So, the English word intimacy is a word that I'm... Is it going? Go ahead. The English word intimacy... is a translation of the word intimacy, the trans character, intimacy, one of them is character which also means secret or esoteric. and another character which is used for intimacy means close, and another character for intimacy also means kindness, and refers to the closeness between parents and child.

[01:02]

So a number of Chinese characters appear in Zen literature, which are sometimes translated as intimacy, close, and so on. But they aren't technical terms, they aren't Buddhist technical terms. And yet, those words are often spoken of as sort of the point of the practice. And the way we are with things which realizes the Buddha way. And one thing that comes to mind is that this being intimate with things is a way that ends outflows in relationship to them. So for example, I mentioned that outflows are the kinds of seeds that are put down in our life when we relate to things in terms of gain and loss.

[02:15]

And I feel myself, maybe you can see this, that if you relate to things in terms of gain and loss, you're undermining or losing intimacy with them. So if you talk to somebody, or like I said this morning, if you pick up a cup, if you even brush your teeth or comb your hair, or wash your face with a gaining idea, you're not really like being intimate with your cup or with your friend or with your face. To wash your face, to live the life of face washing, no sense of gain from it or loss, But, you know, to wash your face as an act of intimacy, as a way, as a means, as a way of being with your face that will achieve harmony with your face and peace with your face.

[03:32]

Again, dealing with your face in terms of gain and loss is not so harmonious or peaceful. You may, you know, get into wishing your face was some other way, trying to make your face better and better. And better and better in terms of your face, also better than, maybe better and better than other people's face, to have the nicest face all the way. The fairest face. You know, that makes you, that makes you stressed, that stresses you to wash your face that way. But in Zen, sometimes Zen teachers say to their students, they say, what should I do? And the teacher says, wash your face. Brush your teeth. Drink your tea. That's a very famous thing to say. What is Zen? Drink your tea. Wash your face.

[04:37]

But, you know, to drink your tea to get something out of it, that's not just drinking your tea. I have this little green folder, see it? And this is a folder which somebody gave me, which has my boarding pass. We had my boarding pass in it for a trip from Minneapolis back to San Francisco. I got my boarding pass, you know, on the computer the day before, and they gave it to me in this little green folder. And when I got home, I decided to use this boarding pass as one of my little dharma. And so the title on the thing here is Basic Method, a Basic Zen Method.

[05:45]

And then it says here, that whole thing says, Intimacy and No Outflows. And I was looking at it just a few minutes ago, and I thought, oh, it's got this, it says Red's boarding pass in the front, and I thought, that's not so nice to have this boarding pass written on the Zen, Basic Zen Method, but I thought, actually, this is my boarding pass. So I'll leave it on there. I don't have to green it out. So... Then when he's speaking, as you may have noticed, at least if you watch other people, people often are not intimate with their life, moment by moment.

[06:47]

People are often into, like, always think, what can I gain from this, from that? What can I do now to gain something, to gain some pleasure, or gain some money, or gain some time? How can I avoid to... Lose something. You know, so on. This way of being with our moment-by-moment experience is outflows and suffering and stress, and it's not intimate. And it doesn't promote peace and harmony. And yet, we are that way often. So we need to, in a sense, we need to learn a way of being that, in a sense, turns that around, that habit, or helps us let go of that habit. A process of getting over not being intimate with things.

[08:00]

I've shown some of you this before, but the process that I, there's a little diagram, a little simple outline of the process for handing out flows or the process for achieving intimacy, which is, again, related to letting go of not being intimate, is a process which I outline by writing trust, Relax. Play. Create. Understand. Liberate. And you can just call from liberate to harmonize.

[09:08]

Pass it by. Then sometimes, whoops, got one. In a sense, the harmonizing and pacifying in this process actually start already in the play and creating phase. And also, when I first started offering this outline of practice, I actually started and relaxed. So, the English word intimacy is a word that I'm... Is it going? Go ahead.

[10:16]

The English word intimacy... is a translation of the word intimacy which also means secret or esoteric and another character which is used for intimacy means close, and another character for intimacy also means kindness, and refers to the closeness between parents and child. So a number of Chinese characters appear in Zen literature, which are sometimes translated as intimacy, close, and so on. But they aren't technical terms, they aren't Buddhist technical terms.

[11:20]

And yet, those words are often spoken of as sort of a point of the practice. And the way we are with things which realizes the Buddha way. And one thing that comes to mind is that this being intimate with things is a way that ends outflows in relationship to them. So for example, I mentioned that outflows are the kinds of seeds that are put down in our life when we relate to things in terms of gain and loss. And I feel myself, maybe you can see this, that if you relate to things in terms of gain and loss, you're undermining or losing intimacy with them.

[12:39]

So if you talk to somebody, or like I said this morning, if you pick up a cup, if you even brush your teeth or... comb your hair or wash your face with a gaining idea, you're not really like being someone intimate with your cup or with your friend or with your face. To wash your face, to live the life of face washing, no sense of gain from it or loss, But, you know, to wash your face as an act of intimacy, as a way, as a means, as a way of being with your face that will achieve harmony with your face and peace with your face. Again, dealing with your face in terms of gain and loss is not so harmonious or peaceful.

