There are two things that occurred to me to discuss. One is conscious breathing. The other is building a seat for Buddha, or building a field for Buddha, or how to prepare the ground for Buddha. Which do you want to talk about first? Conscious breathing would come first. Breathing would come first. Okay. You couldn't build a seat if you didn't breathe. Right. Did you hear what she said?

[01:01]

Hmm? Did you hear what she said? She said, well, breathing would come first. You couldn't build a seat if you didn't breathe. We were talking this morning about sentimental compassion. And I thought of, just now when she said that, I thought of an example of sentimental compassion. And the airplanes, when they explain to you how to use the oxygen mask, they advise you against sentimental compassion in a way. Do you know what I mean? Do you want to explain? So you put yours on first before you help a child, or help a person sitting next to you? If you put it on yourself, then you have air to put it on them.

[02:23]

If you put it on them, you might never get it on them, plus you might not get it on yourself, because if they're a child, they won't be able to help you. In that case, it's probably better to put it on yourself first, and then on them, even though it's counter-sentimental. So, it's also true that you have to breathe before you can build a Buddha Land. But another meaning of that is that, if there weren't breathing people, you wouldn't need a Buddha Land. So breathing does come first. Buddhas don't appear unless you have breathing beings, actually breathing beings that are suffering. Did you know about that? Sometimes, I think this way, and some other people think this way too, they think, well, you know, if everybody was like that, the world wouldn't have any problems. You know what I mean?

[03:26]

Or like, you see some really wonderful person, and you think, if everybody was like that, we wouldn't have any problems in the world. If everybody was kind, generous, and patient, and compassionate, and wise, and ethical, and concentrated, and energetic, and so on, if everybody was like that, we wouldn't have any problems in the world, right? Well, isn't that true? It seems so. Doesn't it seem like that with your kids? It might be boring. Yeah, it might be boring. When I picture a world full of Buddhas, I think, oh, something's missing. I lost something there. In fact, it would be a strange world to have all Buddhas. But actually, we wouldn't have a world like that, because as soon as there was all Buddhas, there wouldn't be any Buddhas. Because Buddhas only are necessary when you have suffering, ignorant people. You never have a Buddha sitting all by itself, or all by himself or herself.

[04:34]

No such thing. Did you know that? Did you think that maybe there was such a thing? There's a Buddha all by itself. Hmm? You did? Yeah, I think a lot of people did. But actually, it is a teaching of Buddhism that there isn't such a thing as a Buddha all by itself. If there's no suffering people, there's no Buddhas. As a matter of fact, Buddhas do not appear in the world unless they're suffering beings. But isn't Buddha nature there all the time? Buddha nature is there all the time. Buddha nature is just the way things are. Buddha nature is, for example, the way the sun sends out those big fireballs and stuff.

[05:43]

That's Buddha nature. The way comets spin around is Buddha nature. The way grass crops up is Buddha nature. The way grass dies is Buddha nature. The way a lotus blossom opens is Buddha nature. The way the leaves fall away and expose the fruit is Buddha nature. The way the fruit falls into the water and swells up and then explodes and sends seeds all over the place is Buddha nature. Buddha nature is everywhere. There's no place it isn't. But Buddhas only appear when there's suffering. There were no Buddhas in the world before there were people, human beings. You didn't need them. You don't need a Buddha in a huge pine forest with no people in it.

[06:49]

You don't need a Buddha. That's it. Do you agree or disagree? What about a hermit who goes off and lives in the woods forever? Yeah. And never comes back? What about it? Is that a Buddha? Is that a Buddha? Is that a Buddha? Not unless there's a suffering person out there inside that hermit. If the hermit was a suffering, deluded person, then a Buddha might appear at the hermit's house. A Buddha might come to the hermit if the hermit was suffering enough. You have to suffer pretty hard to get a Buddha to come to one person. Usually they go to more populated areas.

[07:52]

What about animal suffering? There are something like Buddhas for animals too, but there are animal Buddhas. Some of the animals are more enlightened than the others and teach the others and teach the animals. Some animals are kinder and wiser than other animals and educate the animals. And also Buddhas, human Buddhas, educate animals and plants too. But the delusion and the suffering of animals is not sufficient to evoke a human Buddha. You don't need that level of enlightenment for animals. A lower level of enlightenment is sufficient for animals. But because human beings can become so extremely deluded and so extremely cruel and destructive and violent, you need a tremendous enlightenment to match it.

[08:59]

What do you think of that? But there is also the fact that since we are helping each other, we can certainly extend our time to suffering beings and give them our Buddha. Yes, right. Yes. And at any given time, a miracle could happen. One of us human beings could be a virtual Buddha. It could happen. A virtual Buddha. Technically speaking... Well, I don't want to get into that anyway. It is possible to have people who are virtually, you know, completely enlightened Buddhas appearing in the world if the conditions are right.

[10:09]

And any person is a possible candidate. Do you have an example? Hmm? Do you have an example? Does it happen? I can't think of an example that I know of that's happening right now, that I know of. But if I look at the history of Buddhism, there apparently were various times when there were people who were like Buddhists, or there were Buddhist practitioners who were on a par with the founder of Buddhism. Some of Buddha's disciples seemed to be almost as enlightened as Buddha. Does it not take a miracle? Pardon? Does it not take a miracle? Does it take a miracle? No, that is a miracle. That's a miracle. It isn't like it's a miracle and then the miracle makes a Buddha happen. A Buddha happening is a miracle. But was there less suffering in the world when there were virtual Buddhists? Was there less? No.

