This is supposed to be a five-week class. This is the fifth meeting, I think. Kind of short for me. Do you have any questions from previous discussions or questions about anything you want to start with? Um, just of course, we've probably done a month, you know. You know, we've got to take pictures. I think probably other people would go for it. Look at these 12 lengths of causation teaching is from early, it's from Buddhist teaching, actually. He actually, from the Knight of Enlightenment that was, that was the kind of stuff he was looking at.

[01:06]

The Abhidana is a kind of systematic scholastic presentation of the Buddhist teaching. You find these teachings in Abhidharma, but you also find them in the Buddhist discourses. And a lot of things that I'm saying here, you don't find any place for Christmas tryouts, but they're kind of new things. Relates to Western mythology and so on. He won't find that in Abhidharma. The Mahayana is mostly based on the Theravada.

[02:12]

Particularly Abhidharma Kosha is a process. of a lot of the Mahayana psychological teaching. And there's also a psychological teaching which is called Kathagatagarbha teaching, which I would say is Mahayana, and it's quite different from the Theravada, from the Havidharma. It doesn't seem to be taken as the point of departure of Mahavidrava. So there are schools, most schools of Mahayana Buddhism are just a more thorough, going version of the earlier school. Some schools seem to be, it's kind of like there's Buddha here, and then there's this, And then there's Mahayana.

[03:13]

But some schools are Mahayana, but the Buddha here is going to kind of like go underground and come up again later. You can't see them exactly coming in a lineage from Buddha. And yet it relates to Buddha, but not necessarily in terms of what came before. That does happen in human history, that things go underground for a while. No, there's no historical traces that you define, and yet they're secretly being transmitted. Maybe nonverbal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have a couple questions that mainly come from this. And they all sort of hang together, and it all goes back to Buddha's statement that don't take what I saw, you should go from your own experience.

[04:23]

Yeah. And it's the business of The idea of the consciousness, and it says in here that, and the, well, there's a lot of things that just don't, I have no experience of whatsoever, like, the statement that our ignorance is so deep that it can't possibly come from one life. It's such a thing, you know, in a life. and that it's our grasping after ourself that make the necessary work to get another's body, and that it is our consciousness, our continuum of enormous subconsciousness that is reborn, and it seems to me that that would prompt you to self Anyway, all of those things or fragments that I thought were related in my mind in Amazon.

[05:28]

Did you follow anything to that? Well, the first point he said, something like, you know, don't just believe what I say just because I said it. Right. Check it out for yourself. But he didn't, he didn't, he said that. And then what are you going to do about that? Are you going to check that out? Are you going to do what he says? Or are you going to do it in your own experience and ignore it? Well, using what he said as a way of looking at my experience. So you're going to try out what he instructed me to do? So not believing it just because he says it is different from not having faith doesn't mean he didn't tell you not to have faith. Believing it is different from faith.

[06:39]

Well, if I was a Buddha teacher, I wouldn't tell you, please don't trust me. Just go according to your own ideas. That's not what he's saying. Right. He's also not saying, please trust me exactly. But he is saying, don't think that faith is to swallow whole what I've said. All right? In other words, you could be a good disciple of Buddha and chew up Buddha's teaching. And that means, one way to understand this is that you take in the Buddha's teaching and you break it down and convert it into something that applies to your life. And this is just, in fact, this is redundant for what we do anyway all the time.

[07:54]

So generally speaking, I would say that an awakened teacher tells you to do what you're already doing. Because what you always do is you take things in and you destroy them and convert them into something that makes sense for your own system. The truth of a hamburger is, you know, it's not really that what it looks like or its word. Its real meaning for our life is whether you eat it or not. And then if you eat it, it has different meanings depending on how well you chew it. But finally, its meaning is whether you chew it well or not, and actually you don't have to chew it however it feels well, is what happens to it when it breaks down and goes into your body. Does that make sense?

[09:03]

So I think he's basically just saying, chew up these words, chew up these teachings, break them down with your mind, Make them into your own body. Don't believe them out there because that's not the way you operate anyway. If you would think that you just believe what I say without breaking it down into your own system, you would just be kidding yourself about who you are. So in fact, when Buddha says, don't believe what I say just because I've said it, to relate it to your own experience. He's saying, be yourself. Because that's what you do anyway. Don't pretend you actually take something in from the outside and leave it the same as the way it was out there and don't break it down and incorporate it into your own way of being. Don't pretend you do that.

[10:05]

So now, actually, you're doing that with these various examples. You're hearing these things and you're trying to, in a sense, you're trying to destroy them. Not destroy them in a sense of destroying them out of existence. But the Chinese word for digestion, the two-character compound, one part needs to destroy, the other part needs to transform. You break it down and you transform it. You crunch it up, and then you actually convert it into heat, and bodily movement, and various things, words, thoughts. You convert the food into breasts. Heat, and electricity, and all of that is true. Bones, fingernails, muscle. Or you throw it back out, right? You chew it up, swallow it, and then... You can vomit, I mean? Yeah. Yeah, you can also vomit it.

[11:08]

What do you think would be what's happening? That you're vomiting it? Yeah. That you would swallow it and it doesn't do it. Some of these are... You may be vomiting it, but after you've vomited, it's not in the same condition when you first ate it. Right? The technology holds. But that isn't what I see. I don't see you vomiting up well chewed and partially digested with his teeth. No. I see you spitting it out where it's got slight dents in it. Because I can still understand what you're talking about. Well, because some of it has a bad effect. I think of things like this. Robert Claremont was talking, and he was talking about, oh, you know, you do, it almost seems like a payoff system a Christian wants to, you know, you do think now, so that I'll get a reward in the next life, and it's a thing that I want to write down, you know, like, generosity in this life gives merit for richness or beauty in the next life.

