Another line in the text is this intimate transmission of the Buddhas and ancestors. The Buddhas and ancestors, their work, their job is to transmit this teaching. They don't fix people up by manipulating them. They transmit a teaching to people and then encourage people to practice it because that's what they did. we have to practice this liberating teaching. And their job is to transmit it to us. They can also kind of open us to it. But when they transmit it, then we've got this massive fire to deal with. So it is difficult. The Buddhas tell stories, when I was a little girl, when I was a baby Buddha, I had difficulty with this teaching. But I persevered. I didn't give up.

[01:04]

I got distracted and I went back to work. So this is difficult and sometimes people think that they're the only one in the room that thinks so. You're not. The Buddhas do not say this is easy. And if you have questions, you may think you're the only one who has the question. And maybe you are. But maybe many people have the question, and the questions don't have to be advanced or intermediate or beginning. It's the question that is most important in your heart. And asking questions is a service, is one of the services to the Great Assembly. Part of taking care of the temple of our consciousness is for me to ask you, if you were going to take a class here with me in the future, if you have any preference as to the night of the class,

[02:32]

between Tuesday and Thursday, I would like to know. If you don't have a preference, I don't need to know right now. But if you prefer Tuesday over Thursday, please raise your hands. If you prefer Tuesday over Thursday, if you prefer Thursday over Tuesday, please raise your hands. Thank you. Now there's some people here who prefer Thursday. I mean, there's some people who aren't here who prefer Thursday. So Tuesdays kind of have an advantage. But anyway, thank you for that. This is the big concept for tonight, which I talked to you about before. And in a way, it's really simple. But tonight I'm going to say it in a really deep way that might be really difficult.

[03:39]

And the concept is that our practice of this intimate transmission of the teaching, our practice has two parts in a way. One part is called cleaning the temple. The other part is called sitting. Or you could call it standing. Or you could call it walking. But anyway, one part is clean the temple and the other is whatever you do, whatever you practice, that needs to be and only that can be the realization of the teaching. So we often use the example of sitting.

[04:48]

The human action of sitting, which you can see, has the, not just possibility, but has the the capacity, the function, it is the function, it is the thing that you can use to realize this inconceivable truth, this conceivable practice can realize an inconceivable realm of freedom and peace. So the teaching is that the practice of the Bodhisattva is not the slightest bit different from the practice of Buddhas. In other words, perfect enlightenment. So actually our practice in a way is enlightenment, complete perfect enlightenment, not kind of pretty good enlightenment.

[05:51]

It's exactly the same as Buddha's enlightenment. That's our practice. And yet, we have to clean the temple of our consciousness. And everything in the consciousness is already clean. But if we don't clean it, we don't understand that it's clean, and if we don't understand that it's clean, then the activities of our practice can seem, can appear to be, can feel like they're not complete perfect enlightenment. And because we haven't cleaned our feelings, we fall into those feelings and feel separate from this reality. So temple cleaning is the way to take care of our consciousness, which is so dynamic you know, changing so rapidly, so challenging to be able to remember to be still with it.

[07:00]

It's so hard that we have trouble continuing to clean it. And we clean it with all these compassion practices which I've talked to you about, but basically all the compassion practices that you apply to what's going on in the temple, they come to fruition as samadhi, as a concentrated state in the presence of all the activity, open to all the activity, undistracted by all the activity, flexible with all the activity, awake with all the activity, and in that way we can watch the activity free from any self-confusion and self-identification or dis-identification.

[08:02]

And then the actions, freed of any self-confusion, then the actions will perfectly realize the inconceivable. The conceivable actions will realize the inconceivable. freedom and peace of the Buddhas. And there's no end to the cleaning because every moment a new temple arises with a new complement of vital conscious functions and a new self with new self afflictions with new self-confusion, new self-pride, new self-view. And the third type is called new self-love. And now I kind of feel like self-love is kind of like self-protection. It doesn't need to be protected.

[09:10]

The self is fine. And it's only going to be here for a second. It's going to make it through this moment. No self gets halfway through a moment of experience. It's there the whole time, and you can't keep it going longer than that. You don't have to protect it, but there's a feeling of protecting this momentary flash of, I'm here. It's normal that you want to protect this I that's here, even though it cannot be protected, and it doesn't need to be protected. because it's going to be here as long as it's going to be here and it's going to be here exactly one moment and it's not going to make it halfway through and it's not going to be one and a half moments. It's going to change. Trying to protect it is impossible and stressful and anxiety generating. Confusion about it is also anxiety generating.

[10:12]

Like, is that me or not? What is that? Is that my... etc. And self-pride is that associated with this self that's in consciousness where we're doing the cleaning activities is this pride that something or somebody could control what's going to happen. And for example, something could get the pleasure of this moment to last forever. and be reproduced into the next moment, which is impossible. But that doesn't stop the wish to make it happen again not to arise. So part of temple cleaning is to learn how in the temple of consciousness when the impulse to get something good to happen again or happen just a certain way, when that impulse arises, which it does, there is the wish for things to happen in an exact way, just like this.

