I just realized this morning there's a song I want to learn. I know a little bit of it, but after the practice period's over and I get back to the world where there's internet, I'll find the lyrics. I start something like, Oh, I'm the great pretender. Pretending that I not, don't love you. Something like that. Is that how it goes? Pretending that you're not, that you are around. Yeah. So I'm going to learn the lyrics. Buddha, the great pretender. Would you open it up and put it just in the right spot? For those who are not seeing this visually, the great attendant Clark is now opening the great bowing cloth of Buddha into Buddha's own.

[01:21]

Please have a seat here. Yesterday we considered, along with some other things, we considered a teaching given by the great ancestor Nanyue to the great ancestor Matsu, and the teaching about seated Buddha. Nanyue said, if you are practicing seated Buddha, Buddha is no fixed mark. So it's a wonderful meditation instruction for us when we're sitting. If we are practicing seated Buddha, if that's what we're doing, the instruction is that the Buddha is no fixed mark.

[02:35]

So we sit with no fixed mark. This teaching of sitting blue is no fixed mark. This is a teaching which seems to be for bodhisattvas. This is a teaching for those who are devoted to the welfare of all beings. This is a teaching for those who deeply, deeply care and value and appreciate every living being. For those who are like that, they need a teaching like this so they can do their wonderful work.

[03:36]

If you don't care much for many, this maybe isn't a good teaching for you. Seriously. I mean, you know, seriously. The Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra are for both. It's a teaching for both of us. If you don't care about people, maybe you shouldn't hear them. That there's no suffering, no origination, no cessation and no path. That there's no eyes or ears or nose. You maybe shouldn't hear about that if you don't really care about beings. Because you might say, well, I didn't care, but now I find out there aren't any, so now I really don't care. Somebody just said to me recently, you know, I feel like everything's like a dream. Everything's kind of hazy.

[04:43]

I said, well, that sounds like the Diamond Sutra, which teaches to regard all beings, all phenomena, like a dream, like a mirage, like a phantom. It came from Bodhisattvas. If you look at beings as dreams before you deeply care for them, then you might say, well, I don't care for them, again, too much, or I don't care for some of them. So what? That's not a good teaching. You should forget that teaching. and try to find a way to get another teaching, a teaching for people who don't care, or start to get a teaching to care more, and come back to this teaching. And if you're not caring much, then you should have a teaching like, have you noticed lately that you're in pain?

[05:50]

The truth of suffering is a good teaching. for people who don't care much. Get them to pay attention to that teaching, they'll start to care. The truth of suffering is that you are suffering right now whether you know it or not. Bodhisattvas don't have to be told this. So, this is a teaching, I think, an emptiness teaching. If you're studying seated Buddha, Buddha has no fixed form. This is a wisdom teaching for bodhisattvas so that you can realize the practice and benefit all beings. If you really care for beings and you see them as dreams, you keep caring for them.

[06:57]

If you're seeing beings as dreams erodes your care at all, You're not meditating on this teaching properly. This teaching doesn't exactly make you care more. It makes your care more balanced and steady and indestructible. It protects your care. That's what the teaching's for. It's to protect your bodhisattva heart. Otherwise, we can lose it. We can lose it if we care too much or too little. If we substantiate those, we will have burnout. So, again, this is not... Well, I sometimes say gangsters don't have burnout, but actually gangsters do have burnout in their families. They don't have burnout towards their clients.

[08:01]

towards the people that they don't care about. They have burnout towards the family, which they do care about and they substantiate. And then the burnout feeds their gangsterism. If I ever get to come to the Zendo again, I'm going to practice this. I'm going to sit in Buddha and it's going to be no fixed form. Believe me. I've heard stories about Shakyamuni Buddha, but that ain't the practice I'm going to be doing. I'm going to be no fixed form Shakyamuni Buddha practice. I'm going to be like Sittin' Buddha. And those of you who are not in constant doksan can start ahead of me.

[09:18]

Don't wait for me to come. One of my great benefactors, his name is P.S. Jaini, great scholar at University of California, Berkeley, teacher in others. He let me come and visit him even though I wasn't a student. He let me come and visit him, ask him questions about Abhidharma Kosha and stuff. He wasn't a Buddhist, but he was reading the Prajnaparamita in 8,000 lines in Sanskrit. And I came to visit him one time. Dangerous text. You know, he said, and then he said, and he said, the Heart Sutra should be called the Heartless Sutra. It's a heartless teaching. No eyes, no ears.

