And now a word from our sponsor. Our sponsor is Love. Years ago, when I was a kid, they used to have ads for baby food, Gerber's baby food. And they said something like, babies are our business, our only business.

[01:08]

So you could say, too, in Buddhist practice, love is our business, our only business. But then someone might say, well, isn't happiness our business, our only business? Yes, that's our only business. But love is our happiness. Kind of the same thing. And by love I mean all the different kinds of love from the first love to the last love, including all the conventional kinds of love, or we love something, something about ourself, something about somebody else, or we love somebody else, or we love ourself, but anyway, there seems to be something out there we love, something we're devoted to, the welfare of.

[02:43]

And that's love, and love also has many other ways, until finally there's a love which doesn't have any objects, a love that's conjoined with perfect wisdom and purified of all duality. So love is a kind of busyness. It's an activity. But it can be conjoined with wisdom, which doesn't do anything, but just is the way things are. So out of love, out of pure love, non-dual love, the Buddhas have taught the truth.

[04:09]

The Buddhas offer love, offer compassion. and offer all kinds of ways to love, to practice love. And one of the ways they practice love is to offer us the truth. And the truth that they offer comes in two basic varieties, conventional truth and ultimate truth. And conventional truth is the world of dualistic awareness. Conventional truth is dualistic awareness, awareness of something out there, something separate from ourselves. It's awareness of birth and death.

[05:19]

It's the awareness of things arising and ceasing. There's a truth in this. And Buddhas actually see, enlightened beings actually see things arise and cease. They can see that. They can see the appearance of things and the disappearance of things. And they teach in that realm where things appear and disappear. And they use the mind which sees things appear and disappear to give love to beings who see things appear and disappear. They offer truth in the realm of birth and death to beings who live in birth and death.

[06:27]

This is their love. And they offer this teaching to people who live in this realm of birth and death so that they can become free of the misery of birth and death, of arising and ceasing. The Buddhas also see ultimate truth and they teach ultimate truth to those who are willing to practice love in the world of birth and death. And the ultimate truth is is that in ultimate truth there really isn't appearance and disappearance.

[07:43]

There really isn't birth and death. There aren't things out there separate from ourselves. We have no life and no love independent of other beings. We're not isolated. We're not busy. We're basically peaceful and quiet and free of the pain of birth and death. Buddhists can see both worlds simultaneously. So part of their love is to encourage us to look at these two truths. And before we get into the ultimate truth, we have to face up to the conventional truth.

[08:53]

And the way of facing up to it is fundamentally through love. If we can face, lovingly contemplate, and face up to the world of birth and death, we can become intimate with it and realize its ultimate nature and be free of it. completely free of it. So free of it that we give it up. We give up the freedom. We give up the peace.

[09:54]

We give up the vision that there's no birth and death and there's nobody separate from us and there's no suffering. we give it up and happily re-enter the world where there is birth and death and continue to practice love so that the enlightened body is manifested in the world of appearance and disappearance. So, the practice is to go round and round between the two truths starting with conventional truth, deeply studying it, deeply contemplating it, becoming lovingly intimate with it, seeing its ultimate nature, being liberated from it, and returning to the world of birth and death to continue to practice the love which was the basis of our

[11:08]

transcendence of it. So entering deeply the world of suffering, transcending it, coming back, entering deeply, transcending it, and making Buddha bodies. Babies are our only business. Making Buddha babies is our only business. Of course, then you take care of them after they're born so they can grow up. Now I'd like to mention something which really should be mentioned later, but I might forget, so I'll mention it now, and maybe later too, and that is someone said to me recently in a retreat at Tassajara studying the two truths, he said, after someone realizes ultimate truth and sees that there's nothing out there, there's no one separate really,

[12:52]

There's no separate beings. Everybody's really just who you really are. And you see there's no birth and death or arising and ceasing. Can you come back into the world of birth and death and get married? Today there's going to be a wedding ceremony here at Green Gulch, and I think two people are going to get married during that ceremony. They're already married, but I think they're going to, like, become ceremonially and ritually married and legally married probably too. And there's going to be people there to witness this marriage. So it'll be another dimension of their marriage.

[13:54]

So this guy says, well, do the Buddhas, when they come back into the world of birth and death, can they get married? And if you'll excuse me for quoting myself, I said, yes, they can get married. They marry all sentient beings. They marry everybody. He didn't say, yeah, but can they marry like one person? Can they marry one among all? And yes, you could do that too. I don't think that they could marry, you know, all of them in the usual legal way. Maybe they could. Maybe they'd be kind of an exception for Buddhas.

