Concentration on the mind of enlightenment is for the purpose of removing the causes of suffering. It is for the purpose of purifying the resolution and the aspiration to for the welfare of all beings. It's to purify that of the causes of suffering, to purify it of self-clinging, to purify the wish The altruism of selfishness, because it is possible that a sincere altruistic aspiration and resolution could arise in a sentient being, but still have self-cleaning.

[01:20]

And we've been emphasizing, focusing on this intention to realize the Buddha way for the welfare of all beings in conjunction with remembering to think about others as ourself. To think about and be mindful of ourselves and others. This type of meditation originated in India, but it was transmitted to East Asia, to China and Korea and so on. And some ancient Zen teachers say, have said, that the entire universe is the true human body.

[02:37]

is the true body of the self. Our true body, the true body of ourselves is the entire universe. So this mindfulness and getting used to the thought that others are ourselves, that all other beings are myself. This does the work of purifying our altruistic intention of selfishness. And based on this sense, that others are ourselves, we then move on to another in this process of relieving self-clinging, and that is to further meditate on exchanging self and other.

[03:55]

So one kind of exchange is if you wish something well for yourself, if you wish something good for yourself, well, wish it for others. That goes along well with thinking others are ourself. But when others are not well, when they're in trouble, when they're having a hard time, then it may be difficult for us to wish to be like them, and wish for them, if we're well, to be like us. So again, When we wish well for ourselves, that's fine. And then, I mean, fine means wishing ourselves well, desiring particularly pleasure for ourselves is to be reversed and wishing others well.

[05:17]

And if others are not well, learning to wish to change places with them. and also to not get involved in the thought of how difficult, well, not get involved, not get overly involved in how difficult this would be, to the extent that we would think that I would never really be able to wish to change places with all suffering beings. the thought that we can't, that we wouldn't be able to think about exchanging ourselves with suffering beings. That thought is another thought which we should let go of.

[06:24]

There is a thing called the Golden Rule, which I think isn't it something like, do unto others as you would wish them to do unto you? So it's kind of related, but the Golden Rule doesn't necessarily include changing place with others. But to thoroughly get over self-clinging, that's one of the things we need to learn to think about and think about and think about until it becomes the way we think. Think that way. What if we're sick and they're well?

[07:37]

Do you want to change places with them? Why not? Think about it anyway. Okay. But it's most important to think about changing places with people, with beings when they're suffering. In a sense, we can't really change place with people. Something that we think about and see if we really do think that way more and more. and notice if we feel actually, once we start thinking that way, see if we feel that our joyful intention to others is becoming more and more joyful.

[08:45]

And we feel more and more energy for this wonderful practice. So both of these practices require enthusiasm and breed more enthusiasm. These practices should not be depleting. Changing place with suffering beings is depleting. It's enlivening. This is what Buddhas do, and they have unbounded energy. Buddhas and bodhisattvas do this and have unbounded energy. ...energy to do it, and when they practice this way, their energy becomes more and more unhindered. So the path to Buddhahood involves this purification of the path to Buddhahood.

[09:58]

But people often do think that this would just be too difficult. These practices of relieving our altruistic resolution of any kind of self-centeredness are just too hard. Many people would think that. So we have to learn to admit, if we think that way, get that thought out and find a way to let go of it so that we can apply ourselves to this difficulty with Yeah, without worrying, without discouragement. So it is often difficult to do this practice, but that's kind of normal. Buddhas practice, bodhisattvas practice difficult things. Giving up self-clinging is a struggle,

[11:17]

However, it is also called the comfortable practice, because relative to practicing the other way, it's comfortable, it's joyful. But there's a struggle there in the process, in the joyful of the Buddha way. And as I mentioned in the last series of classes, all the joy in the world now and later comes from working for the happiness of others.