[11:10]

Then it's definitely not. There's still suffering now in all these countries since there have been people. Right. So we have the causes of making a Buddha. That's why I say it could happen any time because we have enough suffering to cause a Buddha in this world. It doesn't mean every time you reach the critical mass of suffering that a Buddha will be manifested. That's the main cause. There are lots of other causes too. You can't have Buddhas without vegetation, for example, because there won't be enough oxygen and so on and so forth. There are a lot of causes to make a Buddha appear. But the main cause, the great cause, is suffering beings. So enlightenment is born out of suffering. That's the kind of thing. It's enlightenment vis-a-vis suffering. Yes? I think I may have less of a question after what you just said.

[12:15]

But when you talk about miracles, when you talk about suffering, bringing about a Buddha, it sounds almost like there's a cosmological sense to that. It almost sounds like there's a higher being. I know you said before that Buddhism is a non-theistic religion. I'm not sure how you're thinking of miracles or suffering, or Buddha coming in response to suffering. What I mean by miracle is like, you know, miracle, you know, I mean, great, fantastic, something wonderful. That's what I mean by miracle. I had a conversation with a guy the other day who was suing Zen Center. Before I had the conversation, I looked forward to... In the meeting, I wanted a miracle to happen. I wanted him to, rather than dealing with Zen Center through the legal system, I wanted him to directly relate to us in a human way. That was the miracle I was hoping for. I wasn't hoping for him to deny his problems or change his mind about what had happened or something.

[13:20]

I was more hoping that he would embrace his friends. And that's a miracle. That's the kind of enlightenment that I was hoping for. I don't mean miracle being something up there coming down, doing us a favor or something. I mean, when things work the way we'd like them to work, even though we don't really think it's possible because, you know, it seems so... somebody's working against it. So, like, a miracle would be if a group full of selfish, a room full of selfish people, all of a sudden, suddenly become degenerate with each other and give each other everything. Not be possessive anymore for a moment. That's a miracle. In a sense, you could say a higher being has inhabited all the people at that time. Or that the higher qualities of the beings in the room somehow were released.

[14:20]

But I don't see some higher being separate from our life. I see our life constellates. I see human beings as constantly evolving and growing into new dimensions. And because we're always growing and evolving, we always have trouble and suffering in our growth process. And confusion around the new situations we're moving into. Because, after all, we are the front edge of history right here. We're it. We're making the new world constantly, right? I mean, we're the present of the world. We may feel like it's too bad that it's us, but we're it. We're the life of Buddhism. We're the life of Christianity. We're the life of Judaism. We're the spiritual life of the planet. Maybe we may not think we're very hot stuff, but we're it. There's no alternative.

[15:27]

There's no other present than us. So it's hard for us to face up to the challenges of life on this planet, because we have this very great responsibility. In particular, living in America. America has a tremendous responsibility in the world right now. So it's hard. We have a problem. And so... Constellated with those problems is the possibility of a solution of those problems, which is a glorious possibility. And if that happens, that's what I call a miracle. For us to handle well the challenges of our lives, for us to handle beautifully and inspiringly the little challenges of our lives. The little ones, really. You know, like the way you relate to a cab driver. Not even the way you relate to your patients,

[16:30]

but maybe the way you relate to your co-workers and your secretary and, you know, a bus driver. The way we interact with other human beings. All those little life challenges that we face moment by moment in the midst of our difficulties of adjusting to a new world. Those are the miracles that I'm talking about. And that's the life of Buddha. One of the things that turned me towards Buddhism, I shouldn't say it didn't exactly turn me away from Christianity, but the big scale miracles of Christianity I couldn't understand. Like walking on the water or making lepers' wounds heal. Somebody told me about that the other day, about this woman. He met this leper and kissed the leper's wound and the leper became well. The wound is alive right now. And a person said that to me and I said,

[17:31]

Gee, that's wonderful. But really I didn't know what to say. Because I'm not that interested in that in a way. Because I heard those stories of Christianity and I didn't know what to make of them. Because it's got nothing to do with me. I mean, I'm not going to go kiss a leper's wound. In art when I did it probably wouldn't heal. Maybe it would, I don't know. I might try it. I might try it, it might work and then I'll be famous too. Yeah, right. So I don't understand, why didn't you think it was of merit that she did that? I didn't say I didn't think it was of merit, I just said I wasn't really interested. It's interesting. I don't know, it's got nothing to do with me basically. If I lived with lepers then probably it would have something to do with me. But I don't. If she said that she kissed a bus driver, that would make more sense to me. Because I lived with this bus driver, she said she kissed a Zen student.

[18:34]

And the Zen student felt better, that would make more sense to me. That I can understand. What turned me towards Zen was that people were in situations like the ones I was in and they handled them slightly different. They weren't turning lepers into people with nice complexions. They weren't making people crippled, able to walk. They weren't walking on water. They weren't turning one loaf of bread into thousands of loaves of bread. They were doing things like, people insulted them and they said, oh yeah? People complimented them and they said, oh yeah? That's the kind of thing they did. Like something you can see right in the street. But you don't see that very often in the street. Usually when people get insulted in the streets they say, oh. And usually when people get complimented they say, oh I think? But to see a person who handles just the kind of thing that happens in the street and handles it pretty much the same way no matter what happens.