[12:31]

Write that down, great, you know, so... So what? It seemed to me and to me the whole idea of being that kind of pale. Well, there's all kinds of motivation that people come to Buddhism with. One motivation is to get paid off right now. To get a better, you know, to get a better car. better lover, better housing. That one motivation some people approach Buddhism for. Another motivation is to have a better life in the next life. Another motivation is to obtain personal liberation from suffering. Another motivation is to save all beings by obtaining perfect enlightenment and then going to work for them. Okay, it's a different motivation. So to give Bob credit, he may be just, you know,

[13:34]

throws out stuff that would interest people that have lower motivation. Some part of what Buddhism does actually is that it throws out motivation at the level a person is on. So if a person just wants to get rich, you give them Buddhist teaching that will help them get rich. And then they start studying Buddhism, but they get into it. know and little by little you could start their motivation maybe becomes you're fine maybe you then can say well you know you need to do this you need you need to do this and you do that gradually you hook them in to a to a process by which their their motivation becomes refined and then they take on teaching which will then help them not depend next life but will help them attain liberation and then so on

[14:35]

So sometimes teachers throw up different levels into the same audience. Zen Buddhism doesn't, as you may notice, Zen Buddhism doesn't talk about that so much. And that's one of the reasons, I think, why it translated well to Western culture, Western, or this American culture, is it didn't, I shouldn't say to Western culture, but to a certain level, the middle class level, the middle class white people particularly of America like Zen, but it's not so popular among black people. There are other forms of Buddhism which are more fundamentalist and promise these results which are more attractive to a lower socioeconomic, I say black, but I mean middle class blacks practice Zen quite a bit, but the lower class blacks and lower class white are not even so interested in Zen because it doesn't promise material rewards. And oftentimes, that's really where they're at. So anyway, you pitch it at the level where it's, well, you're feeling, and you just sort of do it sometimes just in response to what the other person's wanting.

[15:52]

It just sort of pops out of you. But I really, I feel, you know, if you're saying this, that you're not, there's two possibilities from listening to your word, you know, I would say two likely possibilities about what you're doing with the teaching. One is that you're not really chewing it up. The way it's coming back and it seems, it isn't garbled, it isn't smashed up, it isn't converted into like, into just, you know, in our inculcate, you know, heat and emotions. It's coming back kind of the way it sounds when it goes out. So I feel either you're not chewing it, or that you've made it so much your own that now it's coming out of you, out of your life, and you're saying it that way to me, and that you have chewed it, and you have made it your life, and you haven't vomited it. It's become your body and mind, and now you're just talking back to me from your own experience. Could be either one of those.

[16:54]

Before you even get into Buddhism, when you talk about it, you sound very much like after you finish. When you're in the middle, what you put out is more confused. So I think if you chewed more, I think things will be different for you. I think it should be chewing. In other words, keep making it your own. Keep breaking it down until it gets down to sugar. or proteins. And that takes part of the chewing, the teaching. What do you think of that? Well, I'm wondering what my chewing technique should be. Well, I think you're doing it right now.

[17:58]

You're doing it right now. This isn't the chewing technique. You're doing it. asking for questions and saying these things you're saying. I mean, you're not just listening to this stuff and walking out the door. That would be more like vomiting. But you're grappling with it. You're grappling with it first on the level of trying to understand what the words mean. and now also a little bit suddenly relate it to your own ideas, your other experiences, other teachings you've heard in Buddha in another part of the way. You try to work it over. If you just keep doing that and doing that, gradually it will become you. And then you can see, that will be the stage at which you will see if Buddha's teachings are truthful by your own experience. You will be down to the level of your own experience, your own ordinary life.

[19:00]

And you'll see it wouldn't be true. You won't be taken by somebody else's word anymore. But you have to maybe work on this reflective and thinking about it and talking about it for a longer time until it just sinks in. And then you'll see if it works. And you'll see how it works. And you may find out, hey, it works, but I haven't had enough. I actually need to have some different types of food now. I found one type of food that worked. Now I need to eat more or some other variety. And they sent the diet to be white and then do the same with other kinds of teeth. That's what we mean by dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them or master them. But you start with one gate, Chris. You've got to get one. And you maybe have various gates for a while, which is fine.

[20:10]

But finally, you have to really go through one. And what you need in order to go through a gate is you need a kind of container. Because our tendency is just to go up to a gate and push on a little bit and say, well, I don't know if this one will open or not. Maybe this one will. Well, maybe this one will. Or maybe this one will. Rather just keep pushing on one because maybe this one's never going to open and maybe the next one will open right away. You don't know. So why not just keep trying different gates? But that doesn't work too well. You sort of have to eventually sort of stay at one gate. And what's to keep you there? Why not go to another gate? I mean, if you're gambling, you might go to another gate. But in spiritual practice, at some point, you have to stay at one gate.

[21:13]

And the only reason why you're going to stay there for most people is if you're working with somebody else. In other words, you have a teacher or some friends you're working on the gate with. And then if you say, excuse me, I'm going to go to another gate, they say, wait a minute. You know, you can't just leave up here at the gate. We've been working here with you all this time. We need you to help us open the gate. If you leave, we're going to probably leave too. We need you. You need us. You stay here. You told us you would stay here until we got through this gate anyway. You committed yourself. You can't get away with this. So we will not usually go through one of those gates all by itself. We need some mutual commitment. So we just keep going, even though it's still not opening, it's still not opening, it's still not opening. I think William Carlos Williams said something like, it's hard to get the news from poetry.

[22:20]

But men die miserably every day. from a lack of what is found there. Poetry is a dharma door, you know. It's a teaching or something, it's a gift from the divine. And when I read poetry, usually I can't, sometimes I can hear the beauty of the lyric. But usually I can't penetrate poetry unless I read it many times. Then I start to go through it. But I won't read it many times unless some people are helping me read it. Either the person who wrote it is helping me because, you know, I know them or something, or somebody I'm reading with somebody, or somebody told me that this poem is a dormidor, and somebody already had founded a dormidor, like that poem by Simone Weil, Love by George Gilbert, not by Simone Weil, but that poem by George Gilbert that Simone Weil memorized, and it became a dormidor for her.

