In our tradition of Soto Zen, there is a scripture called the Lotus of the Wonderful Dharma, which is very important to us. When we call upon and align ourselves with the Buddhas and say the names of the various Buddhas, we also say the name of the Lotus Sutra. We consider it almost like the Buddha. In the Lotus Sutra, It says, the Buddha actually brings this up and says that there is one great matter, one great matter in the causes and conditions of the appearance of the Buddha in the world.

[01:30]

There's not just one cause for the appearance of awakening in this world. There's not just one cause for the appearance of perfect wisdom and infinite compassion in this world of suffering. There's not just one cause. There are infinite number of causes. Each of us and all of our ancestors are causes for the appearance of Buddha in the world. Every living thing is a cause for the appearance of Buddha in the world. But there is one great cause that must always be there, and without that cause Buddhas do not appear. What is that cause?

[02:48]

What is that condition? It is the wish. It is the desire to open and disclose Buddha's wisdom and knowledge so that all beings can awaken to it and enter it. This is the one great matter of cause and condition for the appearance of Buddha in the world. The desire to help and cause beings to open, to open their eyes and ears and hearts to wisdom.

[03:54]

It's the desire that this wisdom be demonstrated, be disclosed and revealed to beings, and the wish that they will, after opening to it, after listening to it, after letting it in, and seeing it demonstrated, that they will awaken to it. And after awaking to it, they will enter it and live it. This is the great one matter, one concern of all the Buddha's appearance in the world. And this wish or this desire can be born in ordinary people like us. This wish actually can come up in us, happen around our body and mind, happen in our heart.

[05:10]

It can come up. It can be born in us. It can arise in our mind. we can feel the wish, the desire that all beings will open to the Buddha's wisdom. That all beings will see it demonstrated and awaken to it and enter it. And feeling this feeling this desire we can we can witness the birth of a vow which all Buddhas have had in their hearts, the vow to do whatever is necessary, whatever we can possibly do to help every living being attain, realize this wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas, and that they would all attain this before ourselves.

[06:16]

This thought, this attitude, this vow has been in all Buddhas and it can come up in us. And it can become, in our life, the one great matter which we then can vow to bring to maturity We practitioners, we disciples, we children of Buddha have the great opportunity to witness the birth of this vow and then to give ourselves to it.

[07:54]

Once this vow has been made, has been created, has been born, then we may be able to understand and we have heard that we must then practice the practices of the Buddha's way in order to protect and develop and realize this wish. It needs to be protected. It needs to be developed and it needs to be realized. This vow is the protection and development and realization this vow is accomplished by, in this school, by what we call upright sitting, being upright.

[09:45]

Being upright by itself without this vow would not be our way of following the Buddha's example. Being upright has this seed in it of this desire. Some of us, when we first began to practice Zen, perhaps did not recognize this wish. We tried to practice upright sitting and we did our best and then sometimes after a number of years in the midst of the practice of uprightness this vow was born. So being upright is a good situation in order to discover and have this vow revealed to us.

[10:55]

And once it's revealed it is the way to protect it from being lost, from degenerating, and to develop it and bring this wish, make it warmer and warmer until it's burning, until it's a great fire. When this wish is first born, it is like maybe a little bit more than a spark. The comparison would be something like, when it's first born, in comparison to what it can become when it's realized, it's like a firefly in comparison to a galactic firestorm. But this tiny little light of wishing, when it first happens, of wishing for the welfare of all beings, is actually exactly the same as the huge

[12:01]

great fire of Buddha's heart. It's exactly the same if you want the welfare of all beings before yourself. Still, however, even though it's the same, this little flame, this little light can still be practically infinitely developed. by constantly, steadfastly, wholeheartedly being upright with this vow, never forgetting it eventually, learning how to remember it throughout all your activities, day after day, year after year, eon after eon, taking care of this precious flame of Buddha's heart. Being upright has many aspects.

[13:03]

Many aspects to protect this vow. Other aspects to develop it. And other aspects to realize it. The first aspect of being upright, the first aspect of protecting this vow, this seed of Buddhahood, which I want to mention today, is called, we call it, renunciation. When you're being upright, part of being upright is renunciation. Part of being upright is giving up everything, giving up everything, eventually everything, even giving up the vow.

[14:26]

The way to take care of what you care for most is finally not to care about it. If there's anything you don't care about, you should learn how to care about it. And when you care about it a little, you should care about it more. And you should care about it more and more until you care about it totally. And then You should renounce that. Then you can protect it. Then you have flexibility. Then you have energy. Then you have open-mindedness in which you can take care of this thing which is most important. This renunciation is something we learn how to do.

[15:37]

but it's the first thing to protect this precious mind of wanting the welfare of all beings before ourselves. I find that in discussing this topic with myself and with Buddha and all beings, it seems to be hard for us to understand what renunciation is, and harder to practice it. So I feel I need to say a little bit more about this. And I also guess that this is a difficult topic to hear about. I asked someone recently who told me about his vow, and I said, how do you take care of it?

[16:54]

And he said, by not caring, but nicely, in a nice way. It isn't that you don't care about the welfare of all, achieving the welfare of all beings in a kind of disrespectful way, like that's not important. You don't care in the sense that you don't attach to it. So what you give up is your attachments to what you care about. I propose to myself and to you that if you vow to never abandon any living being that unless you abandon everything, you will eventually abandon them. The way not to abandon living beings is to abandon all our attachments. If we hold on to anything, we will eventually abandon some being.

[17:56]

Another way to try to convey the spirit of renunciation is given by the Buddha in the Diamond Sutra. He's talking to one of his disciples, and he's talking about, I think, bringing forth or establishing a Buddha land. Part of the work that's necessary in order to help all beings in the fullest way is to do this kind of fairly big project of building a Buddha land for them to live in. Buddha lands are times and places where the conditions are optimal for people to be free and happy and wake up. And part of what's necessary to help people realize Buddhahood is to build a Buddha land for them to play in.

