And you can give both answers if you want them. I'm kind of interested in what does Buddha mean to you in terms of your life? Not so much in terms of somebody else that lived a long time ago. But I would guess that maybe it has some meaning for you. And I'd like to know sort of where you're at now in terms of Buddha. And again, Buddha, you could also translate it in English. You could say, awakening. Or I could ask you, what does awakening mean to you? And what does enlightenment mean to you? And so on. Or what does compassion mean to you? Or what does within mean to you? You could sing with perfect. And what is the response? Is that too much to write off that? If it's okay, it's okay to say anything you want.

[01:08]

So maybe going around the circle sometimes makes you a little nervous because you know it's coming to you. So maybe sometimes if it just sort of pops out of you, it might get easier. So it's really astute. It's really astute. It's from which I can say it left you. It's an inspiration for me, actually, to dance with the angel in a chemical madness. I recognize myself that I can't be beat. It seems to be sitting outside of the room. I think it's the channel that he meets. I was fired to make it the matrix in my life. It's what makes life the best. Absolutely.

[02:11]

My community would like to be in touch with life. If I don't know the power of freedom, I would be in touch with that. I would be in touch with that, but I would be in touch with that. And if I don't get to know, I don't get to touch with that. Good. Well, I was supposed to give you hands up to our entire team of any particular conscious spiritual version of practice. But it was just that we had the same ideas as a person with all the people in it. Yeah, so March later, the same idea of the fact that the individual's might just be all that we can't eat with either's angry self, yet that it seems to follow us growing from the end, thoughts of putting all that into everything else.

[03:19]

So just the idea, not the distance that we're not seeing as sensitive to it. That's the way I see Buddha is somebody who's showing me how to wake up so he could have tried everything and realized it didn't work. But somehow Buddha, I haven't gotten to that. It just seems like there's something real to have. Look to Buddha, all the teachers can see. I agree, because there's no rest period of time to do that. All of it is just starting everything down. It's all that, but that's how you're thinking about it.

[04:20]

It's just the difference that's all with you. Sometimes, I'm not sure what it is, but very strong, [...] So it's the most I have to have to have that to know to be a picture of this video. It's just my heart. And it is something that I have to do. It's what [...] I have to do. Do you understand?

[05:47]

Do you understand? [...] that I needed a different way of perceiving things. Like, let's know what's needed for us in my future. There's one that's understanding, not from this, a way of seeing the perception. And he said, well, was it going to be the fact that it was the sentence? He said, no. And he was not going to see things. but they respond to others at the same time. It's something that comes from a distance. It's very mental. But as soon as you, as you get to see it, you can respond . It is awareness.

[06:57]

Black girls are tingly and something of steam. They also move strongly so that it's simple. I find a very good book. It works to be, a little bit I know that, but when the, uh, very little bit of my fishing, you know, and you can follow, you know, several times, if not fishing, but I mean,

[08:09]

When you pose the question about that, if you ask the real disrespect, and then I don't think that there is no protection of the city, and then when you look at that facial expression in the body, posture, and purification, body, understanding, what that, nothing happens if you ... [...]

[09:12]

You can see something that starts, it starts with you. You know, it's like a real world, you know. It's like a real world. It's like a real world. It's like a real world, you know. It's like a real world, you know. Thank you. We have to do that.

[10:36]

We have to do that. [...] We have I don't need to get sick, [...] sick. .

[11:50]

. . People have responded and don't wish to a saying to me I'm not a silent good answer. And also after what people have said, I feel like

[13:02]

I don't have any t-shirt. There's enough. There's enough. There's enough. I think they've already put it off. They're already too. More than enough to do. You work hard. I probably want to know where, how you were, how you felt about that issue, just to see where you were, but also to know how comfortable or uncomfortable it would be for me to, you know, how religious I could get by with getting married. I'm talking about all things you said, and I'm really deeply moved by what you said.

[14:12]

I did like a question to you, though, is why is your sense of the changing sense of crime that you predict? And what metric would you see between the changing sense of crime and action? And you have some association stones to donate this. If you have reset it, it's going to be normal if you think it's safe to do with the same thing.

[15:33]

And it's actually just setting up after you've got to have that left. . [...] Zen meditation, or awakening meditation, doesn't very much have to do with stillness. And Zen meditation, particularly, has to do with extending what stillness actually is like.

[16:35]

There's many times with meditation, they're all And also, I wanted to make a couple of other comments. I wanted to do the turning towards then, actually, with a picture of a person sitting on the medication. And underneath the picture, it said, in the deepest spot. And it was a very beautiful picture.