[23:34]

George Herbert, what did I say? Gilbert, yeah. So then, because I heard that, I memorized the poem, and I worked on it a little bit. And it had become a dormant door for me. It's interesting because it's a poem about the container. It's a poem about the process of containment that we need in order to penetrate things anyway. Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, guilty with dust and sin. But clear-eyed love observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, sweetly questioned if I lack anything. A guest, I said, worthy to be here.

[24:42]

Love drew near to me. Love took my hand and... No. Love drew near to me. and said, know you not? No, no, you shall be he. A guest worthy to be here. And his love said, you shall be he. I, the unkind, the ungrateful, oh, my Lord, I cannot look on thee. Love drew near to me and took my hand and said, Who gave these eyes but I?

[25:59]

Truth, Lord, but I have marred them. Let my shame go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says love, who bore the blame? My Lord, then I will serve. You must sit down, said love, and taste my knee. So I did sit and eat. So that's the poem very much about the process of staying with it until you get a taste for it. Yeah. I was trying to find the crux of my question, and it helped a lot. The poem, when we were flying to our term, we were quoted by Simone Veal, what does the cause of the time of love, an absolute lover, within what kind of eye and our relationship?

[27:10]

And that's true. fluctuating self-repeatment. This would be a sort of basic general question I understand. But therefore, can I possibly cause such a relationship? with that, uh, . Therefore, you can't follow. My stance of a certain emotional background is appropriate at all. I don't understand how, uh, it's, uh, . possible for all.

[28:16]

I don't understand what it can do with. Well, because I don't make the other that we're having a dialogue with into an absolute, into a substance For me, the other is an ungraspable non-entity. It is actually the flux of karmic cause and effect. That's what actually is beckoning us. And that's what saves us. because that's what makes us not able actually to be a self that can actually sin in the first place. Define it.

[29:25]

All, everything advancing forward and confirming himself. Well, you're right, but it doesn't make much sense to me because... Well, I mean, I wasn't talking to you. Here's another one. Eastern mountains move over the water. The definition of it. In other words, I'm answering not just your intellectual question, I'm answering your whole being by that end. I mean, I'm not, you know, I mean, I'm not attacking you, but I... No, I didn't feel attacked.

[30:40]

I knew it was okay. I guess what I'm saying is that, see, you asked me to define something which cannot be defined. Therefore, I answered at the level at which it goes beyond definition. So if you ask me to put in a definition, I'll just say I can't. Words, right, words don't reach it, but it responds to our life. Well, okay. I guess to me, my salvation, what I think of it, suffering being redeemed. Suffering being redeemed? Okay. And in the system that you're speaking at, I don't think I have. In what system? Well, in what you've been described. I mean, in the eternal life, I'll let you, it's not pretty much no point.

[31:41]

Oh, well, I don't particularly want to make a system, but anyway, my view is that suffering is necessary in order to get people attention. Most people won't pay attention to what's going on if they aren't suffering. They'll be miserable. But they'll just sort of put up with it unless they have, I mean, they'll be missing the fullness of their life. They'll be longing, for example, for their childhood. They'll see children and they'll say, hmm, there's something there which I like. They'll kind of remember bliss. But that's not enough to get more people working. It's that they long for the innocence of childhood and the bliss of interconnectedness.

[32:55]

It's not enough to get more people working. Most people need effective kick in the butt. So suffering is necessary in order to get more people working. But I don't know if that's my speaking the same language when I say that. When you say suffering is redeemed. I don't mean suffering is redeemed by that. I mean that's sort of the positive value of suffering. That's not for you dealing. But Simone Weil says that too, that she really feels that people need suffering in order to get them to do spiritual work. Otherwise, why do it? Why make the effort? if it weren't for suffering, to me, why not just have a good time? Why not just find the best drug and take it? Yeah. And also because what I've read about, what do you believe in people?

[34:04]

you say suffering is redeeming it I just say suffering get people working the thing that redeemed it is not suffering suffering is just a it just a motivator it doesn't redeem it all by itself it doesn't do the work all by itself that the individual has been settled into the suffering has to make an effort to And that's the part where you need help. That's the part where you cannot settle into your suffering all by yourself. You need everybody's help to do it because we will veer off to the side of our suffering. Or we'll choose a little section of our suffering, which isn't really a suffering. It's just a small segment of it. And if we settle into that, it can become just a perversion, masochism or mortification or whatever. But truly settle into your real full-fledged suffering, you need a lot of other people to help you.

[35:06]

Because I'll settle into suffering like this. But if I'm settling into suffering with you, you'll say, well, don't settle into suffering just there. Settle into it over here, too. Listen to me, for example. And I may say, well, I have enough problems. I don't want to listen to you too. And then you say, yes, but you entered into this relationship with me. See, you did listen to me. I don't think you really are settling into suffering. I think you're settling into some kind of pipsqueak version of suffering. So why don't you listen to this suffering over here and that one over there and that one over there? Why don't you have ears for all suffering? But we can't hear suffering just with our own ears. We need other people to talk to us. But we won't just, we, again, if we choose who to listen to, we'll just sort of say, well, today I'll listen to you. And then as soon as you start squeaking in a way I don't like, I'll say, I have enough of you, now I'll listen to you. But if I have to listen to you, even if I like the way you're squeaking in me now, if I stay with you, eventually you're going to start singing a song I don't like.

