So there's a plan for me to leave this valley. I like that smile. Before that, you're going, what? We're leaving this valley? So this is, in a way, this might be kind of a farewell class. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thanks for coming. Thank you. And so it's kind of a farewell message also. The circle has kind of like, there's a kind of inside and outside to it. So this is indicating our finite life. which is pretty much the same as our finite mind, our self-conscious, egocentric consciousness, which I've talked to quite a bit about, right?

[01:12]

So in that clearing, again, as I mentioned before, things appear and disappear in there. And I talked about the foundation or the support for the appearance and disappearance of things in our finite life. The foundation or the support for the things which appear and disappear which we know in conscious mind is a much bigger mind and body. and many, many, many conditions and other beings support the arising of these appearances in the clear. Is that familiar? So tonight I just want to emphasize the basic practice, which is

[02:15]

Oh, yeah. So, first of all, before the practice has been practiced, before this mind and the mind which surrounds it and supports it, and the body which surrounds it and supports it, before this mind and the other mind and body are trained, before the training has matured, When things appear and disappear in here, there is a possibility, quite likely, that the untrained mind will act upon the appearances in that clearing. It will act upon the appearances. It will act on appearances. Just imagine I said that over and over. that the untrained mind is reacting to appearances.

[03:24]

The untrained mind is like with the appearances. or in the appearances, or away from the appearances, or not in the appearances. It's in this reactive relationship with the stuff that's appearing in its realm. Now, then there's a training for that situation, and the training to this The training for the untrained mind is to train the untrained mind to let the appearances just be appearances. The practice is to let the appearances just be appearances, let the appearances just be appearances. The reactivity may be continuing to go on, the living sort of like relating to the appearances, that may go on, but now I have a practice which says, try to let those appearances just be appearances.

[04:48]

Let the appearances just be appearances. So you're training, excuse the expression, you're training in justice. or justing. You're training in suchness. You're training in letting things be the way they are. Not arguing with them, not making them the way they are, just relating to letting them be the way they are in their appearances. And notice that that's hard and that you don't really believe it, so you're still being reactive because you're not putting yourself totally into the practice of suchness, the practice of thusness, the practice of justice. of just letting, just, just, just, just. You're not quite there yet and you're trying, but you're still a little bit like, and then you, it's like you and it.

[05:51]

When you're completely letting it be, there's no you and it, so there's no reacting to the appearances. When the mind is well trained, then the appearances become what we call dharma doors. The appearances open up and reveal what isn't an appearance. You get to look at something that doesn't appear. You get to enter the suchness, the dharma of these appearances. And when the well-trained mind enters through the door of the appearance, enters through the door of the appearance into the suchness of the appearance, which is other than the appearance, the way the appearance really is, it is other than being an appearance.

[06:55]

You enter that, and then the well-trained mind now can sit on the seat of the dharma of the appearance. And from the seat of awakening to the suchness of the things which we have let be such comes the appropriate response, the response which is appropriate to liberating beings from appearances so they can dwell in peace. So that's a very simple kind of summary. Let appearances be, and then you can enter through the door of the appearance and sit at the center of your life, at the center of the appearance. The center of the appearance is that the appearance is 100% otherwise than itself.

[07:58]

And you can sit there, and when you sit there, then now you can respond to things rather than acting upon the appearance, now you're at the suchness of the experience which you've trained yourself to accept and enter. And from the suchness of the appearance, you respond spontaneously, appropriately. Appropriately, spontaneously. Because you're now sitting in Buddha's seat. And you didn't have to change any of the appearances at all. As a matter of fact, that's the training. Don't be into changing. That's, again, like acting upon them, like trying to get them to stay, go, whatever. You and it. There isn't really you and the appearances. And if you let the appearances be, you're no longer more than the appearance. And then you enter the door of the appearance into the seat of appropriate action.

[09:06]

And so I'm emphasizing this, and then in the background, part of the reason why I'm emphasizing this is because as people hear this teaching and start to let things be, They think that they have trouble trusting that. Anyway, they have trouble letting things be because they think if they let them be, particularly if they're like harmful things, if they let them be they think that the harmful things will be harmful. Well, the harmful things are already harmful. That's what they are. How do you enter the place of an appropriate response to harmful things? by letting them be. You don't change the harmful things into beneficial things. You don't change beneficial things into harmful things. You enter into the suchness of beneficial and you enter into suchness of unbeneficial.