[12:30]

and all the misery in the world now and later come from working for this welfare of ourselves before others. And so it's helpful to like discriminate between what's helpful and what's not helpful. do what's helpful. It's good to learn to clearly discriminate between the causes of happiness and the causes of suffering. Because if we don't clearly discriminate, then the happiness is undermined and the suffering will be increased. So clear discrimination is part of developing happiness. you may have lots of questions about these two practices of purifying, the practices of seeing the quality of self and other, and exchanging self and other.

[13:46]

But before I open to the questions, I just wanted to briefly, maybe briefly, mention kind of a big point which can be developed later, And I mentioned earlier about how this bodhicitta arises. And we also talked a lot about how to take care of it once it arises. So I suggested to you how it arises. And does anybody remember how I suggested it arises? How he said it arises. Remember? Show off. Being still and silent?

[14:55]

Yep, that'll be good. Anything else? But how does the resolution arise? How does this particular resolution arise? Yes. Okay, so what I said was, and what I'm saying includes what people have said, but it doesn't occur by what a sentient being does, like wishing people well or something. And it also doesn't occur by what Buddhas and Bodhisattvas do. It occurs in the communion between the sentient being and the Buddhas.

[16:04]

It's in the spiritual communion that this thought arises. Now, the sentient being might be wishing someone well. But wishing someone well isn't the bodhicitta. The bodhicitta is if you are wishing someone well and you're in communion with the Buddhas as you wish them well. If you're wishing well, the stimulus to the Buddhas, and they respond to your well-wishing, in that stimulus of your well-wishing and the Buddhas meeting you in that interaction, the thought of enlightenment. So it doesn't arise from them. They wish you well. Buddhas wish you well. But no matter how hard they wish, they by themselves cannot make it arise.

[17:21]

But in the way that your well-wishing stimulates and is responded to by Buddhas, in that communion this can arise. It doesn't always arise in that communion, but that communion is where it arises. So a story I tell often, one of the stories I tell often is that I heard some stories about some Zen monks. To hear these stories, I had to read them. When I read them, I heard them.

[18:25]

And of course, stepping back from that, somebody had to give me the book, or I had to be stimulated to go look for the book. But just start at the place of, I make the effort to read a book about Zen monks, so I'm reading that. I'm doing that. I'm offering that. And so I hear this story. But there's something besides the story that comes in and there's something in the story or something besides the words of the story responds to my reading of them. The way that reads the story has the same reaction that I did when I read the story.

[19:27]

Many people do, but not everybody does. So when I read these stories, something responded to my effort to read This bodhicitta, this wish to be like the people in the stories arose in me. And the people in the stories were people who were devoted to the welfare of others, who were wished to realize Buddhahood for the welfare of others. They didn't say that in the story. They did something which demonstrated that. And so in that interaction I made an offering and I was met, and something arose. But I didn't necessarily realize that when I read

[20:36]

Making a request or an offering. And I didn't realize that something responded to me. And in that relationship, this thought, this aspiration arose. Now I look back at it and I tell you that's an example of that. that it arose. So it isn't always the case that when this bodhicitta arises you understand where it came from. You might think it came from you, or you might think that the Buddhas made it happen to you. So this story about how this arises is a story in a culture which believes that Buddhas are present in the world with sentient beings and are responding to sentient beings. That's been strongly influenced, for example, by chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra, which says that Buddhists are present in the world and they will respond to us sometimes.

[21:54]

They'd always like to, But they have to wait for the right causes to make a certain kind of offering for them to respond. Now, having said that, I would say we have to make a certain kind of offering for them to respond in such a way that we're aware that they made a response. There's another level of this theory, in a way, of the presence of the Buddhas with us. Another level of it is that we're always responding to ourselves for an interaction, and they're always responding. But usually, people are not aware of the offering and the response.