[36:11]

And my suffering is going to move into wider and wider areas. So suffering, I don't think it redeems us. I think it just helps us wake up. And with the aid of other beings, though, who keep us honest, so to speak, keep us from narrowing down our selection of what we're settling with. So we not only have to make a commitment to stay with something, and we also have to make an effort to settle with what's happened. And the thing we have to settle with is also something that's motivating us. The suffering is not only motivating us to find some way to be happy since it's in the fear of our happiness, but it is also

[37:14]

very much what we have to settle with because the suffering is closely related to the basic problem, which is the self-clinging. It is the freedom from self-clinging that is salvation. Freedom from self-clinging sometimes said to be, you know, what is it? Eastern mountain living over the water. You always start, you're always temporarily working with the Pipsqueak suffering, right? You're always working with some small little section of it, okay?

[38:18]

So then you should then move to another pick-tweak step-run. But you shouldn't select yourself which ones you go to. Like, it's okay. You just sit. It'll pop up. That's right. That's the nice thing about sitting is that you sit down, you have knee pain, but then as soon as you get used to that one, you get another pain, like pain of boredom or the pain of your back. or the pain of the person sitting next to you. You can't control the pain if you just sit still. But I would say that that's not even enough. That's half of Zen. Half of Zen is to sit still. The other half of Zen is still you can fool yourself in sitting. You have to go talk to somebody else about drowning, so-called teacher. And that person then, because they're not under your control, well, Some people are in your control, so you have to be careful, too, that you don't find a teacher that you can control.

[39:21]

For example, a teacher that wants to please you, that won't bring up anything that will disturb you. But anyway, that person then will widen your awareness of something. Well, widen your awareness. Curious. It's because they're just being themselves, hopefully. And you go to them. And then you get innumerable pipsqueak sufferings. It's the fixation on one that's another form of self-attachment that's the problem. But this is, I mean, I'm saying this, but it's not easy. I mean, I find it very difficult.

[40:24]

It is sequential, but the point is you can also be rigid. You can become rigid with a sequential. It is sequential suffering no matter what you do, but you can be rigid about it or not. Like some people are sitting, they're suffering. Some people are walking around, they're suffering, all having sequences of suffering. But some people, when they're sitting, if you ring the bell, they won't move. Some people, when they're walking, if you say stop, they won't stop. They just want to keep doing what they're doing. They won't adjust to the circumstances around them. They won't adjust other being. They're suffering all right, but the suffering they got is the suffering they're going to stick with. They're not going to take on any new suffering. They're not going to open themselves up to a new front of misery. In other words, they're trying to control their life, which is that normal thing to do, try to control your life. If you're having a relationship and you're having problems, get out of it.

[41:28]

You've got a teacher and the teacher's not behaving properly, get another teacher. Got a student, the student's not doing too well, get rid of them. Get a good student. Everybody, all teachers want good students, right? Very nice to have good students, because then you're a good teacher. But what kind of teacher are you if you have a lousy students? Well, you're a lousy teacher, so you get new students. Right? New students you suffer with too, but at least, you know, at least they're good students. But to have good students and lovely students and to have lovely teachers, well, this is something we want to get out of in a different kind of subject. That's why we make a commitment. And go through that door of a lovely student or a cloudy teacher. Go through that door. But still, we often recommend that, I think it's nice to check somebody out for about three years before you make a commitment. Now, after you check them out, they might not be available anymore, but they're good to check them out.

[42:36]

There's a checklist you can use to see if they're worthy to be a teacher. Almost nobody would pat the list, by the way. What's a list? Ah, forget it. It's stupid. Nobody would live up to it. One of the things on the list is a thorough understanding of emptiness. That is one of them. There's 10 things on the list. Another one is patient with, doesn't get impatient with students who are learning slowly, doesn't it? Or a good teacher. Huh? No, I don't know. Where did the list go? comes from the Mahayana Sangraha. Yeah, it's an ancient Indian list. It's for a bodhisattva preceptor.

[43:40]

Thorough understanding of precepts, thorough understanding of the sutras and the vinya, thorough understanding of emptiness, doesn't get patient with slow learning students. had good disciples, constantly studying, continuing to study him or herself. Always eager to teach. I'm having a little trouble, but I'm confused. I guess the basic dynamic of spiritual path, the written path of Congress, being that you put yourself in a situation

[44:56]

in which your community towards you continue, and that's the only way that you'll continue. It seems like a contrast to this, and is this a contrast? It seems, in my experience, more people don't really particularly commit. I mean, they do somewhat, but especially, I guess, non-sacide, divorce, or whatever. I mean, whatever commitment you have, I mean, I don't think people come and convince them. I don't have this symptom. I mean, I have to send to the community sort of helping them some, helping them get up a few more days, and they would get up, I don't know, but once somebody decides they don't want to get up anymore, it's just not working today, and pretty soon they don't get up. So anyway, in contrast to that, it's important to me what people put on the path is more of an inner voice, or an inner intuition, or an inner dissatisfaction with these things. Rosalie, could you pull that shape close?

[46:14]

Did you hear what he said? It's true that when you move into your resident of a community, there is some, especially at the beginning, Well, actually, all the way through, there's some, what do you call it, herd instinct kind of thing, right? That helps you go to the Zendo or whatever the religious exercise program is. Okay? There's that kind of thing. But if you didn't love the thing in the first place, it's kind of like, well, what's the point? So I think you're right. The thing that really keeps you going is your own internal love of the practice or your own internal interest in freedom and happiness. That's really what keeps you going. The purpose of the community is not to keep you going. It's not to run your motor for you. That's not the purpose of the community. That's the purpose of lunch. But the community, the main purpose of the community is to keep you honest.

[47:20]

You do the work. You keep working along. That's your job. We don't do that for you. Your commitment is not your commitment to the community to get you to do it. Your commitment is you do it. That's your own thing, right? That's your commitment to do it. Your commitment is also to do it with a certain group of people. Not that they get you to do it, but that they tell you when you're barking up the wrong tree. Not that you are barking up the wrong tree, but they may say so to you. They may not be right, but you have to listen to them and wonder, maybe they're right. But if you're doing your practice, let's say you're doing a practice you like, like bicycle riding or studying Buddhism or something like that, you're doing that out of your own motivation, okay? But you may get on a very narrow trip That's what you need other people for. You need them to say, hey, you are on a narrow trip.