[11:30]

And again, one of the just like this is just like this again. And this wish for this kind of power is normal, it comes along with the sense of self, and it's impossible. So part of consciousness has impossible wishes. And again, the temple cleaning is not to destroy the arising of these impossible wishes. It's impossible to stop them from arising. And then once they've arisen, temple cleaning is not to try to crush them. Even when you know, even when you understand, oh, that's impossible. I'm wishing for this person to be the same person today that she was last night. I'm wishing for this person to love me the way he did last night, you know, this morning. And if at midnight she says to us, I love you, and by the way, tomorrow I won't love you like this, we might say, don't say that.

[12:39]

But we might not. We might say, right on, brother. I'll try to support you to, you know, live in reality. Because in fact, I agree, I'm not going to be the same person next morning. And then we have a better chance for you to love me. If you can realize that I'm not, that this person you're with tonight is never going to be here again. And it's going to start from scratch tomorrow morning. Are you up for that? Bodhisattvas say, yes. And also if you live with a bodhisattva, they might tell you, good morning, guess who is here? A person you never met before, who, by the way, loves you in a way she's never loved you before. So temple cleaning, moment by moment, without end. And Buddhas who have completely cleaned the temple and therefore everything that they do is exactly enlightenment with no turning away from that.

[13:55]

Because there's no clinging. The hand raises, the foot raises, the foot goes down, the hand goes down, the words come out, the eyes blink, the eyebrows lift, they go up and down. Everything that they do is their practice, right? What Buddhas do is Buddha's practice, right? What living beings do is living beings' practice, right? Does that make sense? What you do is your practice and you're a living being. And what Buddhas do is their practice and they're Buddhas. And also, there's not the slightest difference between their practice and our practice. That's the teaching of suchness. It's kind of a fire that Yeah, it's kind of a fire that your practice is different from Buddhist. That's kind of a fire. But that's not Buddhist teaching. Buddhist teaching is a bigger fire. It's hotter than that. Or I should say it's more vital than that. Buddhist teaching is your practice is not different from Buddhist practice.

[14:56]

Now you say, what about if there's self-clinging? Well, then your practice is different from Buddhist practice. But I thought you said, my practice wasn't different from Buddhist practice. And I said, yes, I did. But your practice, which is not Buddhist practice, is Buddhist practice as not Buddhist practice. Did you get that? If there's any clinging, if the temple hasn't been cleaned sufficiently, Then there's some clinging to the words and the thoughts, to the thinking that's going on, to the gestures that are going on. There's some confusion, there's some clinging. The self has not been understood properly, so there's some confusion and then the action has some self messing around with it. Or there's a sense that the self's messing around with the action. Which is, that appearance is a result of not clearly observing what's going on.

[16:06]

Buddhas clearly see. There's no clinging to the action. Sentient beings sometimes don't, so there is. And when there's clinging, then that practice seems to be different from the enlightenment. But it's not. However, and the Buddhists are not separate from those for whom the practice seems to be separate from the enlightenment because there's some clinging in the practice. But also the Buddhists are telling us that even when we're doing a practice which is different from theirs, they do not cling. That practice which is not theirs is not the least bit different from theirs. So it's not the same. I mean, it is the same and it's different. But it's not separate and it's not different. So that's pretty difficult. Right? Yesterday we had a ceremony celebrating the head monk for the practice period that we just finished this morning.

[17:19]

And I think someone said something like, in faith there's no fixed idea. And I thought, yeah, right, in faith there's no fixed idea. There's ideas, but in faith there's no fixed idea. In the Bodhisattva's faith, in the faith of this teaching, there's lots of ideas about what peace is, about what war is, about what good is. There's lots of ideas, but there's no dwelling in them. And when there's a faith that has some ideas in it, like for example the ideas of this teaching, this teaching is a bunch of ideas, and you might have faith in them. And then the faith is not just faith in the ideas, the faith is in these ideas and not dwelling in these ideas. And when we don't dwell in the ideas of our faith,

[18:23]

then our faith really blooms. Like if you believe that temple cleaning would be good, and that doing a practice which realizes perfect enlightenment would be good, and you also maybe believe it's possible that we could do something someday that was so cleaned up that it would be selfless, and that selfless action would perfectly realize enlightenment. And then one more article of faith is that there's not another enlightenment besides the ones that our actions realize. There's not like our actions plus some other enlightenment. There's just our actions. That's all there is.

[19:25]

And if we offer our actions as an opportunity to express this Buddha mind, that's it. But in the temple, there's some little critters running around. They're called thoughts. And they think, well, there must be something more interesting than what I'm saying right now. I mean, I'm saying this and enlightenment must be something much more than my chatter and my confusion and blah, blah, blah. Or even if I wasn't confused, enlightenment must be more than me just not being confused. Well, it's not more. It's not more than that. It's that, whatever it is, being the practice of enlightenment. And if you have any ideas that that cannot be, that that, if you have a thought, here's that, and you have a thought over here, that cannot be used as the practice which is enlightenment, then this thought that that cannot be the practice which realizes enlightenment, this thought could also be used for the same purpose.