[13:42]

You may, you know, get into wishing your face was some other way, trying to make your face better and better. And better and better in terms of your face, also better than, maybe better and better than other people's face, to have the nicest face in all the way. The fairest face. You know, that makes you, that makes you stressed, that stresses you to wash your face that way. But, you know, in Zen, you know, sometimes Zen teachers say to their students, students say, what should I do? And teachers say, wash your face, you know, brush your teeth or drink your tea. Yeah, that's a very famous thing to say. Students say, what is Zen? Drink your tea. Wash your face. But to drink your tea to get something out of it, that's not just drinking your tea.

[14:46]

I have this new green folder, see it? And this is a folder which somebody gave me, which has my boarding pass. We had my boarding pass in it for a trip from Minneapolis back to San Francisco. I got my boarding pass, you know, on the computer the day before, and they gave it to me in this little green folder. And when I got home, I decided to use this boarding pass as one of my little dharma. And so the title on the thing here is Basic Method, A Basic Zen Method. And then it says here, that whole thing says, Intimacy and No Outflows. And I was looking at it just a few minutes ago, and I thought, oh, it's got this, it says Red's boarding pass in the front, and I thought, that's not so nice to have this boarding pass written on the Zen, basic Zen method, but I thought, actually, this is my boarding pass.

[16:06]

So I'll leave it on there. I don't have to green it out. So... Then when he's speaking, as you may have noticed, at least if you watch other people, people often are not intimate with their life, moment by moment. People are often into, like, always thinking, what can I gain from this, from that? What can I do now to gain something, to gain some pleasure, or gain some money, or gain some time? How can I avoid to... Lose something. You know, so on.

[17:09]

This way of being with our moment-by-moment experience is freaked out flows, and suffering and stress, and it's not intimate. And it doesn't promote peace and harmony. And yet, we are that way often. So we need to In a sense, we need to learn a way of being that, in a sense, turns that around, that habit, or helps us let go of that habit. And a process of getting over not being intimate with things. And I've shown some of you this before, but the process that I, there's a little diagram, a little simple outline of the process for handing out flows or the process for achieving intimacy, which is, again, related to letting go of not being intimate, is a process which I outline by writing trust,

[18:31]

Relax. Play. Create. Understand. Liberate. And you can just go from liberate to harmonize. Pass it by. But in some sense, whoops, got one over here. In a sense, the harmonizing and pacifying in this process actually start already in the play, in creating phase.

[19:40]

And also, when I first started offering this outline of practice, I actually started and relaxed. When I first started offering this outline, I said, relax, play, create, understand, and liberate. But then I noticed that people were scared to relax. They thought, relax? Really? I noticed they didn't dare relax. They thought, well, what happened to me by relax? You can imagine various things might happen to you if you relax, and they might. A lot of things... probably won't happen if you don't relax. Right? If you're tense, certain things probably won't happen. And if you're relaxed, some of those things that won't happen when you're tense very likely will happen, plus a bunch of other stuff might happen.

[20:52]

I often think, you know, this is maybe too intimate to tell you, but anyway, when I first practiced prayer at Tassajara Monastery in California, I noticed after about two months that certain parts of my body were loosening up. And I thought perhaps I would have kind of an accident. What do you call it? A gastrointestinal accident. I didn't, but it just sort of feels like, well, is there enough holding there? You know. Usually I hold this much and now I'm holding about half as much. I wonder if that's enough. And I didn't try to hold less. I just noticed that things were looser. Just kind of like there's less tension in my thoughts. But anyway, nothing happened really. It was all right. I didn't need that extra tension. Up tight, you know. You heard the expression uptight, it kind of, it actually applies down there.

[21:58]

That's where it kind of like often is, uptight. So anyway, I think a lot of people are afraid that they might, you know, have a little accident, they tense up, or offering incense, you know, you have this incense, these sticks of incense, when you offer them, if you're like a jisha or something, or a tenant, you're offering incense, you think, You know, if you don't hold tightly, you might drop the incense. So some people hold it tighter than they have to. And sometimes, when they offer things, they don't know, well, when do you let go? If you let go too soon, it'll fall. If you hold on for long, it'll break. So I realized that people had trouble trusting that they can relax. So now I've expanded trust into... kind of a process too and basically the trusting phase is basically basically compassion now trust means in some sense trust means you start by trusting compassion

[23:13]

In some sense, the beginning of the process of realizing intimacy in your life is to trust compassion, and the other way is if you practice compassion, I was suggesting you will be able to trust that you can relax. In some sense, if you're not practicing compassion, maybe you shouldn't relax. Because if you're not being kind to people, and you relax, and you might say, amen, whatever. And then you're just going to be cruel to people. Well, in some sense, they're not so good. I mean, you should be tense if you're thinking of being cruel. The retention might actually kind of like slow you down in your cruelty. So compassion means, in the traditional presentation of compassion, it means practicing giving, being generous, It means practicing the precepts which support the development of virtue.

[24:17]

It means practicing patience with your pain and irritations and other things that happen. It means practicing diligence and it means practicing tranquility or concentration. If you practice these things, then you can relax. If you don't practice precepts, If you don't practice virtue, then in some sense it's not safe to relax. But on the other hand, if you are committed to practice virtue, and you are generous with yourself, and you are generous with others, and you really accept generously to a mind, a big mind, which accepts the way people are, even if they've got problems, on some level you accept them in their problems. You accept yourself and others in your unskillfulness. You're generous in that way.

