This seat could be called the storyteller's seat. Someone told me once that they thought I was a storyteller, and I can go along with that story. And recently while I've been telling stories, some people have been saying that they think the stories I'm telling are tall tales, even maybe ridiculous. And if I remember that they're stories, I don't mind whatever you call them. I have a story that human beings have stories.

[01:11]

And I have a story that the problem that human beings have is primarily because they attach to their stories. And I think the attachment to the stories comes from a basic story that's maybe the one story that's incorrect, that's really ridiculous. Maybe there's one basic ridiculous story, which almost everybody is born with. And because of that basic ridiculous story, we tend to attach to other stories which aren't so good or bad, but when we attach to stories, I say, we suffer.

[02:15]

But we wouldn't attach to stories, I don't think, if we didn't have this basic, this one main misconceived story. And it's a story that we're separate from each other, that things, that the people we interact with and the mountains and the rivers and the whole earth is out there separate from us rather than that we're born together with each other, and that we're born together with the mountains and the rivers. Even the story that we're born together with the mountains and the rivers is just a story, and I wouldn't want to attach to that. But I wouldn't attach to that story if I lived by that story.

[03:21]

And living by that story, I wouldn't hold to that story, I would just understand it and understanding it, I wouldn't attach to it. But if I have a story that I'm not born together with all of you, then I might attach to various stories. So I just told some stories just now, which I hope I didn't attach to. Also, just recently a person said to me that he kind of likes the teaching that, I don't really remember what he said, but it's just a story, so it's okay if I don't get it right. He said something like, I like the practice of just being kind, or I like, yeah, I could

[04:23]

have said, I like the practice, the teaching that the Buddha way is basically being kind. But that doesn't have to be the Buddha way, that can just be the kind way. And I heard another story that the wonderful teacher who he called the Dalai Lama was interviewed and somebody said, what's your favorite religion? He said, well, I was born in the Buddhist tradition, but now I think the best religion is kindness. And he could say, well, that's Buddhism. But I don't want Buddhism to own that, because it could be Christianity, it could be Judaism, it could be Islam, all those traditions, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, they all could be basically kindness. And in the tradition of the Buddha way, you often hear people say, or yeah, you often

[05:28]

hear people say, matter of fact, I often hear myself say, that Buddhas are born of compassion. And those who aspire to be Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, are also born of compassion. That's a birth story. So, in the tradition of the Buddha Dharma, we have some birth stories, so I just told you a little birth story. The birth story is that Buddhas are born of compassion. And then I might elaborate on that story, and I might say, and what kind of compassion are they born of? Well, it's universal compassion, and well, it's objectless compassion.

[06:34]

It's non-dual compassion. It's caring for all beings, free of the idea, free of the story, that all beings, or any being, is separate from you. So it's not just caring for a person and wanting the best for them, it's also joined with the Buddha's compassion. The compassion that gives rise to Buddhas is a caring for beings and wanting to protect them and help them, joined with an understanding, a knowledge, that they're not separate from you. Buddhas are born from this non-dual, objectless compassion. And this compassion means that they wish, they want everybody to also join and realize

[07:51]

that compassion. They want everybody to have that compassion for everybody, and they want everybody to have that wisdom, that knowledge, which knows that we're not separate from each other. So another way to say this is that Buddhas are born, or Buddhas are, by born I mean they appear in the world. So Buddhas are born in this world, you could also say that Buddhas are born from Buddhas. And some Buddhas are not born, so part of the birth story of Buddhas is that some Buddhas aren't born in this world, and those Buddhas are the Buddhas which are just the wish, just the desire, just the compassion to help beings. The Buddhas that aren't born are the knowledge, are a knowledge, Buddhas are an understanding,

[09:03]

Buddhas are a knowledge, an awareness of non-separation among all beings, plus the wish to help them. And that wish, together with that knowledge, precipitates Buddhas in the world of beings who have not yet realized that wisdom. Buddhas fundamentally live unborn, but they can be born because of this wish, they can take a body because of this wish, they can appear in the world because of this wish. The wish to help all living beings open to this wisdom which will overcome the story of separation, the wish to demonstrate, to show people this wisdom which overcomes the

[10:15]

illusion of separation. The wish to awaken people to this wisdom, and the wish to help people enter into it and become it. This is the story of the birth of the Buddhas. Another story, it's almost like a story of the birth of the Buddhas, is the story of a Zen teacher in China, and his name was Cloud Gate, Yunmen, he was talking to his group and he said to them, I think, where are all the Buddhas born, or how are all the Buddhas born? And he answered the question himself, he said, eastern mountains travel across the water,

[11:23]

eastern mountains traveling over the water. Does that remind you of anything? Guess what it reminds me of? What? That's a good guess. It reminds me of the place that Buddhas are born. You don't look like you got that one. Did you get it? No. Where are all the Buddhas born? Eastern mountains move over the water. What does eastern mountains move over the water remind me of? It reminds me of the place that Buddhas are born. When I think of eastern mountains moving over the water, I think, oh, that's where the Buddhas are born there. That's where Buddhas are born. That's what I think. That's because I think about eastern mountains moving over the water a lot, and I see the Buddhas born there. I train myself to think like Yunmen.