[10:19]

no mind, no sentient beings, no heart, no suffering. It's heartless. It's a heartless teaching for those great-hearted beings. It protects their heart. It's a heartless protection for the great heart. So, keep an eye on these great teachings and If you find that you're losing touch with your concern for the welfare of beings, put them aside and go take care of your heart. Part that we also discussed yesterday, the great teaching of in the dharma of no abode, there is no rejecting or grasping. So in that situation, in that teaching, the Dharma of no abode, which is the wisdom teaching for bodhisattvas, in that teaching, in that practice, no grasping or rejecting, including no grasping of what is Buddha and what's not Buddha, and no rejecting of what is Buddha.

[11:39]

Again, this is a wisdom teaching. And then someone says, well, but if there's no grasping and rejecting, won't that sort of melt all boundaries and borders? How could you have any boundaries with anybody if there's no grasping and rejecting? And I said, as gifts. When you're not grasping and rejecting, boundaries are gifts. They don't disappear. the tea melts things. It sets them free. So before you, when you're grasping and rejecting, then you're all caught up and tangled and, you know, enslaved by boundaries and borders. But when you aren't grasping and rejecting, then they still come to you.

[12:45]

If you're practicing wisdom and you're, you know, most people, even if they're practicing this kind of thing, grasping and rejecting a thing, if we take them into cold water, they'll feel a boundary. They'll feel like, ooh, the body will say, uh-uh, no. This is like, don't go in there or get out of there. And it's very hot also. Like if you go into plunges here. 108, but you go in and it seems like it's more than 108. The body says, no, please, please, let's put a boundary up here. It's a gift to you. You don't have to be grasping anything to get that gift. And you can also give. Please stop that. I need you to do this. I need you to do that. But when you're not grasping or seeking, these are gifts that you give to people that are given to you. It's given to you that you want to give this gift.

[13:54]

You're not trying to control anything. And you're just full of boundaries. Put the incense burner that way, please. And then they don't. you know, whatever, you know, but it doesn't, it's a wonderful, playful ritual to put the incense burner right there. It's a boundary, it's a border that's freely given and freely received with no grasping or seeking. This is the Dharma of no abode. This is the way. Yeah, boundaries, borders, they're just lovely gifts that we are given and can pass on.

[14:58]

I just got a boundary, I want to give it to you. And you say, I just got a boundary, I don't want to receive it. How wonderful. This is a practice for bodhisattvas, no grasping and seeking. Melt anything. Well, it kind of melts suffering and hatred and delusion. So it's kind of risky of us. Zen centers play a risky game because we chant the Heart Sutra and anybody can walk in off the street and hear that. Some of the people who hear it have not yet genuinely committed to the Bodhisattva Vows.

[16:04]

When they hear that, they walk into Zen centers and then they walk out and say, well, I guess I can just continue to be totally selfish. These Zen people totally support me. And you can find people like that in bars all over San Francisco. A couple of times, and they've gotten reinforcement for not caring about anybody. And they quote Zen texts as the reason why they don't. It's a sad thing. They leave the bar and come back to Zen Center for further instruction. The next, there's two more sentences in the great teacher's instruction to the great teacher.

[17:08]

The next one is, it's kind of scary. It goes something like, if you're being seated Buddha, this is killing Buddha. Tanahashi Sensei and I think Norman Fisher helped him with this. They wrote it, you know, when you sit Buddha, you kill, and they have parentheses, go beyond, close parentheses, Buddha. I'll just soften that word, kill. Fine. Professor Bielefeld makes an interesting point.

[18:17]

He said that when Dogen is commenting on this, he plays with syntactically plays with sitting Buddha and killing in the sentence, sitting Buddha is killing Buddha. So the syntax is interesting because the subject of the sentence, Buddha, seated Buddha, is the object of the predicate. Predicate is the part of a sentence that says something or expresses something about the subject. So in the sentence, sitting Buddha is killing Buddha.

[19:23]

Killing Buddha tells us something about sitting Buddha. And it tells us not only that sitting Buddha is killing Buddha, but Buddha is the object of the killing. So sitting Buddha naturally kills Buddha, which is very similar to sitting Buddha . It's kind of the same instruction. And Matsu's great-grandson and Nanyue's great-great-grandson, Linji, is famous for saying, when you meet a Buddha, kill a Buddha. When you meet an ancestor, actually you could say, when you meet a patriarch, kill a patriarch. But even if you meet an ancestor, a nice ancestor, kill the ancestor.