[17:46]

This picture was shot from the back and the light coming in the room where you just saw these lit up mats coming out in the dark figure. And I thought, yes, deepest thoughts should look beautiful. Your posture should show in your body. And I immediately thought of What came to mind when I saw the picture was going down a picture of the flunker, who's kind of bent over like this, right? And I thought, it's a beautiful carving, but it doesn't build a beautiful thought in it. And I was inspired to think in the way my body looked at it. It means I was inspired to have a body that looked beautiful in order to have deep thought.

[18:48]

Later, I found out that that statue that wrote down, did everybody know that statue? Later, I found out that that statue was supposed to be at the entryway to a larger wood. And the entryway was called the Gates of Hell. That figure is sitting at the Gates of Hell. That's the way it's sleeping. And sometimes being bent over like that, thinking in that way that he looks like he's sleeping, it's not so good for you at all. Anyway, the body and the mind are actually now, even in the Western philosophy now, are not considered to be second. In 1949, philosopher named Gilbert Ryle read a book called The Points of the Mind, where he demolished the artesian duality of body and mind.

[19:51]

And I'd been studying them for more than 20 years. And one of the first things I learned was the body and mind were one. And I thought, yes, I agree. But when I recently read that book, I found out that I still have a lot of that dualistic thinking in my mind. of where I think of body and mind, etc. His reputation showed me that I still hold on to some of those ideas. So part of Buddhist meditation is to harmonize body and mind so that you really can live a life where they're the same, where you feel the oneness that you're given, the balance that So part of what we're trying to do in Zen practice anyway is work with our bodies in such a way as to have the right kind of thought and work with our thinking in such a way as to have the right thought.

[20:55]

And also another thing about Buddhist practice is that we cannot develop this right thought and we cannot develop this right posture all on our own. If someone just goes and tries it, it will not be successful. That's part of the reason why I actually sit in a circle, because we need all beings' help, actually, in order to actually arrive at this proper body. And when I say that, this is an article of fake that I have. It's not a fact. It's something I believe in, but also something that I believe in it more now than I did 20 years ago because I've actually seen the people who try to have right thought without getting help from other people and try to have right thought here and be a good person just on their own just simply keep slipping

[22:10]

When I was a little boy, not so little, well, actually, yeah, when I was about a young teenager, I had already some sense of problem with controlling my life. And suddenly, at one age, at one point, it occurred to me that if I would just be kind to people, that all my problems would evaporate and I'd be perfectly happy. I really was convinced of that. And so I decided to try to do that. And I remember walking to school, intending to do that, opened the doors to the school, and immediately forgiven. As soon as I opened the door, all the kids went back. I forgot my intention. And on more than one occasion, I had the intention to do that. And I could never remember to do it when I actually entered into a relationship. They weren't helping me.

[23:15]

They were just all over the place. And I could remember to try occasionally, but I could never carry it out. We really need help. So one way to say it is we need help. The other way to say it is that we get the help when we dedicate ourselves to help others. It isn't that you just sit there and wait for help. You also say that you want to help others, that somehow the willingness to help them makes it easier for them to realize that they're helping you. It's not that they're waiting for you to help them until they're going to help you. They already are happy to help you. Not only all the people, but all the awakened ones that you can't even see, and all the awakened ones that want to, are dying to help you, and living to help you. It's not that they're waiting for you to help them. But it just turns out that until you want to help them, you can't understand how fully they're helping you.

[24:21]

So the funny thing is that the simple practice, when I first started practicing, I was just interested in having a beautiful body and a beautiful mind and being a good person. And I also had fun glimmering that being kind to others would help me. But I didn't understand that I needed others to help me. Little by little, I'd more and more understand others. I need others to help me. And also, the more I concentrate on helping others, the more I realize what I need already. And I realized that before I realized that they were always helping me. So that's part of why I launched Siddha Circle. At the center of this circle, We could imagine that the center of the circle is silliness, quietness, perfection of Buddha.

[25:29]

And in Zen meditation, we go and we sit there. When we sit in meditation, we sit as Buddha. We don't sit as someone trying to be Buddha. We sit as Buddha. And we sit in the middle of all sentient beings and do that. But when we do that, we don't identify as Buddha. In other words, you sit as Buddha without identifying. So how do you... How do you sit as something without identifying? How do you dedicate yourself to be a certain way, to be awakened, to be compassionate, to be kind, to help all beings and to receive help from all beings? How do you dedicate yourself to that without drafting it?

[26:34]

How do you actually sit there without drafting it? You're sitting there. Well, one way to do it is you walk around it, circumambulate it, walk around it, walk around it, walk around it. And as you walk around it, you also remember you're authentic, too. So another balance that we have to do is we have to balance the duality or the poles of I am Buddha and I'm not Buddha. If you're not Buddha, if you're separate from Buddha, if you're separate from awakening, if you're separate from being a very good person, that is not so good for us. That is actually quite terrible. But if you're the same as Buddha, if you're the same as an awakened person, if you're the same as, if you identify with it, that's also terrible.