[19:36]

I can't do that. But I could almost do it. I mean, it's like, it's just a little, it's close, you know? It's a miracle, but it's not like those miracles in the Bible. They're not world-class miracles in the Bible. They're worthy of retelling, maybe, a few stories. But somebody asked me, you know, what do you think of Jesus? And I said, well, I really don't know, but I think there are a lot of good stories about Jesus. I like a lot of them. And then they'd ask me something about the Buddhist tradition. And I said, well, in Buddhism it's the same. We have a lot of good stories, but we don't have all stories about one person. We have more stories about Buddha's disciples than we do about Buddha. Of course, there's a lot more Buddhist disciples than Buddha, right? Like, there's thousands of stories about Buddha, probably, but there's billions of stories about his disciples.

[20:39]

Because he had billions of disciples. So, Christianity has lots of good stories, Buddhism has lots of good stories, but Buddhism has stories about ordinary people like us. And so does Christianity. But I didn't get exposed to those stories. And I never did like those stories about Jesus, those miracles of Jesus, and also the miracles of the saints, too. I didn't like them either, usually. I didn't dig this thing about St. Paul sitting in the boiling oil. I just kind of thought, no, would I be able to do that? I used to try to get into hot water and try to do it, you know. And I used to think, now, I used to have this real nice room when I was about eight years old with windows on three sides, and I used to sit at night and look out the window and think, now, if Jesus was out there and asked me to walk to him, would I walk to him? And I just, that's sort of what, that's the kind of miracles that I thought Christianity was about. It's just, you know, I didn't know what to do about it.

[21:40]

I just sort of think about it or something, you know. But the miracles of Zen, and there's also, there's Christian stories like this, but I didn't hear them. The miracles of Zen were, they were real close. And we almost do it. Some of, actually, you probably even know people that do that stuff. I have a question. What if you had heard those stories? What if you'd heard other stories? What if you pursued a slightly different path than we're sitting in this room right now? How would you be different? I mean, would part of you be the same if you were a Jungian psychologist or a Christian mystic or whatever an alternative path might have been? I mean, isn't part of you just your human nature that happens to be expressed in Zen and might have been expressed in other places? Yes. If I had heard stories, if I had heard Christian stories like the Zen stories,

[22:43]

I probably would have been a Christian something or other. After I studied Zen for about ten years, I heard Christian stories which were just like the Zen stories. Like the stories of the Deadly Fathers and the stories of the Russian mystics, the Russian Christian adepts. A lot of those are Zen stories. I mean, very Zen stories. Like one of them, I remember there's one story of this guy named Stariz Ambrosie. And one time when he was on his long retreat, some robbers beat him up and left him crippled. And he was kind of disfigured and hunched up over that. So he became rather famous as a wise disciple of Jesus, whatever you call him. And one divinity student in Kiev had a deep spiritual problem and he wanted to ask Stariz Ambrosie about it.

[23:53]

And he walked 400 miles to meet him and ask him about his problem. And he went to the town where the Stariz, Stariz means adept or elder, where the Stariz was living. And people said, well, he lives on the edge of town in a little hut. So he walked out there and he found the little hut. And he went inside and he wasn't in there. And he walked outside the house looking around and caught in the tall grass. He saw this dark, slumped up over figure. And he approached it and the Stariz was sitting out in the grass asleep, kind of hunched over because he was kind of crippled. And he just saw him there sleeping in the grass, or sitting sleeping in the grass. And he just saw him and his questions were answered and he walked back to Kiev. Now if I had heard Christian stories like that when I was a kid, I probably would have stayed Christian.

[24:58]

That's more like a Zen story. And there's other stories, too, about those guys. If I had heard, that would have made a difference to me. And there's also Jewish stories, too. If I heard some Jewish stories of some of those guys, I would have probably become a Jew. But the Zen stories were the first ones where I thought, now there is, that's the way to live. Plus, it's closer to hand, you know, this way of living. You were talking about the responsibility of the Americans. Could you address that a little bit more? What do you mean by that and why? Well, like it or not, to a great extent, the world is copying America.

[26:08]

In a way, we're leading. We're leading badly in certain ways, but we're being copied. We still make the movies. And we're still the richest country. And we still use by far more energy than any other country. By far more than any other country, plus per capita, extremely far more. So we have within our responsibility the possibility of destroying everything, both ecologically and militarily. We also have the possibility of leading the planet out of an incipient or imminent ecological disaster. We could do that.

[27:13]

And we are, sort of, but the question is, are we going fast enough? There's a clean air bill now, right? And now there's a gasoline tax. But they tied the gasoline tax to building more highways, kind of a trade-off, right? You know about that? And, you know, there's McDonald's now in Red Square. And it has 50,000 people a day going to it. Because fast food does get food to people, even though it's had all these problems. It produces this tremendous amount of plastic waste. It still does get food to people, and the Russians can't get food to their people. Especially hamburgers. So America's got a lot of problems, but at the same time, people are copying us. So, if we make changes, if we make positive changes in our society,

[28:16]

if we can figure out a way to educate people in a society that has such diversity, and so on. And that's not a great thing about America, we have diversity. Japan doesn't really have much, so they don't have a lot of the problems we have. They don't have much violence because they don't have to deal with different races meeting each other. So the problems of America are kind of like, a lot of them anyway, are problems of the planet. If we can creatively deal with our problems, the rest of the world will be watching us. And still we have more resources, you know, which we could use to benefit the world than any other country by far. We have more wealth, but if Americans would figure out how to use that wealth, you know, like somebody was telling me, Jonesy was telling me, she knows some people that have 2,500 square foot kitchens. And don't even live there.