[20:31]

Actually, when you meet anybody, if you're a bodhisattva, kill them. It means whoever you meet, remember, they have no fixed marks. You see marks. They have marks. But remember, they have no fixed marks. They are really no fixed marks. That's who they really are. Of course, the word killing here is not the ordinary meaning of killing. But the ancestors said killing rather than go beyond. Go beyond is also true. When you meet Buddha, go beyond Buddha. Buddha is to go beyond Buddha. So, it's up to each of us whether we want to practice sitting Buddha or some other kind of sitting. This is an instruction from this ancestor to this ancestor because one of the ancestors was sitting to make a Buddha.

[21:42]

That's what kind of sitting he was doing. So this is instruction for such a person. And doing that kind of practice, you're doing all the bodhisattva practices. You're practicing giving, ethical discipline, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, and wisdom. That's what you're doing. And you're doing that to practice sitting Buddha. And you understand that to practice sitting Buddha is to go beyond Buddha. That Buddha is Always, what Buddha is, is constantly going beyond Buddha. In a way, the commentary here by Dogen Zenji on this teaching is very straightforward and it seems quite easy to understand, almost repetitive of the original statement, slightly changing it over and over.

[24:00]

So in a way, I don't want to bother you with it, but in another way, it's maybe a nice thing to... help this teaching sink in if I read his commentary. This means, this being seated Buddha is killing Buddha, this means that when we investigate further the notion of seated Buddha, we find it has the virtue of Yeah. So you look at Seeding Buddha, you say, oh, this Seeded Buddha has the virtue of killing Buddha. How interesting. At the very moment that we are Seeded Buddha, we are killing Buddha.

[25:04]

At the very moment that we're Seeded Buddha, we go beyond Buddha. At the very moment we're totally Seeded Buddha, There's nobody in addition to seated Buddha at our seat. At that moment, there is going beyond Buddha. It's the same, you could say, at the very moment you're seated, at the moment you're really yourself seated, you go beyond yourself seated. Indeed, when we pursue it, we find that the marks and the signs and the radiance of killing Buddha are always a seated Buddha.

[26:17]

Although the word kill here is identical with that used by ordinary people, its meaning is not the same. Moreover, we must investigate in what form it is that Sita Buddha, Sita Buddha, is killing Buddha. That sets up the next sentence. Taking up the Buddha is itself a virtue of the Buddha. To kill the Buddha, we should study whether we are killers or not. So Dogen, in looking at this teaching, Zabutsu is Setsubutsu.

[27:25]

Sitting Buddha is killing Buddha. And looking at this, he says that we should, we must investigate what form it is that seated Buddha is killing Buddha. So now we should look at the form of the ritual of seated Buddha that kills the Buddha. And that's the next sentence. So we don't have to go to the next sentence right now. We have a little bit more time here in this session, in this day, in this practice period. In a way, I don't have to give this talk, but I'm doing it anyway.

[28:35]

And I don't have to tell you, although I'm doing it anyway, that I heard about seven more days in this practice period. Somebody told me that. And even before the person told me that, I thought that there's seven more days in this practice period. How precious. I said to someone, and each one of those days we might be able to take a hundred steps or more. Like 700 steps we could take in this valley. How great. Yeah, so please enjoy this precious time now that you've settled down. Please enjoy each step, each breath, each meeting with each thing and each being

[29:55]

Sitting Buddha has no fixed form. So no matter what's happening, it can be seating Buddha. Because it has no fixed form, it's difficult to avoid it. So whatever we're doing could be seated Buddha, going beyond Buddha, in this valley and beyond. How wonderful. How marvelous. Without moving, the dragons and elephants bring forth the Dharma.

[31:59]

Without saying anything, dragons and elephants bring forth the Dharma. And there's other ways to bring forth the Dharma too. You are invited to bring forth the Dharma and let the Dharma bring you forth. I'm feeling a bit spacey right now.