[20:46]

And if you do use it for that purpose and you use it wholeheartedly, which means there's no self-clinging in using this resistance to that teaching, then that realizes. And no matter what there is, it's the same thing. It's our daily life. But we have to clean it to realize our daily life is suitable for realizing the Buddha mind, for expressing it, Our daily life is suitable for expressing the Buddha mind, for paying homage to it, for celebrating it, for respecting it, for realizing it, for indicating it. There's nothing else we can use to celebrate and so on perfect enlightenment other than our life as it appears in consciousness.

[21:53]

And One of the kind things that the founder of this lineage, this lineage of the Buddha Dharma, that came from India to China and then went to Japan, Some lineages that came from India and China stayed in China, and you can go over in China and meet people in those lineages where the lineage never left China. But some lineages left China and went to Korea and Japan and Mongolia and, of course, Tibet and Southeast Asia. But some went India, China, Japan, San Francisco. And the one that went to San Francisco from Japan, one of the ones that we're most familiar with, is the one of the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center.

[23:13]

That's a particular lineage. And the founder in Japan had this teaching which is called Grandmother Mind or Grandmother Heart. or grandmother mindfulness. My wife is Chinese and so if I go public with my calligraphy, she's a little bit embarrassed. You know. But she's OK, because she knows I'm just trying to be helpful. But her Chinese calligraphy is better than mine.

[24:20]

So I calligraphed this expression, It's old woman mind, grandmother mind. This is a term which the founder in Japan, Dogen Zenji, used in his teaching of his close students. This teaching didn't originate with him. The Chinese Zen people had this term too, grandmother mind. So I made copies of this for you. If you want this, you can have it. Yeah, it says, old woman, old woman mind. Oh, what does it mean? Yeah, I'm about to. Yeah, it is what I'm talking about.

[25:26]

It is using whatever you're doing in body, speech, and mind, using whatever you're thinking, using whatever you're saying, using whatever gestures you're making, remembering to use whatever you're doing, and you are doing something, remembering to use it for what's most important in your life. Like grandmothers do. Right? They do stuff, like they talk, and they make gestures with their hands, And they think. They think things like, maybe I'll make some cookies today. They might not say it out loud, they might just think it. And then their hands might start doing cookie making gestures. And stove turning on gestures. But the grandmother spirit is, when they're doing it, they're not doing it to, you know, become famous.

[26:36]

They're not doing it to be better than the other grandmothers. They're not even doing it to be popular with their grandchildren. They're doing it as a service to what's most important, their grandchildren. And if their grandchildren needed their life, they would kind of be like, no problem. And in a way, it's easier. They've already had not only children, but their children have had children. They don't have to have any more children. They don't stay around any longer. They can go away. If they're needed, if they're helpful, they'll stay around. If you say to your grandmother, please live a little longer, say, okay. If you want me to, yeah, I want you to. When the grandmother goes into the hospital room, before they even go in the hospital room where their sick grandchild is, they don't think, well, this is going to be fun, or I hope this isn't boring, or whatever.

[27:43]

They're just thinking about, what can I do for this child? Every step they take is kind of like, careful. And if they have this mindfulness, they won't touch a flower without thinking about whether that would be helpful. They won't turn the TV on unless they think it would be helpful. They won't open the window unless they think it would be helpful. They're always thinking about what would be helpful to this person. And it's easy for them. It's not quite as easy for the mother who sometimes thinks, well, I don't know if it's helpful or not, but I want to take this kid to school anyway. Grandparents don't even have to get the kids to school. Like me, I told you that story, right? About taking my leader for a walk. You know that story? Yeah. You know it, but you don't know it. So she says, I want to go to the big one.

[28:47]

Big one is playground. And I say, okay. So we start walking to the playground. And about halfway there, she said, I don't want to go to the playground. So we go back. I want to go home. So we go back home. And before we get home, she said, I don't want to go home. I want to go back to the playground. So we go back to the playground. And she said, I don't want to go to the playground. I want to go back home. So we go back home. She's having a fairly good time, but I'm having the time of my life Not because I'm going back and forth, but because no matter what she wants to do, I'll go with her and I will protect her. And I'm not controlling her. And she's not controlling me either, but she thinks she is. But I don't think I'm controlling her. I don't think I'm like, okay, I'm going to get her halfway to the playground to say she wants to go back. She's not under my control anymore. And she knows she's not, and she appreciates having somebody around who's not trying to control her.

[29:55]

And even if she wants to go in the street without holding my hand, and I say to her, I can't let you go in the street without holding my hand, I'm still not trying to control her, and she knows that. So we have a great time. Now imagine that be that way with everything you do all day long without any grandchildren around. That's like so that everything you do is like this is for the welfare of all beings, this gesture here. This turn signal in the car is for the welfare of beings. This turning right, this turning left, everything is an expression of Buddha mind. Imagine learning that. And then also realizing that this is the opportunity right now and there's not another one.