[48:23]

You got this real narrow version of what Zen is. You're just really uptight about Buddhism. Get through this little block. You're hung up now, but you'll make it someday. But they're not going to say that to you if you didn't already make a commitment to them. If you didn't say, I want to do this with you. They won't say it to you if you don't do that. But if you really open your heart and you say, I want to do this. And I want to do it with you people or with you teacher. And I want you to help me finish. And the teacher says, okay, I'll help you. I see that Buddha talking to me. I hear that request. And I'll meet it. And when you get... your eyes get closed, and you forget what you told me just now, I won't forget that. I'll ask you again. Remember what you said? And you keep going, and you keep going. But it's not that the teacher keeps you going. The teacher keeps you from running away from what you want to do. And it keeps you running away from into some little side road. So the community, the circle of friends, is not to motivate you to do the practice.

[49:27]

It's to keep you from getting too narrow in your selection of what you're dealing with. Okay. See the difference? Well, can I just follow that? Sure. I see that difference, but even then, I still know, is this an ideal thing? I mean, I don't see that happening. You're right. I don't see it happening here very much myself, to tell you the truth. I think this senator has a real problem around that. Well, what can I do? Go around bashing people's heads open and say, open your heart. Opening hearts is not so easy. It's not under people's control. Huh? You think what happened? Oh, I know what happens. Yeah, but not very often. Yeah, and that's what he's talking about. He's talking about that he doesn't see it much, and I say I don't see it much either, okay?

[50:29]

But I'm also telling him that he can't control this, and the person can't control, I can't control, I can't make somebody else open their heart up, I can't open my heart up. Hearts are like flowers. When the sun's out, sometimes they open. They don't very often open in the dark. Sunflowers do, I suppose. But anyway, those flowers open in the dark. They won't open in the lake. And you can talk to the flyer all you want. It's not going to open until the sun comes out. You can also pull the petals back, but then you'll rip it. Rip it. So you may want to open your heart, but it takes causes and conditions to open it. And I think all Zen Center has problems this way. Some people are not opening their hearts to other people. But that's what we have to work on. We've got the practice. And the practice has these two dimensions, and we let people come. In fact, Bodhidharma didn't do that. He didn't let people come to study with him about opening their hearts.

[51:33]

Remember? A lot of people came to study with him, and he said, go away, ugly person. I do not have time for you. Get out of my face. And they went away. But one guy... It didn't go away. And he really impressed Bodhidharma that he wanted to study, so he accepted them. But at Deaf Center, we don't do that. We let a lot of people come in here and they come in here and just walk right in and sit right down and no problem. But if they want to know what the practice is, the practice is not just to walk right in and sit down, but it's also to go to a teacher and say, well, what's happening? Called my practice. And a lot of people go to the teacher and say, hey, tell me how my practice is. The teacher said, well, you're doing just fine. He said, no, come on, tell me really. They say, well, I don't see any problem. And they walk out the door and the teacher thinks, oh, I know what their problem is.

[52:36]

The person doesn't come back. I checked him out, he said I was okay, that's enough. I'm okay now. If they would come back the next day, the teacher would say, hey, after you left, I realized something. about you that I could comment on. What's that? Well, you're kind of blah-de-blah. Next person says, well, you're wrong. I mean, I may have asked you, but I didn't ask you to say that. I mean, you're using your privileges there, so what? You know, and I'm going to turn you in. So the person turns him in and leaves. So actually, you know, it's not so easy. So now he gives to say, now, I'm going to tell you something now, but you promise not to leave after I tell you? You could say, well, OK, all right. You're a logging student. I figured it out.

[53:39]

But anyway, that doesn't happen so often because people don't want to get into that hot water. But you have to get into that hot water to cook. You have to get in and nobody can push you in. Well, maybe sometimes they can push you in. But anyway, you have to sort of get in voluntarily so you know, I know I got in here voluntarily. In Sashin sometimes you say, I know I signed up for this. I was in my right mind when I signed up. I know I was. I was inspired. You know, I believed in Sashim, and now I don't believe it anymore. It's crazy to be here, but I remember I didn't voluntarily. So I'll stay a little longer. And the same in a relationship. You know, you commit yourself, the other person commits himself, and then pretty soon you want to get out. It is ridiculous. You got in for happiness, and it's now misery, and it's getting worse. This is the worst relationship that you could possibly have. It's sick to continue.

[54:47]

So you get out and you try to get out of it. But if you don't, you have a commitment to say goodbye. So you go say goodbye to the teacher and the teacher says, please don't go. You're just starting to get it now. This is a good sign. All Buddhists have hit the same spot, the same problem. You say, really? Well, okay. Are you sure? Yeah, and the person really means it. And so you say, okay, one more day. Or they say something else clever like, you can't get out of here anyway. You can run out the door, but you won't get away. You never get away. Because you opened your heart to the person, because you made a commitment, they made a commitment, the power of their love makes them very smart. at getting you to stay. But if there wasn't love there in the first place, well, it's easy to get away.

[55:48]

It's a two-way street. Once it starts opening up, it builds, you know, until you finish the process. Same in a marriage, you know, and you get married, and you get places in the marriage where it's black, and it's been black a long time, and you don't know where it's going. You know, it's out there and you don't know what's happening. You're in the unknown. You want to get out. Of course, if you stay there, you break through and you get into a new unknown and a new unknown and a new unknown. But you want to get out. But if you wake up, you realize that the person you're with is someone who has made tremendous gifts to you, have been so kind to you, you just can't believe them. And the same with your teacher, and the same with the students. Sometimes students are really bad, but the teacher thinks, but look at all they've done, and look how tolerant they've been of me all this time already.