[12:29]

But, you know, what else does it make me think of, these eastern mountains moving over the water? It makes me think of non-dual compassion. Most people, I would guess, you know, most people think eastern mountains moving over the water, that's compassion. That's not the compassion that most people think is compassion, right? Most people look at the mountains and they say, yeah, okay, that mountain's cool, especially today with the sun and everything, nice mountains. But that's compassion? That's Buddha's compassion? Yes, that's Buddha's compassion. That's not my idea of compassion. It's those mountains walking all over the place. That is non-dual compassion. Non-dual compassion is not my idea of compassion. It's objectless compassion. It's the way the mountains are being born together with us. The mountains are the way we're being born together with each other.

[13:33]

The way we're born together with each other is the mountains. That's another way to talk about non-dual compassion. In other words, compassion isn't my idea or your idea of it. It's where the Buddhas are born. And also, it's been taught that if you go down to the bottom of the mountain, you know, in the lower part of the mountains, you know what they call that part of the mountains? What do they call that part of the mountains where the mountains aren't so high? What do they call that? Foothills! Right! You got that one. And then down at the bottom of the foothills, what do they call that part of the mountain? The toe is right. That's not so common. Foothills is pretty common. But the toes of the mountain are at the bottom of the foothills. And the mountains always go down to the foothills. Except for cliffs.

[14:37]

Cliffs skip over foothills. But mountains, they go down, they slope down, you know, they don't just drop off. Mountains go down and they get to the foothill area. And at the bottom of the foothill area, you have the toes of the mountains. And mountains always go down all the way to their toes. They never skip. But they do. I tell you. This is a story. Remember, this isn't something you have to believe. This is just a story I'm telling. Because I'm sitting on the story teacher's seat. Some of you said I could sit here, right? So now I'm going to tell you a story. And the story is that the mountains go all the way down to the toes of the mountain. They always do. And at the toes of the mountain, the mountains are skipping on the water. And the toes of the mountain are splashing in the water that the mountains sit on. And the place where the water is splashing up to the toes, that's where the Buddhas are born. That's a story about the birth of Buddhas.

[15:48]

Yeah, Tassajara, yeah. That's why we have Tassajara, for Buddhas to be born. So we have this monastery where you can go and you can jump into that place there where the toes of the mountain splash in the water. And you can join the Buddhas there. Now, there's quite a few stories to tell. And one more story, or several more stories, are the stories of what are called the stories of... When the Buddhas appear in the world, because they're born of this wish to open to the world, to open beings to the wisdom that's joined with compassion, when they appear in the world, they need to meet the people so that in the meeting with the people, this non-dual wisdom,

[17:02]

this non-dual wisdom joined with compassion, this non-dual compassion can be awakened and realized in the people the Buddhas meet. So the Buddhas not just are born, but then when they're born they meet people. And in that meeting we have what we call the transmission of the teaching. The Buddha's wish to open and demonstrate and awaken and help people enter the wisdom, that's called Buddha's wish to teach, or rather the wish to teach, the non-dual wish to teach, the wish to teach free of any kind of concept of separation. That is the Buddha, and that wish to teach manifests in a face-to-face meeting.

[18:02]

And you look at the early stories of the Buddha in India, Shakyamuni Buddha, he met people face-to-face, interacted with them, and they woke up too. He met with them and talked with them, met with them and talked with them, one by one often. Sometimes he would be talking to one and that one would wake up, and other people who are nearby listening to what he said to that one, they would wake up too. So sometimes when he's looking like eyeball-to-eyeball with somebody, face-to-face, there's other people around and he's meeting them cheek-to-cheek. So the face can be the forehead-to-forehead or chin-to-chin or eye-to-eye or nose-to-nose. But also cheek-to-cheek and ear-to-ear. We don't usually talk about the back of the neck to the back of the neck, but that's possible. One time I saw a picture of Suzuki Roshi.

