Before I went to the San Francisco Zen Center, I was practicing sitting. And I don't remember even having the idea of just sitting when I was sitting. I don't remember if I had that concept of just sitting when I was sitting, but I was sitting. And, yeah, and I was doing that to some extent because I thought that that was a training through which, or by which, or as which, I would be the person that I wanted to be. Before I went to the Zen Center,

[01:05]

I was not thinking of attaining something while I was sitting. I don't remember thinking, well, I'm going to attain some kind of enlightenment. I just thought by doing the practice I will become what a person can become. I will become a really cool person. Who, by the way, might be enlightened, but that was not the point. The point was to be a really cool person. And again, I thought this practice is part of being the person I want to be. And then I went to Zen Center and I found out that, you know, you can get something. Maybe the people were sitting and they were trying to get something, like they were trying to get themselves

[02:07]

under control, for example. They're trying to get themselves to be able to do extraordinary things while they were sitting. And again, partly because of social transmission, I got into a little bit trying to attain something, like getting myself under control and being focused on counting my breathing. But again, I kind of had a crash course on that. I tried it and I crashed. And I kind of gave it up. About more than 50 years ago, I kind of gave up trying to get something from sitting. And I guess since that time, I've been trying to continue to remember the aspiration to just do the training

[03:12]

and to be enthusiastic about doing something where you don't get anything out of it. However, it doesn't mean you don't receive a lot. It's just you're not trying to get anything out of it, which makes it maybe not quite as dramatic, not worthy of being made into a novel or a TV show. It's not that interesting just to be sitting when you're sitting and walking when you're walking and eating when you're eating. But that's kind of like, that's the practice, that's the training. Deal with what's happening today. Deal with what's happening right now. Take care of it. Be kind to it. But not to get something, not to be famous at dealing with stuff. Just deal with it. And then occasionally you slip into like being slightly above average at dealing with stuff or way above average

[04:18]

or being afraid of being below average. Those thoughts come up, but that's more stuff to deal with. And just take care of it. Yes? This afternoon I found that I was very sleepy. Yeah. You know, I kind of think that's not a good idea. Wait a second. You think being sleepy isn't a good idea? Wait a second. Is that an idea or is that sleepiness? Well, there was sleepiness and there was the idea. Ah, yes. There was sleepiness and there was the idea this is not good. So then you have two things to deal with. First, you have sleepiness to deal with. Then you have a little excitement on top of the sleepiness, which is this is not good. So now you have kind of a critical thought alongside your sleepiness,

[05:19]

but because you're sleepy, you can't really get into the thought that much because you're kind of sleepy. If you really get into the thought, then you wake up. This is really terrible! This is no longer... I'm not sleepy anymore. This is like horrible. I am like wasting my time, etc. Now I'm awake. But when you let go of being terrible, when you let go of trying to get to be above terrible, when you let go of thinking you're way above terrible, as a matter of fact, you are Buddha's baby, when you let go of all that stuff, then things are not so interesting. And then another demon comes, which says, you know, this is really boring here. But if I would go to sleep, it wouldn't be so boring because I could dream of something interesting. So maybe I'll actually take a little nap.

[06:23]

Wait a minute! No, no, that's not good. So this is a story of stuff to deal with. Being sleepy is... Guess what? You know what, right? Being sleepy is X. Being sleepy is X. What's X? What? What? Being sleepy is asking to be welcomed. Being sleepy is saying, be my friend. Being overly excited is saying, be compassionate to me. Being critical of your state is also saying, welcome me. Don't destroy me. Don't destroy me. I'm a negative thought. I'm a critical thought. Please destroy me. It doesn't want you to destroy it. Life does not want to be destroyed. Life wants to be liberated into the fullness of life.