[34:11]

You're feeling a bit spacey? A little shaky and a little spacey. But everything also feels a little bit light. Maybe some cold water would help. There's a creek that's handy for that. I wanted to share a story about teaching the Heart Sutra. I was... Is she holding the microphone well, Cathy? No, I don't think it can be fixed, actually. Okay. Okay. I was teaching an intermediate meditation class at San Francisco Insight, which is a Theravadan practice place, and I was co-teaching it. with someone who spent six years in Zen and then jumped over. Thanks to Theravada teaching practice.

[35:13]

But he's on to his own project. Well, I'm glad he jumped. So we spent, it was four classes, and then a day long retreat, and then another class. And so the first four classes we spent teaching the wheel of life, so in straight Buddhism, free poisons and karma and dependent origination and the six realms, all of that. And then I said, wisely or unwisely, pardon? Then I said to him, wisely or unwisely, how about if on the day long we suddenly bring in a heart surgeon and kind of friend all this that we've been teaching all this time and he said okay and so we did and so we had the day long and then we had one more class after that and i've never i've never had the feeling like that of this is a subversive and bring shift text and one person said

[36:24]

I practice here and I practice at Spirit Rock and this is why I do not come to Zen Center. So I don't have to deal with this stuff, which I find very frustrating and not helpful. And then someone else said, I'm really intrigued by this teaching. I want to invite it to tea. And then another person said, I am so relieved to hear this teaching. And then we sent them, and I thought, I don't know, was that a good thing to do or not? But I had great respect, especially after that experience. Did you say you have great respect? Respect. Do you have any thought on was that a good thing to do or not? I don't know if it was.

[37:36]

I don't know if going here is a good thing or not. Good things, especially really good things, have no fixed marks. Like being here right now. Yes. Thank you so much for letting us come to this session and to everyone. It was wonderful. It will be a beautiful day. You're welcome. So you talked about, in the last session, about mind only.

[39:14]

And in the session, we're talking about the same thing, basically, to my ear. Where is the space that the heart connects How does warm heart meet warm heart when it's mind only? Warm heart is already meeting warm heart. But if we don't understand mind only, we think something's out there separate from us. So we have to understand that and be trapped inside the trick that the mind plays on itself. that somebody is separate from us. That illusion obscures our realization that we're already mutually assisting each other.

[40:31]

And also, I think you said, did you say where or how? I think I said where. Yeah. And the place is all over the place. The warm hearts are in each other all over the place. We don't make this warm-hearted intimacy is not a fabricated thing. It's not an elaboration. It's reality, according to this teaching. And to realize that unconstructed, unelaborated, inconstant way We have to deal with our house of conception.

[41:50]

We have to deal with our conceptual house where concepts look external. We have to be so kind to our house that we see our house is just our house. It's not the world. And in our house, if it looks like everybody's cozy, fine. But that's still not the way we're actually cozy. The way we're actually cozy is inconceivable and unfabricated. And therefore, it's always the case. It's the true body of reality. You're welcome. I just wanted to say thank you.

[43:35]

You're so welcome. Thank you so much for your leadership. In that book, Journey to the West, when the Monkey King goes to hear the teachings for the first time, he gets so happy he can't sit still. Ha, ha, ha. When he hears the emptiness teachings, he starts jumping up and capering for joy. So I'm doing my best to sit still. Oh, how sweet. You mentioned the word fame. No pun intended. I said different spelling. Actually, my name, F-A-I-N, is in the dictionary. It's an adverb. It means willingly or gladly. As in, I faithfully enact the ritual.

[44:41]

Very nice. Yeah. Willingly, gladly. Playfully. Yeah. So... I just want to say thank you. Thank you for the teachings and to say I'm devoted to that. What, what, what koans and how do we work with them?

[46:04]

What is a koan? And how do we work with it? What is a koan? And how do you work with that? How do you work with it? Show me. Yeah, how do you work with what? How are you working with it? Good. Yeah, so this is an example. Are you taking care of it? Try it. I think so. Do you want to? Okay. Shall we proceed? Yes. Let me know what you find out. I will. Thank you. When we sit and accept what comes as an offering,

[48:43]

Is that seated Buddha? Yes. And also, before you said, accept everything, when you got that far, that was also seated Buddha. So you're also making an offering of accepting that's your gift. And then when you give that gift, then you realize what's coming. So you're giving to the whole universe, and the whole universe is giving to you. That's seated Buddha. And that has no marks, no fixed marks. And that is killing Buddha. That way of receiving whatever you give keeps going beyond Buddha. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Like two mirrors facing each other?