[25:19]

You're giving in that way with everything. And then you also practice virtue and patience. You're diligent about all this, indulging in the things you do, and you're also practicing tranquility. Then you can trust if it's okay to relax. When you relax, then it's possible to be playful. Now, I wrote play, but I mean also, I don't mean just play like play baseball or play football with a gaining idea. I mean be playful. in playing baseball. Rather than, again, playing baseball with the primary agenda of gaining a victory. So, if you can play baseball or play chess or play bridge or cook dinner with a playful attitude, that means you're doing these things but not necessarily to gain something and not trying to avoid loss. but actually to enact compassion in a relaxed way.

[26:25]

And then if you can be that way with things, you start being creative with them. And in the creativity, well, first of all, when you relax with things, does it make sense to me that when you relax with things sometimes, with yourself or your own experience, when you relax with others, sometimes you feel a little closer to them? Does that make sense? Again, I think of like some people, you know, some people have a glass of wine with somebody and maybe they feel more relaxed with them. And in Japan, there is a kind of a general ovation, but in Japan, Japanese people have a tendency in their daily activity to be a little uptight. They don't tend to, generally speaking, a population is not a real relaxed population. They're extremely diligent and industrious people, and they're extremely skillful.

[27:30]

To just compare the different societies, Japanese people are, generally speaking, very skillful. They train their kids to run. And they do. Like a little kid that's teaching how to run rather than just kids that run, they're teaching. I know this woman, she's a physicist, a nuclear physicist, but she also is a seamstress and a gourmet cook, and she learned that stuff at home. They just teach all the women how to sew and cook, even the ones who are like mathematicians and physicists and engineers in America. We don't necessarily teach all the kids that stuff. So there's a lot of great things about Japan, but they're not so relaxed, and they don't, generally speaking, go down the street singing. But when they get together and have some drinks, then they start singing and dancing.

[28:36]

That's what they see. And also, even Japanese priests that I've met, they're often quite formal and and restrained and kind of uptight and don't tell you sometimes what they're thinking about or what they're feeling, you have to somehow have to start drinking with them sometimes for them to start telling you what's going on. But now sometimes quite a bit of drinking. So anyway, I'm just saying that drinking makes people relax sometimes, not always, and then they start feeling closer to each other so then they start to dare to tell each other certain things about what they're feeling itself on. And actually, I'm not prohibiting anything, but I'm actually recommending practicing compassion so you have trust that you can relax rather than needing to drink to relax. And then when you relax, then I would suggest to you that you really can't be playful if you're not relaxing.

[29:41]

But really you need to relax when you're playful. And when you start being playful, then you see all kinds of amazing possibilities and situations. And it's one of the possibilities that you see when you start being playful is you start to see that you're not even being playful. That you're not even doing the playful things you're doing. In other words, you start to see how creativity actually works is that you're not the creator and somebody else isn't the creator either. That there's creation all the time And we're totally intimate with it. But nobody's in charge of it. And that's one of the differences between the Buddhist teaching and the teaching of the Bible. And I recently was traveling and... and in the hotel there was a Gideon Bible, and I opened it up and started reading it, and in the beginning they had some kind of like summaries, like, what did the Bible say about X, you know?

[30:49]

What does the Bible say about man's relationship with God? What does the Bible say about man's relationship with God? And I think that the way they describe man's relationship with God is that, basically, God makes man. And also, just the way that they talk about God's relationship with man, or what God was in relationship to humans, I thought, well, if you just replace God by dependent core horizon, it's exactly the same. What they call God in the Bible is what the Buddhists would call dependent core horizon. But we don't call that a primary cause. We call it the principle of creation, whereas the Bible anthropomorphizes that and makes the principle of creation into a person, a male, as a matter of fact. In China, actually, they call that principle. This isn't Buddhist.

[31:50]

This is just regular Chinese culture. They call that principle of creation the mother principle. So in Chinese culture, they call, they have this mother principle, which is often translated as creation, creativity. But actually it says mother principle. In Buddhism we call the mother principle dependent core rising. Everything is a dependent core rising. And by relaxing, by practicing compassion, by wholeheartedly committing to compassion, and then relaxing with what's happening and start being playful with what's happening, you actually enter into the process which has been going on all along. Of course, creativity has always been going along. You took the question of entering into it. In other words, creativity is our intimacy. In fact, we are mutually creating each other.

[32:54]

And the principle by which we are mutually creating each other and by which our existence depends on others and they depend on us, that interdependence is creativity, is dependent horizon. That's what's been going on long, but we can tense up and exile ourself from that process. And reversing, by relaxing and being playful, we start to slip back into that process and become more intimate with it, or rediscover and retrieve and redeem our creativity. But it isn't exactly ours, it's that we are always in it. And then when we're in it, we have a chance then to understand it. But again, the understanding is not so much like, oh, I understand the intimacy, but rather that you are living in the intimacy, you're living in such a way that's realizing the intimacy.

[34:13]

That is the understanding. So you're not outside understanding intimacy. Your understanding is that you have realized intimacy. And then you're free. you're free of lack of intimacy, you're free of oath-laws, you're free of free hate and delusion, you're free of unskillfulness, and you're free to interact with other beings in such a way that you can actually harmonize with them and make peace with them, and then if they're not already in this process, so that you have this nice, peaceful, harmonious relationship, you can invite them into the practice of compassion, and invite them into the practice of trusting that they can relax, and that they can play with you, and if you can enter together into creativity and understand it, and then they realize the process too, and then they also can invite others into what they've realized.

