One way that the Mahayana, the movement of, the movement, the moving of universal liberation for all beings is sometimes expressed or summarized is in consisting of great compassion renunciation and comprehension or realization during this little retreat during this time of gathering together at the beginning of each one of our morning meetings, we have chanted the verses on arousing a vow.

[01:11]

These verses express the aspiration of great compassion. And during the talks, I've been bringing up actually the practice of renunciation. Renunciation in the form of a way of training the attention, an attitude of attention training, wherein the attention is purified or the attention is turned towards the object which is purified of all self-interest, which is purified of all conceptual additions and elaboration.

[02:18]

This is to renounce the usual way of attending to things. This renunciation, this type of attention, which is the renunciation of our impulsive self-centered attention, is the gate to the comprehension, which is the ocean seal samadhi, the realization of the bodhisattva's life. And in the vow it says something like we or we vow to meet the Dharma.

[03:24]

And in meeting the Dharma to renounce worldly affairs. So the discussion this week has been in terms of meeting the Dharma. All day long, whatever comes, whatever comes, meet the Dharma. Whatever comes, meet it as Dharma, as the Buddha Dharma coming to you. Never doubt that what is coming to you is Buddha Dharma. And when you meet the Buddha Dharma, each moment, renounce worldly affairs. renounce worldly affairs renounce improving on the Buddha Dharma renounce editing the Buddha Dharma renounce elaborating the Buddha Dharma renounce rejecting the Buddha Dharma renounce attaching to the Buddha Dharma renounce grasping the Buddha Dharma renounce knowing the Buddha Dharma renounce kissing the Buddha Dharma

[04:39]

Renounce spitting on the Buddha Dharma. Renounce everything. Just meet the Buddha Dharma completely, purely. Please. And enter. Enter the Buddha Dharma. Enter the Buddha Dharma, which is the ocean seal samadhi of all the Buddhas. and all the bodhisattvas and all beings in perfect harmony enter the new world this is not easy because it's a strong worldly habit to do all the things which I just spoke of renouncing plus planning plus selecting plus judging plus calculating plus measuring plus trying to control all this is renounced and in this renunciation the door opens to the new universe of changing oceans of worlds which is right under our nose all the time but without renunciation you know we're plugging our noses to it so blow your nose

[06:01]

and then inhale oceans of changing universes. Please, if you're not too busy. After all, you did vow to do so, to meet the true dharma and renounce worldly affairs. And I told a story about something that happened to me when I was five, and this morning I just remembered another story, which I saw in light of the practice that we've been discussing. It's a story about me when I was younger, when I was two years old. I was a boy at the time. And...

[07:05]

uh i don't know something happened to me but before i tell you what happened to me i want to tell you something a little history about a disease uh that's been around among humans for a while and it's they call it uh poliomyelitis and it's a it's a i don't know what polio means but myelitis means the myelin sheath in your spinal column becomes inflamed and swollen and because it does that it causes an irregular pattern of paralysis. Does anybody know what polio means? Maybe it means paralysis, who knows? Anyway, I heard, I've heard, just like I heard that in being a Buddha, or ancestor is necessary to be the Oshin Sil Samadhi.

[08:12]

I also heard that before around, well, you know, until around the 1940s, when people got poliomyelitis, especially children, they sometimes called it infantile palsy, didn't they? Infantile paralysis. And it affected children a lot. And children's bones are very soft, as you know, are relatively soft. So what they did to a lot of these children whose legs were paralyzed was they put clamps on their legs. Because if they didn't, since the paralysis was often uneven, like maybe it would paralyze half the thigh muscle or half the calf muscle, and so one part would keep working and the other wouldn't. So it would actually bend the bones during the time of paralysis. So they put clamps on the legs so that the bones wouldn't get bent.

[09:16]

So this frozen muscle was then clamped. So the frozen muscle was frozen. But that kept the bones straight. But then afterward, they took the clamps off and the muscles that had been frozen more almost died, atrophied. And this was an attempt to be kind, which I think mirrors the way we sometimes act. When we get tense, when we freeze up, in order to prevent distortions and other kinds of problems in our state of freezing, we freeze the freezing. We clamp down on the tension so the tension won't cause much trouble, which sometimes, you know, it's not that bad, but usually it does cause further problems.