[49:54]

Yeah. in that practice there is seated Buddha, in that practice there is concentration, and in that practice there is there is wisdom. I feel like this is a confession and that is I notice sometimes, yesterday in particular, that when a lot of thoughts. It seems most of the can just come freely, freely come and freely go in terms of sounds and sights and physical sensations. But I notice with a lot of the thoughts

[50:57]

And particularly I was feeling a lot of resistance. I don't want these thoughts. So you weren't accepting them. You weren't being gracious. You weren't being gracious. Your giving practice had a flat tire. Okay, I hear your confession. And then did you feel... And now that you've said that, and... And did you say that for the sake of restraint in the future? Restraint of taking a break from giving? I don't know if I understand what you mean. Well, like I said yesterday, the Bukkhasati confessed to the Buddha that he was, you know, disoriented. And the Buddha said, well, since you have confessed and your mistake as such, And of course, for the sake of not making the mistake, not to say you never will, but for the sake of not missing future opportunities to practice giving.

[52:10]

That's what I mean. Yes. Yeah. So if something's coming, we miss the opportunity to say, welcome. Welcome. So then we feel some sorrow. We didn't say, welcome. Missed it. I pushed it away. And when you mention boundaries and say, well, thank you. Yeah. Can we do that for ourselves? Is that the same? How is that? Yeah, well, just like if somebody offers you something, can you say no thank you as a gift? Like really mean it as a gift. And you can say the same thing to yourself as a gift. It's not that you're pushing the person away that you're saying no thank you to. But you can also push someone away as a gift. And you totally feel thank you for this opportunity to push.

[53:15]

trying to push the person away, you're practicing intimacy with the person. You're using the no thank you as a means to verify, to prove intimacy. And that's actually many Zen stories about somebody who puts up a boundary to verify intimacy, like people closing doors on people's feet. and then everybody's enlightened. So to put up a boundary not to control, not to reject, not to grasp, is sometimes a very stark pivot to realize intimacy, to realize Buddha has no mark. So there's no way to reject this meeting as Buddha meeting Buddha. And you can do the same with yourself. If you feel like no thank you to yourself, when you feel that, can you feel that that's a gift? That no thank you means thank you.

[54:23]

I have this gift for you called no thank you. Somehow, we have to find that pivot so we can see the practice all the time. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for letting us come. Yeah, it's wonderful. It's wonderful that you could come. Am I cozy in my house?

[55:35]

Thanks for asking. When I was 17, one of my favorite songs was The Pretender. Not The Great Pretender. Do you know the lyrics of The Great Pretender? I was actually thinking this morning, I don't. Well, that's two of us. indeed um but i do know the lyrics of the pretender by jackson brown are you familiar with it no it's a song about a guy who He's going to build himself a house in the shade of a freeway. He's going to get up every morning and pack his lunch and go to work each day and then come home and he's going to put his dark glasses on and make love until his strength is gone. And when the morning light comes in, he's going to get up and do it again.

[56:38]

You know, the song, I think, I want to say it's this mix of like intention and introspection that's kind of characteristic of other songs in the 70s SoCal singer-songwriter genre. The kitchen might want to stick around for the rest of this. Years later, I discovered that Jackson Browne was abusive towards his wife. Next month, I turn 28 years old. Brenda, can you be vulnerable? Yes. Do you have a specific way? No, I just wanted, maybe you could keep that in mind. I think we would enjoy that.

[57:39]

And I know it. I can't tell. I think he is now. I'm just, yeah, now I'm wondering what made you say that. What did she say? She asked if I could be vulnerable or if I could make myself vulnerable. I think it's easier to hear you. It's easier to see your heart. Do you want to see my heart? I think when you talk about media, it's hard to see. When you talk about superheroes, it's hard to see. When I talk about superheroes and media, do you see my heart? Do I? I do. However, she's just asking. you to show her your vulnerability while you're showing me your heart.

[58:46]

I feel vulnerable because... But now I think, now your vulnerability is quite obvious. And you weren't trying to show it, but it's... So I think, are you getting what you asked for? Yeah. Thank you for that offer. Yeah, great. However, we might need to ask, right? Yes. You might not be able to offer it, and we might not be able to see it, unless we ask. But if we ask, we have good... Okay. I'll give you that permission. Here it is. I turned 28 years old next month, and I don't want to imitate Jackson Browne, but I was wondering, can I imitate his song?