[22:56]

Back at the story of my history, and I see an offering which I didn't see at the time, and I see a response which I didn't see at the time. And there's other times where we could look back and find that there was an offering, and there was a response, and there wasn't the arising of the bodhicitta. That's also possible. I would say that. Other times we can see that we make an offering and we don't feel there's a response. Even there, there's a relationship. Other times we feel like we didn't make an offering and we got a response. And there too, there's a relationship. It's in these relationships where we're unaware that we're making an offering, that we're asking for something, that we're stimulating and enlightenment's responding and we don't know either side.

[24:04]

In other cases where we're aware of the offering and we're aware of the response. In other cases where we're not aware of the offering and we are aware of the response. In other cases where we're aware of the offering and not aware of the response. And in that communion, in that dialogue between the enlightened and the unenlightened is where this thought arises, because the arising of this thought is our trying to stimulate in sentient beings. Because this thought is the beginning of the process and the ongoing process of what Buddhas are working on. I'm going to toss hard this fall for a three-month practice period, and at the beginning of the practice period, I intend to bring up to the participants the model of sitting as an offering

[25:48]

to set up this communion. And I say at the beginning because sometimes at the end of the practice periods, when we have a question and answer session at the end of the practice period, there's often a question by one of the participants like, what does our sitting here in these mountains have to do with helping people? what does the offering of our sitting, what response is there to that in terms of helping beings? So some people believe that this sitting is, in fact, an offering which is met by the Buddhas and which transforms this world, which transforms it, which will transform it.

[26:59]

Even though many people can see the offering but cannot see the response. And in some cases right now, people are making this offering and we don't know about it. so we don't know the response. But some people who believe this are the very people who spend almost their whole adult life practicing sitting. They may give talks all day, but perhaps while they give the talks, what they're really doing while they're talking is making the sitting which they believe is the sitting of the bodhisattvas, typified by the founder in China, who we call Bodhidharma.

[28:04]

What was his teaching? He did say some stuff, and what little he said we long remember. But mostly, Compared to what little we have, he spent nine years sitting to make clear what? To make clear of doing something that transforms the whole world. ...way of transforming the world. And you could say, well, maybe that Bodhidharma... Some people say, we can't really find this Bodhidharma in history even. But certainly, there was this thing called Zen that happened, and it traces itself back to this person who practiced that way. he was making an offering and being met by the Buddhas, making an offering and being met by the Buddhas, generating the spiritual context in which the biggest country in the world became influenced.

[29:32]

And if you think about this practice, you might think, oh, this is too difficult. I couldn't do a practice like that. But then before you think about how difficult it is, do you have faith in it? So this is somewhat related to the previous discussions of bodhicitta. and is a warm-up because now we've spent four classes on meditating on the conventional bodhicitta and the next two classes will be about bodhicitta. So this is kind of a preparation for meditation on ultimate bodhicitta. So if you have any questions about the conventional, about the practice of

[30:39]

seeing others as ourself and the practice of exchanging ourselves with others, you're welcome to bring up any comments or feedback. Yes? In exchanging ourselves with others, this thought is that Is there equanimity? Well, I think, didn't Marianne say something about being still at the beginning? So both these practices of equality and exchanging, equality of self and other and exchanging self and other, both of these are offered at this point in the context of being able to focus on these in an undistracted way.

[31:44]

And when we're undistracted, that also goes along with being relaxed and still and calm and equanimous. So this meditation reality I maybe haven't stressed enough, is to be practiced in the context of equanimity. And then her question is, would there be some enthusiasm there? Right? It seems like there could be a sense of equanimity with that idea, or there could be something more active, like, I really would like to do that, which seems more enthusiastic. This concentration requires great enthusiasm. The earlier practices of giving ethical discipline and patience require but not as much as concentration.

[33:05]

And if you have enthusiasm and vigor in practicing giving ethical discipline and patience, by practicing patience, by not wiggling around your suffering and being present with it, that releases a lot of energy to fuel more enthusiasm. So we need to practice the first three in order to have enough enthusiasm to practice the sixth bodhisattva practices of concentration and wisdom. So we're now talking about concentrating and being equanimous about bodhicitta, to be equanimous about the equality of and we need to be enthusiastic about being calm. And really want to be calm, really want to be equanimous, and also really want to remember what we're here for.