[29:22]

2,500 square feet, well how much, this is about 800, right? Okay. I'd say this is 800 square foot, maybe 1,000. That's a pretty big kitchen. And people, we throw away so much stuff, you know. Individually, we don't do so badly actually, we only produce 1,350 pounds of garbage per person a year. Household garbage. But industrially, the total amount of personal garbage adds up to I think like 570 million tons. For the people of America, 570 million tons. But the industrial waste is 8 billion tons.

[30:29]

So, you know, and then there's the, our cars, how many cars do we have? Well, a lot more than any other country. And all that stuff's going up in the air. How many refrigerators do we have? With those fluorocarbons leaking out of the refrigerators going up in there. So, we're wrecking the ozone, we're creating this global heating, all this stuff, and we're the leaders. And we know it. And can we turn fast enough? If we don't, you know, probably the other people will sort of be tagging behind us. And we have to lead, probably. Or I shouldn't say we have to lead, but if we would lead, that would be great. If we led, they'd probably follow. Plus the fact that even if they didn't, we'd make a big, tremendous difference because we'd use so much more than 8,000 tons. And just, you know, America's also about the first country to wake up to the problems of smoking.

[31:44]

All the rest of the world, they're still blowing smoke at each other's face. That's an area where we're slightly more aware and ahead of the other countries. So, in a lot of ways, I think we could be leaders. Rather, in the positive direction, rather than leaders in the destructive direction. And in some ways, we are, right? Like I went to the Grand Canyon a few years ago. It's still there. Americans did not turn that into a dam. They wanted to. They wanted to put a dam there and flood it, right? More electrical power and water for Los Angeles. But Americans did not allow it. Also, there could be McDonald's all the way around the rim of the Grand Canyon and down in the Grand Canyon, too. But there isn't. You know? We have not yet really exploited that thing as badly as we could.

[32:48]

We've left it pretty much. We've respected the beauty of nature there and haven't damaged it. And little by little, America's waking up, you know? California and the United States built this beautiful Golden Gate National Recreation Area, starting in San Francisco and going up the coast in Marin. And that probably won't turn back into housing. People are realizing, if you make that private housing, then people can't get access to the coastland. And everybody should be able to use the ocean. Not just the rich. So, now 34,000 acres is dedicated to that. It probably will stay that way for a while. So, little by little, you know, America's waking up. But some other countries, in some ways, are far in advance to us. And they probably will decline and get worse at copying us. Unless we change our habits before they even get a chance to copy us.

[33:54]

Which is possible, in some cases. Which relates to breathing, you know? Because if you breathe consciously, it helps you... First of all, it helps you realize the problems of smoking. It helps you realize that it's okay not to... As you say, okay, it just naturally makes you less selfish. It makes you, without hurting yourself. As a matter of fact, you become kind and compassionate towards yourself if you breathe consciously. You start feeling your own suffering and your own sadness. And settle into yourself. And feel more connected to other people. And feel less violent.

[35:00]

In the process of conscious breathing, you might become more aware of your violence and of your anger. But conscious breathing is a whole range of topics. It is becoming aware of your breath, but it's also learning how to relate to your breath in a very conscious way. In a way that you're very thoroughly aware of your breath. What it is. Conscious breathing is not a kind of fascism. You know what I mean? Well, a lot of people, when they first start meditating on their breath, they have a kind of fascist approach to it. Do you know what I mean yet? I'd like to check with you. How do you control it?

[36:03]

Yeah, dictating, controlling. You know, on the dime they have this picture of, you know, there's this thing called fascia. Fascia. Which is a kind of tissue that wraps muscle groups. Wraps muscle fiber. And also it's a symbol of authority of a Roman magistrate. It's a bunch of sticks wrapped with cord. It's on the dime. You know what I mean? That's a fascia. It's like, you asked about that thing I carry? Well, that's what the Roman magistrates would carry as a symbol of authority. This bundle of sticks wrapped in a cord. That was their symbol that they would use in judging the Jews and so on. But it also means to bind. So fascism means to bind, to try to control the economy or the activities.

[37:09]

It means a kind of fascist attitude towards your breath is to try to... A fascist attitude towards breathing would be to try to get your breath under control. Or to get your mind under control. And make your mind pay attention to your breath. Because we're trained as fascists, when we start following our breath, we practice fascist breath awareness. Which, of course, we rebel against rather quickly because it's not much fun. We're successful for the first few times, whereas then we're successful fascists. But gradually our life force, our breath, starts to rebel and our mind starts to rebel too. It says, I don't want to do this. So just forcing your mind onto your breath, or feeling that you should be aware of your breath, is not really what we mean by conscious breathing. Conscious breathing is just your natural breathing. But that you're conscious of it.

[38:12]

But I propose to you that there's no need to be mindful of something or pay attention to something if it's not interesting or enjoyable. You're not supposed to be feeling like you're supposed to be following your breath. Although a lot of Zen students feel like they're supposed to be following their breath and they feel guilty that they're not. Can you imagine that? You can? Well, good. Zen students can easily know that. Do you feel that way sometimes? Yeah, I suppose so. Do you feel that way sometimes now? No. How about you? Do you ever feel that way? How about you? Do you feel that way sometimes? How about you? I don't feel like it anymore. Oh, you don't feel like it anymore? For a while you did?

[39:15]

Yeah, when I was younger. After I'd been practicing for a few years, I was still into this. It wasn't a few years, it was about one or two years. I was down here at the practice period and I was following my breath and I was counting my breath. One of the things that happens sometimes when you're following your breath and it's very relaxing, you just fall asleep because you're following your breath. It makes you so relaxed, you just fall asleep. Sometimes even just one exhale. And I used to get pretty relaxed when I was breathing, especially after a morning's work I would get pretty tired. In the noon meditation I had a lot of trouble with. And I used to threaten myself what I would do if I fell asleep. But I knew that if I tried to kill myself, I knew that I wouldn't really believe that.