[27:36]

because you become a megamaniac. Most spiritual scandals in the United States are due to people who identify with the divine, the way they stay. They actually thought they were it. And when you think you're it, you swell up with a lot of energy and you flip out. And you think you can do anything. But if you think you're not Buddha, if you think you're not this still, silent, perfected data being, Then you feel miserable after lunch. A slave, a low-class deed. That's also not good. But you don't get it without it. But in some ways, it's safe.

[28:39]

And a lot of people, more people play the safe way because you won't get in big trouble for just being miserable. Just being in the middle, less people go for that one. It's much more... a much worse result that way. It causes a lot more trouble. But what we want to do is develop a balanced attitude for the Buddha in the middle of the room. We want to be with it, always. Always be with it. Always being head of the unconscious. Always walking around it. Always close to it. Always remembering it. Always touching it. But not as though it's us and not as though it's not us. Zen meditation is both to sit in the middle as Buddha, but also to walk around Buddha. It's both that.

[29:41]

It's both to realize you're in relationship to Buddha and also that Buddha is not outside yourself. Both to be Buddha's child, to be a child of enlightenment, an offspring of enlightenment. But also, don't put enlightenment on the top of your head. OK? So that's what I'd like to work on in this class, is how with our body and our mind to develop a balanced relationship with our enlightened nature so we don't identify with it or separate us. And this is a lifelong exercise for you. This is a lifelong practice to keep balancing that relationship and to do actual physical practices, which kind of really zero in on that relationship, where you're actually moving your body

[31:00]

feel to sit as we are and also to have a relationship with us, to sit with authentic beings, to sit with all living beings, [...] to our actual body, speech, God. And as you may have seen when we were knocking for this class, I was thinking about using 12 practices of this kind of prototypic being. Did I say 12? Well, I said 12, partly because on the way over here, the person who gave me a ride was going, was, oh, somebody gave me a ride on the other there. I was just walking down the street and picking up. He was a then monk also, and he was going to a place called Nandana House. And he's going to give Zazen instruction to people who are doing the 12-step program.

[32:04]

And I'm talking about Zazen instruction here, but I'm talking about in conjunction with. Zazen is in practice in conjunction with the 10-step program. And these 10 steps are the 10 vows, or the 10 aspirations, or the 10 Ds. of this prototypic helpful being. In Buddhist teaching, there's this one being who's called universal goodness. He's called the enlightened worker of the universal goodness. This being who's working for the benefits of all others, and he has these 10 types of activities that he does. Again, I hesitate even to bring these up because they might sound really Buddhist or they might sound really religious. What I'll do is I'll tell you them in brief tonight and I'll give you a copy of the text and you can look at it or not.

[33:15]

You shouldn't. You might frighten me. But anyway, I'll just tell you what they are and sort of have it out there, the information for starters. And again, I'll tell you also that these practices are a way to walk around Buddha. You walk around it without knowing what it is. Just imagine that these are a way to walk around it. So what they are, the first one is to pay homage to all enlightened ones, or to pay homage to enlightenment. And paying homage means Not only, I think my association with homage, when I first heard it, I think, when I first heard it, I guess I learned what it meant without even looking it up for many years.

[34:22]

But I guess for many years what I thought homage meant was praise. Is that what you think, Peter? No? It's partly praise, but it also means, what do you think it means? Appreciation, yes. Anything else? Respect. I had those associations. Homage, respect, kind of adoration, maybe. I don't know. Anyway, homage, respect, appreciation. I mean, anyway. Any others? Regearing. Delight, yes. Remembering. Remembering. But there's one you're missing which is really important and actually it's key one. It means that you align yourself with it.

[35:22]

It means not only do you appreciate it, there's some things you appreciate, like you might appreciate the cows, right? You might appreciate it, right? We do appreciate it. But you don't necessarily align yourself with it. So to take homage to something means you align yourself with it or you sort of join it. You don't just think it's great and say, I want to be like that too. You might want to align yourself. But if you do, then you pay homage to it, rather than just appreciate it. So homage is that you think about Buddha with the light, yes, but also you actually say, you actually think that you want to actually make your light like you might be.

[36:32]

You actually align your light And sitting, literally, in a costume, you align the body with Buddha's body. You actually make your body into a Buddha's body. You put your spine right on top of Buddha's spine. Or you put Buddha's spine on your spine. And you feel that with your whole body. You make your body the Buddha's eyes and form. You join Buddha. That's the first one, first step. And not only Buddha, But all Buddhas. There's not just a shocking wound there that lived 2,500 years ago in India. There are infinite Buddhas. There are Buddhas all over the place. And we don't know necessarily where they are or when they're going to appear. But no matter where they are, we actually align ourselves with all of them. That's the first step.