[35:15]

So that's the basic process of liberation. Well, liberation and intimacy. the sense intimacy is that intimacy is in a sense the same as well intimacy is kind of like involves all this but in particular kind of the center of gravity of intimacy is around the create creating and understanding when you When you're in the process of your intimacy with your life, which means you're in the process of intimacy with others, but you haven't understood it yet, it hasn't really sunk in. When it actually sinks in, you're kind of like, I think I'm getting, I think I'm understanding what's going on. I mean, I get it. It's wonderful. So not only are you creating, but you're understanding. And again, I remember one time I was in England and I saw this video of this English painter, and he said, usually people think if you understand, you can create.

[36:23]

But I think it's more the other way around. And I do too, I think. But actually, it's not really the other way around, but it's really a circle. By understanding such a teaching as this, you can learn to create. In other words, you sort of need to understand a little bit in order to create. We need to explain that in order to create, you have to be somewhat playful and relaxed. But then once you enter into the intimacy of creativity, then you understand how things are. And when you understand how things are, you're liberated from suffering. Doesn't mean there's no more pain. which is that you respond to the pain now in this free, kind of noble, joyful way. So that's an outline of the process. And then the next step, which I'm going to just say now, but then stop before I get into it, is that in order to pull this, in order to actually do this practice,

[37:33]

of realizing intimacy, I feel that we also need formality, we need forms. Without form, we can't really realistically do this practice. The forms of realizing intimacy, forms and formality, I think, seeks to And I use the example quite frequently of my, even the last four years anyway, I use the example of my grandson, because he's four years old. And that I learned, and sort of knew this before, but it's like now I'm just really new, fresh example of it, that you can love someone, in a sense, really love them, really adore them, really think they're great, and feel very generous towards them, In other words, steal compassion for them, feel very generous with them, and also be totally committed to be virtuous with them.

[38:44]

Never hurt them, never lie to them, never steal from them, never sexually abuse them, never hate them, almost never hate them. Anyway, that you feel very compassionate and loving towards someone, and yet not be intimate. And in a way, you know, I'm not really intimate with my grandson. I mean, I take it to the fact. I am intimate with my grandson, and I am intimate with all beings. But it's possible to love one of these beings that you're intimate with, but not realize the intimacy. And the reason why you don't realize intimacy is because you're not perfectly enlightened. And in order to become perfectly enlightened, you need to use forms, I think, to develop intimacy with things. And then to that intimacy, you become enlightened. So I am now in the process with my grandson. Now he's old enough now so I can start using forms with him.

[39:47]

His mother, actually, I think he is pretty intimate with him. Not perfectly, but they have a pretty intimate relationship. And she has been using forms from the get-go. But I haven't had to. I just adored him. I'm just his, you know, love slave. But that doesn't mean you're intimate to be that way with someone. His mother actually loves him just tremendously, and he loves her, but she uses forms with him, and he goes along with them. They're more intimate than I am with him. She's more intimate than I am with him. And I have forms with her by which I have realized intimacy with her. So I'm working on that. One of them is the thing about, you know, from early times, you know, quite early, he likes to bite and scratch and pinch and hit and kick me. He likes pretty much anything.

[40:49]

He likes to kick and kick everybody, but because of me being his love slave, he's been getting by with it for a long time. But now I feel like, for the sake of our relationship, I should work something out around this. We're trying to develop some form around this hitting thing. And I'm involving his mother and his grandmother in coming up with a good form in relationship to this thing of the hitting and the kicking and the biting and stuff. In other words, to tell him I don't want to do it anymore. And also when I tell him I don't want to do it, I want him to listen to me. And if he doesn't, then we have some way of dealing with that. We're trying to figure out, whoa. So we talk to him about what consequences should we have if Granddaddy, if you hit Granddaddy, or like Granddaddy, if you hit Granddaddy, he tells you he doesn't want me to do it, and then you do it again, and he tells you again he doesn't want to do it, and then you do it again, then what should Granddaddy do?

[41:55]

We asked him to make some suggestions. And he says, well, he should listen. I said, no, no, you should listen. He said, you should get a teacher. I said, what should the consequences be for you? If you hit granddaddy, after he tells you he doesn't want to, you hit him and you hit him again, a third time, what should the consequences be? So then there was the possibility, well, granddaddy might hit you back. And then they said, but not as hard as granddaddy can hit you, but he might hit you back. You might think it was hard. How would that be? And he suddenly had trouble handling that, actually. Just kind of like, he got distracted at that point and started getting to be nervous and started to cry about something else, you know, unrelated. I think he just kind of got scared at the idea of granddaddy hitting him after... He hit Granddaddy repeatedly, and after he was repeatedly asked to stop, but kept doing it. Still, then the Granddaddy hitting him was kind of like, I don't want to think about that, actually.

[43:00]

So, anyway, we didn't come to a conclusion on that yet. Then later, the Grandmother said, I think what you should do, if he hits you, after you tell him, warn him twice, if he does it then, I think you should just hold him so he can't hit you. So I'm thinking about maybe doing that to tell him that if he hits me a third time after I told him not to do it, then I'm going to hold him like this. Just hold him to my body and not let him move. It's one possibility. I'm just saying this is a form to work out and actually maybe get to a point where he would agree on the form. He doesn't have to hit me the third time, but if he wants to try it the third time, then there will be such and such a consequence and he will know that And then he will be reminded of that, perhaps on that occasion, and this consequence will happen. Time-out's another possibility. If he would actually stop hitting me and go do time-out. So time-out's another possibility, which would be some consequence anyway, that we know about.