[40:21]

But I tried everything up to that point to get myself to do it. Whatever I would threaten myself that would seem reasonable, I would try. And I used to count one to ten and then I would also count the number of times I counted from one to ten. So I'd count like this, I'd count one to ten, then I'd say one. One to ten, two times, one to ten, three. Like I'd flip charts at another time. And one time there was a period, forty minutes, where I actually never missed once. One to ten all the way. I forgot what the side problem was, but anyway it was impressive. I got myself under control. It was rough, but I made it. But then, not too long, and I don't know how many times I did that, but not too long after that,

[41:22]

I finally realized, well now that I've accomplished it, now I understand, I don't like this. I didn't like it. It really had nothing to do with why I came to practice Buddhism in the first place. I came to practice Buddhism because of those stories of those neat people. And they weren't sitting around beating themselves inside, you know, keeping themselves in their brackets. They were just doing things like, oh hi, you want this here? So now I feel differently about my breath. I feel like if I can find a way to enjoy it, fine. If I can't, then, you know, then I won't. I mean, I'm not going to pay attention to my breath, it's not enjoyable. When I say I'm not going to, I don't mean that I'm rebelling against it. I mean, I'm just saying that's the way I function. In fact, when I'm enjoying paying attention to my breath, that's what I'm doing.

[42:26]

When I'm not enjoying paying attention to my breath, I don't. That's the way I am. I'm just admitting the way I am. Sometimes the way I'm breathing, when I'm enjoying it, doesn't seem to be pleasant exactly. But I still say I'm enjoying it. Like, you know, like just recently I was practicing, trying to learn some turns in the pool. And I'm very aware of my breath when I'm doing that because, you know, I'm getting water in my nose because I'm flipping around in the water and so on. And so I'm very aware of whether the breath is going out or in or not at all. If it's going out, the water doesn't come in because I'm turning around in the water. If it's going in, then the water is going to be coming in. So that doesn't work. And if it's not going out or in, that doesn't work either because the water goes in unless the air is coming out. So I have to be exhaling when I'm doing these turns, otherwise the water is going in my nose. And if you hear me, you can tell by the sound of my nose, my voice maybe, that I've gotten quite a bit of water in my nose today.

[43:32]

Because I haven't quite... The flipping the air and getting the feet on the wall and pushing away, plus the exhaling, I've had no trouble coordinating all this. But this is also called conscious breathing. I'm enjoying this process, even though I'm also kind of not enjoying getting the water in my nose and getting a cold. But I'm into the process and I want to be in the process. And I'm not sort of like forcing myself to pay attention to this. I naturally want to pay attention to my breath because it makes the whole thing much more interesting and smooth. It all works better if I pay attention to my breath. When you're swimming, you have to pay attention to your breath. That's one of the nice things about swimming. And that's one of the nice things about dolphins, too. Is they really have to pay attention to their breath. Because they're not fish, you know, they're mammals. When they go down, they have to come up and get air again. So they have to keep thinking about their breath.

[44:33]

And when they swim together, they coordinate their breath with each other. So part of their gentleness and kindness of these animals is that. They're mindful of their breath all the time. What do you think about that? What do you think when I first started swimming, I used to count my breath? Count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And sometimes I'd be at twenty-five. But I didn't know I was at twenty-five. All of a sudden, I just hit twenty-five. What happened in between ten and twenty-five? Obviously, I counted because I wasn't at twenty-five. Not necessarily. You might have skipped from eight to twenty-four. I thought I was counting, but then I was aware at twenty-four. You don't know. But you can be sure that if you say twenty-five, either you counted all the way to twenty-five without noticing, or you counted from six or something to twenty-five without noticing.

[45:36]

Was I able to see my breath while I was swimming? Because in the interim, I wasn't consciously counting, but maybe I was aware. You might have been aware of your breath when you were counting. But probably, there are two ways. Sometimes people go, one, two. That's it. And they start saying, oh, yeah, that's right. I'm counting my breath. I remember a two back there. That was the last one I remember. They say, okay, then you're supposed to go one. And some people spend years just going, one. Years. Never getting to two. One.

[46:38]

For years. Well, I'm proposing that you don't feel guilty. Because that's not really conscious breathing. So that was a system. You try to do it that way. That's the concept that's made me feel guilty about not doing it right, which is why I sort of don't do it. And then the other way is you go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. You're doing fine, you know. Oh, I'm supposed to stop at ten. That's also, both of those are not quite conscious. I never did it after that time, because then I thought, I was 25, I was 15 years ago, and I thought,

[47:44]

because I always wondered what happened in between. That's amazing. And I know this guy who, and you get pretty good at that, then you probably will notice that as you're able to count your breath one to ten, that your mind becomes more subtle, and that counting the breath is actually kind of harsh compared to the quality of your mind. You sort of naturally want to stop counting the breath. It seems too coarse. And people usually ask, can I stop counting my breath at that time? And then we say, yeah, sure. It sounds more like conscious counting than conscious breathing. Yeah, right. It's also like using rough sandpaper at first, and then at a certain point it does what it can do, but it's still making scratches. If you use a finer sandpaper and take the scratches off the first sandpaper made, and even that would use scratches. It's amazing. You can do something with a certain sandpaper, until finally there's no,

[48:45]

maybe you're using something that has almost no friction, or not even, you don't even sand anymore. Yes. I was wondering if you could say something about your conception of the purpose of conscious breathing, and that concept. I remember you said the other day, when you first mentioned the concept, that to be a real person, almost one has to consciously breathe. Yeah. Could you explain that? Well, you can understand how to be a real dolphin if you don't consciously breathe. If you don't consciously breathe as a dolphin, you will die. Because dolphins go swimming in the deep water, they go after fish, but they don't calculate how much breath they've gotten, in the water. They have a problem, they have powerful swimming muscles, and they can get deep in the water. They don't keep track of their breathing process, and how much air they've got, they'll die.