[30:58]

After you park your car and then go into the yoga room, then when you sit with the group, then, well it's true, then is fine. But not now. Now you're in the car. And not only using this opportunity to directly point to the Buddha mind, whatever it is, but realizing that this is the only opportunity you have now to directly indicate the Buddha mind and that is the practice which realizes it. This is the grandmother mind in Zen practice. This is what the great Zen teachers are like, is that they've trained so that everything they think even if they thought this student is below average, they would use that thought to directly indicate and devote this thought to the Buddha way, and they would realize the Buddha way, and that would be transmitted to this student.

[32:04]

And that would be most helpful to the student, even though it doesn't sound like a very complimentary thought. And someone might say, to a Zen teacher, do you like me? And I don't know what the Zen teacher would say, but sometimes people ask me that and I say, that's not really the point. The point is that my life is for your realization of the truth, and I give my whole life to that. That's the point, and I'm trying to live up to that point. that whatever I'm thinking, whether like or dislike, is not the point. The point is I use like and dislike the same for the same grandmother mind. In other words, like is now, this is my thought, which this thought is directly pointing to the Buddha mind, which I'm sharing with you. That's all I care about, really, including with my granddaughter.

[33:08]

And things, you know, you don't take me on these wild goose chases, but she does. If you did, I might respond differently. But I hope with the same openness and flexibility, but I might say some things to you that she can't understand. Because you're more mature. So because you're more mature, I might say things because my thought process will be affected by you in a different way than it's affected by her. Which would lead me to think of things and think that they might be helpful to you because you're Zen students. So I might say to you, I might tell you this is really fun going back and forth. And you might know what I'm talking about. One time, before this little girl was born, I say little girl because she's still a little girl.

[34:20]

Before she was born, when she was in her mother's uterus, she was quite well behaved. I brought a bicycle to her big brother from San Francisco to Santa Barbara to give to him. And I gave it to him and I said, do you like your bike? And he said, yeah, I like it. But she, the sister hadn't been born yet, she's not going to ride it. And I said to him, By the time she's old enough to ride this bike, you will have outgrown it and gone to college, probably." And he says, I still don't want her to ride it. And I said, yeah, but the person you'll be then is not the person that's saying that right now. You won't be here anymore. And he said, that's totally incomprehensible. So I, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

[35:30]

But to you I can say that, right? With my granddaughter, she does something, we do something and she likes it and she says, again. Again. And I don't say there is no again. I don't say that to her. I just follow orders. And I'm very happy to do so. And when she stops giving me orders, I hope I will be able to use that as an opportunity for Grandmother Mind. Because someday she'll probably stop being interested in giving me orders. So anyway, that's Grandmother Mind, is your daily life, which you've already got. You're all set up with daily life. You got a consciousness. Somebody's here in consciousness and stuff, there's thinking going on all the time.

[36:35]

There's impulses all the time. Grandmother mind is to want to be really careful with that stuff. Whatever it is, whatever it is, be careful with it and use it. for this one purpose of realizing the liberation and peace of this world, which has already been transmitted to us by the Buddhas. So we need to remember that and take care of that. And the grandmother mind just remembers it, naturally, like, without any, without going, don't forget this, don't forget this. No, it's like, well, of course, yes, how lovely. take care of the Buddha mind like a grandchild. And then anybody who's not, any humans that are walking around that aren't grandchildren, remember, treat them just like your grandchild. What you do with them is your life, and you don't have another one.

[37:39]

And not only is that your life, but that teaching is your life as directly indicating the Buddha mind. And if you remember that, it makes taking care of everybody much more enjoyable and kind of easy, or a lot easier anyway. Yes, so now I think even though that was difficult, you did really well. And so now maybe some response. I have to see Charlie and Elena. Chinese characters are pronounced differently in different countries. And in China, the way they pronounce characters is different in different parts of China. The characters are the same and the meaning is basically the same all over China. But the way they pronounce them in Mandarin is different from Cantonese.

[38:45]

And there's many other dialects which I pronounce the characters differently. And Japanese pronounce Chinese characters, and the way the Japanese pronounce these Chinese characters is simple. It has no tones. Chinese has tones. You don't have to learn it. So I'll give you the easy one. Ro ba shin. Ro ba shin. Ro, old, ba, woman, shin, mind, or heart. Ro ba shin. And down in the corner is Zen Ki, the second half of my name. I'll be right with you. Elena? Yes, last night I did something which I don't think I've ever done or if I did was a long time ago. I was speaking with my grandson, and I wanted to give him something from my heart.

[39:48]

And I have always admired this child since he was little. Yeah. In my eyes. I met him. I admire him, too. He's admirable. He is admirable. Since he was little, I have seen that he has great integrity. Correct. Yes. And wonderful that you see that. Grandmother mind. that's grandmother mind you look at and you say wow this is like a precious being yes so I was very inspired yeah that's grandmother mind is inspiring like the right way yeah and then I told him undoubtedly remembering then Eric but don't try to hang on to your integrity Just open up to it.