[07:26]

And sometimes life is in the form of sleepiness and it wants great compassion to come and play with it. And then sometimes, slightly before great compassion seems to arrive, another thought comes up which is, this is not good, this sleepiness. And probably the great compassion won't come to the sleepiness, but it might come to me criticizing it. It comes for both. There's no exceptions to great compassion. So whatever you got, great compassion is there for you or for it and you. Whatever! And if you can allow that great compassion, then whatever it is, there will be liberation of it. And while I was saying that,

[08:29]

nobody passed out. Did anybody get sleepy while I was talking? Because yelling helps, right? Yes? Is it already liberated? And if we're compassionate, we realize it? Because it's already liberated. Everything's already liberated. Everything's already dancing with the whole universe. The whole universe can't dance with anything if the thing is not liberated. You can't be holding on to one shred of anything if you want to dance with the whole universe. And even if you think you are holding on, you're wrong. You can't hold on because you're dancing with the universe. Either you've got to lead the whole universe or follow the whole universe. Actually, both. So that's what's really happening

[09:30]

and this is something which, excuse the expression, you can wake up to. It's already going on. It's a question of waking up. Waking up from what? From a dream that, what? That you're not free. To a dream that you're not the Buddha way. To a dream that you're not leaping beyond whatever is happening. It's a dream. But in reality, the Buddha way is what's going on and the Buddha way is leaping. And if you feel like you're not leaping, then that gets great compassion. Then you leap free of not leaping. And you can happily leap into not leaping. Which sometimes you do, right? Sometimes you're not leaping. Yes? Wait a second.

[10:30]

Are you done? Oh, well, go finish. No, no, no, no. Go ahead. So when you were sitting, before you were sitting, sentences goes in the sentence, I've seen people trying to get something. Yeah. It seemed like it was still a subtle trying to get something. In the sense of I was trying to become a really cool person and I didn't understand that I already was a cool person. I thought these really cool Zen monks were different from me. Even though I kind of thought they're different from me but not that different. Just a little bit different. Like Jesus was like usually like way different from me. I mean, I liked Jesus when I was growing up. I thought he was really a cool teacher. But I didn't like the raising the dead and the walking on water and the resurrection. That stuff is like I'm not that interested in that.

[11:33]

But like telling people that who are criticizing others to tell them to look at themselves, I thought that was cool. And I could, you know, I wanted to learn that. And these Zen monks weren't flying through the air. They were just like opening their hand and closing their hand. And I can do that. But sometimes I can't open my hand. I feel stuck. Somebody says, open your hand. And I go, I can't. I can't open my hand. Even though I often do open my hand. It's like to be able to open your hand no matter what's going on and to be able to close it no matter what, to be free. It looked like a possible freedom. But I didn't understand I was already free. I couldn't quite accept you're already free. You don't have to travel across the country in several attempts, several dramatic trips

[12:36]

to get over there to where you're going to learn that back in Minnesota you already were free. I didn't understand that part. So I did kind of think they were that way. I was this way. But I kind of wanted to be that way. And I thought, I'll do the training and then I will be that way. And I still think that doing the training is being that way. So I didn't really understand. A subtle trying to get something out. A subtle grasping. Which is the thing which stopped my hand from opening at the appropriate time and closing at the appropriate time. Even though I know how to do it, sometimes it sticks a little bit. It doesn't open. But it's not like I don't want it to open.

[13:37]

It's more like I know it would be good to do it but I can't do it. But those guys could do it. Those girls could do it. It was totally cool. Just like it opened just at the right time. And then close. And so cool. Just the right thing to do. So beautiful. I wanted to learn that. But this training, which again is kind of pervasive in the school. The training was there. Do this and you have a chance of learning this amazing art of having the right response. And, yeah, I'm still betting on that after all these years. Every moment's a jackpot. Or a pot of jack.

[14:37]

Pot of jack. Welcome home, Ma. Welcome home, Mom. I really, as you were talking, the ability to see the sweetness of the trying is very meaningful to me. That subtle desire, yes, I think that's what it is. Even the subtle desire is sweet. Or, yeah, or bitter.

[15:41]

One or the other. But they're both the sweet, subtle desire which Buddha goes, Oh, how sweet! Or the bitter one, Buddha goes, Oh, how bitter! Buddha's there for you. But it's kind of like the bitterness of your dear child's bitterness. You see, even when your child's being bitter, you still see how sweet they are. The sweetness is in the purity of the desire. That's why it appears, it feels sweet, because there's this purity in the desire. Maybe so. Maybe that's right. Who knows? Maybe you know. I don't know that. She says, the sweetness is the purity of the desire, so then maybe the bitterness is the impurity of the desire. Possibly. But in both cases, they're both asking for the same thing.