[44:07]

So... You don't have to be, you know, somebody's grandfather or somebody's, I don't know, necessarily, of life in order to work on this. But, you know, one of the main places that I work on this, actually, is in Zen training, to have forms in Zen training to develop intimacy. And then also Zen forms to test to test relaxation.

[45:10]

Forms to test playfulness. Forms to test creativity. So like in this workshop, in this retreat, we're working with forms. And then we can test the relaxation level around the forms. So last night when I vowed and you didn't, then I could test the relaxation around that form of me vowing And you're not bowing. Okay? Let's see, well, as I relax about that, where I get up tight, I bow it all by myself. And then various things like that, that's an example. One of the key factors in intimacy, which is also one of the key factors Yeah, one of the key factors in intimacy and one of the key factors, one of the key forms, one of the key factors in intimacy and one of the key forms in intimacy, in realizing and testing it, realizing it and verifying it, is the factor of, I'll put it negatively, not being unilateral.

[46:34]

Not being unilateral. could be also translated to or transformed into being bilateral. In a bilateral relationship, in a relationship with somebody else, being bilateral could be a way to develop intimacy and also to test the intimacy. Have you ever heard of a bilateral relationship where people are acting unilaterally? Yeah. For example, the United States has a bilateral relationship with Iraq. The United States has a bilateral relationship with every other individual country on the planet, doesn't it? But it sometimes acts unilaterally. You have a bilateral relationship with every lover that you ever have, of course, but sometimes lovers act unilaterally towards each other.

[47:39]

Have you ever heard of that? It's amazing, isn't it, that a bilateral relationship has people involved in it, one or more of which are acting unilaterally. Supposedly, now this is not a bilateral relationship where you're intimate, this is a bilateral relationship or you're not intimate, when you're acting unilaterally. Would you give an example of bilaterality? An example, you and me, is a bilateral thing. You're one line, I'm the other one, and we're talking to each other right now. Unilaterally would be that I would do something without regard to you. I mean, even towards you, without really regarding you, without really respecting you. You know, like I would do something for you that I thought was good maybe, but I don't want to hear from you about whether you think so or not. That's a unilateral approach to a bilateral relationship.

[48:39]

I see myself in relationship to you. I see you in relationship to me. You're one of my best friends, but I don't talk to you about, you know, what you think about our relationship. I just tell you what it is. All relationships between two people are bilateral. They have two sides. Lateral, does lateral mean? What does lateral mean? It means lateral, right? It means sides, right? A lateral pass is a side pass, right? So a bilateral relationship means two sides, doesn't it? So our relationship has two sides. You get to be one side, you're the Bob side and I'm the Reb side. Now we can play with that. We can relax and you can be Reb and I can be Bob. That's possible, right? We can try that, just playfully. We don't really take it that seriously, right? That you're Reb and I'm Bob, right? I don't. You don't. But usually people have a tendency to take, you know, a tendency to take this seriously that you're Bob and I'm Reb.

[49:46]

They would take that seriously. But if you relax, you know, not necessarily getting really drunk, but if you relax... He's kind of like, well, you know, I could not take the Reb side so seriously. I could try the Bob side for a little while. Okay, so like, on one side of the relationship, you have Reb's nose. On the other side of the relationship, you have Bob's nose, right? So, can I put Reb's finger in Bob's nose? Well, you know, unilaterally, I think I, well, yeah, sure I can. But filaterally, I probably should talk to Bob about it. See how you do this. I feel like I'm relaxed about this two-side business. I could switch sides. But can the other side switch sides? Well, check. Intimacy is not unilateral practice. It's not practicing according to your own decisions.

[50:52]

intimacy is practicing bilaterally but if it's more than two people then it's multilaterally lots of different sides and you don't just think that you enact it with forms and you can and also since it's a bilateral situation I would say you can be in on the forms you can decide whether you sign up for the forms and you can decide Yeah, you can decide about how you're going to work with the forms. You can do that. Yes. What's your name? It's right. My name's Nan. Nan? Yeah. I know. Kind of like Bob, so... You're kind of like Bob, except your name. It's like that, we can put it. Well, it's my mom. Mom, yeah. And my question is about being in a leadership role, being in a bilateral relationship. Yeah. Whether you're a mom, a teacher, a boss, when the boat is sinking, you don't want to stop and stuff.

[52:01]

And how does that work? Well, that's why it's good to have the understanding before the boat sinks. But the four-year-old is biting. Yeah. That's not a situation I would enter into a discussion. But that's... Well, you don't have to necessarily have a discussion. You don't have to. You can just do something other than that. But I'm just saying, for example, in my case, when he was biting me for four years, I could just let him bite me. I'm kind of... You're the love slave. I'm a love slave, plus I'm kind of like a martial artist too. I can handle other things. But it's not necessarily good for him to do that, but even if it was good for him, still, I might want to be intimate with him. So, if you wanted to prevent people from biting you, if that's your main agenda, fine. Go ahead, do whatever you want to do. It's difficult to develop trust with the bite. No, I just need to trust my name.