[19:14]

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that when this desire to help beings open to the true Dharma and have it demonstrated for them and all that. This great desire, it is not... What do you call it? The Buddhas all had this desire, but they didn't think that they would do it by themselves. It isn't that they wanted to have this happen. And they said, I want all beings to open to the Buddha's wisdom, and I want to make that happen by myself. So you don't have to want to do this by yourself. As a matter of fact, it's to do it with all beings. It's to somehow get other people to help you do this.

[20:19]

And so the Buddha Land, even though it's a huge project, not even though it is a huge project, and you need everybody to help you do it, So the Buddha asked Subuddhi, his disciple, what about bringing forth this Buddha land? I forgot what he said. Oh, here. Just happened to have a sutra right here. The Buddha said to Subuddhi, what do you think? My friend, in the remote past, when the Tathagata was with the great Buddha Dipankara, Burning Lamp Buddha, the Buddha named Dipankara, which means Burning Lamp, when the Tathagata, namely when I, Shakyamuni Buddha, was with that other Buddha named Burning Lamp, did that Buddha who I was with have any degree of attainment of the true Dharma?

[21:27]

And Subuddhi said, No, World Honored One. When you were with the Buddha Dipankara, burning lamp, he had no degree of attainment of the good law. And then Buddha said, okay, what do you think, Subuddhi? Does a Bodhisattva set forth any majestic Buddha lands? Bodhisattva's vow to build Buddha lands for all beings' comfort and joy and edification. So Buddha says, does a Bodhisattva bring forth any majestic Buddha lands? And Subodhi says, no. World-honored one. Wherefore? Because setting forth a Buddha land is, setting forth a majestic Buddha land is not a majestic setting forth. It is merely a name. A bodhisattva, the Buddha says, should develop a mind which alights upon nothing, whatever.

[22:50]

Vowing to benefit all beings, vowing to build the best possible housing and playgrounds for all beings is what bodhisattvas do. Then do they bring forth these playgrounds? No. Because bringing forth these playgrounds would be not bringing forth these playgrounds. It would be merely a name called... Well, here's a playground. See, there's a sign. Playground for sentient beings. That's not what we're talking about. Bringing forth the playground of all sentient beings, what is that? It is producing a mind which alights nowhere, whatever. Did you vow to help all beings? Well, if you did, did you also produce a mind which has no abode, which has no address, which alights nowhere?

[23:55]

Subuddhi did. That's why he was called the foremost at taking naps. The foremost at siestas. If you want to help all beings, you have to practice conscientiously 24 hours a day eventually. Practicing 24 hours a day according to our usual idea of what that is, is not practicing conscientiously. Practicing conscientiously according to our idea of practicing conscientiously is just an idea, is just a name. Taking naps is closer to what it's like. However, taking naps isn't it either.

[25:04]

The mind of the bodhisattva dwells nowhere. And the mind that dwells nowhere, which alights, which entrenches, which grasps, nowhere, that's the mind that protects this precious body. flame of compassion. The mind which gives up all hope of overcoming disease and pain is the mind which can hear the true Dharma. Renunciation means to relinquish all my activities of thought. It means to relinquish all my judgments.

[26:12]

Relinquishing all judgments does not mean I have no judgments. It means I don't grab my judgments and say that they're real or grab them and say they're not real. Relinquishing my re-judgments means I let my judgments be judgments and no more or less than that. Wanting all beings to be free of disease, in order to work for that end, I must relinquish all hope of myself and others being free of disease before I can hear what disease is telling me to do.

[27:27]

When I renounce everything, I have done the first thing that Buddha's wish would happen. Namely, I have opened to the true Dharma. renouncing everything, I open to the anxiety of the world. I open to my own anxiety. I open to others' anxiety. I don't stick my head in my anxiety. I don't lean into my anxiety. I don't go looking for my anxiety. Because the anxiety I look for is only a tiny little pint-sized version of my anxiety. And if I try to If I try to open to your anxiety, I open to the part of your anxiety which I'm already willing to open to.

[28:44]

By renunciation, I open to the anxiety which I don't even know is anxiety. I open to the anxiety with the mind that does not alight on my idea of anxiety. I open to a mind which doesn't take a bode in the thought of anxiety. Opening to this pain, not leaning into it, not leaning away from it, not grasping my judgments of it, I actually open to it. I face it in uprightness. And then we can hear what the pain, what the anxiety is telling us.

[29:49]

The Dharma is talking through every pain. The Dharma is being taught through everything that happens throughout the cosmos. It's talking. It has a rhythm. It goes, boom, duh, [...] duh. It talks. It teaches. But if I hold to anything, if I close my eyes to anything, then I close my eyes to the Dharma. When pain comes, when sickness comes, it's normal, it's our habit to try to avoid it, to find a way to get rid of it. We even look for some doctor or something to help us get rid of it.

[30:53]

Usually. But this moving in this direction makes it impossible for us to hear what pain is trying to tell us to do, what pain and anxiety are asking of us. The vow to benefit all beings requires uprightness in order to get the message of what we need to do. But when pain comes, again, we need to find a way to be upright with it, to find a way to be upright with it, not to get thrown off into some biased, leaning reaction to it.

[32:18]

However, although we need to find this, we do get thrown off often. And then there's a practice which is also part of uprightness called confession, which is that we notice that we are veering off, that we're leaning, that we've grasped our judgments. We've given up. We're not relinquishing what we're thinking. We're believing what we're thinking. This has gone too far. This is too much. I've had enough of this Buddhist stuff. I am now back to, this is reality. I had enough of this, like, yeah, that's just my thoughts. I've had enough of, that's just a judgment.

[33:25]

No, if this is really true, my practice really is no good. It's not just a judgment, that's a reality. Or, my practice really is good. I've had enough of this, well, that's just a thought that my practice is good. It is good. I've had enough of, well, your practice is no good, and that's just a thought. In other words, I've had enough of this mind which does not alight anywhere. I'm going to alight on this one. In fact, you just happen to be wrong. There's nothing I can do about it. This open-mindedness stuff can be carried too far. And it has now been carried too far. I'm now going to close my mind. Close down shop, this bodhisattva shop, and just simply, I'm back to the old world where I know what's right.