[19:09]

He was... Well, let me tell you, this is one story about Suzuki Roshi and one story about me looking at a picture of Suzuki Roshi. Well, actually, it's one story of me looking at kind of like a picture of a living Suzuki Roshi and then another story of me looking at a picture of Suzuki Roshi, of a living Suzuki Roshi. So, first of all, I saw Suzuki Roshi one time on a Sunday morning when Zen Center used to be in Japantown and Suzuki Roshi was the teacher to the Japanese congregation of Zen Buddhists in Japantown in San Francisco and he was also the teacher of the European Zen students, people from Europe who live in America now, you know, like me. I'm from Norway, hi! So, anyway, it was Sunday and he was talking to the Japanese ladies after the morning service

[20:16]

and he was standing on the steps of the temple and he was talking to them and they were being very talkative and happy to talk to Suzuki Roshi and he was chatting away with them very happily and they looked happy and he looked happy and I thought, he doesn't talk to me that way. But I thought, it's okay, I'm not an elderly Japanese lady, it's okay. Anyway, the look on their face was very happy and he was very happy and he was talking more than he usually talked to us European Zen students, European Americans. He talked to the Japanese Americans, in my view, a little bit different than he talked to the European Americans. So then I saw this picture of him a little while after that and it was a picture of him from the back, showing the back of his head and in front of him was several elderly ladies

[21:17]

and they looked very happy, they had happy looks on their face, they were laughing and they looked almost like they were jumping around talking to him. So I thought maybe he was like, maybe his face was smiling and he was telling some jokes or something. But the back of his neck looked like an iron mountain. He was like, it looked very, very strong and upright, like he was really very conscious of his posture, I felt. And I thought, but probably in the front he's real soft and cheerful. So I think you can learn, you can have this transmission from the back of the neck too. You can have it from the smiling face, a stern face, a crying face, lots of faces from the front, from the side, from the back and also from the top. But a big part of the tradition, I propose, is actually meeting face to face.

[22:26]

We call that menju in Japanese, or Chinese, menju. And men means face, and ju means to receive. And that's translated as, it's a short kind of a condensation, but it literally means men face receiving, but it means face to face transmission of non-dual compassion. Face to face transmission of the truth, of the teaching, of the teaching of non-dual compassion, which comes into the world to help people get over the story that we're not completely together with everybody,

[23:33]

the story that we have separate existences from each other, and we're not born together with all humans, all plants, all animals, all mountains and all rivers, to help us get over this story, which is a story which makes us attach to our stories and suffer. Once again, as I've been saying over and over, I just want to remember what I told you is a story. The story I told you is not really... It's just a story, it's not really what I'm talking about. The story I told you about how Buddhas are born is not how Buddhas are born.

[24:38]

And now the story I told you that the story I told you is not how Buddhas are born is also just a story. The point of these stories is to help us get over our stories. At least, that's my story of why I'm offering these stories, is to help all of us be people, normal people, who have stories about ourselves and have stories of others. We do, we can't avoid this. We wouldn't be able to live together if we didn't have stories of each other. And it's nice to have stories like, everybody's my friend, and I have a story, this person's really a wonderful person, and not only that, but I have a story that even people who are less wonderful than this person, I still really am devoted to because, you know, I have a story that we're really interconnected and I love everybody. That's my story. But if I attach even to that story, it won't be good, I say. So whatever stories you have,

[25:40]

even if you have stories which are that not everybody's your friend, and not everybody's wonderful, and that you don't care about people, as a matter of fact, you hate everybody, I would like you to be free of that story too. Or if you have a story that you're really miserable, and you can't go on one more moment with this horrible life, I would hope you'd get over that story. It's actually quite a dramatic story, and you could write a novel about it, but I think I would suggest that you write a novel about it rather than believe it. Make it into a fiction, which it is. Stories are fictions. Convert your fictions, convert your stories into art. Make some money. Don't attach to your stories, because then not the story won't backfire,

[26:41]

but your attachment will backfire. Attachment backfires. We attach because we think it would be good to attach. But it won't be good to attach. So I'm just sort of like trying to stretch this talk out a little bit more because I'm basically done. But I don't want to shock you too much by stopping so early. Because usually, as some of you know, I go on for longer than I have today. You think that's funny? You won't think it's funny if I go on much longer. But now it's getting past me. It's past half an hour, so that's pretty good. I could stop now, right? It wouldn't be that short, would it? But I just thought if I mentioned that people like... When I tell stories of my grandson or grandsons, people often like those stories.

[27:42]

After I give the talk, if I've told a story about my grandson, usually after the talk, somebody comes up to me and says, I like the story about your grandson. So usually it's a successful talk if I can find a story of my grandson. I could tell you some old stories of my grandson. Maybe I will, actually. But I just wanted to tell you a story. It's sort of about my grandson, but the story is that my grandson has moved out of town. That's the story, right? He's left me. He's gone away and left me. He's left me all alone. So now I've found a new place to dwell. It's called Heartbreak Hotel. That little guy has gone away and left me. He's left me all alone with you. So actually it's not so bad. I still have you, even though I don't have him, the little guy. But it really is painful for him to live in L.A. I'm moving to L.A.