[34:22]

really want to remember that we're living for the welfare of others, really wanting, really, really wanting not to get distracted from that. And if we do get distracted, then we go and practice ethical discipline, which is, oh, I just got distracted from what I wanted to do, so now I practice confession and repentance, which is part of ethical discipline. Then I go back And my enthusiasm now is greater. I go back now and practice concentrating on the thought of enlightenment, on the mind of enlightenment. And I enthusiastically want to learn to be mindful to remember that others are myself and that I need to exchange myself with others in order to purify my heart of selfishness. So there needs to be enthusiasm for there to be concentration.

[35:29]

And when there's concentration, there needs to be more enthusiasm to continue it. And in fact, if you're concentrated, you need to promote enthusiasm to continue. But not 100% locked in that that will happen. So if you get distracted, then you have to recover by confessing you got distracted, and then resume your enthusiasm practice again to go back to the on what? Well, in this case, on bodhicitta. On what? On purifying bodhicitta. Does that make sense? So, we may think that tranquility isn't like brimming with energy, but in fact, Buddhas are tranquil. They're like, you know, they're glowing with energy. The light comes off them, which pervades and illuminates and encourages beings.

[36:35]

Spiritual light, which comes from this concentration, but not a hysterical, disturbed spiritual light. not a, what do you call it, not a manic radiance. there's a picture in my interview room at Green Gulch, and it's a picture of Bodhidharma sitting facing the wall, and his most famous disciple is there with him, offering his forearm as a little kind of like gift to demonstrate that he really is enthusiastic. And I like the picture partly because around the Bodhidharma figure is a little bit of a halo around this grumpy guy facing the wall.

[37:45]

It's actually kind of a little bit, anyway, it looks very soft, kind of like buttery outline around his robe. He's sitting still, facing the wall for nine years, and this light is coming off of him for nine years. There's vigor and enthusiasm there, and stillness, and undistractedness, and joy, and so on. Tell me your name again. Chin. Chin. Well, basically the same way you see me as yourself.

[38:58]

Same way. He's me. Just like that. Are you doing that with me now? Huh? Yeah. So then do it with Tracy. Do it with Fred. Do it with Josh. Do it with everybody. And if you run into somebody, you say, no, no, no, no. Then move on to somebody else and come back later. If somebody's being cruel to you and you say, I can't do it with this person, take a break and go move on to somebody else. But the fact that they're being cruel to you is, I can see it makes it a little harder. But if you work, the more, if you keep doing it, you get used to it, you will, you know, like I said, if you get used to thinking this way, not thinking about this particular person, but just thinking about, in your meditation, thinking about it for everybody, everybody, everybody, what happens is,

[40:01]

You see this person and you think it without telling you. You're trained so that when you see a person, you think, oh, that's me. Who's being mean to me? You still can see they're being mean and skillful. Oh, now me is being mean to me. Or me is being mean to myself. Myself is being mean to me. So that makes it possible to do the other practices, the beneficial practices of giving. You can be gracious with this person who's being cruel to you. So part of the stories of Zen were stories of people who are being gracious with people who are being cruel to them. But these people were training at this before these stories happened. If you spend time in quiet, reminding yourselves that all sentient beings are myself, all sentient beings are myself, they are myself, they are myself, then when someone attacks you, you have a chance to say, oh, this too, this is myself.

[41:16]

But I wouldn't say, you know, you've got footed with somebody who's being cruel to you and then try to see them as yourself. You've got to be in the swing of it and get used to it. And then, without even reminding yourself, people just come and you say, oh, me, [...] oh, me. You see that everything that comes is giving you your life. If they're cruel to you, they're still giving you life. You're alive. If you're there to be treated cruelly, you're alive. And the Buddha was treated cruelly by some people. Shakyamuni Buddha was treated cruelly by some people. But when he saw them, he said, this is me. This is my friend, and my friend is me. Everybody's my friend. Everybody gives me life. Everybody gives me life. Everybody gives me life. That's giving. So you practice giving, but you can practice giving and still have a little bit of, well, some people are not me. So we have to purify ourselves.