[10:18]

It might be better than just letting the tension do its thing, we sometimes think, but there's a better way. which was discovered, I heard, actually I saw on a TV show one time, starring, it's a movie, it was a movie about Sister Elizabeth Kennedy. She was like, she was a woman, and she was a Episcopal nun in Australia. And in the story I saw, starring Rosalind Russell, She was called out back of Australia on this case where this little boy, had become paralyzed. He had a fever too, but he'd become paralyzed. And I think she kind of like just spontaneously came up with what she thought would be good to do with him while he was in the state, which was to keep him warm and put hot packs on these paralyzed muscles and massage them, to keep them warm and stretch them, stretch them, relax them.

[11:38]

work on them, attend to them, not clamp down on them. Stretch the thing that's tensing. Help it to relax. And in the story, after the inflammation went away and the fever in the spine was gone, The little boy was pretty much okay. A little stiff, but pretty much okay. And she thought, well, that was nice. And she tried it again and again, and it seemed to work much better than the usual treatment. So then she went and told some doctors, and she being a woman and a nurse, they didn't listen to her too much. But she really thought it would be very good if people would adopt this new practice in relationship to this paralysis.

[12:43]

So she, I heard, went around the world to try to get doctors to support her. And then she went to a place in Minnesota, which is in the United States. Out in the middle. Up in the north. And she went there, she went to a convention, a medical convention, and this convention was in Minneapolis. And she somehow got on the program and got a chance to tell about her therapy. And there wasn't much interest. But afterwards, one doctor came up to her and said, you know, I'd like to help you try this. So they started a clinic. And this was 1943 when I was born. And so I started a clinic there. And then when I moved from Mississippi up to Minnesota and got paralyzed myself, I got to go to this newly opened Sister Elizabeth Kenney Institute and I got this treatment.

[14:00]

And I was two years old and they took me to the hospital and they carried me to the hospital because I couldn't walk. And they put those hot packs on my legs and they stretched me. And the nurses stretched me. And they had me do these stretches, like yoga stretches. Bending, you know, what is it called? Uttanasana? Putting my legs out and bending my head. They pushed my head down to my knees. And they said, you're a big boy, you're a good boy. He pushed my head down. And they stretched and they said, and I guess people thought it hurt, and I think it did hurt a little bit, but anyway, I felt their love, so I went with the program. And then 21 days later, I walked out of the hospital. And I was a little stiff, and I've remained a little stiff, but I've been stretching ever since. And I thought that practice is very similar to our practice of meeting what comes, meeting even if there's clenching, even if there's tensing, even if there's breathing, meet that with relaxation.

[15:23]

Don't clamp down on it. Meet it with relaxation. Meet it with gentleness and warmth and love. And even though it may stay clenched for quite a while, it won't die. and then the time will come when the inflammation of the disease goes away and then the relaxation will come and then we can enter the ocean seal samadhi and actually That was a wonderful disease for me. I can still remember being in the hospital at two. And I was a little alone at night, I remember, because in those days they didn't let your parents stay in the hospital with you.

[16:26]

It was dark. But I really thought those nurses were, I felt their love, so I didn't feel traumatized by being away from my parents, I don't think. It was kind of like being in Sashin. It has that deep, dark, cave-like feeling of being down in a cave with a lot of love around you, but there's a dragon there too. So when I think of Sashin, I think I feel a little bit like going back into that hospital. Just a little guy with lots of support to do some difficult work. And it's very nice to have a nice setup like that. And then when I was, what is it, like about 17 years later?

[17:28]

18 years later? Yeah. Maybe 19 years later, 18 years later, yeah. I went back to that same place. It was still called the Sister Elizabeth Kennedy Institute, but there was almost no polio patients anymore because they had the Salk vaccine. But now it was full of people, a few people left over from the polio days who were like in iron lungs. But mostly it was paraplegics, quadriplegics, and stroke hemiplegics, stroke patients and accident patients. So I went back there as an orderly in that same place. And that was another wonderful time for me to become intimate with crippled men and mostly men. It helped me, that work helped me.

[18:32]

Again, so the Sister Elizabeth Kennedy Institute helped me a second time by giving me some money and also I kind of got free lunches and stuff too because, you know, my patients never finished theirs. Oh, you're not going to eat that hamburger? And it helped me become even more comfortable being with people's stuff, various kinds of stuff that people come with. So I found out that you can really get in there with people and it's not so bad once you cross over and go inside. So Sister Elizabeth Kennedy helped me a lot, and the Institute helped me a lot, and all those people helped me.