[10:08]

And from that entry you sit. And in both cases, beneficial or unbeneficial, your appropriate response comes. Because there can be beneficial, but not entering because you think you're something in addition to beneficial. Or you think you're something in addition to evil. Like there's evil and me, and there's beneficial and me. Okay, fine. Well, that's an immature mind. Now train the mind to let the beneficial mind be just that, and then there won't be you and it, and then the door will open and you, which is not with it, will enter into the place of awakening. And you will act, but you won't be acting to try to mess with evil, or mess with good, and most people, you might say, well, what if I don't mess with good? Well, you might try to hold on to it. You mess, actually you mess with good when you think there's good and you.

[11:09]

That's messing with good. Like that's good and me and good, me and my pal good. That's messing with good. There's no good that's more than you. Good is really the way you are not more than you. Good is the way you're other than you, but other than you is not more than you. That's what you really are. You're not more than the way you really are. But if I think I'm more than the way I really am, then I'm also more than evil, or I'm more than good. And then I mess with good, and of course mess with evil. And messing with good and messing with evil, that's just another thing. to let that be. So now I'm a bad meditator. I'm messing with disappearances. I'm messing with evil. I'm messing with good. I'm pushing away the evil and get it out of it. Get it out of the clearing. Hold the good.

[12:10]

I'm a bad meditator. I'm not following the instructions because I don't want to. I want to get evil out of here. I want to hold the good. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Now I'm going to practice. But I'm going to say I'm going to practice because I let my bad behavior just be my bad behavior. And now I can like, that was bad. That was bad. I'm sorry. And I'm not messing with my badness. And that's good. And I'm not holding on to that good. I'm not messing with my badness. And so on. So that's basically it. And it's hard to believe to let each thing, and I'm talking about good and evil, I'm also talking about being excited, being happy, being depressed, being discouraged, being encouraged, whatever is appearing and disappearing is calling out for the practice of suchness.

[13:16]

So that whatever it is, whatever it is, is calling out for this kind of justice, and even when it receives this justice, then it can fulfill its function, which is to show the truth. Let me show you the truth. Let me not entertain you. Let me actually liberate you from everything. That's what I'm here to help you with. But you have to help me by listening to me and letting me be. So that's kind of the summary of this class. And that's how a finite life practiced with and matured with in this way opens to the infinite life, which is other than the finite life. And it always was. We never didn't have an infinite life which is other than the finite life. And we never had a finite life which is... Yeah, we did have an infinite life which is other than the finite life.

[14:22]

We do have that. And we also have a finite life which is other from the infinite life. But most of us are not stuck in infinite life. But you could get stuck there if you didn't practice justice with infinity. That's more difficult to get help when you're clinging to infinity. So I think that's kind of what I want to say as a kind of concluding thing. And maybe you have lots of parting questions as you proceed on the path of being infinite and finite. Yes? Can you share a time in your life where you were trying to push bad or hold on to good?

[15:26]

And what was the seat of Buddha for you? Like, what did you see from that place? You mean, can I talk about examples of where I didn't let things be? More than that is when you weren't letting things be and then you practiced, and then in that practice position you actually got to the clearing. No, I'm in the clearing. By now I'm in the clearing. And then in the clearing, if I don't let things be, for example, if I don't let you be, if I don't, as we have the expression, if I don't do justice to you, doing justice to you means I don't think you're just what I think you are. That's not doing justice to you. Part of doing justice to you is that I examine what I think of you.

[16:29]

I question if you're what I think you are. That's part of doing justice to you. And if I question what I think you are, I might actually realize, well, you're not just what I think you are. And that's, again, part of doing justice to you. That's part of letting you be, is to realize that you're not what I think you are. But also, if you're not in the room and I'm just thinking about you, then my ideas about you if I don't question them and or I don't just let them be. Because not letting things be is like not questioning them. It's like manipulating them before you let them be. So if you don't let them be, you're still kind of like me and it.