[42:19]

Nobody can knock us away from practicing giving. But we have to train at it. And then when somebody is cruel to you or any other people that you care about, which is everybody, then you meet that cruelty with selflessness and compassion. That's the point. The point is to become such a person. And when you hear about somebody who does do that and you make the effort of hearing that story, arises in you that you would like to be like that, then bodhicitta has arisen in you because of the interaction between you paying attention to the story and the Buddhas coming to meet you. So, yeah, I was turned to of people being treated cruelly and coming back with kindness.

[43:24]

And not only that, but people treated kindly and graciously and coming back with kindness. Exactly the same kindness for cruelty and kindness. Even when they're treated kindly, they don't come back with compassion, they come back with greed for more. So they had this one kind of big reaction. a non-compassionate reaction to kindness and praise, and they have another kind of uncompassionate reaction to insult and cruelty. So I thought it was cool when somebody could respond to cruelty with kindness, but even cooler that they respond the same way to praise, with basically the same kindness. It doesn't make any difference. Which means to respond to everybody with kindness. Like the Buddha supposedly could.

[44:29]

I mean, he could respond to everybody with kindness. This is a Buddha. And sometimes we would like to be like that. We think that's really... We would like to be that example in this world of suffering. But right now, maybe... Maybe we can imagine a situation and say, I wouldn't be able to be kind in that situation. Okay, maybe you wouldn't. Or I was in such and such a situation and I wasn't kind. Then I would confess, I wasn't kind when I got treated that way. But I still want to be that way. Yeah, I still want to be that way. And I'm going to train myself. Until I become that way. And I've heard that those who did become that way trained themselves a long time. And they had a hard time, just like I do.

[45:30]

So I'm not discouraged that I have a hard time because I feel like this is normal to learn this. It is difficult. It has been difficult. It is a struggle. But don't worry about it, that this is a struggle. That's normal. Okay? Enrica? It would end that, but it also... But another way to put it is it would remove your clinging, your self-clinging. Right, but naturally I don't feel separate from others.

[46:34]

There is a compassion that reigns spontaneously. But you still, even in some of those cases, you still might have a further training to do in order to exchange yourself with them. It's like I'm parenting myself. Did you say parent? Yeah, right. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Parented towards learning that others are herself, which means parenting or being taught and trained how to not feel But again, another little twist on it is can you exchange places? That gets another layer or twist on the attachment because, again, there's some people who you might feel like, yeah, that you maybe see you're the same as them, but you can't change places.

[47:46]

Well, you don't necessarily... You don't necessarily... Part of that I would say yes, but you wouldn't necessarily pray that they get what they want if what they want would help them. You can see that in some cases if people got what they want, like their next drug infusion, if you pray that for them, that wouldn't necessarily... Yeah, you pray for their happiness, you work for their happiness. For people that we resent, you know, that's really great if we can do it with them. And if we can't, do it with somebody else. And then as you get more and more into doing it for the other people, gradually move to the people that we feel resentment towards.

[48:55]

So it has really a connection with our difficult emotions, so to speak, or distended emotions. It is the antidote to disturbing emotions. Yes. Yes. I could almost imagine equanimity, but when you brought in joyful, when I'm imagining exchanging self and others, or really letting in suffering, I mean, like I could be joyful thinking how great it is that I'm being equanimous about it, but I can't put joyful in the same frame as really letting in the suffering of the world.