[34:30]

Self-righteousness actually is necessary sometimes. And this is one of those times. And I happen to be self-righteous, but I'm also right. There's a reason, there's a good reason for me being self-righteous. At that time, I have just killed the heart of Buddha. Pretty much knocked it off completely. Now, if I was a great bodhisattva, you know, and this flame was like a forest fire, then such thoughts would be just like more wind on the fire and just get bigger. So that wouldn't kill it, actually. But for, you know, beginning bodhisattva, the thought like that is enough to wipe it out. However, there's a chance to recover, and that is by confessing, hey, I lost my patience. I got lazy and said, it's too much for me.

[35:37]

I can't stand to be this open-minded. It's too much. I leaned over into, well, actually, my thoughts are true. That was a mistake I made. I admit it. And by noticing that you're leaning in that way, your integrity is implicated. You remember the spirit of balance, and you recover. and you're ready again to watch for the rebirth of this vow. You've done a little damage by veering off, but by honestly admitting it, you're purified of it and you're rectified. Not by bringing yourself back and saying, now I'm back and I'm okay again, and believing that, which would be another veering off, but simply by admitting, I veered off, that's enough. When you think that you veered off, you're right. When you think that you haven't veered off, you're wrong.

[36:42]

Or I should say, when you think you haven't veered off and you think that's true, you veered off. Just to think that you veered off and know that that's just a little, you know, fluttering of your mosquito wings, that's okay. But to think that this is reality, then you veer it off. And we do think that what we're thinking is reality. That's why it's hard for us to renounce what we're thinking. Because we feel like we're renouncing reality. But what we're thinking, what we're saying, is not reality. It's just what we're thinking and saying. And it's good to the extent that you can renounce it. Once you renounce, you're empty-handed again, you're naked again, you're ready to let the stuff come back in again.

[37:47]

You're ready to face the anxiety of the world again. If you can let the anxiety of the world pour in, also the compassion of the world will pour in. And your vulnerability to the anxiety of the world, in that openness to that is also where the outpouring comes from. The inpouring is the same place as the outpouring. If I close to your suffering, then my compassion can't come out. If I close to your suffering, I can't get compassion into me. If I close my eyes to the compassion that's in pain, I should say, if I close my eyes to the message of the pain and I close my eyes to the compassion... That when I was talking about, you know, this wish to help all beings, you know, awaken to Buddha's wisdom and enter it and so on, that she felt like I... Yes?

[39:04]

Oh, really? Can you hear me now? No? There's still no noise in there. I just want to see. Galen, is there some kind of fan going or something? I hear some kind of like... Do you hear something? Well... It's a motorcycle. It's a motorcycle? It's a motor sound. A motor sound? Does anybody hear a motor sound? Let's be quiet and see if we can hear it.

[40:08]

Yes. Now, can you hear me, Galen? Galen? Can you hear me, Carrie? No? I can talk louder. So, after that talk, somebody came up to me and said that she actually did have a problem with what I was saying in that she felt like I was saying, you know, there's this Buddha way and you should get everybody to do this Buddha way. And you want to get everybody to understand Buddhism or something like that. And she said she has some shyness or problem with cults. And that thing went off a little bit when I was talking about wanting people to awaken to Buddha's way. But then I said, well, basically, I want people to be free. And when you're free, you will understand Buddha's way.

[41:13]

You'll understand all other ways, too. It isn't that I want people to understand this particular way and not other ways. I want people to be liberated. That's what I mean by Buddha's way. But I said, in a way, her question, when I talked about that, her mind, and my mind too, tends to sort of like think, well, if you want such and such a good thing for people, then you have this idea of what you want for them and you try to get that thing for them. Okay? And that's exactly what I was talking about, the necessity of having a mind which has no abode. Because if you don't have that mind, then when you try to work for the benefit of people, you try to get people on a certain track. You know? Like, I know some people who are friends of mine, but they want me to go, they want me to meet their teacher because I think they want me to be their teacher's student. Because they think their teacher's so great. And they're trying to get me to go over their... and meet their teacher and be their teacher's student because they want me to do that and I feel uncomfortable with that.

[42:18]

Because it feels like a cult. That's why we need this mind of renunciation so that when our mind comes up and thinks, oh, this is this thing that I want for everybody, that we renounce that. That our mind doesn't alight on some idea of what it is to help people. But still our mind does come up with some idea, this would be helpful, that would be helpful, I want this for people, I want that for people. Our mind does that. It's not going to stop necessarily. Don't plan on it stopping. But how can you, when that comes up, just drop that, let that drop, or not grab it. If you have some idea of what Buddhism is or what helping people is and you grab it, then you are what we call possessed by a demon. Demonic possession is to grab some idea of what Buddhism is or some idea of what a pure land would be or some idea of what helpfulness is or some idea of what a demon is.

[43:29]

But when demons come, or when Buddhism comes, and you don't care one way or another, that's called Buddhism. So why does Buddhism get to be what we call lack of attachment? So maybe I shouldn't say Buddhism. But that's the definition of Buddha, is a person who's not attached to anything. So did other people have a feeling like I was trying to forge you into the Buddhist chute? And I am, I am trying to forge you into Buddhism. But the chute I'm trying to forge you into is a chute which has no dimensions. The chute of you being completely free of whatever's coming up in your mind. So you can think, I hate her, I love him. You know, there's a demon, there's a Buddha, and you just say hi to everybody, hi Buddha, hi demon, you know.

[44:36]

But very intimate hello. Not even high, like, not even grasping them as something outside yourself. Even though your mind may think, oh, Buddha's over there, that's not me. Or demon's over there, that's not me. If you grasp the idea that demon's not you, you're possessed by the demon. If you grasp the idea that Buddha is not you, you're possessed by a demon. One kind of demon is the demon which thinks Buddha is not you. Another kind of demon is the demon that thinks Buddha is you. If you think you're Buddha, that's you're demonically possessed. If you think you're not Buddha, you're demonically possessed. If you think you're not a demon, you're demonically possessed. If you think you are a demon, you're demonically possessed. Okay? So you can see it's very easy to be demonically dependent. Demonic possession is very easy to have. We're very familiar with that. That's basically where we're at most of the time. But to be yourself is not demonic possession.