[59:58]

Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. As a matter of fact, I told this story in this commentary that we're putting together on the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra about this King Arthur going through a you know, a ruined medieval city, you know, in his ruined, wounded state. Camelot, you know, Camelot fell apart and he got wounded and started wandering around the world in search of the Holy Grail, the feminine. He's this wounded masculine guy. And he's just a wreck. He looks like one. And he runs into this little boy and he says, he asks the boy, what do you want to be when you grow up? And the boy says, I want to be a knight like King Arthur. The little boy didn't want to imitate this wounded guy. He wanted to imitate the knight in shining armor.

[61:03]

But the knight in shining armor that he wanted to imitate was this wounded man in front of him. He didn't say, I want to grow up to be like you, guy. He said, I want to grow up to be like this great king. So I think it is OK for him, that boy, to imitate the king. And if he imitates the king, someday he will have to be the wounded beggar. stumbling through the muddy streets. So you can start with his songs, but someday you have to face the other side of Jackson Browne. And someday you have to face the other Batman who's gone beyond Batman.

[62:10]

But you can start with the Batman that you want to be. And if you practice that heartedly, you'll go beyond that Batman. And we know how to help you. We just keep asking you to show us your vulnerability. And your practice will help everybody. will include the positive and the negative. Yeah, I feel like the same thing helps me. Yeah. And I want to ask everybody here in the studio if I can entertain the pretender.

[63:19]

What do you say, folks? Leslie? Leslie? Yes. Can you support this, Carolyn? Could you open the door for us? Yes, absolutely. Do people support this performance? He's going to pretend to be somebody. Can you still hear me? So this is Brendan's interpretation of Jackson Browne's The Bender. And that original tune opens up like a four-line line.

[64:23]

Sorry, I can't provide that. I'm going to get myself a robe, a zafu and sandalwood. We're going to sit Zazen in the morning. And sit Zazen. Then we'll put our okays on. And we'll chant the Heart Seek Show until our strength is gone. Before the morning light comes streaming in. We'll get up and do it again. Zazen. I got more. Do you want to hear? I want to know what became of Nirvana, the end to all suffering. Was it only some fabrication of a greater awakening? I'm not aware of the time going by.

[65:25]

They say in the end, it's the wink of an eye. And when the morning before the morning light comes streaming in, we'll get up and do it again. Zazen. Say it again. Zazen. I'm gonna be a happy idiot and sit until my knees are tender. Well, the forms... are strange and seldom change, but when they do, I guess I'll surrender. Out into the cool of the evening strolls the pretender. He knows that all his hopes and dreams begin in the next. Where the Anja sits on my left and the Tanto is on my right.

[66:28]

And the Eno never fails to turn down the lights. Back into the warmth of the Zendo strolls the Pretender. He knows that all his hopes and dreams begin and end there. OK. You're welcome. I'd like to thank Brendan for the song.

[67:53]

It brought forth in me a bit of softness. That softened. And I'd like to thank you for your teachings over the past many, many, many days. You're welcome. Through this practice period, I've been bringing forth that have deeply impacted my life. And I'd like to share another one that's about boundaries and borders. And I invite your insight around it. One of my primary mentors is a theorist, and she does border theory. And I studied with her through my undergraduate years. She's an artist and a writer.

[68:53]

And her offering around borders and boundaries is that you enter a border region. In this case, she really looks at the U.S.-Mexico border in Rome, Tijuana, and San Diego. And if you enter that space and pay attention... What's your name, by the way? Emily Hicks. H-I-C-K-S. And she wrote a book called Border Writing, the Multidimensional Text. So in that region, one might imagine that instead of having two sides, what is done is that there's a cultural enmeshing that happens, there's a bleeding across this so-called line, and media becomes, it doesn't seem fixed,

[70:02]

And the two cultures actually very naturally share and fuse with one another. And instead of thinking of this realm as in a flat and one-sided, the consciousness of the border region is that it's like a hologram. You can take a picture and just turn it, and suddenly there's just tremendous depth. And I might venture to say that all things are like this. What appears to be separate when slightly turned. You see a hologram. And border regions and borders invite this. Let's put forth that. border regions of rich, alive spaces.