[16:43]

The pure, sweet desire and the bitter, impure desire, they're both asking for the same thing. Because even sweet, pure desire still can get stuck in sweet, pure desire. It wants compassion so that it can leap out of sweet, pure desire. And of course, bitter, impure desire also wants to leap free of that. And the compassion makes possible for anything to leap free. So I'm not saying I necessarily agree with you, but we could tentatively say, okay, the desires that are pure are sweet, the impure ones are bitter, but the practice doesn't care which one it is. I think it is. It's the... I know you do. We got that. You think that. And I'm just saying, I'm just telling you, I don't know if that's true. But even if it isn't true,

[17:44]

I still want to be compassionate to it. Then I don't know compassion. Then I don't know... When the desire, or when there is this purity of the observation, when there's this purity, that's all there is. There's nothing before, nothing after. It doesn't give, it doesn't receive, it doesn't... There's none of these games and none of these stuff that we're talking about. Well, you're getting off, you're getting off, you're getting off. Because the giving and the receiving is the clear observing. Clear observing is giving and receiving. Clear observing is welcoming. Welcoming is pure observing. Pure observing is not, you know, what to call it, a static relationship with things.

[18:47]

It's a dynamic interplay. That's pure observing. There is giving and receiving. Yeah, I disagree. In the pure observing... ...not happening even. Just there is giving and receiving, but the giving and receiving leaps beyond happening and not happening. Leaps beyond happening and not happening. Pure observing isn't happening. I see that, and, uh... If you're observing actually, it means... Well, pure observing is like, where it's at. And pure observing is generosity.

[19:50]

And it's patience. And it's being careful. And it's being enthusiastic. Pure observing is full of life! And full of death. Pure observing is the whole universe as an observer. It's the whole universe observing the whole universe. The whole universe being generous with the whole universe. And that's what we're already doing. And we open to that by being... By clearly observing all the individual things. All the individual ideas. Which is also, by being generous to all ideas, we'll open to the working of the universe, which is already working. The universe is not on vacation. The universe is working right now.

[20:56]

And it doesn't take breaks. It's always fully working. And it works through each one of our lives. And our lives come in little packages because we have a mind which makes our life into little packages. But if we practice compassion to the little packages, we open to how the little packages are the whole universe working in little packages, in our little minds. And the whole universe working as our life. And the whole universe working as our practice, even when we don't want to practice, that's the way the universe is working. And if we can be kind to the way when we don't want to practice, we open to the working of the whole universe, which is already working away. And we are also working the whole universe. We're working the whole universe, and the whole universe is working us.

[21:58]

And by dealing with any little thing, any feeling, any idea, any sensation, by working with them compassionately, we dare to open to our actual home. Which is not going to come in and make a prisoner of us because we're so little. We're the same size as the universe. And the universe is the same size as little people. And so part of what we need to do is learn to be compassionate with feeling little. And be compassionate with feeling fear of being so little. And if we can be compassionate with being little, we can dare to meet the big, which is our true home. Our true home is actually beyond big and beyond little. In its fineness, it fits into spacelessness. In its greatness, it is utterly beyond location.

[23:01]

A hair's breadth deviation will fail to accord with the proper attunement. So we're training at attuning with what? With it. What's it? It's the massive fire. It's the conversation with the whole universe. Yes? If I were to substitute a word for what you were saying, instead of being compassionate, if I were to use the word accept... It turns out you can substitute any word. Okay. So accept will be acceptable. That's part of the deal. Any word can be substituted because any word... Somebody just gave me this... There was a poem in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and I said, where is that poem? And so Maya Wender found it.

[24:06]

She's the one who said it was in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And she found it, and it's in a chapter called Calmness. And the little phrase at the beginning of the chapter is, for Zen students, words are treasure. Acceptance is a treasure. Non-acceptance is a treasure. Larry. The word Larry is a treasure. The word Ted is a treasure. For Zen students, every word is a treasure. Every word is like something to really respect. And take care of. And maybe, and welcome. Welcome the treasure. But some of the treasures, some of the word treasures, are hard to welcome. Like, you rat.

[25:06]

Oh, that's not a treasure. No, no, no. I'm a Zen student. Yes, it is. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for the word, rub the rat. You know rub the rat? Yes. Okay, so just remember, rub the rat.

[25:32]

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