[45:44]

And that's very difficult. Just to be yourself and not grab anything. That's not easy. What's easy is to grab things. And whenever you grab something When you grab it, it grabs you. If you don't grab a demon, it can't grab you. But if you grab a demon, it's got you. If you grab Buddha, Buddha's got you. But then it's not Buddha. It's a demon. Not because it's a demon, but because you grab it. If you don't grab a demon, a demon's not a demon. Not grabbing demons is Buddha. But not grabbing... is what we're not good at, and grabbing is what we're good at. So we usually to him, well, maybe this isn't okay. Maybe I'm supposed to like wanting to help people. Do you feel some anxiety there? Well, that's one of the good things about serenity is when you're serene, you allow the thought that maybe something's missing to come up.

[46:46]

And when you feel that something's missing, you feel anxiety. So that's a good thing about serenity, is a serenity that allows you to open up to anxiety. It doesn't mean really there's something missing, and that's true, but you sort of feel it that way, so you feel anxious. But that's good that you're open to that anxiety. That's good, I say. If you're serene and you're not open to anxiety, then you're psychotic. You know what I mean? Have you ever met one of these people? They're like in a serene bubble and you can't get in there. Nothing can get in there. They've got it worked out. Whatever comes in gets automatically converted to serenity. Whatever you say to them is a compliment. You're crazy. Sure, sure. I know what you really mean. You're saying I'm Buddha. They can convert anything into their program and stay in the serene bubble. But another kind of serenity is a serenity which allows you to open to the fact that maybe something's missing.

[47:53]

It's not true that something's missing. But it is true that beings are anxious. Something missing is a thing in the world that's anxious. Buddha was an anxious person. The historical Buddha was an anxious person. And he opened to his anxiety. He didn't say this anxiety is true. He opened to it. And open to it means you don't grasp it or push it away. So if you're serene, anxiety will come to visit you. Anxiety Visits people aren't serene also. But if you're serene, you can really feel the anxiety and see, oh, this is uneasy, I feel uneasy. That's right, you do. Now, can you not grasp it or push it away? Can you be upright? And if you don't grasp it or push it away, and if you don't push it away, if you don't push it away, compassion manifests in your body and mind. If you push the anxiety away, compassion is pushed away.

[49:02]

If you grab the anxiety, compassion is pushed away. If you sit upright with the anxiety, compassion is alive in you. Alive in you means it's coming in and going out. It's not yours, so it's like somebody's giving it to you. It's not yours, but it's like you're giving it to somebody, but not somebody other than you. It's just pulsing inside and outside. It's always going in and out of your eyes, in and out of your ears, in and out of your tongue, in and out of your nose, in and out of your mind, in and out, in and out. And sometimes the way it comes in is, Anxiety. I think I'm something I'm supposed to do. I think I'm supposed to help all beings, but I don't really feel like I want to. So I feel a little anxious, like I'm going to get busted for this serenity.

[50:05]

Anyway, that was something else another person brought up. So these were two problems that people had after my talk. And now they don't have those problems anymore. Now what problems do you have? Yes? I have a hard time visualizing or understanding what you mean by... And it's the same thing that you've been talking about, about not alighting on an idea. I mean, I know I grab onto ideas, but I don't understand how you can... sort it through, grapple with it, come to some understanding without sometimes going as far as pouncing on it, and other times maybe to the other edge of the spectrum of just kind of poking it. Well, in this lifetime you have not wasted your lifetime because you have asked a very good question.

[51:13]

Which is on tape, I hope. Very good question. Excellent question. And I hope you remember that question. Or, you know, get the tape and listen to it. I think that's a wonderful question. Did you hear a question? Say it again. I'm confused by your notion of how not to alight on an idea. And my way... dealing with ideas when they come up is I either grab on to them and I wrestle with them and that's one extreme and another way is just kind to stand back and walk around it and examine it from a distance maybe poke it a little bit but I don't I don't know another way to do it particularly if it's perplexing Excuse me for saying this also, but a lot of times, you know, bodhisattvas ask questions on behalf of other people.

[52:22]

So then the Buddha says, we know you know the answer to that, but thanks for asking that on their behalf. Yeah, on my behalf I'd like an answer. Don't you have that question? Sure. Good question. Okay, so, what does it mean to have a mind which doesn't have an address, you know? Like I said before, if you don't grab Buddha, Buddha can't grab you. If you don't grab a demon, demon can't grab you. So by not grabbing, you don't have an address. What does it mean not to alight on something? She says, my way would be to grab it and grapple with it or to walk around it and maybe poke it a little bit. But don't you have another way of like totally disregarding it and rejecting it? Don't you have that way too sometimes? Yeah, and then it kind of sneaks in from behind someplace. Right, right. And so another mode is to reject it and say, I'm not going to pay attention to that. We're not dealing with this today.

[53:25]

I've had enough problems. So rejection and grabbing it. So struggling with it or grappling with it can be done in a way where you don't alight on the struggle even. But in the struggle of dealing with whatever's coming up in your life, inside or outside, we do tend to sort of like get into grabbing or rejecting. We slip into those. So if you do notice that you're grabbing, like, oh, this is really true, one kind of grabbing. This is really not true, is another kind of grabbing. Or saying, I'm not going to do either. I'm not going to grab or not grab. That's another kind of way of, that's rejecting, like, that's nihilism. To say, this is right, this is wrong, is self-righteousness. Nihilism is saying, there's no right and wrong, I'm not even going to get involved.