[56:55]

I can't kick them out. And the same with the students, the teacher's been so patient with me all this time, I can never kick them out. But we don't, this isn't required right away at Zen Zen. So you're right. A lot of people are kind of cruising around this joint. They're doing the sitting, but they're not really opening their heart up to somebody. And that's a missing link in the practice. So they have to deal with that. And so I'm here talking about that. Closely. I read early that it was a dangerous thing that if you walk away, what would you be supposed to do?

[58:04]

And that's what I think that you did. Right. Except if you make a commitment. I don't see it. I don't see anybody. I feel like people fall through the cracks. Yeah, you're right. They do fall through the cracks, but... Right. I think it does. I think it does happen. But, for example, recently some people have come to me over the last few years, some people who are supposedly my so-called disciples have come to me and said stuff like, Well, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. I'm going to climb Mount Everest or I'm going to become a world-famous scientist or I'm going to marry this gorgeous person or I'm going to become rich or I just inherited a million dollars and I'm going to go spend it.

[59:08]

People say stuff like that to me. So what do I say? Wow, that's great. Gee, wow, that's wonderful. Just like if somebody didn't know. came up to me, or somebody who I was friends with, just somebody I'm friends with, okay? Some friend comes to me and says, I've fallen in love and I'm going to Chicago to have five kids. And I say, great, when are you leaving? But if If one of my disciples tells me that they're going to go to a Sashi or that they're going to go and have a hamburger or anything major in their life, maybe hamburger is not a good example. Anything that they're going to do, if they don't consult me, I say, well, what are you talking about? Now, I say that now, but for a long time I didn't because I... Yeah. If they don't consult me, I say... Then I say, what?

[60:09]

No, I mean, if they just come and tell me that they're going to do it. They just come and say, I'm going, I fall in love. I'm going to Europe. I'm going to have a nice time this summer. I say, sounds great. I'd love to do it myself. That's what a friend would say, and I feel that. And for a long time I felt like, but I also don't like this because I put all this time and effort into my relationship with you, and now you're just going to split without even discussing it with me? What's going on? That's another part of me. But I suppressed that for a long time because I didn't want to be attached. I didn't want to oppress anybody. And if something good's happening to somebody, I should be happy. Or somebody may say, I found a really good teacher. I'm going to study with a really good teacher. Well, I'm so happy you found a good teacher. How wonderful. Probably this teacher has all the qualities that I don't have that you were always wanting me to have, right? So what can I say other than, congratulations, have a nice time.

[61:10]

Well, I tell you, I can say a lot more than that. I can say, what is, who are you, what do you think is, where are you? You know, what do you think this is? I mean, do you think you, you're nuts. You know, that's how I can say that. And I have said it, I finally have been able to say it to a few people and they've really appreciated it. But I was scared. My first reaction is, no, and then I'd say something nice, and then later I'd say, hey, that's a lie. Of course I'm happy that they found a great teacher, but, you know, if you've married somebody, it's fairly likely that not too long after you marry them, you know, maybe, I don't know how long, five, ten years, you're going to meet somebody else that's really nice. somebody who's got all the qualities that they should have, or that they used to have, or whatever. So of course you want to go, right? But they don't think so, probably.

[62:17]

They think you're really evading your responsibility. So I agree people have and can slip through cracks, and I can let them slip through cracks when they tell me they're going to leave because I'm afraid to say, I'm afraid to say, you can't do that. That's ridiculous. You have a relationship with me. You can do it, but you have to work it out with me anyway. This is a thing we're doing together. We're living your life together. I'm living my life with you. I'm here for you. You're here for me. So if you're going to go out and do that, you can do it. You can do anything, but we do it together. You don't just tell me what you're going to do. And I've been afraid to say that to people, but I think part of the reason why I'm afraid to say it also is because if I say that to them, then they can say that to me. So I kind of hold back telling them that they can't live their life without me because then they can tell me that I can't live my life without them.

[63:20]

But now I'm little by little taking and having the courage to tell people, little by little, that they cannot have a relationship with me and then not have a relationship with me. And that will prevent people from falling through the leaks, I mean through the cracks, leaking through the cracks. But it's just, now it has been for quite a while, it has not been happening so much. And now I'm starting little by little myself to not let myself be so lazy as to let people get away from me where they really can't get away from me because I can't let go of them because I have a relationship. I mean, in fact, theoretically, I feel like, well, I should let them go. But in actual fact, I cannot. I think, oh, fine, go. But inside, I feel like, no, don't go. Stay here and settle this relationship. Work it out with me. Because you said you had a relationship.

[64:21]

I ordained you or whatever. That makes life a lot harder for me. But also, it doesn't really make life harder than me. It is actually my life. My life is already that way. It's just that I'm afraid to admit it. But it's not that way for people who have not made a commitment with me and who I have not been reciprocated. It's not that way with everybody. Some people can actually come up to me and say, I'm going away, and I really think, fine. And I like them even, and I say, fine. And it really is fine. I maybe miss them because I think they're neat or something. But I really say, yeah, that's okay. You didn't make a commitment to me. I didn't make a commitment to you. We didn't do that. Therefore, you can actually go away. I mean, it actually is all right. Yeah, there it is. And it goes in two directions.

[65:25]

This whole thing is about cleaning. If there's no cleaning, then we don't have any more work to do. Then there's no need for all this stuff. You say working out something, do you mean working out to the result that the person decided to do? Or are you saying you're working out so the person stayed with you? No, it does not mean that they will determine the... No, no predetermined conclusion. So a lot of these so-called students, right? Some of them come and tell me they're going to do these really wholesome things. Like they come and say, I'm going to go to Sashim now. Okay? Well, it's a nice thing, right? I mean, there's no problem going to Sashim. But there is a problem for them telling me that they're going to Sashim. What are they going to Sashim for? Maybe they've got some greedy motivation. Maybe they're going for a hot shot romantic thing with some teacher, you know? What are they going for?