[40:52]

And as I was saying that myself, I was saying, I need to learn that myself. Yeah. I think you understood. Yeah, great. Yeah. And by the way, Eric, also open up to stillness. To stillness. And, oh, I need to do that, too. Yeah. Yes? I wanted to take a try at the Chinese. Take a try at the Chinese? OK. She's going to try it in Chinese. Well, if it's old, then it would be, wouldn't it be, maybe say it was . Maybe, yeah. Lao is old. . Yeah. That's the Chinese way of saying it.

[41:56]

Well, somebody else may know better. Maybe it may not be right. Yeah, maybe it's not right. Any Chinese speakers in the class? Yeah, you know, you've heard the Japanese term roshi? It means old teacher. And the Chinese way of saying it is lao shi. And in Chinese, they don't just use it for like Zen masters. They call their, that's a normal term that kids call their teacher. So when they go to, when the teacher comes in the room, the kids say, Zao Shi Lao, Lao Zao Shi. I mean, Lao, no, Zao Lao Shi. Lao Shi is teacher. Old teacher is, they don't just say teacher, they say old teacher. For even young teachers. Who are usually older than them.

[42:57]

Yes, Pat and Tracy and Ellen. Pat? I said Pat, didn't I? I said Pat, didn't I? Oh, Pat, hi. Is there a difference between old woman There might be another term for grandmother besides old woman, but I think this is the normal word for grandmother. I think that if you, I'll look, I can look it up right now for you, but anyway, old woman in this case is often translated as grandmother, but sometimes they translate it as parental grandmother. And then they say, like a parent, you know, whose child is cold, they give the child their blanket, even though they're going to be cold. So it literally is old woman or grandmother. So even a father or a mother would do the same.

[44:03]

But the thing about grandparents is that in some sense it's... They don't have so many other responsibilities, maybe. And so it may be easier for them to just always remember how wonderful it is to be with the grandchildren. And that's soon they'll get a break. Yes, Tracy? Yeah. Yeah. Well, when she's throwing spaghetti on the wall, are you controlling her? Oh, you're ineffectively controlling her?

[45:07]

Is that what you're saying? when she throws spaghetti in the wall? Yeah, I would say... I think that, actually, I think you're always successful at failing to control your grandchildren. I think that you're never able to control anybody. That's what I think. And so when she throws or he throws spaghetti in the wall, you maybe see, in this case, I can see that I'm not in control of her. Right? Yeah. And then you say, but I want to. There's an impulse to control arising. And I don't think you're in control of that impulse arising. Do you? No, I don't think so. So there's the impulse to control a living being. I sometimes might have the impulse to control a living being, but then I clean that. I claim that impulse.

[46:08]

And as I'm claiming it, I remind myself that that's impossible. But it's not impossible that I want to. I do want to. Oh, you don't understand? You cannot control that either. You can't get them to throw more spaghetti in the wall when you give up trying to control them. That doesn't mean that they will put more spaghetti on the wall. Yeah, I understand you think that. And that thought, in this class, that thought is another thing in the temple to clean. The thought that spaghetti throwing will be decreasing depending on how I respond to her spaghetti throwing. That's another thought.

[47:10]

And I'm not going to argue with about that thought. I'm not going to say the chances will go up if you try to control her. I'm not going to say that. I'm also going to say the chances of her throwing spaghetti will go down if you do try to control her. I'm not into that. I do not know how things are working. I don't know that. What I'm talking about is temple cleaning, which is, if you think that you just failed in controlling her, that thought is something to clean. If you notice, I would like to control her, that thought is something to clean. If you have a theory about spaghetti throwing control and what promotes decrease and increase of spaghetti throwing, if you have a theory about that, that's another thought to bring compassion to, Compassion, compassion, compassion with the thought. This child is controllable. And this method is more effective than that method. And I've read some books which say that this method is better than that method.

[48:14]

And if somebody said, oh, do you know there's a new book which says that that method is better than that method? I'm not into telling you which method is best for reducing spaghetti throwing. I'm just saying whatever you're thinking about spaghetti throwing, That thought can be used as the practice of celebrating the Buddha mind. So I have to be right there on the job being compassionate to my thought about controlling my granddaughter in order to do this practice. And if I'm doing this practice, the teaching is that me doing this practice will get transmitted to this person who is throwing spaghetti or running out of spaghetti or whatever. But they're getting this transmission which will bring her peace. Children who do not throw spaghetti on the wall are not necessarily at peace.

[49:17]

Grandmothers whose grandchildren do not throw spaghetti on the wall are not necessarily at peace. or I should say, they may or may not realize that they're at peace. The realization of the peace which the Buddhists say you already have comes, I'm suggesting, by a certain practice. And it works with all of the everyday examples you're giving me. Like the thought, there's somebody throwing spaghetti. Followed by the thought, I don't want them to throw any more spaghetti. So I often, actually, I'd use this example also with you. When my leader's brother was about her age, even younger than her, when he was about two, he was interested in hitting me with metal hammers, not his little plastic hammers. He had some of them, too. But actually, he didn't even want to hit me with his plastic hammers.