[54:27]

That's a not caring which is nihilistic, rather than just intimacy. So renunciation means to be totally engaged. So the way to not alight on things is to be totally engaged in what is happening. So if you have a thought, you'd be totally engaged with that thought. Have that thought completely. It's getting hot, isn't it? So, when you're completely involved in your thinking, totally engaged in it, you have nothing left over to like have you be here and your thought over there. You have no way, after a while, you're not grappling anymore. You're not holding it and you're not rejecting it. You're totally one with what you're doing. and therefore there's no way to... whatever it is, is no longer an object because you're so totally engaged with it.

[55:35]

And when you're totally engaged in it, you have no... you don't have any residual energy with which you say, this is how I'm totally engaged. You don't even know you're totally engaged. If you know you're totally engaged, that part that knows you're totally engaged is disengaged. You're still holding back a little bit and saying, I'll get engaged in this, but I still want to be able to check to see that I am. And so I say, good, you're totally engaged. Or you're 99% engaged, and finally now I'm 100% engaged. If you say you're 100% engaged, you're not. You're a little bit holding back and saying, I'm not going to like not know what I'm doing. That's too much to ask. That's too much to give. That's too open. I got to have some way to, you know, check to see if I'm doing all right. You don't have to worry, though, because you'll still be commenting all the time on whether you're doing all right or not.

[56:45]

You'll still be saying, I'm not doing all right or I am doing all right. That stuff will still probably go on. But if you're totally engaged, you don't have any energy to grab those things anymore, to grab I'm not okay or I am okay. They're just like birds in the trees. Now, birds in the trees can be grass, too, but you usually don't grab a bird chirping as reality, like what the bird's chirping as reality, because you don't understand what the bird's saying. If you listen carefully, you can understand what the bird's saying. If you open up, you can hear what the bird's saying. You can realize that you understand birds as well as you understand English. Namely, you don't really understand either one most of the time. You're just kind of like dreaming of what people are saying to you in English. It's like you're dreaming that birds aren't talking to you. And if you had an interview with the birds, they would say, yeah, that's right, we're not talking to you. We're talking to each other.

[57:46]

We aren't interested in you. You say, see, the birds aren't talking to me. The only people who are talking to me are the people who would say they're talking to me. That's, you know, a normal way of seeing things. Perfectly fine. The thing is, do you think that's true? And yes, most people do. They think it's true, and that's the world they want to live in, and that's prison. But if you're totally engaged, you don't know if that's any more or less true than anything else. And therefore you have no way to figure out whether to let pleasure in or let pain in. or to face anxiety or serenity. So you face everything and you open to everything and therefore you open to compassion too. And when you open to compassion you open to the whole universe and then you start getting an idea of what's going on. But this is not easy. This is painful. It's painful to open wider than you usually open. What will happen to you? Oh, this guy I was talking to, where is he?

[58:48]

That guy who asked me that question, he's here? He ran away. He also, he said that when he's in a serene state, the thing comes up, which comes up to a lot of Zen students, is the expression, and then what? Or, and now what? You know, you're fine, and you say, and now what? And now what is anxiety? I mean, it's not anxiety unless you grab it. You think, okay, I'm serene, but I'm supposed to do something now, aren't I? And it isn't that you should push that away and say, don't say, and now what? But realize that saying, and now what? Or, and then what? And grabbing that, that's anxiety. Open to that anxiety. All things are saying, on some level, and now what? And then what? So walking around it is very good, I think.

[59:53]

It's very close to the way to relate to it. Walk around it. Walk around every thought you have. Walk around every feeling. The feeling, and then what? Walk around it. The feeling, this is bad, this is good. Walk around it. Stay close and learn how to be with something without grasping it and rejecting it. Find that balanced place where you're actually, like they do in, what is it, Tai Chi, pushing hands. You're touching, but if you touch too much, you miss the point. If you touch too little, you miss the point. What's the way to meet? I... I thought today's lecture was going to be really good, and one of the things I wanted to do in the lecture was, I wanted to do this, tell a story, but I had to stop because people were in too much pain.

[60:57]

And they didn't want me to, they didn't want to face it, so I stopped. But one of the things I was going to say is that one time an Indian, I don't know if this really happened, but I heard a story that a white man was talking to a Native American. And he asked this Native American, he was a chief, he said, how do you, he noticed that their people knew how to ride bareback, ride ponies bareback. And they were very skillful riding around without saddle or bridle. How do you do that, you know? He asked the chief, and the chief said, The chief didn't say anything for a long time. And then finally the chief said, well, you have to grow up with these horses to learn how to do that. He said, you didn't, you won't be able to learn how. But then in a long time after that he said, but if you did grow up, the way you do it is like this.

[62:02]

I think he went like this. I think that's what he did. Bringing the hands together, interlocking the fingers, joining them together, bringing two of them back up into one finger and then making a circle. So that's kind of how to engage with a thought. You know, this intimate cooperation. And then when you're totally one with it, then out of that oneness comes this joint effort of these fingers, and then you can use that to draw circles in the world. Or you can also make Zs. Z-E-N, you're right. And then you can sign it with your name. But it's you together with your thought.

[63:05]

And when you first come together with your thought, there's anxiety there. How are you going to get these fingers together? And then what? And then what? No, no. Not... And then what? But just settle with that now. And then what happens? Ooh, spontaneously these two fingers come up. And then what do they do? Make a circle. Or ride across the prairie. Or fly through the flowers. We don't know what will happen. So a big part of this is... that I think you also said you were having trouble conceiving of this. Whenever you hear the instruction, find a mind which doesn't alight anywhere, when you hear that, you take it in and when you hear that and are aware of it, you have an image of what was just said. You have an image of a mind which doesn't do something. The way you do it maybe is like, you think of the mind going, and a lighting on some little thing, right?