[53:06]

No, but what I'm saying is... Okay, go ahead. My question is, how do you handle in a compassionate way a situation where, and as a woman, this is sometimes difficult, where somebody really does have to stand up and say, this is what we're doing now, and this is the way we're doing, and without second-guessing yourself and doing it in a compassionate, skillful way. Oh. And recognizing the message. Recognizing what? When it's necessary. When what's necessary? To stand up for yourself and be compassionate? Well, to, for instance, to know, um, that, that, it's, it's, oh my gosh, word skinner. But use it anyway. That, um, Well, for instance, I see within things that I know that had I had someone to look to, and I usually, in the Zen though, because I'm in with this, look to whoever I presume to be the same person and follow the lead.

[54:16]

I look for the lead. And yesterday evening, I was looking, you know, kind of looking to see if to find out when you're supposed to file and when you're not, and I didn't see, so I was proud of it. But I had this hunch, okay, so, and that's the situation where nobody's life is at stake, or nothing horrible will happen if you don't assume the leadership role. But I was too tamed to do anything about it. Should I help? How do you... Could we parenthesize that context, that example, the one you just gave? Okay. And just go back to the situation where you said there's some situations where you feel like you have to stand up and be compassionate. Remember that example? Yeah. And you said, isn't that necessary sometimes? No, that wasn't my question. For better or for worse, someone has to say, Don't run in the street. Don't fight your neighbor. Somebody has to say, don't run in the street.

[55:18]

Okay? I agree. When a child is running in the street, you have to either say, don't run in the street, or you have to go gather up the little body and pull it off the street. Somebody needs to do that. Otherwise, especially if a truck's coming. Somebody needs to do that. And if you're nearby, maybe you're the one who should do it. Okay? That compassion means you see the kid, you're generous with the kid. You accept that the kid is moving towards the street. You're patient with the pain you feel about that kid moving towards the street. But you do feel pain at the thought of this child being hurt. You're diligent about protecting this child. You're concentrating on And you're also virtuous, and you go and pick the kid up and pull him on the street. And that's practicing compassion, and that's standing up for no harm coming to this kid.

[56:21]

Well, with a four-year-old on the street, what about a 16-year-old who may be such a way out? Yes. Don't go with those people. I know that drinking beer, you may not go to that party. Okay, so you think that's a harder example? Fine, you can take the hard example and take the easy example. Take both of them. In both cases, you want to protect those two beings. Right? And I'm saying intimacy, actually, is all about protecting that being. But it's also about protecting you. Now, in both cases, there's a step we didn't take yet. And that's this step. The truth thing that you can relax. That's the thing I'm here to talk to you about. Of course you want to protect the teenager who's about to go out with some people who you suspect are going to do some unfortunate and uncivil behaviors.

[57:31]

You want to protect them from that. Just like you want to protect the four-year-old from unskillful, harmful behaviors of going in the street. Of course. But in both cases, what I'm saying in addition to the usual, of course you want to protect them. I'm talking about whether you think it's life and death or not. Still, don't skip over the life and death issues. I guess this is part of the deal. It's sort of what you brought up. Don't skip over the life and death issues Use those opportunities, too, to develop intimacy. Don't just develop intimacy when you think there's no danger. Work on intimacy all the time. But in your life-and-death examples, I think part of what you're suggesting, and a lot of people do, is you can't develop intimacy in these life-and-death situations. That's why I said it'd be nice if you had it before, but don't skip over it now. move into the intimacy process even in a life and death situation, if you can.

[58:36]

If you can, then you do your best. Now, when a child running into the street, you can try to protect that child in a non-intimate way, namely unilaterally, you pull the kid out of the street. That's not intimate, but you may feel like, please forgive me, I don't know how to be intimate with this situation. And you do it unilateral. It's a bilateral relationship where you're not doing it with the person. You're doing it unilaterally. You're pulling the kid out of the street. It's not intimate. You love that kid, but it's not necessarily meeting your kid. You love this kid, but that's not intimate for you to pull the kid out of the street. That's an enactment of one-sidedness, and that's not recognizing creativity. And it's not liberation. And if you live that way all day long, You're going to get, simply, every time you do that with the kid in the street, you have an outflow. If you do that many times a day, you will burn out.

[59:40]

Because every time you do that with somebody, you slap reality in the face, or you slap yourself in the face by acting unilaterally. You may say, well, I had to. Okay, fine. Of course you had to pull the kid out of the street. But you did not have to do it the way you did it. You could have done it this way. You could have relaxed when you did it. And if you'd relaxed when you did it, and been playful when you did it, and been creative when you did it, and understood when you did it, and were liberated when you did it, then you would have harmonized when you did it. And then you can do this over and over. You can save kid after kid in a harmonious way. But if you do this only over on the side of just protecting the kid to get the kid out on the street or stop the teenager from going out, You will get into a war with the teenager. The teenager will fight back because you're not being harmonious with the teenager. You're being unilateral. Healthy teenagers do not go for unilateral adults.