[66:25]

If they just tell me they're going, we're going to discuss what it's for. It might be that if we discuss it, we find out that they have really bad motivation to do a so-called wholesome thing. It's really an evil trip they're on, even though it has a good title. Another person might come to me and say, I'm going to go do something which doesn't sound wholesome at all, and we talk about it, and we find out it's really good. And they do it. And ordinarily, you think, you let your student do that? And I say, yeah, because they're doing it. We had this conversation, this is what we said, and I feel fine about it. But whether it sounds good or sounds bad, you don't just do it by yourself at the point. You will do it with the person. And we don't know what the result of the conversation will be. We don't know beforehand. All we know is you do it to get it. You can't do it alone. That's it. Flat out, absolute, no exception.

[67:27]

You've got to do it with all being, and you do it one at a time. You don't do it with all beings in general, like, okay, I'm checking out with you people now. Is it okay if I go to Chicago? Well, you all probably say, maybe you'll say, okay. But if I ask each one of you individually, really give you a chance to talk, then I get a different response, especially if we have a commitment. I agree with what you're saying. I mean, they're saying it in many different ways that you have to stick with something. And I want to ask about the other side of it. There's two kinds of sticking with things, okay? One is you stick with the sitting practice or whatever, your own personal practice. That's one thing you stick with. And you also stick with a relationship. Those two things stick with. Sometimes, sometimes you have to go away. Sometimes you have to turn away.

[68:27]

Sometimes you have to say, this isn't right for me. Right. You do. So you say it. You say. You go to the other person that you have a relationship with and you say, this isn't right for me. And they say, well, I agree. And you say, you do? You say, yeah. And you go. but to deal with them. You cannot get out of a relationship without going through a relationship to get out of a relationship. You can't decide to end a relationship by yourself. You got to deal with the other person. You say, what if they're beating you up? Well, get somebody to protect you when you've got to get away from them, because if you just run away from them, they may follow you and mug you in the streets. You've got to work it out with the person. You've got a thing to work out. It doesn't mean you have to do what they say. It doesn't mean you have to stay in some fixed relationship with them. It doesn't mean you have to keep letting them jump on your head. It doesn't mean any of that stuff. It means you have to deal with the person that you've made a commitment to. But it's also good if you make a commitment to somebody who's a murderer, well, then it's not talking about that.

[69:38]

You know, you can have some rules like no murders. I was not even talking about a strength like that. Say here with a... I talk about, for example, a relationship with him. Maybe that's your husband, right? Uh-huh. Talk about that. Or talk about a relationship with me. I won't kill you. I won't, really. Well, actually, I'm thinking of one in particular. Okay. It's very, like I was not that long ago with, you know, sitting with the people, that it didn't work out very well. Yeah. Did you make a commitment to them? Well, it seems that just being there, I made a commitment to them, just going and being in their rents for a while. Well, did you discuss that commitment with them? Yeah. Yeah. What did they say? Well, I didn't get very far in discussing it. When I discussed leading, I didn't get very far.

[70:40]

Well, you may have never got into it. I'm talking about get yourself into a situation that's clear, okay? You've got to get into a clear situation. Like you go up and say, I am making a commitment to you. And here's what I want to make the commitment for. I want to practice the precepts which you've made. I want to work with you on these precepts. That's my commitment. And then they say, okay, I'll work on these precepts with you. You start with something like that, okay? That's not something vague. It's something you say with words. Very much you use words to do this kind of stuff. If you can't even get into the relationship in the first place, well then... But what if they say yes to that and then they just aren't there? And then you sometimes sort of see you have to walk away. Then you go and you say, you're not there. And what do they say? And they talk around. Then you say you're talking around it. And then they talk around it some more. Okay? Right?

[71:42]

And you just keep working on that until you do what you need to do. But you do it through that process anyway. Okay? And you may move away from that circle into another circle. Because in fact... If you actually say to a person, I mean, we're talking about, you know, not psychosis, okay? We're assuming you're not psychotic, all right? You talk to a person and you say, look, you're not listening to me. Do you hear that you're not listening to me? And if they don't say yes, and you keep saying over and over, they don't even hear that you don't feel heard. You can't even have a conversation at that level over a period of days or weeks or something. Well, then it's just, then we're talking about a situation which is, well, They're not in the circle. In the circle, you can have a conversation with somebody like, Do you hear me? And they say, yes. And you say, I think you do too. And they say, do you think I hear you? And they say, yes. And they say, I think I do too. Here's what we're going to do.

[72:43]

You go back and forth and you have an agreement. You have some kind of communication. And then you make a commitment. And you feel like the person's helping you from the beginning. You say, yeah, you're kind of, I feel you want to help. And I know I want to help you. And I feel you are helping, trying to help me. And I feel I am trying to help you. Do you talk like that? Okay? And you feel some rapport. And you say, let's do this for a year. Or let's do this for a lifetime. And the person says, okay. That's how you start. Something like that. Very straightforward. No kind of fancy stuff. Okay? Then after a little while, you want to get out of it. After a week. Or ten years. Let's say after a week. And you say, well, I want to call it off. And they say, why? And you say, because now I feel like you're not listening to me. So I want to withdraw the commitment. They may say, well, I made a commitment to you to continue this for six months. Why don't we continue for six months? Is it that bad? And so on. These kinds of conversations you have with people. I mean, literally, you have these kind of conversations.

[73:45]

And if one party tries to get the other one to fulfill the commitment, usually it would take turn. Or one specializes in keeping it going. And it keeps going, or it doesn't. But you, I, should do it through the relationship, try to get out of the relationship. The longer you're in the relationship, the more indebted you are to the person, the more grateful you are for all the effort they've made. the more difficult it is to get out of it, and also the longer you're in the relationship, the more you're getting pushed into new areas of unknown and the more you want to get away. However, if you've gone through many cycles of hitting blocks, staying with it and getting through, hitting blocks, staying with it and getting through, you also know, well, Maybe we'll get through this one, too. We've had 475,000 blondes, and we got through every one, and every one we stay with it.