[17:35]

So examples of where I do it, every time I would be fooled by what I think of somebody, then my mind is not mature at that moment. And then when I notice it, then now I'm practicing again. And every time I notice it, that I'm believing what I think you are, almost every time I feel sorry. And then when I feel sorry and don't believe it, then I don't feel sorry. I feel this is the way I want to live. And I feel very grateful that I'm living this way. Can you speak more about the drawing of the circle and what we're speaking of here in relationship to the Enzo?

[18:49]

Would I say more about what? Oh, I was going to put my hearing aids on. Just a second. Would I say more about what? The drawing of the circle and what you've been speaking of. What relationship do I have with Vienzo? Who is that practice? Drawing a circle and what you were speaking of. Vienzo. Vienzo. What about Vienzo? Can you speak more of that in terms of the form of... It seems that you're speaking of the heart of it. I had this sense, if you're drawing an enzo, that I'm drawing a circle.

[19:57]

Yes. That I'm drawing my own livingness. Yeah. You've got your own livingness. And also, enso means round form. Enso means round form, or circular form. It also means complete form. So when you draw a circle, you draw a complete form, and when you realize, and you let that form just be that form, you realize that basically what that is, is other than that form. What that is, the ENSO is saying this circle is other than this circle. Or some people say this circle is basically space. But usually when we make this circle, we're like negotiating with the circle because we don't remember that the circle is not there to be negotiated with.

[21:09]

It's other than that. Yes. So you've spoken of letting something be completely what it is. Another way to talk about that sounds like they're not being, once it's completely what it is, there's no I and it, whatever it is. There's some sort of It's not so much there's no I in it, it's that the I is not with it. The I is not with it. This doesn't eliminate the I. It's just that now the I is not something in addition to it. So before you're trained, it's like, I'm letting it be.

[22:13]

Or I'm having trouble letting it be. I'm trying to let it be. And then when it is let being, it's allowed to be, then it's not that I'm gone, it's just I'm not in addition to it. Before I was in addition to it. Before I'm trained, I'm in addition to you. I am actually otherwise from myself, like you. I mean, you are part of the way I'm other than myself. I am other than myself. I'm not, but I can't, being other than myself, I can't be something in addition to other. But it seems like the self is in addition to the other. Well, and that's sort of the question, like this, for me to make an effort to be completely with you. seems like it's sort of upholding the very gap or delusion that once resolved won't be there.

[23:16]

So where does the effort come from? When you're immature, you support being immature. Your immaturity upholds your immaturity. So if you're immature and you're trying to let things be, then you're actually still, I'm in addition to the things I'm going to let be. but noticing that I think I'm in addition to the way things... I'm in addition to the way things are. I'm not really there to be what they are. I can tell because I still feel like I'm with them, or I'm in them, or I'm not with them. I'm not included in them, or I'm not included in them. I'm not. I mean, I'm trying to let go of that, but I'm not there yet. So it sounds like the intentional practice of this... And then I let myself be that way. I let myself be an intentional practitioner. I let the intentional practitioner just be an intentional practitioner. But I might not discover the intentional practitioner until I try to let some activity just be the activity.

[24:21]

Then I notice, oh, actually, I'm trying to let this thing be, and I kind of feel like I'm something other than letting it be, something other than it. Oh, that's kind of silly, but that's what I'm into, and I'm going to let myself be silly. And I'm letting myself be so silly that I'm not with the silliness. I'm not with the silly person anymore. I'm not with this silly person who I just saw a moment ago. Or I just saw, I see right now. Silly, silly guy trying to be something other than the practice of not being other. But it isn't like we're trying to not be other. We're starting by letting something, that or me, just be that or me. And I haven't quite got there yet, and I can see that. And I can let myself not be there yet. And Buddha is, when I'm not there yet, in order to be Buddha I don't have to be there.

[25:27]

I can be not there yet and realize Buddha as not there yet. And I can also be not there yet and not really let myself not be there yet, which of course I'd say, no, I'm really not there yet, but actually you're just about the same not there as you were before. So this is kind of optimistic, it's saying you can actually practice justice. You can learn to let things be. But if you get into it again, I don't know if you've been trying it, if you get into it, you notice that you're kind of sometimes holding back a little bit, holding out a little bit. So there still is a little bit of me with the practice. Even though I kind of feel like it would be so cool if there was just letting the practice be the practice and then there wouldn't be me with it. But without trying to get rid of me. So again, that story pops in my head of the Zen and the art of archery.