[49:47]

Dolphins do drown, in the water. So, the real dolphins are the ones who have evolved, are the ones who have been conscious of their breath, and by becoming more and more conscious of their breath, these mammals have learned how to dive deeper and deeper, and swim faster and faster, because they're more and more conscious of their breath. Also, they can do all kinds of things together in the water, because of their breath meditations that they do. And that's what dolphins are these days, that's what dolphins have become. They've become these creatures that they are, because they've been meditating on their breath all this time. And it's the same with the human being. If a human being isn't aware of his or her breath, then you'd have a human being who just hasn't appreciated something very important about being a human being,

[50:48]

namely the human being's breathing. It would be like a human being that also didn't have any relationships with other human beings. It wouldn't really be a human being. If you met such a person, you'd find that there would be something not really human about them. Like some brain-damaged people. Have you ever read that book, A Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hound? That's half the book. Or sex. Yeah. Some of those people that have brain damage, they're almost like not human. You know what I mean? They don't really have human problems, they've got other problems. In some ways they're free of ordinary human problems, some of them because of their damage. But because of not having human problems, they're not exactly human. Which some, maybe I'm not going to say that to be harsh,

[51:53]

but you have to have a certain kind of equipment in order to be human. In order to have human problems. And if you've got human equipment, and if you've got equipment and you don't notice it, then you're just not, you haven't become yourself because you're not using what you've got. So you haven't fulfilled your humanness yet, if you're not aware of your breath. And also, another thing about humans, what I would say is what a real human being is, is somebody who can appreciate, I mean who's using the, who's using his human ability to be sensitive to the connection between himself and others. I would say you're not really a human being until you feel that, until you sense that. And if you miss out on your own,

[52:54]

if you miss out on breath, which is one of the main things that you share with all of the human beings, and actually share the same air, without this kind of awareness of your breath, it's hard to, not hard to, but yeah, it's hard to actually, if you don't know who you are, you don't know who other people are. If you don't know that you breathe, and how important that is to you, it's hard for you to understand who other people are too. So breath is a spiritual connection to us. You know breath means, or you know spirit means breath, right? Or breath of God. And so our breath, our spirit, our respiration, our inspiration, and expiration, it also shows us our life and our death, our inspiration and our expiration. It connects us to our whole life process.

[53:59]

It also connects us with all of the beings, not just humans, but plants, animals, and so on. And to theoretically or intellectually think about how you're connected to people, and theoretically or intellectually think about what a human being is, is good, to read about it, to talk about it, but to actually feel breath, does more than just thinking about it. Another thing about human beings is that they have the potential of feeling at peace, even in the midst of their difficulties. And conscious breathing helps you find peace, even while you're having,

[55:01]

even while you're sick, even while you're being attacked, and insulted, even while you're saying a stupid thing to yourself. Most human beings, most adult human beings can talk. But most human beings who talk, when they start talking, they become very confused. So most people have got that down. And that's good, that's part of being a human being, being able to be confused by your own language. So most of us have got that pretty well taken care of. But in addition we have the potential to become present and and free, right while we're talking.

[56:03]

And right while we're confused. And breath, and breathing life, and being aware of breath while you're talking, helps you achieve detachment from what you yourself are saying. And from what you yourself are hearing. And once you achieve detachment from what you're saying and from what you're hearing, again I suggest you become a real human being, because when you're not attached to what you're hearing and what you're really saying, you're released from these bonds and your full human-ness is available to you. And all kinds of flexibility and creative possibilities appear to you at that time. There's another Zen story which

[57:15]

I've talked about here quite a bit. It's a story which goes, there was a Zen teacher and he was invited to have lunch by an Indian Raj. And after lunch the Raj said to him, why don't you read scriptures? Why don't you read the Buddhist scriptures? And he said, this poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realm, the realm of body and mind when breathing in. Doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. I always recite such a scripture. One hundred, one thousand, one million scrolls. So this particular Zen teacher, this particular Buddhist teacher,

[58:17]

the scripture he was always reading and always reciting was inhaling, not getting involved in body and mind, exhaling, not getting involved in myriad circumstances. So for him, breath was breath was the medium that he was always tuned into. And while he was tuned into that medium, he then didn't get involved in his mental and physical experience or dwell in it. And he didn't get involved in the circumstances, the myriad circumstances of daily life. But that doesn't mean that by not involved doesn't mean he wasn't engaged. It means he didn't cling to them or deny them. And if you can live in the world of experience, which includes your breath, and use your breath as a way to do that, which is always involved there, naturally your wisdom and compassion,

[59:20]

which make you fully human, or naturally the wisdom and compassion that is part of being fully human, or a real person, naturally they come forth. It's only because we get hung up on things that we can't be just ordinary enlightened being that we are. You could say, I don't get involved in myriad circumstances, and I don't get involved in the body or mind. You could say that. But by connecting that that instruction with breath, it worked very well for him. And those instructions are an elaboration of what it means to breathe consciously. It really wouldn't be conscious breathing to be following your breath