[37:33]

That's the first aspiration. And you can see how that directly relates to sitting. Sitting is alignment with all these things I'm saying are sitting meditation. But there are ways to not identify with sitting meditation and not separate yourself. Again, they are sitting meditation, but there are ways to not identify with sitting meditation so that your sitting meditation doesn't get popped up. And also ways to keep in relationship to Earth and not be separate from sitting meditation, from enlightening meditation. So I parenthetically would like to say that yoga practice, sitting in a lotus posture, standing in a mountain pose, lying down, walking, all the infinite number of yoga postures, When you do them well and you do them properly, they are definitely good for you.

[38:37]

They're wholesome. They're good. But when you do them with the right attitude, they're more than just good. They're enlightened. They're liberated. So we will be both doing a posture, but mostly working on the attitude or relationship to that posture, so that the posture then can become more than just something good for your life, but will be something that will be good for her. Because your attitude turns it into a total thing. So first is a confinement or homage to all the Buddhists with your body, speech, and mind. Next is praise all Buddhas. Now, there are many ways to praise Buddha. You can say, I love Buddha. You can say, I respect Buddha. You can say, I think Buddha's great. You can say, I think Buddha's a turkey. You can say anything you want in the spirit of joyful praise, of saying how wonderful Buddha is, how wonderful and lucky Buddha.

[39:44]

You can sing songs, like Old Man River is a song of homage to Buddha. You don't sing nothing. Just keeps rolling and rolling. I'm weary, you know? I'm scared of living and I'm scared of dying. You just keep rolling and rolling. You can sing Old Man River as a praise of Buddha. You can sing, you can find Buddha's text. like the one I'm going to give to you, and you can sing it. And that could be praise to Buddha. But also, in this class particularly, and in Zen meditation particularly, it's sitting. Sitting is praise of enlightenment. Not only do you appreciate enlightenment, but you appreciate it so much that you put your body in it. And also you walk the enlightenment. So it isn't just you think or talk quickly. You put that praise into your posture.

[40:48]

Your body is a praise of enlightenment. Let the second cry. Now there's eight more, and I don't know if I can keep... Maybe I should stop. And we should go into some sitting. Because maybe if I do these eight, you won't be able to concentrate that long. Well, maybe I'll stop with those two. I'll just say the names of the other things and explain them more later. The next one, third one, is to make offerings to all enlightened ones. The fourth one is to own up to and confess all the non-virtues all the non-virtuous deeds you have ever done. The next one is to rejoice in the merits of others. It takes delight in how wonderful other people are, and other beings, like how wonderful that God, effectively, is the song of God.

[42:01]

Before we even meet him, we know how good he is. The next one is to beseech the enlightened one to teach us. To beseech the enlightened teachers to teach. The next one is to beg them to stay in the world and not leave the world. The next one is to do all the practices which enlightened ones have done. The next one is to Serve and benefit to whatever is helpful in any possible way, all living beings, one by one. And the last one is to dedicate all the goodness accumulated and produced and generated by the previous nine factors. All the positive energy of your life is dedicated to benefiting you. all beings. If you dedicate your life to the welfare of all beings, including yourself.

[43:05]

Those are the ten practices. And I'd like to show how these ten practices are sitting meditation and how sitting meditation are these ten practices. And how these ten practices are a way to protect us from identifying Buddha or being separate from Buddha. In other words, he's Buddha. Well, even Buddha doesn't, you know, Buddha doesn't sit around and say, I'm Buddha. They don't do that. Well, once in a while they do. It can happen. It's sort of like they be saying that sometimes, I think, I'm Buddha. It might happen. But most of the time, they just sit there and, you know, take other things. Like, what time is it? And what's for lunch? And this is delicious. How are you? We'll start to incubate. Once in a while, they might say, yeah, I did it. But it's rare. And also, like these enlightening beings that work for the benefit of others, they don't walk around thinking all the time, I'm helping people.

[44:09]

Once in a while, they think they're helping people. And it happens to them sometimes because people come up to them and say, you're so helpful. And they sometimes say, oh, maybe so. It can happen. People tell you all the time you're helpful. They might occasionally think you are. Most of the time they're just helpful, they don't think I'm helpful. And sometimes I say, you can think you're helpful on your birthday, or you can think you're Buddha on your birthday. Don't do it too much. Buddhists don't think very much that they're Buddha. They are Buddha, but they don't think so. When you are Buddha, you don't identify with Buddha. But also, Buddhas don't think, I'm not Buddha. But once in a while, they think they're not Buddha, too. Once in a while, they think, maybe I'm not Buddha. But this is just something they're thinking. Well, occasionally it happens. Most of the time, they just are Buddha, which is not I am or I'm not. Well, speaking of this, before we get done, I think 50 years older could be today.

