Chapter Three, Shoveling Dung

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before i went to the san francisco zen center
i was practicing sitting
and i don't remember even have any idea of just sitting when i was sitting
i remember if i had the concept of
just sitting when i was sitting but i was sitting
and down
hell
and i i was doing that to some extent because i thought that that was a training
what you through which are through which or by which or as which
i would be the person
that i wanted to be

before i went to censor i was not thinking of like attaining something while i was sitting
i remember thinking wow been attained some kind of like
enlightenment i just thought
but by doing the practice i will become
what a person can become i will come a really cool person
who by the way it might be enlightened but that was not the point the point was to be a really cool person
and i can i thought this 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 people the people were sitting and they were trying to get something like they were trying to get themselves under control
for example
they're trying to get themselves to be able to do extraordinary things
while there were sitting
and again i i partly because of
social transmission i i got into load that trying to attain something
i'm getting myself under control
and been focused on counting my breathing but again i
i'm kind of had a crash course on that i tried it and i crashed
and i kind of gave it up about
more than fifty years ago i kind of gave up trying to get something from sitting
and i guess since that time i've been
trying to on
continue
to remember the aspiration to just do the training
and to be enthusiastic about doing something where you don't get anything out of it
however it doesn't mean you don't mean you don't receive a lot is just you know i'm trying to get anything out of it which makes it maybe not quite as dramatic not worthy of
a novel or 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 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 or dealing with stuff just deal with it and then occasionally slip into like
being slightly above average at dealing with stuff
our way above average or being afraid of being below average
those thoughts come up but that's more stuff to deal with interesting and i take care of it
yes
this afternoon
yeah i hear
wait a second you think being sleepy isn't a good idea
wait a second is that an idea or sleepiness
whatever sleepiness and was
ah yes there was sleepiness and now as the idea this is not good
then you have two things to do with first year 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 unkind of a critical thought alongside alongside your sleepiness but because you're sleepy in can't you can't really get into the thought that much because you're kind of repeat if you really do
a lot you're not then you wake up this has really turned on this is no longer i'm not sleeping anymore this is like horrible i am like wasting my time etc now i'm awake
but if 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 your way above terrible america back you are
burruss baby
when you like all that stuff then things are not so interesting
and then you could then another demon com which says you know this is really boring here and then but if i will go to sleep
it wouldn't be so boring because like a dream of something interesting so maybe i'll actually
take a nap when 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 easily be his ex
being sleepy his ex what acts
what what
welcome
being sleepy is het asking to be welcomed
being sleepy is saying be my friend
being over 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 him i am a negative thought i'm a critical but please destroy me it doesn't want you to destroy it life does not want to be destroyed life wants to be liberated him
into the fullness of life and sometimes life is in the form of sleepiness and aunts great compassion to come and play with it
and then sometimes before slightly before great compassion seems to arrive another pod comes up wages this is not good this sleepiness
and property and promptly is a great compassion will come to the sleepiness but it might come to me criticizing it
it comes for both there's no exceptions to great compassion
so what have you got
great compassion is there for you are for it and you
whatever and if you can allow their great compassion than whatever it is
i will be liberation of it

and while i was saying that nobody passed out
the remake a sleepy while i was talking
cause that's how i've heard yelling helps right
yes
this isn't already liberated
sorry it's already it's everything's already liberated everything's already dancing with the whole universe the whole universe is dead though your first can't dance with anything if the thing is not liberated you can't be like holding onto one
shred of the you know of anything if you want to dance with whole universe
and not and if and even if you think you are holding on you're wrong you can't hold on because you're dancing with the universe
you've gotta you know either you gotta like lead the whole universe or follow though universe actually both so that's what's really happening and this is something which excuse the expression you can wake up to
it's already going on is the 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 boot away
to a dream that you're not leaping beyond whatever is happening
it's a dream and reality the buddha way is what's going on and the boot away his leaping
and if you feel like you're not leaping than that should get the with that gets great compassion than you live free of not leaping and you can happily leap into
not leaping
which richard sometimes you do right sometimes you're not leaping is good way second are you done i well go finish
know who we go has a we were sitting before you're sitting
pm sent something here
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 like jesus was like usually like way different from me
mean i like jesus when i was growing up i thought it was really a cool teacher but i didn't like the raising the dead and the walking on water and the you know the resurrection has dubbed his like i'm not that interested in that
but like
telling people that
who are criticizing others to tell them to look at themselves i thought that was cool
i could you know i wanted to learn now and the zen monks weren't flying through the air there were just like opening in their hand and closing their hand
and i can do that but sometimes i can't offer my hand i feel stuck somebody says open your hand and i go the kid i can my even 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 can be free
it looked it looked like a possible freedom but i didn't understand i was already free i couldn't quite accept your already free you don't have to travel across the country
in several attempts
several dramatic trips 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 they were that way i was this way but i kind of wanted to be that way and then i thought i'll do the training and then i
will be that way and i still think that during the training is being that way
so i i didn't really understand
several is a subtle trying to get something out
a subtle just a subtle grasping
which is which is the thing which stopped my hand from opening at the appropriate time and closing at the appropriate time even though i know what to do it sometimes it's sticks little bit
open but it is not like i don't want it to open is more like i know if i know it would be could do it but i can't do it but those guys could do it those girls could do it it was totally gorgeous they open just what the right time
and then close
and so cool of just a right thing to do so beautiful
i want to learn that but this training which again is kind of pervasive in the school the training was there do this and and you have a chance of learning natural amazing art having the right response
and you know
i'm still going i'm still betting on that
after all these years
every moment a jackpot
or a pot of jack

