The title that I put down for this talk... Is this a microphone also? Seems like I hear it coming back in a minute, is it? No? The title was The Heart of Nothing. And another possible title would be the heart, which is no heart. Or another possible title would be beauty. And so on. What I mean is how to develop a heart which is... Am I speaking not loudly enough? No? I guess what I'm talking about is how to build a new heart. And I call it a heart which is no heart, which means it's not a heart which is any kind of heart by some limited idea of what a heart is or our old idea of a heart.

[01:22]

And I want to talk a little bit about how to develop a new heart and what kind of heart I mean. And as I mentioned yesterday morning, the medium or the situation or state of body and mind, am I speaking loudly enough now? The state of body and mind in which this transformation can occur is one of concentration and balance. the teaching about how to grow a new heart and build a new heart comes primarily from your heart as it already is and all you need to do is develop a concentrated and balanced state of body and mind and then you will be able to learn from your heart

[02:55]

what it wants to be. It has a true nature which it's heading for. Or, another way to put it is, the true nature of things is trying to work through your heart all the time use your heart as a vehicle to realize itself so our job is mainly to not interfere with that process which means to be patient and again being concentrated in balance is the way we can take care of ourselves while this process moves along at its own rate, not necessarily at the rate which we would like to go.

[04:13]

We don't know how long it takes. And that's why, that's part of the reason why there are these mythological descriptions of the path or stories about previous practitioners and all they went through so that you know and I know that it it's a very large-scale process and we shouldn't be worried if it doesn't go along according to our desires. For a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist, but also for a Zen teacher, it's very difficult to trust enough in our Buddha nature, our awakened nature, to trust that it is naturally working for its realization

[05:26]

And then all we have to do is be aware of that process. We little human beings cannot direct this project. It's much too subtle for us to be steering it. It's going on all the time, whether you know it or not. But if you aren't aware of it, Or if you're not patient with it, you won't be able to realize it. But it's going on all the time. So tonight I'm going to tell you a bunch of stories about this process. And your job is to be concentrated and keep your balance. Don't be too encouraged, discouraged, excited or depressed about anything I say.

[06:35]

Just take care of yourself and I'll pour the teaching onto you. Yesterday I talked quite a bit about what your job is. namely to stand on your own two feet and be and be aware of where you are to be very sincere about what you're doing so for example you're all right now and and now again you're concocting a posture you're sitting you're sitting the way you're sitting you're deciding to sit the way you're sitting or lying down and I just ask that you do that very sincerely and also you're breathing and again your job is to breathe sincerely if you're sincere the teachings of your life will

[07:57]

work for you and again you're always doing what you're doing anyway just a question of this strange strange or wonderful thing called sincerity so one of the main things to be sincere about is your breathing so you can say you should have awareness of your breathing or you should have breathing awareness Either way, do you see? Aware breathing or breathing awareness. Either way. Or have an aware posture or be aware of your posture. Does that...

[08:48]

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