[28:44]

So that's a story about my grandson, right? That he left. But anyway, since I don't see him as often, I won't be having so many new, fresh grandson stories. I'm really sorry for you and me. Maybe more for you than for me because for you, all you get is these wonderful stories. I have to live in between those stories where he's being mean to me. And I don't know how to turn that into a story. Actually, I do know. So I told you... Actually, when he's mean to me, you like those stories too. But I don't like them. I mean, I don't like them when they're happening. Those stories about him being mean to me that I'm telling. He's not telling the story he's being mean to me. He's having fun relating to me in a way. When he's having fun, I make the story up. He's being mean to me. Do you know the story about playing soccer with him?

[29:48]

Do you know that story? Karin, do you know that story? You do. Do you want to tell it? No? How many people know the story of playing soccer with my grandson? One. Two. Three. Okay. Well, should I tell it? So we're playing soccer and we're playing soccer in front of a garage and the garage door is the goal. So, when he's the advancing team and I'm the goalie, he kicks the ball and I catch the ball. And he says, No, not that way. So he told me to move over, way over on the other side, over on the far left-hand side of the garage door so he can kick on the right side. So then when he's the goalie and I'm kicking it, I have to kick it right to him. Actually, first time I kicked, you know, and he missed it.

[30:50]

He says, That's not the way to do it. Kick it to me. So you think that's a nice story, right? I think it's a story of him being mean to me. So let's not attach to our version of what happened there. Something happened, but it really wasn't that he was being funny and it really wasn't that he was being mean. Those are just some stories you can tell. But the main thing about Zen that attracted me is laughing at the stories. Understanding that, can you believe it? All the stories are jokes. No, no, [...] no. The story of cruelty is not a joke. It's true that the story of cruelty is not a joke. It's the waking up from the story of cruelty that you get the joke. But the story of cruelty is not really what's going on. It's a story of what's going on

[31:52]

and it's a very unhappy story of going on. And the story of kindness is not really what's going on. It's a story about kindness. Kindness is not my story about it. So now I'm going way... Now it's getting kind of late, right? So I can stop. Actually, one more grandson story. And again, it's not exactly about my grandson, it's about my mind. And it's about my mind that had a dream just recently that I was in a busy downtown area like San Francisco with my grandson. And we were together. And I looked over someplace and did something. I forgot what I did. I wish I could remember. But anyway, I got involved with something. I looked back and he was gone. And I couldn't find him. And I called 911. And the people were very helpful. They wanted to help me. Actually, first of all, I'd called not 911. I'd called something else.

[32:53]

And they said, I want to call 911. And they said, I'll do it for you. And then they did it. And I said, I can't find my grandson. And then I woke up. But I thought, keep your eye on that boy. I don't want to attach to him. I don't want to hold his hand all the time. I mean, I do, but I want to let him go free. But at the same time, I want to keep my eye on that guy. I don't want to get distracted from caring for him. That's kindness, too. But I would also like to realize non-duality with him. That's what I want. And so I'm trying to have meetings with the Buddhas all the time. I'm trying to live at the place where the Buddhas are born. I'm trying to find the place where the Buddhas come to meet me face-to-face and transmit, together with me and everybody else,

[33:56]

this way that more beings can be born into the reality of non-dual compassion. And then the other thing that some people like, besides stories of my grandson, are when I sing, because it's so funny. And so I have a song today for you. And excuse me for changing it. It's called, what's it called? It's called Menju. It's called Face-to-Face Transmission. It's written by Irving Berlin. Made famous by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Menju, I'm in Menju.

[35:04]

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we sit together meeting cheek-to-cheek. Menju, I'm in Menju. And the cares that hung around me through the week seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak. When we sit together meeting cheek-to-cheek. Oh, I'd love to climb a mountain and to reach the highest peak, but it doesn't thrill me half as much as meeting cheek-to-cheek. Heaven, I'm in Menju. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.

[36:09]

And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we sit together meeting cheek-to-cheek. You inherited it all and have left us with it. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are intoxicable. I vow to dread them. Our hearts, our fates, are helpless. I vow to dread them.