[50:20]

He wanted to hit me with my, or with Bernard's, metal hammer. And I told him, I don't want you to hit me with the hammer. It's going to hurt me. He still wanted to. And I didn't control him to not hit me. I was unsuccessful at controlling him trying to hit me. And I also tried to get out of the way when he tried to hit me. But I was not in control of the situation. It did not go the way I was planning. I was just offering him some information about the person he was trying to hit, which was, this person does not want you to hit him. He also used to throw rocks at me. In front of our house is lots of gravel, big pieces of gravel. And he would throw the gravel at me and at the house. And I would say, please don't throw rocks at the house or at me. I would do that to him to give him a gift of information about his servant.

[51:26]

And it didn't control him. And I even one time said to him, would you like me to hit you with the hammer? And he said, no. I said, well, can you see why maybe I wouldn't? But that didn't control him. That was just a conversation. That was just this blessed conversation. Light bulb went off. Well, actually, I do pretend to be a Zen student. I do. But I don't usually pretend to be a good Zen student. I pretend to be a regular Zen student. I pretend to be somebody who's learning how to be a Zen student, and I am. And I'm pretending that. And although the grandchildren, they actually do know it, but we don't talk about it.

[52:28]

Tyler, I'll be right back to you. Ellen? Oh, by this practice, I mean the practice of Buddhas. Well, I don't know if it's everything. I'm not saying no. I just don't know what it is. I don't know what the practice of Buddhas is. But my understanding is that their practice is an intimate transmission of the truth But intimate is one word, another word is inconceivable. The way they do it, like we said last week, this teaching that they're transmitting, and I don't know what it is, this teaching is inconceivable. And I'm devoted to realizing an inconceivable teaching because I've heard that this inconceivable teaching has a more profound function than conceivable teachings.

[53:38]

However, The teaching is also to take care of the conceivable teachings, to be compassionate with all conceivable teachings, because if we're not compassionate with conceivable teachings, like the ones that are happening in this class, that being closed with conceivable teachings will close the door on the inconceivable. And that's what the Buddhas are doing, is they're transmitting this inconceivable intimate reality. That's their job. And I don't know what it is conceptually. However, I have faith, this is a faith, that if I'm practicing compassion with all conceivable appearances, that that compassion will open the door to the samadhi, the state of undistracted openness to everything, and that will open the door to the inconceivable.

[54:39]

Which I've been told I already have, but I have to open to it. But I won't open to it unless I practice all these conceptual instructions about how to be compassionate with conceptual appearances like spaghetti and rocks and violence and praise and blame and fear and joy, whatever. They're all opportunities for compassion. And practicing compassion with these things is immediately helpful in perceivable and imperceivable ways. But finally, as we get better at compassion with the temple activities, the samadhi comes. When the samadhi comes, then we're even more focused on everything we've been taking care of and more flexible with it. And we calm down with it. And then the teachings, we see the teachings which you've already heard and you already understand pretty well.

[55:44]

then you understand them from new points of view and in new ways, and the thing deepens and widens and goes more deeper into your unconscious processes and your body, which then feeds back more opportunities into your consciousness for more compassion, more samadhi, more study of whatever's going on. Tyler? Could I just interrupt you for one second and just say, I want to remind you, I have a little note here which I asked someone to give me to say a few words about intuition. So I'm going to do that after Tyler, okay? Yes. Okay, I'll tell you. It's like when a thought appears, don't turn away from it and don't touch it. Don't grasp it. Don't get excited about it. Don't be hysterical about it.

[56:48]

And don't hesitate. Don't hold back. Don't be obsessive or compulsive about it. In other words, be upright with it. Be present with it. Be still with it. And then any impulses to get it under control or get away from it, or lie about it, or kill it, or whatever, slander it, be better than it. Any unethical response to it, drop that. That cleans the thought. If my response to the thought is more ethical, the thought becomes more ethical, or it starts to be transformed into justice. Also, to be generous with it cleans it. To be patient with it cleans it. But again, it's already clean. But if we're not patient with dirty things, we will not realize that, I should say, if we're not patient with things that appear to be dirty, we don't realize that they're clean.

[57:55]

Sometimes people see something dirty and they're patient with it. You know, it's dirty or smelly or whatever, and they're patient with that discomfort of this filthy thing. And then they see that it's clean and it's beautiful. And then we start to see, oh, this unclean thing, which is really clean, now we can use this, my thought about it being unclean, this thought now can be a celebration of the wonder of Buddha mind. That we can be at peace with filth. I mean, it's fine to be at peace with cleanly things, that's fine. But wouldn't you like to also be fine if you got thrown into filth? I would.