[60:45]

They hate them. And it's more important for them to fight you than to go out. But going out is just a way to fight you. What they really want more than anything, just like everybody else, is intimacy. That's what they want. That's what human beings want. And if you're unilateral with people when they're in danger, it's understandable that you are. But the reason why you're unilateral when they're in danger is because you're unilateral with them and they're not in danger. You develop this habit in your relationships of being unilateral. Unilateral means... You're not relaxing. If you relax, the unilateralness drops away and you're open to the bilateralness of it. And then you can't control your teenagers anyway. You think you can control a four-year-old, but you can't. But you think you can. It's false. It's false. You can't control them. Intimacy is really what controls things.

[61:46]

But teenagers are out to prove that you can't control them. And they're saying, basically, if you don't give me, if you don't do things unilateral, bilateral with me, you're going to say sorry, I'm going to punish you for that. I'm going to unilaterally get back at you for being unilateral. I'm not going to be bilateral with you about the consequences for you of being unilateral with me. If you're unilateral with me, I'm going to be unilateral with you. In other words, if you're not going to be intimate with me, I'm not going to be intimate with you. I'm going to lie to you. They're going to not practice compassion with you if you're not creative with them. So again, in these life and death situations, all of them all, you'll be more skillful if you're relaxed. So if you're relaxed, if you're like walking around practicing relaxation all the time, then when the shit hits the fan, you're ready. You've been training for this kind of situation to save this person's life and to save it in a relaxed way.

[62:55]

And also, when the kid's about to do something really unskillful, to come back in a skillful way. Which is not unilateral. And you can have a discussion. Right when they're going out, right when they're going in the street, you can have a discussion. And the discussion could be in the form of, No! Or, Stop! But you don't see that as unilateral. You see that as bilateral. Namely, I'm saying stop, now what are you going to do? And what they might do is stop, but they might not. If you're ready for that, because you wouldn't like being bilateral about that, you'd be creative and playful when you said that. And sometimes they say stop and they stop. Sometimes you say stop and they run right on the street faster. I had this big, this large dog one time, named Eric.

[64:00]

He had 95 pounds, he was a beautiful Doberman pincher and he was very sensitive. And if he was about to go in the street, if you yelled at him in a harsh tone, he would run faster into the street. What you had to do with Eric was you had to say, Eric. Eric. Eric. His fears would perk up and he'd come running at you. But if you were harsh with him when he was about to do something dangerous, or if he was about to become dangerous, if you would be harsh with him, he would freak. And he would do very likely the thing you were very worried he would do plus more so. So you had to learn that, but you had to learn by mistakes that when you act out of tension to protect him, it doesn't work because he's a living being and he has all these reactions. Yes. You talked about trying to develop a form to deal with your grandson.

[65:05]

Yes. Can you talk a little bit about what forms might be available for man for those kinds of problems? For the teenage problem, for example? My question, and what you're saying is very useful, but it's more about recognizing within a violent relationship there might be a differential of power. Yes, right, okay. And that... There is just, in the student-teacher relationship, one is giving the grade, the other is receiving, for instance. But to act in a skillful way that recognizes that and yet is still compassionate and violent. It's right here, you know, in my notes. It says, it says, disciple, student, teacher, relationship. Forms of training. Bilateral. Student-teacher relationship. Bilateral. Many teachers have unilateral relationships with their students.

[66:11]

They give the grades, but giving the grade does not have to be unilateral. You don't have to see it that way. You can make it a bilateral event with the student. It may take more work. to do that, but you can develop it. And you can give a grade that emerges from a bilateral relationship where both sides of the relationship feel that they were in a bilateral relationship and they were both being bilateral. It's a student-teacher relationship. And you can say it's a difference in power, okay, and say that, but guess what? When you're moving towards intimacy, you give up your power. And if you've got power, then you've got some power to give up. When you get married in the old Christian marriage ceremony, they used to say, I plight thee my troth.

[67:14]

Troth is truth. I put my troth, my truth in plight to thee. They'd say, well, I don't want to marry my students. Fine, you don't have to marry your students, but that means pretty much you don't want to be intimate with your students. Student-teacher relationship can be like a marriage where they both make a vow to each other. I vow to be the teacher. I vow to be the student. I vow to be bilateral with you. I vow to be bilateral with you. It's not exactly the same, it's not the same, but it's not the same, but it's not, they're not separate. The teacher can not be, has no life separate from the student. It is a bilateral event, it's a two-sided affair. But if you don't set up forms to enact that, then they're easy to be understood as bilateral.

[68:22]

I mean, yeah, unilateral. So, for example, Here's an example of, what do we call it? Here's an example. In this retreat, okay, I'm not suggesting this necessarily, I'm just showing, this could be an example. During this retreat so far, I've been sitting in the zendo, and people come and go out of the zendo, okay? But when you leave the zendo, do you think that's unilateral? Or is that a bilateral thing you're doing? What's your understanding with me? Do you think I know where you're going? Did you have an understanding that you're going to tell me where you're going to go? We don't yet. But we could have the understanding that if I'm sitting in a meditation hall and you're going to leave that you would make an attempt or you would have the idea that unless you have the idea that you would want me to know

[69:25]

about the reason for you thinking that it would be a good idea for you to leave the room. And even if you were sure that I knew why you were leaving the room, you still might check to see if I did, or come and tell me why you were leaving the room. So you leave the room, it's not bilateral, it's not unilateral, it's a bilateral thing, you come and tell me. And when you tell me, I could say something about that because you told me. Now, I could also say something about it if you didn't tell me, but I might not if we don't have an understanding that we're actually sitting there and doing that practice together, that we've had that kind of relationship. So earlier this morning, Laurie had kind of, I don't know what, maybe she kind of fainted in a way. What would you call it? Almost like fainting. Yeah, she kind of like fainting. You're fainting. And then it looks like what we call fainting.