[37:10]

The world is a place unsurpassable. I vow to be helpless. Sometimes when I feel most deeply alienated from other people and lose that sense of we're all one being, when I'm angry, I don't feel any lust about that. Yeah, I think that feeling angry is probably the most contradictory emotion to the reality of interdependence. Lust is actually a little closer, although lust is overdoing it a bit. Lust is kind of related to compassion. So one of the dangers of compassion is lust,

[38:13]

that it would slip into that, into attachment and greed. But anger is like, in some sense, totally difficult to integrate with a sense of compassion and a sense of non-duality. So we've got to be careful of that one. It seems easiest to hold on to that when I was a little child. It seems easy to do what? Easy to be angry and also feel compassion when I was a little child. Would you tell me about how you can be angry and be compassionate at the same time? Well, I might see my grandson doing something I wish he wasn't doing,

[39:16]

but I could also see where he might be coming from. I might feel some compassion for his confusion. Oh, I see. I see, yeah. But with an adult, I find it more difficult to have that open-hearted compassion. Well, if you see someone hurting themselves, or hurting someone else, it's okay to just not like that they're hurting themselves. Even if, you know, that's fine. That's not... that's an appropriate anger, actually. But what I meant by anger is ill will before. Wishing someone not the best, wishing them ill is contradictory to compassion. But when they're hurting themselves, to wish that they would stop, and to say, I don't like that you're hurting yourself,

[40:19]

that goes very nicely with compassion. And, yeah, and if some... So that kind of anger, in a sense, that you're angry towards non-compassion, that may be okay. You know, I just don't like that you're hurting yourself. I don't like that. But I, you know, at the same time, I want you to be happy and healthy. I don't like that you're doing something that might hurt yourself, hurt you, or hurt someone else. And it maybe is easier to do with children, but from the point of view of compassion, everyone who is being unkind is a child. So when the Buddha sees us being unkind, the Buddha thinks we're being childish. And when a child is being kind,

[41:23]

they're not being childish. They're being kind of grown up. They've grown up, they've grown into, you know, what we have the potential for is to be kind. And really, what we're really doing is we're being non-dually compassionate, and we need help to wake up to that. That's my story. Yes? Talking about stories and parenting and children... Stories and parenting? I feel like we are their story. Yes. Yes, right. Right. You see, you have stories about your children, and you see your children have stories, and then what? Could you give an example?

[42:26]

Well, let's see. Sometimes I have this idea that the story of meeting a victim... You have a story of being a victim? Yes. Vis-a-vis your children? No, no, my own. Okay, yes. Oh, I see. Oh, and then you see your child having a story of being a victim. And I can only... I mean, I'm working very hard, and I think I would pass from this, but it's always one that floats in and out of my life. Okay. I see my old son, he sort of has that on him. Uh-huh. That's his story. Could you hear her? So I have... maybe I have a story of being a... She says, maybe I have a story of being a victim, and then I notice my son has a story of being a victim, and I'm a little uncomfortable, because I think maybe I transmitted the story of being a victim to my son. And actually, you have transmitted the story of being a victim to your son, but so have a lot of other people, a lot of novelists and, you know, movie writers and friends.

[43:32]

The story of being a victim is one of the stories, and we do transmit it to people, and some people can kind of come up with it without anybody transmitting it to them. The view of victim comes naturally from our basic delusion. So even if you didn't transmit it to your son, even if he likes it... Even if you like... Every time you started to have the thought of the story of being a victim, you like smashed yourself so that it wouldn't develop, he would still be able to come up with it. But still, even though he came up with it and you never said it to him or never thought it in his neighborhood, still, we're all responsible for the stories that are coming up among us. It's not to stop your son from having the story of victim or stop yourself. It's to not believe the story of the victim. It's to understand the story of the victim, not to believe it. So as I approach that mindset...

[44:34]

The victim mindset? The mindset that you're talking about, that I don't believe it and it's a story and I'm not attached to it, does that get transmitted as well? Yes, it does. And that's the transmission of the Dharma. The transmission of... Understand the stories that you live in the midst of. Don't believe them. Don't believe the story that you're good and other people are bad or other people are good and you're bad or everybody's bad or everybody's good. Those are all stories. But listen to them all, open to them all, and understand them all, and then you'll become free of them all, including the basic one that's really wrong, namely, we're not born together with all beings and we're not responsible for all beings and all beings aren't responsible for us. That's the basic wrong one that we have to just get over.

[45:36]

But it's basically the same thing would apply to a wrong story, a harmful story, a story that really is bad to believe and a story which isn't so bad to believe. It's not as bad to believe other people are kind. But the point is to understand all stories and become free of all stories. And if you're working on that, the children can feel that. That gets transmitted. They can tell, they say, there's my mom, she thinks I'm, you know, this or that, but she's really not that hung up on her views of me. And I have a story that's really cool. You know, our children like us to have good stories of them. But they also know that our stories are almost never really us. I mean, excuse me, they know our stories of them are never really them.