[26:33]

The teacher says, pull the bow back and hold it until the bow is released, which means hold it until there's not you and the release of the bow. But before you get to the release of the bowstring, without you being with the release of the bowstring, there's you with the bow drawn. There's me with the bow drawn. There's me with the bow drawn. And then there's me trying to figure out a way for this bow string to be released. And there's me with the dream of the bow string being released. But which is quite similar to me being with this bow string pulled. If this bow string pulled, this is really great situation. This is the situation to let be. And when you let the bow string be drawn, really completely, the bowstring is not drawn.

[27:35]

It's released. But you're not with the release. Nothing's with the release. There's just release from being with, which never really was there, and now we're letting it not be there. the with part, the here and there part. We're letting it be that there's not a here or there. But we get there by, I'm with this bowstring and I'm getting bored and tired. And you don't have to hold this forever. You can hold it and then you say, I'm tired, I'm going to rest. Come back and pull it again. And I didn't get to just the bowstring pulled. I didn't get there. I was still at the place of bowstring pulled and me. Bowstring pulled and me. Me and my pal bowstring pulled.

[28:38]

Which, by the way, the pulled bowstring is kind of a circle. Yeah. I'm still with it. I'm still here, me with it. And I'm kind of letting it be that it's me still here with it. I'm kind of letting it be that I'm still identified with this thing. And you can put anything in there. Pulled bowstring, sexuality, fear, greed, whatever, whatever is appearing there, it's actually a pulled bowstring. And everything has the potential for making you kind of go, I don't feel like letting that

[29:53]

I don't feel like letting that thing be. So the happy students, of course I'm happy to see them happy, but they're hard to let be. The unhappy students, it's hard to let them be. But not impossible. And again, the accomplishment of letting things be is something that usually depends on quite a bit of noticing that I'm not letting things be. And then, again, when it's accomplished, that's great, and then there's the next moment. Pull the bowstring, and then one day the bowstring's released, and then I guess I'm not going to come to the archery studio anymore because the bowstring was released. No, we'd like you to come back and practice tomorrow, too. Pull the bowstring again. Yeah. So that's a thing. But we have in the usual Zen practice, we have sit, and when you sit, you pull the bowstring.

[31:01]

So sit, and let that sitting be. And if you let the sitting be, the bowstring will drop away, the body and mind will drop away. And from that place, the sitting will have the appropriate response. And I guess when you pull a bowstring off and you have actually an arrow in your hand too, so when the bowstring is released, the arrow will shoot out and go someplace and it will be the appropriate response. Will it hit the bullseye? That I cannot tell you. It depends on what you mean by the bullseye. But the arrow will go in accordance with the maturity of the mind. And if the mind is mature, wherever the arrow goes, the mind won't necessarily say, well, that was good where it went.

[32:05]

It would just let it go where it goes. And then if that's the case, then there will be another appropriate response coming from that. Anything else tonight? Yes, Peter. So I'm thinking about the suchness of listening to my valued teacher, Rhett, and trying to imagine what it is to really practice right here. I get when you say you question the appearance, you sort of become aware that the appearance is other than the thing itself. No. So did I relate to you? It's not so much that it's something other than self, it's that I question the way I see it. I hear the teaching that it's other than itself, and if I question the way it appears, I start to open to the way it's other than the way I see it. But I don't try to see it otherwise, I just question the way I do see it.

[33:07]

I hope I question it. But I don't just question myself about the way I see something. You stimulate me to question. I question, which is fine, but you make me question in a way I can't make myself question. So you actually help me do justice to you by looking at me like, what are you saying? But I get that part of the practice would be, as I listen to you, remembering that I don't actually know who you are. Yeah. That would be nice to remember. But you don't have to remember it if you're actually, what's the word, letting me be.

[34:08]

If you do remember, that might promote your let me be. But if you let me be, you don't have to remember that I'm not. The door will open and you will see that I am not what you think I am. I am otherwise. You will see that. Before that, you can hear the teaching and remember it. And that can encourage you to try to let me be. So you can believe in that teaching, and that teaching can support you to do the practice of letting me be, and then if you actually can mature into that practice, you will see, actually, you will see the truth of that teaching which you heard, which led you to let me be so that you could see it. So we can't say don't go. Pardon? So we can't say don't go. You can say don't go, but is saying don't go coming from your seat with Buddha?