[70:29]

She bent forward and she started like quivering. And then we came over and she laid down. And I guess she thought she was okay, so she tried to stand up. But she looked funny to me. And so I said, why don't you lay down again? And she did. And then I sat next to her for a while and listened to her breathe. And then she turned to me and she said, Something like, I think I'll go rest. So I walked with her out of the room, and she seemed to be okay, so she went and rested. She didn't exactly come over to me and say, I'm thinking of leaving the room. She didn't come over to me and say, I think I'm going to faint. But even so, there was something about the way she was that I felt invited to interact with her. So I went over there, and then we did start doing it together. No big deal, but we did it together. So she left the room in a kind of bilateral way. That's my impression.

[71:32]

I don't think, I don't know, how did you feel about it? I agree. I felt it was like, you know, she didn't mess with me too much, but also I felt like, you know, I could lay there and check out the scene myself, and then if I needed help, you would be there. that's how I felt about it. But some people might feel like, hey, I'm not feeling well, and I'm not going to talk to anybody about it. This is my business. I'm the sick one. I don't have to talk to other people. I don't have to talk to the teacher in the room. And you might also feel like, I'd be happy to talk to the teacher, but I can't get across the other side of the room to talk to the teacher. I just can't get over there to say, I'm feeling sick, I think I need to leave. But in this case, the teacher came over and sat right next to her so she could say, blah, blah. And then, but she didn't say, and she didn't say, I think I'm going to go rest and don't come with me. She didn't say that. So I thought, well, you know, I don't know if she's going to make it across the room because she stood up before and started to shake.

[72:36]

And, you know, were you aware of that, that she kind of stood up? Yes. Yeah, and then you couldn't stand up anymore? Yes, sir. And I had to kind of like say, I kind of had to. I thought it would be good for me to suggest to her to sit down, because I wasn't sure she was going to, but it looked like she was going to go down anyway, eventually. So why not do it? Let's do it together. So she did it. But when she got to leave, I didn't say, may I come with you, but I could have. I could have said, may I escort you? If I had, she might have said, okay. Or she might have said, I don't want you to escort me. And I might have said, well, is that a bilateral decision or a unilateral decision? And you might have said, good point. But I actually don't want you to go with me. And I might have said, okay. We might have made the decision for her to walk out by herself, together. But as it was, we could go out together and we kind of decided together that we'd go out together.

[73:44]

She didn't tell me not to. I guess it was okay with you, but I did. Yeah, that's great. Now, some other people have left the Zendo. So I thought, partly because of what I'm talking to you about, I thought, well, this is a good example. We don't necessarily have to do it, but I can at least bring it up to you, that if you leave the Zendo, if I'm sitting there, and you're going to leave the Zendo, you might just tell me what you're leaving for. And it might be a little inconvenient, like when I said, I'm going to go to the kitchen now. But just to experience what it's like to do it together is an example of the kinds of forms that create intimacy and test intimacy. But go and tell somebody when you're leaving a room where you're going does not necessarily make intimacy. But what it does, it tests it to see if you've got it. Because if you feel intimate with somebody, you don't mind going and telling them where you're going.

[74:47]

If you, yeah, you don't. But if you're not intimate with somebody, you don't want to go tell them that you have to go vomit or that you feel like you're going to poop in your pants or that you're going to throw up or that you're going to fall over or that you're scared. You don't want to tell somebody you're not intimate with, right? So you just say, I don't want to talk to somebody else without lying in the room. I'm a big girl. I'm a big boy. I can get out of this room by myself. I don't need any bilateral activity to get out of this room. And I would say again, you know, fine, fine. You don't have to be intimate. You can suffer. It's all right. We're not going to, like, make you be enlightened. We're not going to force you to understand and liberate beings and achieve peace and harmony in this world. We're not going to do that. We're going to be relaxed with you not wanting to communicate.

[75:47]

We're going to relax with you being uptight. and scared and not trusting that we can talk. We're going to relax with that. That's going to be our response. Us being representatives of intimacy and the Buddha way. But if you want to know how to join the club, the Buddha club, this is how to join. You need forms. You can say, I like to be intimate, but I don't want to talk to you about wanting to leave in the room. Well, you don't have to, but what forms are you going to use? So, you know, Catherine's testing out the priest training program at Green Gold with me, and she's doing these very same things. It's not entirely easy to talk to somebody about what you're doing with your life all the time. Sometimes it's a little funny to be discussing certain things with so-called teacher, like getting a muffler, right? That was a recent one.

[76:49]

She's going to get a muffler in her car. She talked to me about it. Well, I'm a grown woman, to say the least. I don't have to talk to some old fogey about getting a muffler in my car. I don't have to do that. No, you don't have to do that. None of you have to talk to me about getting a muffler, right? You don't have to do that. Well, what do you have to talk to me about? Going to the movies. Also going to the movies. You don't have to talk to me about going to movies, do you? No, you don't have to, but what forms are you going to use to test to see if you can stand to do something bilateral with me? In other words, what are you going to use to test to see if you're up to be intimate with me, this person? I'm just one person to test about. What are you going to use?

[77:35]

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