[46:40]

I'm saying they know that. So they kind of like it when we have a really good story of them, but they kind of don't like it that it's not them. And I used to listen to my mother on the telephone tell her friends about me. And she used to say these amazingly wonderful things about me, which had nothing to do with me. And it really bothered me because she was basically using me as an opportunity for her to tell her friends what a great son she had. And she'd rather have her friends think she had a great son than actually tell them about the son that they had. This was my story. Well, he's kind of big and strong, and that's about it, you know. Now, she'd make these elaborate exaggerations of any good quality I had so that her friends are probably going like, what is she talking about? This couldn't be true. Or like, geez, you really have a great son. You must be a great mother. But I felt kind of betrayed because it wasn't really about me. Exactly.

[47:43]

But still, if she told the story, and then after she told the story she said, that was just a story about my son, you know, I just told you that just because that was the story. If I felt she didn't really believe it, that would have been helpful. But I, you know... Yes? Yeah? A story about death? Yeah, I have a lot of stories about death. I have a lot of death stories, too. And I have a story about... Yeah, and I have a story about death in general, and I have a story about birth, and I have a story about rebirth. So I'm sort of like... Buddhism has stories about rebirth, too, which are difficult for a lot of people in, for example, America, have trouble with stories about rebirth because a lot of us didn't grow up with stories about rebirth. So when we hear stories about rebirth...

[48:46]

We have stories about no rebirth, or we have stories about being born in heaven, but not being born again in this world. But still, I kind of feel like, listen to the stories of birth, listen to the stories of death, and understand them, and understand that Buddhism, the Buddha Dharma tells stories of death. I think other religious traditions tell stories of death, and some other religious traditions tell stories of birth, after death, birth in a heaven. Buddhism also tells stories of, after death, rebirth in heaven. But then it says, after birth in heaven, then there's rebirth back into the normal world. But not everybody gets reborn in heaven. A lot of people, according to the Buddhist stories, after dying, they get reborn just in the ordinary world. Like, one story would be, if you died this afternoon, you'd be reborn... There's a good chance that you'd be reborn here, in California, within 49 days.

[49:50]

But you also could be born any place in the universe. That's a Buddhist story of rebirth. But the point is, the point I'm trying to make is, try to study that story, and meditate on that story, and try to understand those stories of rebirth, to become free of them. Because the point of Buddhism is not to get reborn in this way or that way, it's to help beings, in whatever form of birth and death they're going through, to help beings become free of suffering. As we rocket around the universe in various forms of existence, together, to promote freedom and peace is the agenda. And believing stories seems antithetical, at least ultimately antithetical, to the realization of that.

[50:53]

But in the short run, we have to believe stories, like you have to tell, you have children to have stories, and you have to support them in the short run, otherwise they can't function. You can't introduce skepticism and stuff like that to children too much, otherwise they have too much difficulty adjusting to school and things like that. So you have to tell them the story that things will not go well if they steal and lie and things like that. They need that story. And then gradually you can help them see that that story is not the end of the story. Yes? I feel that you feel interested in studying the stories where I feel separate from people.

[51:54]

And when I hear examples, stories of your grandson, sometimes I think of your other grandchildren and wonder if you don't spend much time with those grandchildren and if that makes you feel more separate and if that is the reason that you don't hear stories. The reason I'm asking about stories about your other grandchildren is in the interest of studying the stories in which I feel separate from people. Sort of, yeah. I feel a little bit more separate from them and I feel that they feel a little more separate from me, particularly the little girl. I don't think I've even registered on her screen yet.

[52:55]

But I do have a really nice photograph of the little girl and the little boy and me sledding down the steepest hill in Minneapolis in the snow in December this year. But I don't think she really even notices me. The main person she notices is her mother. That's the main person. And then her brother who is basically competing for her mother. She's like, I don't think she's even noticed me yet. But the little boy, he's registered that I'm his grandfather and that I love him and he loves me. But also he's really into his mother so much that he doesn't really relate to me too much. But he's also becoming a source of some stories and some stories of him are starting to accumulate. But I don't feel, you know, I don't have a story. I don't have as many stories about him.

[54:00]

But I don't have a story that he's more separate from me. I don't have that story. But I have a feeling that we're not as intimately connected. But there's a lot of similarities between him and his cousin. And a lot of the similarities have something to do with me. A lot of people say about both of them, and you know where he gets that. And I can kind of say, well, maybe so, yeah. So I do feel connected to both of them. But I feel, you know, more kind of like, what is it, physical pain being separated from the one who I saw born than from the one who was born in Australia. You know, the pain of being away from them varies slightly. But when I met the other grandson, when I met him, it was like,

[55:03]

it was, you know, it was cheek to cheek. It was like, it was there, you know. And it was like, he saw me and I saw him. And, you know, it was just as much as with the other one when I first met. Actually, the other one, when I first met, he didn't see me, really, at his birth. He was just basically red, Mr. Red. So when he was born, I didn't have much of a connection with him. When he was born, the main connection was between me and his mother. I had this really strong thing for his mother when he was born. To see my girl become a mother was like, for a father to see his daughter be a mother, it's really something. I mean, you know, to see your wife have a baby, you see the baby. But then to see the baby become a mother, it's like, for a man to see his daughter be a mother, it's almost like you're in on it.