[71:08]

And so I just wanted to offer that because I've appreciated your offerings about borders and boundaries and that perhaps in going from Emily's work And in establishing borders, what we're actually doing is establishing the possibility for border consciousness that has great depth. And wherein the two sides actually become enmeshed and speak the languages crossover very naturally. Thank you. It brings to mind something that an old friend said, his name is Gregory Bates, and he said, when he was still alive, he said that he thought the real creative areas, the most creative areas, were not in biology,

[72:23]

or neurology, or mathematics, or physics, or psychology, or anthropology, but where they meet in the meeting area, or the interface there, that that was where the most creative things occurred. And even within a particular setup, there are boundaries within anthropology and within Zen. So we don't have to part of it is like Zen and anthropology, Zen and neurophysiology, Zen and psychology, Zen and Catholicism, Zen and the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, Zen and feminism, Zen and whatever. All those interfaces are this great creative energy. And then within Zen, if you can find the boundaries within, then even when we're not relating to outside boundaries or boundaries with outsource called outside, we can do it inside.

[73:38]

And it comes back to mind only, that the real created place is where subject and object meet. that the sense of separation between the United States and Mexico is suffering. The belief that we're separate is suffering. Countries are suffering. Different organizations are suffering. Mind and objects are separate is suffering. So that is the creative, rich, and also the place where we realize intimacy. It's another example of it. extending it to another realm of study and practice. Thank you. How's the performance?

[75:15]

How's the performance? I can deal with that. So I have a question, and I hope it's beneficial. If it's not, then you can... There's been a lot of work recognition that within one body and mind, there's like a whole assembly. There's many holograms, many pretend selves. And I've had a lot of fun actually meeting them and even getting their names. And many of them arose from causes and conditions. from childhood, but also from earlier stages of life. And, um, my question is being with all of these pretend selves because, um, I prefer some of them to others.

[76:27]

And some of them actually seem, um, like they, uh, they want to, they want to maybe do harm to, um, ...to others. I don't mean extreme harm like murder or suicide, but just unskillful things or not beneficial things. Some of them seem aggressive and unkind and I often want to cultivate ones that seem very kind and together and intelligent and beneficial, but I'm not sure that how to always work with this skillfully because they're all holograms. So why am I pushing some of them away? But also don't want to encourage harm. And I'm getting to like them, even the ones that are kind of nasty.

[77:32]

They're okay when I hang out with them. Thank you for your offering. This is one of the essential points of our practices, is basically how to welcome everything. how to welcome all beings. And you have the good fortune of having a Sangha like we do. Very good. Some people are not so richly endowed. So they need to be, they more need to be in a community. where they can run into people, some of whom challenge their openness.

[78:39]

And so, yeah, it's a big, it's an essential and ongoing struggle for people to understand, you know, how do we welcome people and at the same time suggest that we feel a boundary would be good. Yeah, it's like we need boundaries that are different from an external side. And still remember that although you totally value this hologram and understand that this is a vast ocean of being that you're looking at, still you feel in yourself that you would like to say, I think in this it's not so appropriate for us to be in the same room.

[79:44]

But do you really respect this person or this being? Do you really wish them well? Do you really want to offer this for the sake of intimacy. You have to look someplace where this is coming from. Because it's not appropriate, the different arrangements in the mandala. I think I've just said that the conditions arose for them to come forth. You're sad that... That the conditions arose where they felt that they had to be born in the way that they were born. That I can understand that, but at the same time, the point of all of our births is to be intimate. If we can realize intimacy with others...

[80:47]

And some births are really, really challenging for them to be intimate with us and us to be intimate with them. Sometimes to know the appropriate form to work on our intimacy. It's like they didn't know any better. Oh, yeah. None of us know any better. But we... But now we have to help us realize what the point of all of our comings is. That we can deeply respect and care for each other. Even though we... Maybe, I shouldn't say none of us, maybe some people, maybe some bodhisattvas say, okay, I see the setup. I'm going to take this birth. I'm going to be this person. I'm going to be this false... so I can play with these other people who do not remember that they chose consciously to be here.

[81:55]

And I'm going to go there with them and I'm going to teach them how to be intimate with each other. So you think some beings consciously choose... Yeah, the bodhisattvas consciously, they look at it, they say, this is going to be tough. And I'm going to go there anyway because I want to help these people. It's falling into this mess. I want to go there because it's going to be so great to help people there. And some of them do not feel that they've chosen this suffering and they need to learn how to do that. I want to go and help them do that. And I want to help them be willing to be intimate with their suffering and my suffering. And I'm choosing my suffering as my opportunity to be intimate with their suffering. And at the same time, we have to be careful because we drive ourselves away from our opportunity.