welcome home mom
ah
welcome home mom

oh i really as you were talking
the ability to
see
sweetness of the trying
he's very nice
yeah
that's so desire yes thank them that's what it is no is so dire his sweet he's sweet or or or bigger one of the other but they're both the sweet subtle desire which buddha goes oh how sweet or the bitter one
what would it goes oh how bitter but is there for you
but as kind of like the bitterness of your dear child bitterness you see even when your child's being bitter
he is still see how sweet there the the sweetness
is in
purity of the visa
das das why he appeared it feels to it because there's security designer
maybe so maybe that's right who knows maybe you know i don't know that she says the sweetness is the purity to 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 the pure sweet desire and the bitter impurities are they're both asking for the same thing because even sweet
pure desire still can get stuck and suede pure desire
it was compassion so that it can leap out of sweet pure desire
and so of course bitter pure desire also wants to leap for your that and the compassion makes possible for anything to link free so i'm not saying i necessarily agree with you but we could tentatively say okay
the desires that are pure our sweet the empire ones are bitter
but the practice doesn't care which one it is i think it is it's it's the i know you do we got that than you think that and i'm i'm just saying i'm just saying i don't know i'm just telling you i don't know if that's true
but even if it isn't true i still want to be compassionate to it
then i don't know compassion than i don't know
when when when the desire of winters his purity of the the ups observation when their security that's all there is there's nothing more than after a dozen
it doesn't he doesn't see me destiny
there's none of these games a lot of nice stuff that we're talking
you're getting off you're getting off you're getting off because the giving and receiving is the clear observing
clear observing is giving and receiving so we
claire observing is welcoming
welcoming is pure observing pure observing is not in want to call a static relationship with things it's a dynamic interplay that's pure observing
there is giving and take there is giving and receiving not even
yeah i disagree and a pure observing if you're observing giving and receiving is happening not happening even just three as giving and receiving but the giving and receiving leaps beyond happening and not happening
keeping a c leaps beyond happening and not happening pure observing isn't happening yeah okay
ah

if you're observing actually
well pair of observing used like or attack
and pure observing his generosity
as patients and has been careful
and as 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 is to whole universe big generous with the whole universe
and that's what we're already doing
and we opened to that by being
by closely observing all the individual things all the individual ideas which is also by being generous to all ideas will open to the working up the universe which is already work in the universe has not on vacation
the universe is working right now 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 in a little packages
and but every practice compassion to the little packages we opened to home the little packages or the whole universe working in little packages
and our little minds and the whole universe working as our life and the whole universe working at 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 whip when we don't want to practice we opened 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 and by dealing with any little thing and he feeling any idea
and sensation by working with them compassionately we dared to open to how to our actual home
which is not going to like come in and on make a prisoner of us because we're so little where the same size as the into fruits and the universe is the same size as little people
and so part of we did do is learn to be compassionate with feeling little
an m and be compassionate with feeling fear of being so little
printing printing be compassionate would be little we can dare to meet the big
which is our drome or drones who actually beyond big and beyond little and as fineness it fitted of spaciousness and as greatness it is utterly beyond location
a hair's breadth deviation will fail to accord with the proper tournament
so we're were training at a tuning with what
with it
what's it it's the massive fire
if the conversation with the whole universe
yes if i want to substitute a word amateurs yeah compassion compassion to if our to use the word excel
turns out you can you can substitute anywhere
so accept will be acceptable
any as part of the deal any word can be substituted because any word have somebody just gave me on this there was a poem and zen mind beginner's mind and i said where is that poem and so may i went i found it she's she's one of set of
and she found it and if a chapter called calmness
and the little phrase at the beginning of the chapter is for zen students words arch our treasure
acceptance if the treasure non acceptance is a treasure
larry the word larry
is a treasure
the word ted is a treasure
present students at every word is a treasure every word is like something to like 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 black
you rat
who who had attended treasure would you know
i'm using to yes it is it's trash they can protect you think if it could thank you so much for the word
grab the rat
yeah ribbed a rat
okay so just remember rub the rat