[56:07]

You feel kind of close to being a mother because it's my girl who's a mother. So that was great. But the little boy, people say, are you excited about your grandson? And I said, no. And then they asked me later, are you excited about your grandson? No. But around three months, it just hit like a truck. Just like... And then I've been kind of a goner ever since. And the other little boy also got hit when I first saw him. So there are conditions for feeling close or feeling separate, but I don't want to believe those either. Those are stories also. But I'm studying that. Yeah. I love your stories about storytelling, and we are the storyteller on the planet.

[57:14]

The evolution of storytelling would involve the larynx and the palate. Would you like to hear that story? I'd love to hear the story. This is a story on the larynx and the palate. Have you heard that one? At the time of Cro-Magnon, our direct ancestor, living side by side with Neanderthal, the palate part of the story concerns the broadening of the Cro-Magnon palate and our palate as well, so that we can interact the teeth, the tongue, the palate, with the larynx, which has actually come out of the chest cavity in the lower primates, the other primates. The larynx is very well protected, but it's down there in the chest cavity.

[58:19]

So it's a very risky form of evolution, where the larynx could come up and interact. That's the evolution of our storytelling. And I would love to see, maybe I'll go to your website, see, face, and receive the two Chinese symbols. Am I supposed to put that on the website? Just an idea. Yeah, let's do that, let's put face, let's put face receiving on the website. I just happen to have a piece of that calligraphy ready to go. Yes, which I'm going to give to the people in this intensive. For some of us who don't understand the transparency of stories,

[59:21]

it's kind of a danger for nihilism of saying everything is a story. Is the danger of nihilism in saying everything is a story? I'm not saying everything is a story, I'm saying stories are just stories. Nothing is actually a story. Even a story is not really a story. So I'm not saying everything is a story, I'm saying we have stories about many things, but our stories are not the thing. My story of you is not you. But you're not a story. That's one of my stories. But the way you are is not grasped by not a story either. You're beyond being a story, and you're beyond being not a story. What do I grasp? Everything. Yeah? Can you please talk about the eastern mountain?

[60:26]

The eastern mountain? Yes. And why is it eastern versus western? It's not eastern versus western. And what meets the water? What meets the water and then it moves over the water. What's the Buddha's? So you want to know what's the Buddha's and what else? You want to know about eastern mountains? And water, okay. So the eastern mountains are moving, and the eastern mountains, by the way, are not opposed to western mountains. We could change the story very easily to western mountains move over the water.

[61:27]

That would be fine. We could also change it to western mountains are dancing with eastern mountains. Pardon? Do you think the Buddha not set that without a purpose? No, he had a purpose. His purpose is... he said what his purpose was. His purpose is to teach the Dharma. That's his purpose. All the time he was... his commitment anyway was whatever happened to teach the Dharma. And so he was teaching people that day on where are the Buddhas born. So he thought he'd say it that way, that the eastern mountains move over the water. His intention was to help us be free of our stories by using the imagery of mountains and water and saying that the way the mountains and the water interact is the way and the place the Buddhas are born.

[62:31]

And when you say Buddhas, you refer to Buddhas a lot during your talk. Yes. What do you mean by Buddhas? I mean a compassion that's free of any ideas, clinging, any clinging to ideas. So, for example, it would be a compassion which is free of any ideas of what is compassion. So some people have compassion but then they say, and then they have the idea, that's not compassion, and they cling to it. So then they feel compassion, they want to help people, but then they have some idea, that's not compassion. They see somebody else and they think, that person's not being compassionate, which is fine to think that, but they don't just think that, they believe that. And therefore the Buddha is somehow not being realized.

[63:39]

When the Buddha sees somebody, when compassion sees somebody and thinks, that person's not compassionate, they don't get stuck on that idea. The compassion is not hindered by thoughts like not compassionate or cruel or stupid or whatever. No matter what ideas appear, there's no clinging to them. All those ideas are just part of the compassion. So the compassion flows freely. And that free-flowing, unobstructed, non-dual compassion, that is Buddha. That's what Buddha is. And there's innumerable occasions for the arising of this non-dual compassion. And each one of those arisings is a Buddha. And then in addition, this compassion, wanting to help beings wake up, comes into the world and manifests in ways