[45:27]

And I don't know, but I think we should love that. I think we should celebrate that. OK? Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Donald. Happy birthday to you. That's pretty good. I will take it myself once. Do you have a birthday coming, too? I do, too, but I'm not good. Right. I'm just 46. Okay, so I'll go into more detail about these later, but do you have an overall sense of it now?

[46:30]

But now, perhaps, we could actually look at the actual practice of sitting in the physical... If you have, if you have, if you have, if your eyes get tired, you get a kind of clean and cost of it, and so if you want to throw it out, Uh, what you sometimes help communicate is, most people say, like, to look for the cross-eyed, like, to look back to you. Okay? Something to do, but don't do it. If you look into it, it's strange, it's too hard to do it. You know, if you like it, you can do it. You can do it. If you look into it, it's strange, you can feel it's strange.

[47:35]

If it's pretty too hard, then you're going to have a power reaction to kind of rest your life in the vaccine. But if you just put a little effort into looking up in that vibration, it's a little bit, and stretches the muscles and relax. Another way of idea sometimes is that I've looked up here, and I look like sort of in my eyes, I go back and forth like ratio vectors. And at time like people, I was looking at the future of the episode of White, and we didn't see the side of the side of this part of the episode. It is really important and exciting to become a smooth part of it, like it is smooth part of it. It really is some kind of tension that makes you want to probably drive in the north. In addition to that, it becomes stimulation that can be wrapped in that area that you want, then you want to see it. You have to get a tiny feeling like that.

[48:40]

If you use the drops and crack off, and these people are working out, and you can't fix the work from the fire. It's a green fire. But sometimes, you're really tired. Sometimes, if you say you put five ceilings, like, after a hard day, you're going to carry hard with yourself. And day of work, it's kind of fragile, and the body really wants to release that tension. It wants to go into a state where it's not kind of a real lion. And if you sit, you probably have to go to sleep sometimes. What would you feel if you sit every minute and you fight it? Just take a short nap for yourself. You need just five minutes. Take your head off your feet. Then you sit, that's fine. If you're really to feel it, then by feeling that you're kind of like, your body really is kind of out of whack.

[49:41]

If you sit, in that state, you fire and you start to come back to the door with them and match you if they want. They're doing suits and you're with them. So you have a couple of warriors to do with that. A couple of them have to shut them out. In the morning, that's not the problem. In the morning, you have to be stuck there. In the morning, the duration, we talk about the Sometimes you just don't want to pray for coming up. Part of what we're doing here in the city

[50:45]

Good luck. See you now. Part of the way that sitting practice helps you to become a more compassionate person is that in the process of sitting, which I think some of you guide me to even, and this is a 25-minute period of self-discipline. Even in a 25-minute period, you may run into some, you have to deal with your body. You have to deal with gravity. And if you sit more, eventually everybody runs into some hassle.

[51:47]

Just into the hassle of having a body, of managing a body. It requires attention, it requires patience. And in particular, when I first started sitting, I kind of felt that it was quite difficult to get up and sit. And I had a lot of physical problems. And facing those physical problems and sitting with them and occasionally figuring out what to do about them. Sometimes maybe getting angry or sometimes getting discouraged or sometimes getting elated. But anyway, just to sit with the problem of a body or the assignment of a body and deal with it. And deal with various emotions that come up in the process of dealing with that. This already starts to develop your ability then to deal with other people's suffering when the suffering comes to you during the day. My experience was that before I thought I'd like to do medication, I was in college, and I had a job.

[52:58]

programming computers, and I only did it a few hours a week. And I actually had trouble even doing it a few hours a week, which irritated me actually quite a bit to do that kind of work. After I started practicing meditation, I started working full time on that same type of work. It didn't bother me as much. And the main reason why I didn't bother them was because I was getting up in the morning and doing something quite difficult. I was facing a lot of physical problems every morning in the wee hours. And by the time I came out of that, I was ready to face those other irritations much better. This is particularly true of beginners. As you get more experience, it isn't quite so difficult to do the meditation. And that's when you need to, in some sense, extend your meditation into relationships, into more and more challenging relationships, more and more challenging relationships.