[60:22]

and then cling to your body. That wouldn't be conscious breathing. That would be breathing, but you'd be unconscious because you'd be getting involved without noticing what you're doing. If you notice what you're doing, you don't cling. If you grab something and you notice what you're doing, you don't keep grabbing. Is that necessarily true? No, it's not necessarily true. That would be grabbing. No, I'm talking about just noticing. Is that really solving the problem? Well, it doesn't solve the problem like solving the problem like the problem's all over and you don't have to keep working. It just solves the problem for that instant. But if you want more than that instant, then you're expecting to get something out of it or something,

[61:24]

and then you're getting too involved. But as soon as you notice something, as soon as you notice attachment, it's not attachment anymore. What is it? What? He seems to be thinking about something. Well, it seems for that process to fully take place and happen it would require a tremendous amount of concentration, and I guess that's part of the training. Is that not true? For the continual non-attachment to take place? Well... I'm... I made a radical remark, right? Well, this is not a problem for me to solve. I know. I made a radical remark, so now I have a radical response to what you're saying

[62:24]

because this idea of continual this idea of continual there isn't really continual. You know? Well, moment by moment. Right. Every moment that you're able to do this requires, you can say, tremendous concentration, but it just simply requires enough concentration at that moment to notice what you're doing. You have to have enough concentration to notice, hey, I'm clinging. That's how much concentration you need at that time. But there's still the self that's coming to the root of the problem. The self is saying that I'm clinging. Well, you don't have to say I'm clinging. You could also say there's clinging here. And if there's clinging, then there's self because you can't cling to something that doesn't have self. If there's a sense of self that you project onto things like an arm or another person. So whenever you cling to something

[63:28]

that shows that your self is being projected onto that thing. Or I would say that shows that you're projecting yourself onto the thing. And if you think self exists, then you think of something else exists, like your breath, for example, or your body, and then you can cling to that. Okay? In a temporary experience? You're clinging to this. You're saying you're clinging to that and you're saying no, no, no. I'm just saying that you're saying the self's there and I'm agreeing with you, but I'm explaining that the self is not like this. There's a self over here and you're grasping something over here. At the moment you're grasping onto a lollipop or an idea or a feeling, at that moment, that thing, for all practical purposes, is a self. And if you have some idea because once we think there's a person here, we project that self all over the place.

[64:30]

Okay? And we grasp all those things, which is our, you know, that's our problem, right? Are you following me? And so I'm saying that when you catch yourself, when you're grasping something, in other words, when you're saying that something exists, let's say that's the example, or you also grasp things and you can say this is the way it is and you can say no, it isn't. That's also grasping. To say it is this way or it isn't this way, they're both grasping and they're both attributing a self to the thing. If you really think something isn't here, then you think it exists in the category of not existing. You think there really is such a thing. But when you realize a thing, they're empty, you never go around saying that empty things do or do not exist. Are you following me? Well, not necessarily, but if you do realize the self is empty, then you also understand

[65:33]

the other things aren't. You can also do it in reverse sometimes. You can see that other things are empty and that will erode back to the self. You can sometimes realize emptiness by something which you don't ordinarily call yourself and that will show you that that realization will show you the realization of other things. Being empty too. But usually in Buddhism, the easiest way is to work back on this self and find out that this one is empty. When you find out that this one is empty, then you find out all the other ones are too. I'm still considering the end point. I'm still working my way back to breath and attachment. I'm saying that when you're attached to something and you notice that you're attached, I also would suggest that when you notice you're attached, attached means not just that you're doing something wrong, it's not really wrong,

[66:34]

it's just that you're catching yourself doing something that you don't think is right. Why don't you think it's right? Because you're attached to something. If there really was something, it wouldn't be a problem to attach to it. The problem of attaching to things is that there's nothing to attach to. So you're just deluding yourself and I'm just saying it's not a super duper extraordinary concentration that you've retained at that moment. It's normal concentration. People do actually have enough concentration to pay attention to what they're doing. And it's just for that moment. Now to do it again and again, rather than saying it's a tremendous concentration, I would say it's simply the skill to rediscover what's going on moment by moment. And to keep discovering the concentrated quality of mind again and again and again and again. For me, there's been a question in things like Virginia, and you know,

[67:34]

thinking dualistically perhaps, but how to correct behavior of others. I've had this question and I've been told by other teachers just to see the self coming out and to see what you're doing. But I'm not sure that's really correct. And maybe there's something here to correct is that what you're going to say, but unless on a relative level there is some behavior to refine or to put through the, you know, the permanent step. I don't know. There is a relative self to deal with and correct behavior right up or down. Right where you're putting it. Relative level, right? Yes. So, to just say, to see the self in me, I'm having a problem with that. Just to see things come up,

[68:35]

that doesn't necessarily break the habit of past karma or self-indulgence. You're still stuck. I'm still stuck. You're saying just to see the self or just to see the self-cleaning isn't sufficient. Because past karma is such that it's not easy to break. Right. But what I'm saying, I'll say this, to see the self-cleaning, when you see self-cleaning, usually, or anyway, I would say sometimes, maybe usually or almost always, when you see self-cleaning you feel uncomfortable. You don't feel happy when you see that.