[64:09]

You think of that, and you think, you get this image of a lighting on something. And then you say, a lighting on nothing, whatever. But you maybe use the image of a lighting on something, and then where there was something, you put nothing. And then you put nothing whatever, and you sort of wipe away the something. So you get this image of what it would be like to alight nowhere whatever, or alight on nothing whatever. You get that image. You have to. If you didn't have the image of what was just said, you wouldn't be able to be aware of it. So you have an image of something not happening. Now, obviously that's not it, right? Because your mind just delighted on an image. So that's obviously not it. And yet, somehow it reminds you of this, or it gets you to think about this. Now again, if you develop a rapport with this imagination, because when someone says, think of nothing,

[65:15]

there's some reason why when they say those words you come up with this image. There's some relationship there that causes that image. If you get in there and practice with that image, you and that image can make this wonderful thing called riding Indian ponies. So you have to really engage totally with this imagination or you know, touch it. But touch it without grasping it. This pain that's in you, reach down and touch it. But touch it gently so that, like, you know, like if you touch your wrist, if you press too hard, you can't feel the pulse, right? But if you don't touch hard enough, you can't feel the pulse. You know what I mean? You can press so hard that you obliterate the pulse, but you have to press a little bit hard to feel it. So how can you touch something enough to feel it and yet not to obliterate it?

[66:18]

It's a balanced thing, and it's between you and the... And the pulse, and some pulses you have to push harder to feel. Some pulses are so strong, you can feel them without touching the person. You can just see them. You can just see it. You can look at some people's arms and without touching them, feel the pulse. You know what I mean? Other people, you can't see it, so you have to touch. And some people, you have to touch really hard to feel it. So how hard you touch, how deeply you go, depends on what you're touching. So this is how you walk round and round, whatever it is, and try to find this balanced place. And in that balance, in the balance is where you find what this not alighting is. It's that balanced place. So I could go on forever, but that's something about that. Any idea now? I'll waltz around with you for a while.

[67:21]

Yes? Grasping anxiety, that is anxiety. Anxiety ungrasped, is that compassion? If anxiety is ungrasped? Well, just to be open to anxiety, okay, that's virtually the same as compassion. Or you could say, when you're open to anxiety, you're also open to compassion. It's not the same as compassion because compassion is there even before you open to anxiety. Compassion is in you and coming to you all the time. It's being delivered to you every single moment. It always has been, it always will. Buddha's compassion is not like waiting for you to open to anxiety before being delivered to you. Buddha's compassion is coming to us all the time, even when we're totally closed to everything. Buddha's compassion, the awakened one, our awakened nature, doesn't like us more or less for anything we do.

[68:35]

It isn't like if you become a jerk, suddenly compassion is going to say, okay, that's it, see you later. That's not compassion. Compassion is all the people who are totally closed and resisting the teaching. Compassion is just as concerned with them as to those who are completely open to the teaching. However, there is a joy in seeing people open to the teaching. It's joyful to see them open, but you don't like them more, the open ones, than the ones who are closed and miserable. It's just the ones who are closed and miserable, it's painful to see. Compassion, however, is unhindered by anything we do. All right? But if you open to anxiety, then you will see the compassion coming to you. People who are not open to anxiety don't really believe that compassion is being completely, wholeheartedly, unlimitedly delivered to you and everybody right now.

[69:44]

But if you can open to a little anxiety, you'll believe that a little. If you can open to all the anxiety of all the things in the world, you will see that compassion is totally unhindered by anything other than resistance to anxiety. So, the openness to anxiety isn't the same as compassion. Compassion is there in openness and closeness. But openness to anxiety, and openness, again, doesn't mean you stick your head in it, you indulge in it, it means you just open to it. You just say, hello, what are you telling me? What is this about? I think you're anxiety. Are you anxiety? So when I said, I think some people having trouble with my talk, don't like my talk, I should have said, it looks like that. It looks like anxiety. It looks like people who are smothered and choking to death in here. And of course, people do not like to go out of their way, travel all the way out the Green Gorge, go in a room and start choking.

[70:49]

People don't like that. This is not what we're looking for. You shouldn't be looking for that. I'm not asking you to look for that. Don't look for it. Don't look for it. But when it appears, when it's manifested by various causes and conditions, like me talking, then I say, now can you actually do the practice which you need to do the rest of your life? They may be open to suffering, open to anxiety. Can you open to it? And the answer may be, well, not right now, so would you please shut up? And the answer is, yes, I will. But then if somebody asks me a question, yes. It's more of a, I want to say it's a, I have a problem with world suffering.

[71:53]

or an emphasis on moral suffering. And with the background of Buddha, I can understand or thinking out of this really excluded environment and world that his father supplied me. Yes. So then once he comes out, it's, relatively speaking, it's almost like suffering. Yes. Like someone who was never sick, and then one time becomes sick. Yes. So I started to notice how the disease, and I ran severe. Uh-huh. But it feels very relative. And I guess I have a problem with you know, coming from that state, from Buddha's state, and he would have an emphasis on this form of separate. And it's almost a separateness, because it's one after the duality. Yeah. But it seems to be more of an emphasis. You know, instead of all the closing of living. Yeah, it's great. But in the story of Buddha, when he got shocked by the sense of suffering that got him going in his practice.

[73:00]

But after he got a hang of it, he was free of suffering. So you could also say the emphasis in Buddhism is being free of suffering. That's when Buddhism started really cooking. Before Buddhism got free of suffering, there was no Buddhism, in a sense. There was just this guy who was making a lot of mistakes. But then finally he found his middle way, and then everything really started being really great for him, and he got really happy, and all this skill started flowing out of him, and he could enlighten people left and right. So in a sense, that's where Buddhism, the emphasis of Buddhism really is enlightenment. However, if you just come on to people and say, hey folks, congratulations, they may say, well thanks, and that's it. Or they may say, I don't know what you're talking about. So sometimes we say, have you seen any suffering around here? It's not exactly an emphasis, it's more like a way to start kind of like on the ground. But if you can open to suffering, most people who can open to suffering can open to, you know, pleasure.

[74:12]

But there's also the mind is powerful enough to... you know, anything that is done until we learn to quiet them down. Yes. That, um, to start off with the privilege of suffering, you can get lost in that. Can you say that again? To start off, to start off, really, by addressing suffering, initially, as a way of, you know, let's start this, um, you know, Buddhism or practice or whatever, um, Before learning the client of the line so you can really feel the love and compassion, it must be a loss. That's right. That's right. That's why... That's right. That's right. With Taoism, Taoism doesn't seem to... Taoism seems to focus on joys of living.