[54:01]

But, anyway, that's part of how sitting helps you go out and face the world. It's not a retreat from the world. It's actually kind of a a warm-up facing life problems. And sometimes after you deal with the body, though, as you get into the mind, there's just this, there's boredom. Oh, so definitely, because it just seems like you want something else, or you can just be, ah, right. Definitely, I mean, many, many periods, you want to look forward to meditation. And they are for it, because you know it's going to be for it. And they wonder how can they go to another boring period. However, they also believe and know that to be willing to do something that's boring, somehow invigorates you.

[55:03]

To spend part of your time doing something that you don't understand. I mean, if you believe it's a good thing, if you actually, if you're trying to ignore experience, you can't quite understand what good is doing. It's certainly not interesting. To be willing to do that with the faith that is helpful to other people and yourself, it seems to have a good effect. you're crossing over into a whole different realm of life. You're crossing over from the realm of doing things for money, or for power, or for fame, or for affection, or for anyone. Where you're doing things for something, you cross over into a realm where you're doing something for nothing other than do the thing. So it's a radically different way of being alive. It's not better than the other way, but it's a kind of relief from you.

[56:07]

And the other ways are relief from you. So they kind of go together in two ways. And what you want to do is grab the harmony, the realm where you're doing something for a purpose or to accomplish something. It's harmonized in the realm where you do things not for nothing, but only for the thing itself. which from the ordinary person point of view could be quite boring. But it's only boring from the point of view of the ordinary person. There's somebody else who's sitting there who's totally ecstatic. There's somebody sitting there who's very, very happy, who's saying, I hate you to do this. But this person, what he's debating, This person is, you might say, pre-verbal. This person has a lot of energy, like a three- or four-year-old, or a two-year-old, or a one-year-old, but it's pre-verbal.

[57:22]

And the more you give yourself to a realm where there's nothing there for you, that you can see, except simply exercising your experience, the more this other side of yourself becomes more available to you and pervades you. But you don't necessarily know it. There's two layers of psychics. One layer is the realm of direct experience. The other realm is the realm of words and concepts. Our life is actually both of these realms simultaneously.

[58:26]

We're always having direct experience and we're always having perceptual experience. Every moment we have both. Part of the realm of direct experience is not in the realm of knowledge. The realm of knowledge is the realm of concepts. The realm where you know things, where you're aware of objects, you're not really aware of direct experience, you're aware of concepts. In the realm of direct experience, It is our life, it is part of your life, and it is very vital and juicy and blissful. But nobody's there to know it. That's the realm where everything's connected. Some of you mentioned about your faith and connectedness. There is a realm of direct, immediate experience, which is innocent, of conceptual thinking.

[59:27]

That's the realm of what I sometimes call dark bliss. It's bliss, but it's in darkness. You need a realm which comes up out of that realm, and that's the realm of very exciting speed is the realm of conceptual life. But the realm where we know things, like where we see these people as objects, the realm where we know things is the realm of words and concepts, and there are things that are separate. And there is where the problems of life arise. There is where we give rise to the ideal self and self-cleaning. And what's in it for me? What am I going to get out of this? So the job of meditation is to, again, integrate or harmonize these two levels. You know the story of Amor and Psychic?

[60:36]

It's about... It's a pretty long story. I'll just tell you the short movie in a minute, okay? There was a Greek goddess, and she's still around by... named Aphrodite, or Venus. the goddess of love and beauty. She was really gorgeous, gorgeous goddess. And there were temples all over the world, particularly all of the Greece, dedicated to her beauty, worshiping her beauty. And she noticed at some point that people weren't paying homage to her, weren't grateful. But actually, they had become distracted by an immortal female. People were worshipping her. In 206, people were becoming much united in the soul, in the goddess of beauty.

[61:44]

So she sent her son, killed her. The sun is Eros, or Cupid. So he came down with his arrow, and he was going to bump her off. But when he saw it, he only looked for two. So he thought, well, my mom wants me to kill it, so I can't not kill her. I mean, I don't want to kill her. I can't kill her. But I did a project, I should say, I did a project. So he got together with her, and in the dark, and made it with him when she became his husband. They took her off to seek the products before he met her. I actually, excuse me, I forgot one part of the story. Her father, Psyche's father, realized how much trouble she was causing. And also, no man ever dare marry it either, of course.

[62:46]

They put her on the cliff to get rid of her. And that's when arrows came to her and made it with her and put her in his pouches. So there she was in this wonderful palace with his great servants. And then every night in the dark, well, probably you'd come and see her. They would enjoy conjugal bliss. And he told her that she couldn't ever see it. She couldn't ever know it. If she knew, she'd tell people that his mother would find out that he didn't make children. So anyway, her sisters found out about this and told her that she was a fool. They were really jealous. She didn't know how to ruin her scene. Her sisters told her that she was a fool and actually this guy might be a monster. But she should find out who he was. And finally, she became enchanted by their comments.