[69:37]

Right. And I would say to you that when you see that self-cleaning enough times and understand each time that you see it how uncomfortable you are and how that causes you frustration and suffering and how also it makes it difficult when you relate to other people and also when you see it how it causes other people problems that as you have more and more of those examples you get a stronger and stronger intention or vow to drop this and as that vow gets stronger and stronger you actually allow that to happen. Okay, I don't mean that one time noticing that you have attachment means that you're going to drop body and mind. I don't mean that. Okay. I just mean that when you do notice it at that moment that you notice it okay, already at that moment

[70:41]

you're liberated. However, it doesn't mean that in the next moment it won't happen again. But each one of those things is a little liberation. Each one of those you're learning that self-attachment causes suffering. You are learning Buddhist teaching on each one of those cases. The Buddhist teaching is that clinging to the self clinging to the aggregates of existence is the definition of suffering. That is alienation. That is suffering. Every time that happens you get a lesson. When you get a lesson at that time you learn something but you haven't learned it enough so that the vow to actually drop this whole thing and the vow to actually live without this is strong enough yet but it gets stronger every time you see one of these things. And every time you see this also you're fairly concentrated to notice to notice that you have an experience

[71:42]

and to notice that you're clinging or attributing self to it and to notice that it's uncomfortable. All that takes awareness and concentration. And if you can notice that several times a day like 10 times a day or 70,000 times a day or a million times a day then in one day you get a lot of lessons. And spending several days in a row of noticing thousands of times a day that you do that by the end of a week or so you'll be you're vowed to live without that thing and you're confident that you don't have to live without it because all it does is cause you misery but much stronger. And each one of those times you will have been pretty concentrated, it's true. And if you have thousands of experiences like that in a week then you have thousands of verifications of concentration too. But part of what I'm trying to emphasize is that this concentration is also natural. And I'm not saying that a lot of people

[72:45]

can't appreciate it at all but I'm not saying I don't like to think so much that concentration is something that you bring in and put on people. It's more something that I think people by the virtue of practice start to discover about themselves that we are naturally concentrated and we are naturally free of self and we are naturally compassionate and all these things. But we also are naturally self-clinging as human beings. That self-clinging comes part and parcel with our intellectual equipment. So we have a very strong self-clinging habit that makes it very difficult for our wisdom and compassion to come forth. But we don't have to exactly... Anyway, the main thing to do in this case then is to be able to spot selfishness and to spot self-clinging. And if you can spot it you learn at each point in time

[73:47]

that you spot it. And receiving monastic... right, you have to read the monastic precepts the monastic precepts the Bodhisattva precepts those precepts help you notice the self-clinging. They... Matter of fact, they are essential to enter into awareness of the self-clinging. Think about it. Yeah. Try some breathing. Anything more about breathing that you'd like to bring up now? Do you want to breathe?

[74:48]

Yes. Yeah. Everyone agree? Everyone agree? Everybody wants to breathe? How is it when you get your breath so still and quiet and your heart's just gone along and you want to be more accountable faster than somehow? Sometimes you're... you feel like your breathing is calm and your heart beats heart beats faster than usual? Already noticed it? Is that funny? You noticed it? That looks terrible. Yeah, I noticed it. It might be that you

[75:54]

that you that your heart is beating down the way it was before. You don't know. It's hard to say if you don't have a control case that you don't have another person next to you who's you who's not breathing calmly to sit there and heart beats more slowly. So I really don't know. I mean, I don't know. Could it be because the breathing is too slow and there's an insufficiency of oxygen and it's going to the muscles and then the heart is pumping more blood in order to feed the muscles? It could be that. Have you ever noticed that happen? Like when you're sitting and you're breathing and you're real quiet and calm and all of a sudden your heart you don't have a palpitation but you just feel it. It could be that. Well, I don't know. It did happen to me before. I don't know if it's... I guess I've made this reasoning before the one I just made. I think it was beating faster

[76:55]

because there was a lack of insufficiency of oxygen in the muscles or much more of anything. So if you had to accelerate your breathing it could be that. I don't know. Well, the body our bodies, you know as you may know is fairly complicated and fortunately we're not in charge of it. Most of the necessary things are involuntary. In Zen practice and Buddhism in general we don't put much energy into trying to make the breath be a certain way because most people if they start messing around with their breath and start introducing any kind of volition into their breathing they can easily get kind of messed up. So generally speaking we don't suggest mixing in volition in with your breath. Just let your breath you know, let as much as possible just let it go

[77:56]

and let it do what it wants to do. Notice what it's doing rather than trying to get it to do something. That's the usual thing for most people. There are breathing techniques where people, you know make one breath push to make the breath a little longer or something like that or breathe through one nose these kinds of things. These are okay to do but usually these things are only done for a few minutes or, you know once out of every ten or something like that. But mostly we just enjoy the breath as it's naturally occurring rather than trying to mess around with it. Fortunately if you mess around with your breath and do the improper thing you may get negative feedback very fast so you'll soon realize that you're doing something unhelpful. As a general rule if you're doing some kind of breathing exercise and you're doing it wrong you'll find out rather quickly the damage is quickly shown to you.

[78:58]

Whereas with physical postural things if you're doing them wrong it takes longer to notice it usually. On the other hand physical postural things if you're doing them right the benefits show up more quickly and if you're doing breathing right the benefits show up more slowly. Breathing breathing properly breathing harmoniously works very slowly. Breathing disharmoniously works very rapidly. Using your body inappropriately works very slowly to show you the problem. Using your body properly works very quickly to show you the benefits. So maybe we could

[80:14]

anyone who wants to could go up to the meditation hall now and do some conscious breathing enjoy your breathing as it just go see what's doing check it out.

[80:32]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