[64:40]

that people who have limited, who have compassion but it's somewhat hindered, so they can be taught. So then the Buddha is manifest in this world. And sometimes they manifest in a form that those people think is not compassion, and then they convey to the person the non-attachment and the person loses their attachment to their idea of compassion and becomes a Buddha with them. According to some transmissions, Buddha said all living beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddha. That's what some transmissions say. But because they're attached to their ideas, they don't realize it. So Buddha sees you and us as fully possessing the Buddha,

[65:42]

the virtues and wisdom of the Buddha, but Buddha also sees we're afflicted by attaching to misconceptions, and so we don't realize it. So we're miserable Buddhas, which is not exactly a regular Buddha. A regular Buddha is not a miserable Buddha. What? A conventional one? No, I'm not talking about that. A conventional Buddha is seeing us and ultimately is a one in that place where the Eastern Mountain drinks the water. Okay. Doesn't ring a bell. It rings the bell as the way you think.

[66:43]

This is called, Jackie thinks that way bell. Did you want to ring some other bell? Like correct answer bell? Or agreeing with Buddha bell? What bell do you want to ring? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what you did. Do you know what you did? Yeah. Our emotions what? Emotions are vehicles of delusion

[67:46]

and emotions are vehicles of enlightenment. The mountain is an emotion. And if you get stuck in the mountains, you know, at some altitude, you know, you don't go down to the toes, you think, I'm just going to be, you know, in this part of the mountain rather than I'm going to thoroughly study this mountain, then you're just part of the mountain. But if you study this emotion, which is an example of a mountain, if you study this emotion way down to the toes, you'll notice that this emotion is splashing around in the water and you'll see a Buddha born at the place where the emotion interacts with the water and starts dancing. And then you realize, oh, it's an emotion, but it's like, this is like a liberation motion. And so before we fully engage with

[68:48]

and thoroughly understand our emotions, we're usually somewhat caught by them. But when you fully engage with them, then they're the way, they're the mountain part of the interaction where the enlightenment's born. So everything's an opportunity to get stuck or to be liberated. So everything's a possible turning point or crisis opportunity. We're surrounded by dangers that we won't be thorough in our practice and get in trouble and hurt ourselves and others. There's that danger all the time of inconclusive, half-hearted engagement with our life. But there's also the possibility that whatever's happening can be an opportunity to realize compassion and freedom. No. It's the thoroughness of the practice with it. So when we don't fully engage with our life, we get stuck. And so we have emotions, we have ideas,

[69:49]

we have stories. We have stories, and then because we have stories, we have emotions. But everything's an equal opportunity employer. And sometimes we don't take, we don't fully accept our jobs, so then there's usually a story of not being very happy arising with that. And not only that, but it's somebody else's fault. Yes? So decisions are scary for me. Yes. [...]

[70:53]

You kept going, where'd you go to? Oh, how was it down there? Laughter. Laughter. Laughter. Oh, that's why not too many people came to the talk today. Laughter. They're all down at Muir Beach.

[71:55]

Laughter. Enjoying the sunshine. So I have a story about intuition, and I'm just wondering. I'm fascinated by it. And it doesn't seem to have a, I have a story about it, but it doesn't seem to have a story, it just appears. Like, something about that discomfort going by instead of coming down. I wanted to be there. And that comfort is all important here when my mind said I shouldn't, because it's a thought. And I'm wondering if life, you know, if there's something about whatever I call intuition that is life without a story. Well, it's not so much life without a story, but life without believing the story you have about life. So like, you know something, but, you know, you don't really know how you know it, but you know it. And you know things because the universe makes you

[72:56]

into a knowing being. But most of us can't go too long on just that. We have to make a story about how we're knowing, so if somebody comes up to you, you have a story at hand so you can interact with them. But if you had a story, about coming to Green Gulch or going to Mere Beach or coming back or feeling bad, if you had a story and you didn't believe it, then you'd be sort of living in your intuition. You weren't caught by it. So it's not so much that intuition is knocked away by having stories, intuition is knocked away when we hold to our story about what we know as being how we know. When we hold to our story about what we know as what we know.

[73:56]

So stories about how we know and stories about what we know, stories about how we're born and how we die, they aren't really, they never really reach how we know, what we know, how we're born and how we die. And when we can live with what we know, free of our ideas, then our compassion will be unobstructed. But we need, somehow, we need a transmission of that. We can't find it in the midst of all of our stories. We can't find a place of no stories without somebody like guiding us. So we need actually to meet the Buddha in the world who is teaching that to us. And that's, again, a story I'm telling you

[74:58]

and how to like open to that without clinging to that is another kind of mystery of practice. And I don't particularly wish to get into a story about who you were interacting with on your trip here today. I don't know how exactly I could make up a story, you know, that Buddha guided you here and Buddha showed you a way to be free of some of your stories and find the little yellow square.

[75:30]

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