[50:00]

You can't imagine feeling joyful about letting suffering into yourself? Oh, okay. So maybe that. So what can't you? Well, yeah. So I guess there may be some debate about whether you're letting the suffering in or whether you're opening to the suffering. Even opening to the suffering, even that. I can't even get around the idea that that could be joyful, except in principle. In principle, it sounds just very bodhisattva, wonderful to be. But in reality, when you really are confining, letting in true suffering of the world, I don't see how that could feel joyful.

[51:03]

Well, in it, take a particular example. You're with someone and you see them suffering and you don't feel open to them. Okay? And probably that isn't joyful. Can you imagine that? So this person, I'm conscious enough to realize this person seems to be stressed, in pain, they seem to be suffering, and I notice that I'm a little close to them. I'm having trouble being patient with them. I'm having trouble remembering that they're myself. Okay, now I'm remembering that they're myself. And then you can check to see if you ever do open to their suffering, you can see if joy comes. If you don't open to suffering, I'm not saying that that will be joyful. So I guess you have to open to it to verify if it's going to be joyful.

[52:07]

But I think you can find out pretty quickly that if you're with someone who's suffering and you're not open to it, I think you can see that that's not particularly joyful, except in a real nasty way, like I'm sure... suffering wretch, you know, that's not that joyful. It's just kind of like nasty, isn't it? But I think you might be able to find, no, I'm actually not open to this person and I wish they'd stop being this way. You know, I kind of wish they'd be happy, you know, because I find it kind of uncomfortable to be with them and not be open to them. I find it kind of uncomfortable to be impatient with them. Okay, now I'm being patient with them. I feel better when I'm patient with them. If I'm being patient, because I feel somewhat irritated and uncomfortable when I'm with people who are suffering, especially if they're expressing themselves in certain ways, like screaming.

[53:11]

So Havalokiteshvara is listening to the suffering, right? Patiently listening. And thinking, these beings are myself. And if she opens to that, she feels great joy. If she doesn't feel open to it, she doesn't feel so good. Start with one. Start with one. Start with one. I'm thinking genocide. I'm thinking slavery. Start with one. Start with one, and then two, or not even two. Start with one, and the next [...] one. Don't think about the fact that there were six before that, or that there's ten more coming, or that there's a race ahead of them. You're not ready for that, maybe.

[54:14]

Just do one after another after another. And notice Check it out. When you actually do open to the pain, when you actually open, do you feel joy? Check it out. I'm saying this is the joy of the bodhisattvas, is to open to the suffering of others and their own. It's not a worldly joy. It's a spiritual joy. It was very helpful a couple weeks ago when you were talking to Sets and you said something about overwhelm. You said, there's nothing wrong with overwhelm. And that was revolutionary to me because I've always thought... Is it overwhelming? No. Opening. The idea that I thought we'd stay away from it. Overwhelm was terrible. In this area in particular, you get overwhelmed by suffering. But the idea that overwhelm is fine. That was quite an... Yeah, well, Avalokiteshvara is overwhelmed by the suffering of the world, but overwhelmed in a way that he is equanimous and doesn't get distracted from the listening while being overwhelmed.

[55:33]

In other words, overwhelmed means there's nobody there anymore. There's just listening and openness. And everybody is who the practitioner is. So the practitioner, in a sense, has been overwhelmed by everyone. It was the same as everyone gives the practitioner. But you have to train at this. You have to do these trainings to get to be that place where you're not resisting anymore. Bill and Charlie? Yeah, me. Me. Would it be possible that manic anesthesia could be permissible if it were kept under strict control? It's a mechanical question.

[56:37]

Manic enthusiasm? Well, you said admissible? Well, it's permissible. It's permissible, but what we mean by manic is, I think, that it isn't equanimous. Hmm? It's useful for developing compassion, but it itself undermines the manicness or the lack of equanimity in the enthusiasm, will cause, you know, what do you call it, a drainage in the enthusiasm. Actually, the control would be equal. Yeah, but the control is a manic control. Well, the control, let's say, for example, you have a river. And you could bring it into a channel in order to operate and build.