[58:57]

And in fact, I do like that. When I was a little boy, I was the person who cleaned up the vomit in my house. Because everybody else, when they... I did sometimes throw up, but not too much. And so when anybody in the house threw up, I was the one who cleaned it up because I was the one who could clean it up without throwing up. I could also... I also knew how to clean it up and throw up. And I used that at school. Do you understand? If somebody threw up and I wanted to go home, I'd just go smell the throw up, and I'd throw up. And then I'd tell a teacher I threw up, and they'd say, well, you can go home. But at home, I was already home. So I just would go clean it up, and I wouldn't throw up. And then it would be cleaned up. Yes? I'm confronted every morning in the newspaper with Bill.

[60:02]

And you know all the stuff that's going on nationally. Is it possible to view what some of the candidates are saying without Muslims, for instance? Is that clean? Well, somebody says something which appears to be unkind or uncompassionate. There's a lack of compassion appearing in your consciousness. So now you can be compassionate with the uncompassionate. Again, like my grandson. He's going to hit me with the hammer. He's not really being that compassionate. It looks like he's not. So then I have the opportunity to look at him like this is my semi-divine, beautiful little boy who just wants to know what it's like to hit somebody with a hammer. And I can be compassionate towards him who wants to hit me.

[61:08]

And if I can see certain Republican or Democratic presidential candidates who seem to be uncompassionate, I can see these are my grandsons. These are my... You're not as innocent as your grandson. My grandson... How guilty does my grandson have to get before you realize that I still want to treat him with love no matter how guilty he gets, no matter what he's guilty of? I want to treat him with compassion. No matter how uncompassionate my grandson gets, I would like him to realize, which he does. Years ago he said, I can do no wrong with granddaddy. Which now, you know, that gets old for him. But he knows that he can do no wrong. It's not that he can't do wrong. Of course he can. And I can see it. But he knows that there will never at all dent my compassion for him. That I'll always be wanting the best for him, no matter what he does.

[62:15]

And if I slip from that, that's my problem. Then I need to clean my slipping. And, you know, and not cry over spilt milk. Just clean it up. And clean it up means be compassionate to all Republican presidential candidates. In years gone by, I used to talk like this and people would say, but not George Bush. I said, I'm sorry, yes. Then having a new president, when I say doing that, they don't say, but not George. Barack Obama, they don't say that. But now we have a new election, so now they're saying it again, but not so-and-so. Yes, that's Buddha's baby who doesn't know he's Buddha's baby, so he talks like that. If we feel someone's unjust, the practice is to practice justice towards them. And practicing justice towards them leads us to transmit justice to them.

[63:16]

And we keep doing that forever until all beings practice justice. But we don't like to say, well, if he's done justice, I think I'll give him a little injustice too. Give him a little of his own medicine. Maybe sometimes that helps. Maybe sometimes it is justice, but where is it coming from? Is it coming from, here's a good opportunity to directly indicate Buddha's compassion. If you really mean it, great. But again, in consciousness, we can get distracted from Buddha's compassion. I really appreciate... I'll be right with you, Emerald. Intuition. Intuition is one of the ways we know things in consciousness. How intuitions come is non-rational. This is my understanding. It's non-rational. I also think that the way other things, other ways of knowing, the way they come is non-rational.

[64:25]

But intuitions are ones that people are more willing to or can more easily see that the mode of entry of intuitive knowledge is not by thinking. So here's an example of an intuition, a correct intuition. Intuitions can also be wrong. and they can be right. An example of right intuition is a man who, co-founder of the San Francisco Jung Institute, his name's Joseph Wheelwright, he's the brother of George Wheelwright, who was the previous owner of Green Gulch Farm, when it used to be called Green Gulch Ranch. So if you go to Green Gulch, you'll see a sign saying Wheelwright Center. It's named after the previous owner who basically gave us Green Gulch. George Wheelwright gave you Green Gulch. It's there for you because he kind of gave it to Zen Center for like $200,000 43 years ago.

[65:29]

which even then was like a giveaway. Now a garage at Green Gulch costs $200,000. Anyway, his brother Joe was a co-founder and he was a doctor serving in hospitals in London in the Second World War, and he was doing grand tours of hospitals during the war with a famous internist. He was a medical student, internist student, and they went around and looked at different patients, and then they made diagnoses. So they came to one student, one patient, and the teacher said to Joe Wheelwright, well, please give us your diagnosis, and he diagnosed him, and it was a correct diagnosis, which everyone was surprised, the other students were surprised, the teacher said, that's correct. And then the teacher said, how did you know that that was the proper diagnosis? And he looked into his temple to see how he came up with this diagnosis, and what he saw was a large amphitheater

[66:45]

with nobody in it, and he was standing on the stage looking at the ceiling. He had no rational idea how he made the correct diagnosis. That's an example of intuition. Intuitions you don't have to work at. But thinking you have to work at to come up with correct And so that's the nice thing about intuitions is they're fast and easy. Thinking is harder. And thinking is another way we know things. So like, what's another example of thinking? What? Oh, wrong? Oh, wrong would be like, here's one. They asked a lot of people, they asked a whole bunch of people, do you think that statisticians have better statistical intuitions than non-statisticians. And most people's intuition is, yeah, they do. But you didn't.

