might flow through. And then heard ring of bone, where ring is what a bell does.

[51:12]

Would you do it again, please? I saw myself a ring of bone, in a clear stream of all of it, and vowed always to be open to it, that it all might flow through. And then heard Ring of Bone, where ring is what a bell does. That's a poem by Lou Welch. And I'm wondering, because in a venue a few weeks ago, Another venue, I heard you comment on Lou Welch. I believe you said that you believed he was honest but not upright. In part, I think he was honest and not upright and also not gentle. Or I should say not upright enough, not upright enough, and not gentle enough. Gentle in the sense of flexible?

[52:20]

Flexible, soft, willing to let go. of all of his ideas, but I think Lew Welch was exceptionally open. And I know some other people who are very open, and if they're not flexible enough and soft enough, they can't stand to be open. And Lew Welch was that kind of person who the suffering of other people, I think, really, really hurt him. And he said one time, you know, he saw, he said, I saw this man on the street sitting, sitting on the steps of a house. He said, with his hands in his face, he says, if I see one more thing like that, I'm out of here. I'm not going to tolerate one more. So he was open, but then he didn't take care of that openness. He didn't know how to, he didn't have somebody teaching him how to be able to stand the openness so we don't know exactly but it looks like he did get out of here he couldn't stand it but that was his vow he wanted to be open and he was good at that but not just open but then once you're open you have to do these trainings

[53:41]

And he had friends, you know, who were practicing Buddhism. And he actually practiced at Zen Center. The Welsh sometimes came to Zen Center. But it was one of these, it looks like a tragedy that he had this open heart an open mind, but didn't have the training of how to be patient and live in that intense place, just couldn't stand it and couldn't close down. Some of us, if we can't stand it because we're not soft enough or upright enough, we just close down and say, I don't want to be open to this person, to this nasty sour, arrogant, cruel, whatever. I don't want to be open. That's how we defend ourselves. And some people just can't do that. They're open. So it's good that they're open, but then they need this. So that's what I feel, is that he hadn't learned these ways of practicing with his openness and couldn't stand it.

[54:51]

Well, the question that comes up a little bit to the gentleman who was just up here about the trigram, is it not correct to assume then that the receptivity, the openness, will inform the activity lines? You were saying that people are fearful that the activity line will change because of the receptivity. But it sounds like in a case like Lou Welsh, there was great receptivity, but the activity lines we're not changing or not influenced by that. Well, yeah, and the way that the activity lines can be informed by the openness is by being upright with all the information that's coming to you in your openness. Not to be like, well, this is really good and this is not. To work with all the information and to not grasp it or tighten up around the good information and the bad information.

[55:53]

But try to again be soft and flexible with all this coming that comes to this openness and then all that information informs the activity, which of course the Buddha sees is already going on, but we can't see it unless we practice that way. And what's the practice if you're overwhelmed, that you're not able to be upright, you're recognizing it, but you're still... Well, be honest. I'm overwhelmed, you know, I'm being swept away, or I'm tense, I'm overwhelmed, I'm going to tense up now. So to express your imbalance, your tightening, honesty then. Because you're not able to be flexible, you're not able to be upright, so you're honest anyway. As you're, you know, I'm leaning. And here we go. Here we go now, this is all, and now it goes like this, and I'm not doing very well here.

[56:55]

and I don't feel good about it. But actually now there seems to be some uprightness here. Like Catherine was saying yesterday, she was feeling resistance, and as she thought of confessing the resistance, the resistance seemed to drop away. So as we confess and repent, our imbalances and our tightnesses before the possibility of being flexible and open and upright, it tends to wake us up to that place again, and then the next insult comes. So our sesshin practice is wonderful in the sense that it tends to surface our resistance quite nicely, even if nobody mentions bodhisattva vows.

[58:04]

it tends to quite easily reveal places where we're kind of like uncomfortable or not open. And we just experience not open, not open, resistant, not open, resistant, resistant, resistant, and not feeling good. And resistance isn't that much fun. Resistance is, yeah, I don't want to be resistant, but I am. And that over and over, in some sense, on some level, we're confessing it. And by the end of session, usually, the resistance has gone way down. Have you noticed that? Oftentimes, when I first check posture, I often mention, it's sometimes like touching the back of a turtle. Do you ever try to adjust a turtle's posture? But by end of the session, the shells usually dropped away because that person was feeling that and feeling that they don't like to be stiff like that and it's painful to be stiff.

[59:25]

And there's a vow to confess the resistance and repent it, which means to feel that resisting our situation, and we're one of the beings that we can open to. Our own, all of our feelings are beings. And we resist some of our feelings. How about opening to it? Okay. Pain, okay. And now, what's the response to that pain which you've opened to? Maybe it's, I think I'll adjust my posture a little bit. Maybe it's, oh, I think I can sit through it. Yeah, there is a little place there of gentleness. Lots of possibilities, lots of possible responses after you've opened to your pain. Lots of possibilities there if you're upright. and gentle, flexible, and honest.

[60:33]

And then the next opportunity. So yeah, it would have been wonderful if Lew Welch could have stayed with us a little longer, but he was a great being while he was here. I really was touched by his openness.

[61:00]

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