[83:06]

So you have to be, yeah, really careful. That's the precepts, really careful of everything we do. But basically, remember that what we're doing here is trying to realize our perfect self, which is beyond any idea we have of what it would be. And yet we have to work with our ideas and say, this is as much as I can stand right now. I'd like a break. I'd like some distance. I need some space. Or, you know, are you okay? Am I too close or whatever? And sometimes people say, you know, sometimes people say, please come close. And we come close and they say, you came too close. And we feel, and that hurts us because they invited us and we came and then they reject us, it seems. And we then not reject what seems to be their rejection and say, yeah, that's right, that happens. People get overwhelmed.

[84:09]

And they say, please be more gentle with me. Okay, I'll try. Please be more gentle with me. Okay. I'll try. I'm okay with that. Well, the main thing when that happens is not to activate stories that may not have much to do with... Stories will get activated. Don't worry about that. They're going to get activated. The thing is to... There's not a bodhisattva practice called don't activate stories. There's bodhisattva practices that are all about how to be kind to stories and how to calm down with stories and how to understand stories. We're also not told to make up stories, but we do. Being are storytellers and the bodhisattva practices are for storytellers. And storytellers have stories about intimacy and not intimacy.

[85:12]

But even the stories of intimacy have to be understood, otherwise they'll interfere with intimacy. And of course the stories of no intimacy have to be understood in order to realize intimacy too. They're both hard to understand. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. I want to share a friend of mine recently. I asked her to stay overnight at her house. She has three children of different ages. She said, you're very welcome to stay here, but you have to know that we are a very noisy, argumentative Jewish family. And I guess that's the reason. surprising for dealing with this assembly. I accept it. I hope you do.

[86:14]

That's my vow. As I've mentioned a number of times, my wife says, you have just the students you deserve. So, you know, it's, again, an ongoing struggle for Zen Center. We do not want to select our sangha. And yet we have, like, application committee meetings. So we do not want to select the sangha. That's not the way. But yet we have to find the right place for all the different people that want to practice.

[87:17]

Yes? I am the great pretender, pretending that I'm doing fine. Well? This is well. I think fine, but I think I'm doing... I seem to be, but I'm not. You'll see. I'm wearing my face like a clown. I think that's it. And it occurs to me that clowns kind of wholeheartedly for the sake of kids in Europe. And I'd like to request if you could sing those lines sometimes for the end of the breakfast period. Please write them down for me. I have a confession, and it's not exclusively to you.

[88:56]

Okay. But it's more to my friend Dagen. And so I'm wondering if this is okay to make it from here, Dagen, or if you want to come up and have a dual performance with me. Okay. So, Unwittingly gave me a koan a few days ago. And I hope it's okay that I'll get to share this with Sangha. Well, is it okay? Is it okay if she brings up something about her relationship with you? Sure. Thank you. So, first of all, they were all sitting on the table from the dining room. The deacon was talking to somebody else, but I could not help but overhear this expression that became my koan.

[90:04]

He was saying, to allow it to break my heart. He said, to allow it to break my heart became my koan. the last few days ever since I heard that. And this morning and the last few days, your lecture has been heartbreaking. And I did some heartbreaking things this morning when we were serving together. because he would care about things, and he would think ahead, and he would try to support me. My walk crew was supporting me, and there was a lot of heartbreaking things happening.

[91:08]

And so we're serving the food and the water, people receiving it, back and forth, and And I realized how many meetings, how many heartbreaking meetings have been going on and will continue to go on in the next seven days, shared together. A hundred steps and so many heartbreaks. It was an idea on Tuesday that, oh, there's a ruckus that's just about done. Maybe it could be done by Wednesday, Buddha's Enlightenment Day. And then this bodhisattva stepped forward and saw it and pointed the way and provided an envelope.

[92:18]

All these things keep going on and on. So we keep working on this koan, and I want to thank Dagon for expressing it so honestly. Like when I heard him say it again and again, it was coming from the depths of his heart, of like his whole being was talking about this deep truth So I want to thank everybody here for the barrier protecting the space that is the most intimate and beautiful and tender and vulnerable and true space.

[93:38]

Thank you.

[93:47]

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