[57:51]

Well, but you don't have to control it. In that case, it doesn't seem that you're necessarily controlling it. You're just putting it to some other use. reapply divert apply it somewhere else other than just using it to disturb the enthusiasm yeah turn it to a more beneficial direction but yeah I think I think I wish to learn to not stamp energy that's not equanimous. I wish to learn to be equanimous with non-equanimous energy. So non-equanimous, manic energy is an opportunity for patience and equanimity.

[58:59]

It's an equanimity with non-equanimous energy. That may be possible to turn it into a way where it will become equanimous, like move it from a narrow channel to a wide channel where it'll go smooth. Engage it with some resistance where that resistance could calm it. like putting it through a water wheel or something. But we don't want to crush anything. We don't want to be overbearing even to anything. Even though the thing is perhaps causing harm, we want to find a way to be friendly to harmful phenomena. Tough, yeah.

[60:09]

It was tough for scientists to find ways of relating to certain diseases to make medicine for them. But they didn't just try to crush the disease. When they found a disease entity, they didn't just try to kill the disease entity. They studied it, tried to understand it. By understanding it, they found a way to protect beings from it. But if you just go around killing all kinds of diseases, it doesn't necessarily benefit anybody other than just, that disease isn't going to hurt anybody because I killed that one, I killed that bug, I killed that virus. But how do we understand it? That's much more difficult, you know. Just to blowtorch a bunch of viruses That doesn't necessarily help anybody. But to study them is very difficult, and to understand them, very difficult. It takes a lot of enthusiasm to understand certain diseases.

[61:12]

And then by understanding them, then we can protect beings from them, which is the point, so that they can evolve. unequanimous, manic energy. How do we work with that, understand that in such a way to have it be an opportunity, finally, of understanding? Have it be an opportunity for realizing the truth of manic energy. If we find the truth of manic energy, it's the same as finding the truth of anything. That's what we're here to do, is to find the truth, because that's what helps people. You're welcome. Charlie. I have sort of a silly question that keeps coming up for me. Uh-huh. Silly question. And I'm not sure why it's coming up, but the answer will help me figure it out. But what have you done in those nine years?

[62:17]

Like, literally, like, have you been sleeping? Does that happen amongst the citizens? Yeah. I think that this is a good opportunity for your imagination. And one of the best ways to imagine it is by sitting for nine years, basically. You'd have plenty of time to think about Bodhidharma. And you'd be thinking, I'm doing what Bodhidharma did. And it's only been half an hour. And I have quite a ways to go here. I haven't understood him yet in the first half an hour, but I think if I keep this up, I'm going to really have some great realizations of Bodhidharma. Just imagine what it's going to be like after about four years. And then the question is, should I go to the toilet?

[63:28]

Should I go to the toilet? This is the spiritual communion. Should I go back and sit again? So he was in spiritual communion for nine years. He was working with the Buddhas. He was a great bodhisattva working with the Buddhas for nine years. All the time in the spiritual communion, him and the Buddhas practicing together for nine years. And he wasn't deciding for himself when to go to the toilet and when to take a nap. But The usual way the story goes, and you're welcome to modify it in your imagination, is that he was already a great bodhisattva when he went to sit there.

[64:30]

He had already visited the emperor. And when he left the emperor, he was already seen as Avalokiteshvara. Lakhi Teshfar went and faced nine years as an act of great compassion to transform Chinese civilization, which this tradition did. And here's the prototypic model of transformation, to sit still like a . And as you get into it, you realize he wasn't by himself. He was with the Buddhas. They were in communion all the time. And, you know, the Bodhi mind was already well-developed in him when he came to China, according to the story. So a well-developed Bodhicitta and uses this form to transmit the Bodhicitta, to transmit the Buddha mind seal. This is the way he chose to demonstrate it, by sitting that way. The Buddha sat for six years.