[75:15]

On the other end of that duality. And through the means of suffering can we appreciate the joy? Through the means of joy can we appreciate the suffering? Right. Well, Buddhism doesn't... No. So I think there's a... By presenting suffering first, you may think that Buddhism is emphasizing suffering, but Buddhism does not emphasize suffering. Buddhism emphasizes uprightness. As a tool? As a tool, as a way of being. If you're upright, you don't emphasize suffering. That's what I call sticking your head in suffering. If you're upright, you're just there and anxiety comes to you, but also pleasure comes to you and joy comes to you. But you don't emphasize joy either. Buddhism is not to emphasize joy or suffering. Buddhism is not to try to avoid suffering or promote joy. Buddhism is not to focus on joy. that may be a good practice, like focusing on joy. And sometimes that may be helpful. So if it's helpful, let's do it. And sometimes it's helpful to focus on pain.

[76:21]

Because some people are like totally in denial of pain and they're like in the you-know-what ward. Because they have no pain. They have no problems. And yet everybody else has a problem with them. Everybody, you know. So they're locked up because whatever they do is okay with them. They're just always happy. And so they do these various things which make everybody upset because these people have no sense of suffering. Right? They've overdosed on their antidepressant or whatever. They cannot feel any pain because they have certain chemicals in them. Right? Buddhism is not to not feel pain. Buddhism is not to feel pain. Buddhism is to be open. And if you're open, one of the first things that will happen to you is you'll be open to whatever. And what may happen to you is pleasure. And if you grabbed up pleasure, then what will happen to you is you'll suffer.

[77:27]

And if you're sitting, continuing your practice, you'll be open to that suffering. And then when you open to that suffering, you may close. because you don't like suffering. You try to avoid it. Then you've lost the practice which opens you to the suffering. So it's not that we emphasize the suffering, we emphasize what will open you to the suffering. Not what will cause the suffering or focus you on the suffering. Because I said again, don't go looking for suffering. Don't go out in the woods and sit and say, now where is the suffering? You won't meet it then. You'll just meet your own kind of searching, your own idea of what you should be doing. Buddhism is about not, is giving up your idea of what you should be doing. So, again, this guy, well, like my friends, another story which I didn't tell, was my friend called me this morning from Minnesota, old friend, and he told me that his house burned down and he didn't have insurance. And

[78:32]

It didn't burn all the way down, but it burned most of his books and has melted his computer and his backup disks. Anyway, so there he was, and he said he got very depressed for about four months afterwards. And then his son, who was living with him, when his son left, about a year ago, he wrote me a letter and said that he thought it would be really nice if I would send, he thought it would be very meaningful to his son if I would send his son a sitting cushion, a zafu. So I sent him a cushion and he did like it. And then when his son recently left home, he gave his father the Zafu and said, Dad, I think you could use this more than me. So he started sitting on the Zafu and he said he got some really feel, some deep feeling of comfort from sitting on the Zafu. But then he says, but then I feel like I should be doing something to take care of my farm, you know? and rewiring my house, the rest of my house, and things like that.

[79:35]

So then he starts getting anxious, and I said, what I recommend is you give yourself that comfort. Sit, give yourself that comfort, keep giving it to yourself, and when you really feel comfortable, and you start to feel like you don't want to give up the comfort, then get up. And you get so comfortable that you wouldn't want to give it up, then give it up. And if you do the combination of giving yourself comfort and giving it up, you'll see how much rewiring you should do. But if you never give yourself the comfort and you just run around rewiring your house, well, you'll just keep having fires. So, the emphasis is not on suffering or pleasure. The emphasis is on being free. When the Buddha first taught, people begged him to teach, when he first taught, he just... took his clothes off, so to speak, opened his heart, and cried out with intense, inconceivable joy.

[80:39]

He just told people how wonderful everything looked. He told people how we're all like dancing together constantly, and all helping each other in inconceivable, beautiful ways, all working for each other's benefit, and awakening each other all the time to deeper and deeper realms of compassion and wisdom. And he just went on like that, you know, just total freak out of joy and the imagery of the joy of liberation and happiness. And people kind of didn't get it. So they said, oh, okay, well, let's see. But there is suffering, right? And they said, yeah. And there's a cause of suffering, right? Oh, yeah. Therefore, there's a freedom for suffering. Oh, great. And here's how. If beings could have got it when he first just told them how great everything is, that would have been the end of Buddhism. And there would be no talking of discussion of suffering. He would have just opened his joy heart and people would have jumped in to that realm of joy without attachment.

[81:46]

Fundamentally what he found was joyful and happy and extreme joy in appreciation of everybody else. That's what he saw. He saw how beautiful every living being is, how precious all forms of life are, and how wonderful it is to live in that world, and how all these precious life forms are doing nothing but help each other. That's what he saw. Of course, he didn't forget his critical faculty. He could still see people have problems. But basically, he also saw that people have no problems and are nothing but bliss beings. That's what he saw. This was his liberation. This was the most wonderful joy that he'd been looking for. He realized the truth. But he thought, but people won't understand this. And he was right, they wouldn't. Still, they begged him to, so he said, okay, well, you're not going to get this, but blah. And they said, you're right, we didn't. And he thought, well, that's right, I didn't think you would. How could you?

[82:47]

He could see that people wouldn't. Even though he could see how perfect and beautiful everyone was, he also sensed accurately that nobody would get it. So that's why he didn't think of telling them that. So they forced him, so he told them. And then they said, well, will you try again? This time, don't tell us the way you see it. Talk to us in our terms. He said, oh, do you have any problems? Do you have any suffering? Yeah. And so on. He had to change the way he taught, which is not really the way it is, so that people could get on board. So he both taught that there's suffering and freedom from suffering, right off. He didn't say focus on suffering, he just says face it. He didn't say focus on freedom from suffering. He said just understand it's there, and freedom from suffering comes when you understand the cause of suffering. But you have to face it. the suffering before you can see the cause. The cause is right next to the suffering.