[35:10]

Or is it coming from just responding to the surface of the appearance? We are going to be responding. I am responding here all the time. is the response appropriate, and if it's from the surface, I won't understand that it's appropriate. If I don't let these be, I will still respond, and I might say, don't go. But if I do let these be, I also might say, don't go. But the second don't go is coming from not abiding in a person who I'm addressing. and not abiding in me, and not abiding in my deal with him. And I get to the place of not abiding by noticing many, many times of abiding. And he, my friend, looks at me and makes me wonder if I'm actually really not holding on to what I think he is.

[36:16]

And again, I can be more or less open to his help. When I'm really mature, I think I can constantly be in question. I can walk around, step by step, being in question, and feel really confident that this is appropriate, that I walk around wondering what is the appropriate response, wondering who everybody is, not taking anybody for granted. But I train myself to be that, that way. But I need help in this turn. And it's been offered. Marie?

[37:23]

Would you talk again about stillness and how it relates to letting be? I think I will. And that was my beginning of talking about it. Pulling the bowstring, holding the bow is stillness. sitting down on your cushion is stillness. Letting yourself be at that place, the way you are, not trying to get yourself to be somebody else, not trying to be a better Zen student than you are right now, not having something more interesting to think about than what you're thinking about, Not having something less evil to think about than what you're thinking about.

[38:26]

Not having something more evil to think about than what you're thinking about. This isn't very evil. But how cool it is that I'm actually noticing that I'm kind of like resisting the low level of evilness that's here. Letting myself be at my cushion is stillness. Stillness is letting myself be. So we have this practice called stillness, which is actually another way to talk about letting things be. But again, if you let things be, you open to people saying to you, are you letting things be? How is what you just said letting things be? You just disagreed with that person. Did you let them be? And you might wonder, yeah, I wonder if I did. I think I did, but I question that. I think when I said I disagree, I think I really was still letting them be, somebody I disagree with, and letting me be somebody who disagrees with them.

[39:35]

This is stillness. And I don't want to be the slightest bit different from the way I am, to be still, but somehow I have to let myself be the way I am in order to realize stillness. Or I maybe need to use stillness to help me understand if I'm trying to be somebody else. So stillness is another word for the practice of suchness. At the moment of death, last breath, Holding on to death for the last breath. To do that, you have to train.

[40:38]

No. But to realize that, you have to try. You will actually let things be. You are letting things be. Again, we have this teaching. This way you are, actually, the way you actually are thus, it reaches every moment of your life, no matter what you are. And beyond. And beyond. Well, what you are is beyond. You being beyond reaches all your not-beyondness. All your not-beyonds are reached by beyond. Beyond is unhindered. But if I don't practice being not-beyond, if I don't train at not being beyond, I won't realize that beyond is reaching all my not-beyonds. I would say. But in fact, I am beyond. Ultimately, I am beyond, and I'm never not.

[42:00]

But if I don't practice it, I won't realize it. Because when you realize it, you practice it. Again, I think I said this last week, you know, you are the way you are, no matter what. And if you accept that, then a vow arises in you to realize it. So some people, everybody's the way they are, but not everybody accepts that. The way they are is they don't accept it. So because they don't accept it, they don't have a vow to practice to realize it. So the funny thing is that We have to work at being what we are, even though we always are that way. And if we don't do the work of being who we are, we magically create a world where we're not here being otherwise. We're not transcendent beings. We're just finite beings who are resistant, who are picking and choosing, who are half-hearted about it.

[43:10]

And of course that's not really true because our total transcendence reaches us in all our limited moments. But if we don't appreciate that and practice that, we don't realize it. And if we do practice it, we do realize it. And if we realize it, we practice it. So yes, we do have to train ourselves Otherwise, we kind of feel like, oops, I missed a life. Sorry. Can I have another chance, please? Yes, you can. You have to wait for 500 lifetimes. Sorry, that's what they said. Yes? Ten bulls came up on Saturday. I was just wondering if you wouldn't mind if I shared an observation. Go ahead. I've been thinking about it like a crystal ball, the circle imagery, and all ten bulls are in the circle. So you have the, you know, you have the search for the bull and catching the bull and riding the bull and the bull disappears.

[44:10]

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