[19:34]

Getting me ready to then be helped by the Buddhist tradition in a more literal and formal sense, but we can see it there before it even begins. So anyway, as I said yesterday, I've come here to play the gentle way. If you have any ideas of how to do that, I say I've come here to play, but I have a little problem, a little conundrum, and that is... The setup of me sitting here and you all looking at me is a little bit funny for play. So to some extent I feel like I should leave the room, but then I wouldn't be here to play with you.

[20:40]

But before I leave the room, I just want to let you know that I completely support you to play with each other and me. And if you have any creative ideas of how we can play for a little while here before we die, I welcome you to express any ideas you have. Because, you know, when swimming in the ocean seals, Samadhi, there is a time for creativity. There is a time for clarity. Okay, that's the idea. Yeah.

[21:52]

We could work together. Other people could do it too if they want, but this is what it involves doing a diet. You gave a talk on a subject that some of the duties, but you can't use it now. I'm working your hands. Okay. Someone's going to give us... Someone's going to give it to... Yeah. I'd like to... Yeah. [...] I don't know.

[23:12]

. [...] Thank you. So what? I'm so quiet.

[24:14]

So quiet. Quiet and thirsty and dead. Good to meet you. How about you? [...] . . . [...]

[25:36]

I'm feeling like I'm not leaving yet. I'm feeling like [...] Thank you for following me, John. . [...]

[26:52]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't, that's it. But one minute, one second. One second, one second. What's that?

[27:54]

Okay. That's okay. ... [...] Yes, sir.

[28:56]

White, white, [...] You can speak it. [...] He said the duck will learn to dance.

[30:06]

He never believed it. He never believed it. Do you believe it? Do you believe it? Do you believe it? I don't think I'm looking forward to that.

[31:07]

I don't know. [...] My heart is very bad. It feels so horrible. It's all in the room. I feel small. You know, I picked it up to him. Hiding. That's all.

[32:16]

I'm thinking you're a boxer and I totally want to do a boxing lesson. All right, well, good night. Before I get into boxing lessons, go ahead. I didn't know. I think I was quite active. Yeah, it could have been 18. Yeah. [...] Get away. [...]

[33:23]

Get away. [...] There's two of me. I don't see anything. [...] You're the most gentle boss.

[34:27]

You saw. I'm respectful. Bell. Bell. You don't have to walk around. Walk around. Walk around. You don't have to walk [...] around.

[35:32]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [...] Oh, not there. Oh, here. Can I put it on the back of it? Yes, yes. Can I put it on the back of it? No. I'm in there. No, I'm in there. OK, yes. Let's look at it. Here's the back of it. What? What?

[36:47]

Thank you. [...] I don't know. [...] Thank you, how can you... I can help you out on me. I'm going to eat my robot. I'm going to eat my robot.

[38:05]

What's going on? [...] . . . . . Thank you. Thank you.

[39:16]

. [...] This is the first time we've talked about a row. You look like Jack. You look like Jack. You look like Jack. If you need better.

[40:19]

Do you feel sorry? I think you'd love something more. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [...] no. Oh, my child is praying. It's praying. Thank you.

[41:23]

Thank you. [...] Good. Good. Good. Thank you.

[42:40]

Oh, my God. Do you like any scouts? No, no, no, no.

[43:46]

No, no, no. Go, go, go! What?

[44:47]

What? What? You're not. You're just by fire.

[45:57]

No, I'm not. [...] Thank you. The ocean seals.

[47:26]

Well, what do you think about it? What do you mean badly? Well, you kids had some sex. Did you have this time?

[48:29]

Yes. It's mostly nice to live before. There's a lot to make it. What's that? [...] . . . .

[49:34]

... [...] Please, please, [...] .

[50:37]

. [...] Thank you. Okay, there's only one time there's a TV version.

[51:41]

Okay, there's only one time there's a TV version. Okay, you can stop the TV version. It's only one time there's a TV version. It shows the TV version. I love you. I love you. I can't promise that. This time. It's like it's very hard to love you. Then look.

[52:54]

Huh? Huh? Thank you. I don't eat so much, I don't want to.

[53:59]

You don't want to. You don't want to. Okay, ready? Are you ready? I've never been more ready. Here it comes. Are you ready? Okay, ready? And for it, don't fuck up it. Oh, my God. [...] I think I'll pick my whiskey up here, you know what I'm saying?

[55:28]

Here we go. I don't know. Thank you. Ha ha [...]

[56:43]

Everything you'd like to do for me is you and my wife. I want you to see me. Is there anything you'd like to bring up before I'm telling you, doctor? The truth, the practice, which is related for... ...is not related to the fact that it's [...] not related to

[57:29]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_18.7