[63:51]

So one night, she snuck up on him with a lamp, brought her over to look at him. She was a knife in her hand. She could kill him just in case he was a monster. And she put him by the tomb. And she saw that actually what he needed was him. Just then, some oil from the left dripped down to the front and woke up. And I told you, I could never see it. Now it's all over. See it later. It flew away. She grabbed his leg and tried to hold it back. She couldn't hold it. It's out of the way. So she got knowledge. She got knowledge of what love was. But she walked through her mouth. So there she was. Now she knows what great love is. She knows about it, what she needs.

[64:59]

And the rest of the story is about the process by which she becomes reinvented with her through various spiritual disciplines. But the analogy here is that There is a level of existence where light is in the universe. And that realm is in the darkness. It is the realm of direct experience. It is the realm of the bliss of interconnectedness of all life. But the nature of human beings is that it has actually evolved beyond that stage. to a stage where it knows things. But when it knows things, it loses, it becomes cut off in the realm where it is interconnected. So then the process is now, in the realm of knowing, to return, and not to return it, but you never go back to the higher level.

[66:10]

It could reintegrate what you've lost. In the realm of knowing, we have bodies. In the realm of direct experience, what I accept is body. There are bodies, but actually all the bodies are one that matters. And you can't tell the difference in one body from the other. They're all the same in the dark. So in the realm where we have separate bodies and we have individual bodies, we have to use these bodies in such a thorough way that at the limit of our awareness of these bodies, at the limit of our understanding of these bodies, we have resilient with this realm you picked up, this realm of intimacy, this is how they become reintegrated through this.

[67:20]

For example, when you meditate, or when you take the yoga posture, you are taking the yoga posture in the realm of knowing. What you're really dealing with is not a direct experience, but you're dealing with the conflict of your body, that your body is an object of awareness. But as you more completely become aware to the limit of your ability in the realm of knowing of the body, that that limit, the body which is not a conceptual body, where the body, the experience, meets it. And there, the two bodies, the conceptual body, the experience body, meet and dance. And their integration starts to be developed.

[68:23]

But we have to reach all the way But you have to bring your attention all the way into your hands and feel your hands touching your abdomen. The actual touch. And actually feel your eyes open. Feel the tongue open your mouth. And really be there in the realm of knowing. And then this other realm, sometimes dragging it, not under our control, dragging it into this. And little by little, this thing that starts out as a kind of conscious activity gets this kind of gift or infusion from a realm beyond our conception, which then gives us lots of energy, lots of enthusiasm, lots of inspiration to work for the benefit of the universe. You can encourage them also to integrate themselves.

[69:26]

And that was a conceptual thing. But we need conceptual things in order to figure out how to deal with the conceptual realm. If there isn't a conceptual realm, they attract. You need to be in the conceptual realm to have an idea of a self accepted from other beings. It's in the conceptual realm that we cling toward self and protect ourselves and are selfish. So it is in the conceptual realm that we are released from selfishness and thereby achieve integration with the nonsense. So when we sit, we sometimes are bored, because in the conceptual realm, not much is happening. But the point of meditation is not that you have a great show. Well, sometimes in meditation, they require a great show. I'm more in the sense that the point of meditation is integration, making a whole person.

[70:35]

As you reach the limits of your awareness or understanding, it's not that you're trying to make things more interesting for yourself or have better experiences. You're actually more working on exhausting this character. And once it really is exhausted, you get totally fresh. And you just cycle around and around every day. Does that make sense? It's like

[71:48]

At the limit of your fingertips, you know, at the limit of your toes, at the limit of your skin, at the limit of your eyes, at the limit of your bodily awareness, this is the realm of the adult. There's a limit of the realm of the adult. Right there at the edge of the earth, it's you, you produce the universe, you know. The realm of direct experience, you know. As we said, the spring, the water springs above the foot of the mountain. If you reach the bottom of the mountain, which is the same as ending your fingertips at the limit of your knowledge, if you reach the foot of the mountain, the water streams above. This water is the water at you. Freshness. And Buddhism will tell us a way to get that.

[73:09]

Otherwise could we use other kinds of references which don't work as well. But oftentimes we break down the conceptual realm in order to open up this realm of healing, drugs, sex, power. where it's all the needs that can build enough force to break down this, put a hole in this, unless you stop some of these other stuff. Both realms are life. It's not like the lower realms are up there with Iggy. It's just that they're different realms and life is really, both of them do different. We can only stay up in this conceptual realm so long without physically drawing up and dying. Just becoming a bigger rock you want. But if we can go on the bottom of the mouth, through our exercise in presence in our body, there is water, saving our shoe water like me.