[65:49]

Bodhidharma sat for nine. After the Buddha sat for six years, the Buddha then taught. But the Buddha continued to be sitting, teaching. He continued to be doing the same practice. So the Buddha sitting there teaching is the Buddha sitting there teaching. Bodhidharma sitting there facing the wall is Bodhidharma teaching. A student showed up. His student talked to him, and he did respond to the student. He did train his student. He had a few successors.

[66:58]

One story said that he had four. One of them became designated as the second ancestor, but he supposedly had four students. But these are four successors, and he had many students. But he sat facing the wall of nine years. I think it would be good if you spent at least nine years thinking about him sitting for nine years. Whether you're sitting, whether you're facing the wall for nine years yourself or not, hopefully you'll live nine more years so you can have at least nine years to think about him sitting nine years. And then after that you might decide you're going to sit for ten. Yes. Is it a faith thing?

[68:07]

Yeah, definitely. And I think sitting still and upright is a faith thing too. that some people sit upright and still, and they believe that that's going to be beneficial in this world. Like when I first started doing it, I thought, well, the people who I most admired did this practice. Probably if I did it, I might be able to become like them because they did this practice. It doesn't guarantee it, but I noticed that they all did this same practice. So when I first started sitting, I did it because I thought that this was part of the training to become a bodhisattva. I believed that. I didn't believe, oh, I really believe this. I believed it enough to do it. Some people say, I really believe it. I'm laughing because when I was a fairly new student at Zen Center, after I moved to Zen Center, and after being there a short time, what's called the dorm manager, the manager of the dormitory.

[69:26]

And then when we moved from Bush Street over to Page Street into the new building there, I became dorm manager of the new building, too. New students who would come, who really would believe that sitting meditation was really what they really wanted to do, they really believed that it would be beneficial to them to get up early in the morning and sit like a Zen monk. When the morning came, I noticed that they weren't there, because it was my job to notice whether they went or not. And I would go to their room, and I would say, it's time for meditation. And they would say, oh, I don't want to go to meditation. So at night, they believed that it was good. In the morning, they didn't. So to get up, to spend your life sitting still, or to spend part of your life, like one hour a day, two hours a day, and to do that for decade after decade,

[70:38]

it's like that's because you believe in it. You believe it's good. Just like, I guess, maybe you brush your teeth because you think it's good. You believe in toothbrushing. Huh? Yeah. You believe it's worth your effort. Yeah. So it's a kind of faith in something good. And maybe you feel, well, dental hygiene is, you know, I have more confidence in that than I do that sitting upright and still is beneficial. By the way, next Monday, the date will be 8-9-10. And that's the 40th. It's your birthday? Yeah. And it's the 40th anniversary of me becoming ordained as a priest.

[71:43]

So I often think, why did a young man spend all those hours sitting upright and still? It's kind of funny to spend so much time doing that instead of other things. that young men sometimes spend their time doing. Not to say I didn't do those things, but the sitting cut into those other things quite a bit. Thousands of hours for four decades devoted to this practice. I guess I believe in it. When I believe in it, sometimes I think, I could believe in it more. I could be more enthusiastic than I am about This is Bodhidharma sitting. This is one moment, right now, of nine years of sitting. Sit nine years, but Bodhidharma actually didn't sit nine years all at once, he did it moment by moment. So am I doing one moment of Bodhidharma sitting?

[72:50]

Would I like to? Would I like this moment of sitting to be Bodhidharma's moment of sitting? Would I like to? Did he want to? Did he want to do one moment of Bodhidharma sitting? Probably. Probably repeatedly. And it is faith. It is an expression of faith. It is the, in some sense, it's the central face of the sit. Yeah, faith. And Zen priests, according to Suzuki Roshi, their job is to encourage people to sit, like Bodhidharma. Like, hey, this is great, you know. But also, occasionally do it yourself. People say, wow, there he is sitting. After all these years, he still sits.

[73:54]

So next week I'll try to focus on the ultimate bodhicitta with you.

[74:11]

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