[74:50]

So maybe we'll get through this one, even though this one looks like actually worst of all. This is the worst one yet. They often look like the worst one yet. They tend to get a little faster in passing, though, to go on in the end. But I'm not making a rule for you. I'm just saying you have to make clear commitments, and also you need to make clear commitments in terms of time. My wife and I actually have a 47-year commitment, now a 50-year commitment, and now it's got done. It's about 36 years now left. And then that doesn't mean it's going to end and that means that we review it to see if we want to continue it. But also on a yearly basis or less, we reiterate our vows to work with each other So, I really do agree with what you're saying.

[75:54]

And I, you know, I do know that without that, you know, without that commitment this morning with Michael, I would have walked out. Right. Sure. But by the afternoon, the commitment made more sense. Right. But there are times when it makes sense to walk away. Yes. Yes. So let me, so when you, you know, I know you're willing to say to you that if you have a committed relationship and you find a time in a committed relationship when it's time to walk away, you can come tell me about it too. See what I think. I'm talking about committed relationships. I'm talking about when you actually say, I am committed to you. So, in some ways, you look a while before you make the commitment. Yeah, like marriage, for example. Yeah. Like marriage, like taking on a teacher. You know, like practicing, committing yourself to a group of practitioners. You listen around to them.

[76:56]

Go with a group of practitioners for a while, check it out for a while, and maybe say, this isn't working. Yeah, that's what Brett says. You see, a lot of people here are just checking Zen Center out, actually. They're just sort of checking out. And sometimes they check it out for a long time. And at a certain point, Zen Center says to some people, you know, you've been checking out Zen Center now for a long time. I think it's about time you made a mind whether you're going to do it or not. Because until you commit yourself, a part of the practice is not working. And so we let people check out Zen Center for a long time. It is okay. Because otherwise how are you going to let people who are not going to be able... Bodhidharma let Huayka check him out of the snow there. But he didn't accept him as a student. He just let him check him out. Check me out all you want, but you stay out there in the snow to check me out. You're not going to come in here and cuddle up with me and check me out that way.

[77:58]

No. You check me out. I'm not making any commitment to you until you really show your sincerity. And so they both were showing their bodhidharma being very sincere, not accepting him, and the Quaker was being very sincere, not being accepted. Both being very sincere, and then at a certain point, the flower opened. And they had a wonderful relationship. This kind of thing is not, this is a serious matter to go to a teacher and ask about the dharma. And then to make a commitment to keep working on it. It's a serious matter. It doesn't happen very often. And in most people's life, it does not happen with the future. And these days in America, a lot of people don't do it in their whole life. When they get married now, they don't really make that commitment.

[79:02]

They don't get up in front of all their friends and say, I'm making these valves for this person, plus I want you, all my friends, to help me fulfill these valves, because I know I'm going to hit some dark nights. and I'm going to try to get out of them. So please help me. If you see me running out on this thing, please help me because I know I'm going to try to run out. And please help her. Be patient with me. People don't do that very often, but that is traditional to have that understanding. And I think this society, this culture, this American situation is going to survive. I think it would be helpful if we went back to learning how to make commitments to each other. I see from what you're saying where I sort of gave you this. There's times when it's buzzing. Most times you have to really be clear about what they make. You have to be as clear about not making a commitment as about making a commitment.

[80:06]

Yes. So everybody knows where they are. Yes. Yes. And so I had quite a few conversations with people where I'm actually clarifying that they had not made a commitment. And a lot of people ask me, they say, you know, please give me feedback. And I say, you know, I don't even feel permission to tell you that I don't really feel like you want me to give feedback. I'll give you that much feedback. I actually slipped that. That was a contradiction. I did tell you that I don't feel like you want me to give feedback. I just gave you some. That's pretty clear. In other words, I don't feel like I can. It's not so far. The action can be embarrassed so far. So it's time to stop. That was an unusual direction to go off into. um because you you've been sort of i i or just a one little question what is it well it's about everything we've been talking about but it's like you know uh the decision like in a day-to-day basis about fate and and uh how you accept your life yes as if it's just um

[81:31]

You know that saying make no decision or against anything. Kind of a catchy part that I really like. Is there any good guideline for accepting the involvement of the right? And not much input to put into, you know, the direction your life is going. I mean, what's the key? Just sitting a good enough, you know, looking for intuition inside into one flight? Yeah, that's what I said. It's that, no, that's not enough. Sitting is part of it. The other part is have a relationship with one person or more than one person. And a definite relationship where there's understanding so both parties agree that that's happening. So neither one can sort of, once they make a commitment, neither one can get out of it easily when it gets tough. That will guide you. through your life. Settling into your situation and not be too limited and getting rigid about what your situation is.

[82:36]

But we can see how our society, the American society, is so off because... Yeah, Gregor Bates said that he found American students he could not get them to make a commitment on your studies, could not get them to make a commitment. He said it's really different from European students that they would actually make a commitment. American students didn't want to say what they were doing. can never pin them down they always want a lot of a lot of uh what do you call a lot of possibilities which of course makes them very good makes a lot of despair that they have so many possibilities they can't do anything yeah i'm like that i'd like to do that but i didn't like i somehow got into this other thing here I made a big effort to study with Suzuki Roshi, and I made a big effort to get situations where I could be with him. And sure enough, I got chances to be with him, but usually as soon as I got to be with him, I want to get out of it. Even after I made big efforts to be with him, still as soon as I got with him, I want to get away.

[83:44]

So I understand it's not easy to be with somebody, especially somebody who you love and who loves you back. can barely stand it, very understandable. That's why we need commitment. Well, thank you for joining me here on Tuesday nights or whenever we met. May I have a adventure?

[84:26]

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