[74:24]

And I was talking about it. I was talking to Ray Kassahara last weekend, and some yoga teachers were having a conference. And they were talking about how Mr. Anger talks about extending your awareness all the way to your fingertips. And how, at that minimum, something comes back, as he said, as he said, the divine. And my wife heard that. And she said, that's with the toys. The toys were cool. We're getting close to the time we're supposed to stop. So I don't want to take a burden on you. I think I can do it if you could figure it out some time. And I would suggest a regular time.

[75:30]

I would suggest making a commitment. Not just sort of whatever you feel like. Even a short time at a given time during the day. Or a given time on certain days. But be definitely involved. Don't make it up as a choice. Of course you can make any time you want. That's fine. I have no problem with that. But still, in addition to that, in addition to sitting whenever you feel like it, take some time during the week and decide that you're going to sit at that time. Even for five minutes. I suggest you try to do that. Find a place in your house where you can align yourself with beauty. Find a place in your house where you can praise enlightenment with your body posture. A definite time, definite purpose, or a definite day.

[76:46]

I think before is good. And kind of what kind of day, if you see me during the morning. When I get out of bed, I'm pretty stiff usually. And then if I sit like this, After I'm sitting like this for a while, I'm much looser. So then I think it would be easier for me to do awesomeness. This is an awesomeness, right? But it's a very gentle awesomeness to start with. So you sit like this and you breathe, and after you do that for a while, then I think it would essentially go into your sitting. Now if you have time, the best thing would be to sit like this for a while. Then do awesomeness. That's it. But that's a pretty big deal. You might not be able to have time to do that. But that would be, first sitting would kind of loosen you up and wake you up.

[77:49]

Particularly, it softens your body. You get your body up there and face gravity, right? It gradually softens. Then you do the asana, it might really loosen you up. Then if you sit, well, that's just ideal. But very few people have time to do that. Sitting and breathing already. And then sit before breakfast. And these things should be done before you eat. The sitting, good not to do the sitting right after you eat. So before breakfast, it's a good time to do it. And then not right after breakfast, but later in the morning. At some distance from when you've eaten the house, Any time of the day is fine. That's what I would say. I don't know. I don't know what you say, Dado.

[78:51]

Actually, later, I would. Like an afternoon, if I'm tired and I do asana practice, that wakes me up for sitting practice. So if I had a day of work and I was going to sit at like 5.30 or 6 or 7, Then I actually would have reversed it. Then if I do some asana practices, they kind of get rid of the key, wake me up, and then I can sit without falling asleep. So that's right. I'd reverse it later. So tonight, we didn't collect the cover, but we discussed the first two of you kind of talked to the five process of the population, and two each week we develop into your pen. So this week, think about how sitting is aligning yourself. How sitting is joining Buddha's flow.

[79:53]

Aligning yourself is joining with enlightenment. And how sitting is praising enlightenment. And what my opinion wanted to say is that when I first became interested in Zen, it was because part of that picture I quoted about I saw is the idea of that. And the other one was, well, I read some stories about Zen monks. I did not read Zen monks. I just felt a story about some people and their behavior. I thought it was really excellent. It's always wonderful. One story was, Ms. Dunbar was sitting in his hut, and he kind of heard or sent somebody sitting at his hut. He thought that it was a thief.

[80:56]

And the mistake it was a thief turns out. Before the thief, He came across the ceiling. He threw his possessions out the window. And he said, and it was a full moon night, and he said, I wish I could give you the full moon too. And I read that story and I thought, I want to do that. I thought that was so beautiful. Not only did he give the stuff away, but he wanted to give them even more than he thought. I thought, that's weird. I want to be like that. Wanting to be like that, that's homage. Wanting to be like a really good person, that's homage. Then I found out, after I read several of these stories and wonderful people, that they did this exercise called sitting meditation. So then I wanted to do the exercises. My teacher, Suzuki Roshi, somebody said that if his practice was standing on his head, if his practice was walking around in circles or driving motorcycles, he would have done that.

[82:08]

He wanted to be like them. So he wanted to do what he did. Turns out he did the sitting too. So part of it is that you see a wonderful person and you want to be like them, so you also want them to do what they do. Not exactly what they do, but still. So in that way, sitting is kind of saying, I want to be like you. And also, I think you're wonderful. I think you're so wonderful. I want to do with you. In that way, to be practicing, creating the Buddha is because the Buddha is all sitting. You're all standing. You're walking. You're always sitting. So in that way, it's praise and it's homage. So think about that while you're sitting. If I was doing this tonight, I didn't say anything. But while I was sitting, I was thinking about, this is my praises Buddha here. And not anything. This is my aligning Buddha. So you work on those two while you're sitting to speak.

[83:15]

I'm purely listening. We're not, you know.

[83:30]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_48.37