[83:48]

Yes? I just wanted to confirm what you said. Okay. You said earlier that you didn't have a couple of stories because you saw that there was so much suffering in the room. Suffering. Yeah, well, I thought I did. In eyes, right? Yeah. I thought people were starting to squirm. Oh, honestly. And it kind of feel like, God, I can't stand more of this. This is getting too much. No, would you please stop? And I thought, well, okay, I'll stop. So it wasn't like general suffering, but suffering from hearing your words. Yes. Wow. I thought that was... It looked like, see, if I stop talking, then the usual decorum is then you always get to go outside and look at the trees. And you think the trees are not saying the same thing, right? So you feel relieved. You think, these trees aren't saying, would you please open up to your suffering? Would you please face the anxiety of every living creature, including me? Would you please do something to help me? So I thought, well, since people don't hear that from the trees, they would like, they want a little break, I'll let them go outside.

[84:54]

That's what I meant. I guess what I thought you meant was that you see the people in the audience have a general state of suffering. I see that too, yeah. I do see that. And I see that too. And so when you acknowledge that verbally in front of a crowd of people, to me that was like, you know, like, the boy who sees the king who's naked and says, oh, he doesn't have queens. Uh-huh. And so it was kind of like that when I heard you say that again the second time here. And I acknowledge that I've had a lot of suffering and still do and will in the future, and that it's only been recently that I've aligned myself, permission to acknowledge that I have suffering in my everyday life. Mm-hmm. And, uh... And I see on the faces of people here the suffering in their faces.

[86:01]

And yet, in this room here, what I've experienced so many times is that we talk of ideas out there. We talk about joy out there. We talk about the concept of liberation, all these concepts. And hardly anyone ever talks about their own personal ideas. suffering or joy here in this room. And so I've found experience here very intellectual. The ideas are very helpful to understand my process and the process of other people, but I feel there's been very little heartfelt sharing. And instead people talk about process as an idea, but then the whole experience. And I found that as a result of that, in the past few years, I'll come for four meetings, and then I'll leave for two years. Because I don't feel a sense of a real heartfelt disclosure or exposure or openness.

[87:04]

It's all up here in the head. That's my experience here. And because I experienced that a couple weeks ago, I gave a very personal sharing about my experience of terror as a child. Yes. And the fact that my father had experienced racial discrimination and was an alcoholic, and that was his response to his suffering. And when I shared that, It was a tremendous experience for me because I was crying and it was so personal to me. And so many people came up to me afterwards and talked about their fear in their life and the fear of persecution in their own life in different ways. And even people who had seen the Japanese being taken away, they came to me and said, I saw that it really touched them, and I felt their empathy. And that's the kind of love or compassion or power between people that can happen that I don't see happening here, and I would like to see happen more often.

[88:16]

Me too. Yes? I was gonna add something, thank you for this, because I felt like it was part of me, and I know that I have a problem with this, but I was getting a little bit bored, and it's not because what you were saying. It's because somehow I was experiencing what she was putting in work. I didn't know I was playing this, but now she did. And it's not that what you were saying wasn't right, but was making me anxious, It was more that I was feeling a little bit bored. It was like reading a book. You know, we all have read a lot of books about Buddhism that always meant sin. And... But every time I speak, I get very emotional. Yeah, that's exactly what I felt. Thank you.

[89:17]

Because I was waiting to find a way to tell you what was bothering me. It was that. I was feeling bored. It was like, if he took a book and read this, it would almost be the same to me, probably because I was very far from you and I couldn't see you. So I was kind of, you know, dozing out. It was difficult, definitely, to keep sitting there. And people were moving a lot because, yeah, I felt there was some uncomfortable feeling about it. and like when you talk about your friends and the house that burned i almost felt tears yes and and it was exactly like something that touches so deeply that you become almost taught that you i became involved with it without thinking i'm suffering now i was just

[90:22]

totally with what we were saying. And that, when that happened in, what is that, a lecture? Or what you were doing? I was recalling in English. Lecture? I don't know. I like that feeling of being able to totally be there. Part of my mind was going, oh yeah, yeah, he's right. Yeah, oh, I've heard this, yeah. And then I got bored. That's what I thought. Well, I mean, it's just like, wow, do you see this? No perspective. Well, you see, I know if I tell that story that you will be able to be with me. And I kind of wanted to tell that story so that you would be with me. See, part of me wants to do that. There's certain things I can do where you will be with me. I know. I mean, I know, but it's a fairly good chance.

[91:26]

And I had that story, for example, that I wanted to tell, but since you were, not you necessarily, but since you and other people were already getting so bored and tired of the talk, I thought, well, if I tell now the story so you can really be here, that might be even more boring. It could take you too far beyond, you know. So I stopped, and question and answer, I tell the story, and you can be with me. But the thing is, What I really hope for is that we can be together even in the place where I'm being totally intellectual and boring. That I don't have to... I know how to tell stories that will make everyone riveted. I can take my clothes off and you'll all pay attention. I can talk about sex and pain in certain ways that you'll all be... You'll all be with me. You know? I can tell you about... I can confess certain terrible things I've done and you'll all go, wow! Can I actually be myself, which is a totally intellectual guy? You know?

[92:30]

That's who I am. I'm a thinker. And you find a thinker boring, and so does my wife, so she doesn't come to my lectures. But I'm a thinker, you know? And I actually want to lay out for you people, which you may not be interested in, I want to tell you what all the Buddhas have done. I want to tell you the way, the actual structure of the way to enlightenment. And I want to put it out there intellectually, which I know some might find it boring, and when you get too bored, I stop. I do. But there's certain situations where I can lay it out there, and if you're in enough pain with your own life, you'll even listen to me talk. But on Sunday, you're not in enough pain. Like during, we have retreats, you know, people get so much into their suffering that they even listen to me. Go into detail about certain things which ordinarily they could not stand to listen to. So I understand, and I can be entertaining.

[93:32]

Like I sometimes sing songs. If I sing songs at the end of the talk, everyone's happy. Because at least...

[93:39]

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