[67:47]

Well, you're right. And that might have been an intuition when you said no. But a lot of people, their intuition, in other words, they quickly said, without working at it, they just thought, no, but it's wrong. Statisticians are not better intuitive statisticians than non-statisticians. Statisticians are people who put more of their effort into statistical analysis and thinking, and therefore they're statisticians. They know how to do that, and it's hard work for them, and it's even harder work for non-statisticians to do it. But they're not better at intuitive statistical conclusions. They're not worse either. But that's the example. Here's another one, which I think I did it with Eric. And Eric didn't fall for it. The question is, a baseball and a bat cost $1.10. I think maybe the bat costs a dollar more than the baseball.

[68:57]

How much does the baseball cost? Hmm? What? Five cents. Yeah, so that's not an intuition. Huh? What? Yeah. You have to think a little bit not to say $0.05. But these were tested at Harvard and other liability schools. And 50% of the people at Harvard and MIT said $0.10 for the bowl. And they said it fast. It was an intuition. And 80% at non-MIT said, 10 cents. That was an intuition. And they edited it so they were supposed to answer right away. So there wasn't time to figure it out. That's something about it. So we know things in consciousness by intuition, by thinking, by feeling, and by sensation.

[70:03]

Emerald. Would you say it again? I was talking about, or I raised my hand about what we were talking about previously. So if somebody is raising a hammer at you to experience how it feels to hit the hammer. And for me, it's not about control. It's about being able to differentiate between that experience. So you could say, I love you. I don't feel like... I love this action. You can do this action, but it doesn't change how I love you. It just means that I don't approve of the action. It doesn't feel good to me. So, how does that, like, you know, because maybe it's just... Well, like, what you just said so far did not sound necessarily like you were trying to control.

[71:17]

You were just trying to let them know that you love them, But that you're backing away. A little farther. I love you. And even if you hit me with the hammer, I'll still love you. And guess what? Please, I don't want you to hit me with the hammer. You could even say, yeah, I think it might hurt me if you hit me with the hammer. And some other little people that I've related to, I said, you know... You can do that to me. I'm a big person and it doesn't bother me. But if you do it to me, I'm afraid you'll get in the habit. And if you do it to your friends, it would really not be appropriate. You'd lose your friends. But still, I can look and see, am I trying to control them? Do I think I can? And I kind of don't think I can control people. Most of the time I don't fall for that idea that I can control them. But I give them a lot of gifts and I watch how it goes.

[72:19]

And yeah, it's great. And if I slip into trying to control people, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. With my daughter, the mother of some of these grandchildren, I was just blessed with seeing that. I respected her so much, I knew she was much too powerful for anybody to control, including her. So I didn't try to control her, and a lot of her friends just were so amazed at how uncontrolling her parents were. But it isn't that I trusted her, that she was not going to make mistakes. I just knew that you couldn't control this being. And I wanted her to know, I respect you. I don't think this thought like, you're so weak and powerless that I could control you. I did not convey that to her. I don't know.

[73:34]

One time she was maybe 10 or 12 feet away from me and she was just about to step into the street and I just said no. Was I trying to control her? I don't know. Did I control her? I don't think so. Did she stop? Yes. The way she stopped, I didn't make her do that, but she did. Another time, my dog was going to run in the street, and I yelled at him, no, and he ran faster into the street. So I learned my dog... If I talk loudly to him and harshly to him, it scares him. So if he's running in the street, I would just say, Eric! Eric, sweetheart! Then he would stop and turn around towards me. Was I trying to control him? I don't have to. He's still offering. So the tendency, the in-house tendency is control.

[74:37]

trying to control. I'm saying we are not in control of other beings. We are not. People say the cultural thing is control your friends, control your spouse, control your children, control your dog and control yourself. That's the cultural message coming to us from a lot of different quarters. I am offering another teaching which is we cannot control other beings Buddha cannot control us. Buddha gave up trying to control people. Buddha says, I can't control people. If people are in trouble, I can't pull them out. What does Buddha do? Buddha sends teachings. And Buddha cannot control people to listen to the teachings, but Buddha sends them in a way that Buddha thinks, I think if I send them with sweet, kind words, like talking to a baby, There's a better chance, and I can't control them too, but I think there's a better chance they might listen.

[75:40]

And if they listen to this teaching, they will concentrate on it. If they concentrate on it, they will enter into peace and freedom. But Buddha cannot control the process. And some students want to find out, will Buddha keep teaching me no matter how long I resist? Some Zen students are like that. And I'm just having the greatest time tonight, and it's 925. So if you please write down your questions and ask them next week, or send them to me by email, and I'll try to talk about it next week. I wish the class had at least two more meetings. I'm so sorry. It only has one. But I just so much appreciate that you've hung in here even though it's really hard. But at least now you know you're not the only one who's having a hard time. How many people having a hard time? Raise your hands. Yeah.

[76:42]

See, so you're not the only one. I'm having kind of a hard time too because I'm very enthusiastic about being with this massive fire. But it's hard to stay present with this fire. I'm giving these out tonight if you want them. And if you don't, my feelings will not be hurt.

[77:11]

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