[14:58]

So some Zen students think about getting married and they wonder, can we get married without that turning into the conditions for excluding some others? Like, you know, you marry one person, will that make you exclude other people from your heart? Will marriage make your heart kind of narrow on this one person? And, well, from the point of view of the Buddhist practice, hopefully not. Matter of fact, I think that if you would marry one person in the spirit of this practice of love, that one person's relationship with that one person, if it's practiced properly, would open you up to others. And your commitment to others would open you up to that one relationship.

[16:13]

So I've been married for a while, 25 years, and my commitment to many people, to the whole community, and the whole community's commitment to me has helped me be committed to my spouse. Because I know that many people would really appreciate me being very good to my spouse. I know they like that. And I know many people would be really discouraged if I wasn't really kind to my spouse. I think I remember one time I was thinking maybe not to be kind. But then I thought, oh no, don't do that.

[17:19]

That would discourage many people. And then there was another time. And another time. There were many times when I thought, do I have to be patient? Do I have to be generous? Do I have to be careful? Do I have to be enthusiastic? Do I have to be honest? Do I have to be concentrated? Do I have to pay attention to this? Do I have to listen to this? Do I have to stay awake for this? Just for this one person?

[18:20]

It's not just for one person. It's for everybody. So the answer is, always was, yes, So after you're Buddha you marry all beings and each person you're talking to you take care of for the welfare of everybody. That one person you're talking to, whether it's your spouse or your parent or your child or your friend, you know that you have to give your very best to this person because everybody else will be encouraged if you do. And everyone else will be kind of, it'll be hard for people if you don't. So you do. Before you're completely enlightened, you do the same.

[19:25]

Try to do the same. Actually, before you're even a little bit enlightened, you try to do the same. Of course, that's a little enlightenment. So like yesterday, so today's is a wedding, you know? Now, the wedding is at Green Gulch, but my wife thought it was in San Francisco, and she said to me, well, do you want to go swimming today in San Francisco? We swim in San Francisco in the bay. And I said, well, I'd like to, but I'm afraid that if we went into San Francisco after I give the talk this morning, that we'd get caught in a traffic jam and I'll miss the wedding.

[20:37]

Can you imagine if I left here, went into San Francisco, went swimming, and tried to get back out to Marin? I might get caught in a traffic jam. So I might be late for the wedding. I might not get to the wedding on time because there's so much traffic, particularly coming out at that time of day. It's a 3 o'clock wedding. But she thought the wedding was in San Francisco. So she thought, well, we'll just drive in and go swimming and then go to the wedding. She didn't know I needed to come back out to Green Gulch. Then she had another idea. And that was after the wedding to go out for dinner. So from her point of view, we just go in the city, go swimming, go to the wedding, and then at the wedding, go out to dinner. From my point of view, it was give the talk, go into San Francisco, go swimming, come back here, do the wedding, then go out and go to dinner someplace.

[21:49]

Through the traffic again. This time, the traffic jam of people trying to get out of Marin. Do I have to listen to this? Well, the answer is yes. Listen to it. Listening to it is practicing love. Listening to it is practicing love, and practicing love is also called skill and means. It's a way to attract yourself and others to the seat of enlightenment, the seat of enlightenment in the ordinary world of birth and death. You've got to attract yourself to this seat here. It's right here. It's not over there. It's here.

[22:51]

Love is the way you attract yourself to your own seat, and love is the way you help others take their seat. by being patient and generous and careful and enthusiastic and concentrated, you take your seat in this world where you have a spouse, perhaps, who suggests you do very strange things. Because maybe your spouse has a different perspective on reality, different information, different assumptions, whatever. So, you know, here she is suggesting this rather, you know, challenging schedule for me to participate in today. And she said, you know, open up.

[23:53]

Open up to it. So I said, okay. So I just opened to it, you know? Just opened to it. Opened to this amazing thing, you know? And she said, now don't you feel better? And I said, yes I do. I feel great, this is terrific. In my mind I knew this is still almost impossible, but I'm open to it and I do feel good. Just being open to this amazing thing that might happen today. This is called being enthusiastic. I was enthusiastic. I was really happy to be open to this suggestion.

[25:01]

that I basically, you know, fly through the sky. Somehow she found out, through further conversations, that the wedding was at Green Gulch. And she said, oh. Well, forget that idea that I had. This is how to take your seat in the world of birth and death. If somebody tells you, you know, I don't know what, you know, why don't you cut a few of your fingers off this morning?

[26:11]

Well, just the idea of that might be a little uncomfortable. Or if someone criticizes you, that may be painful. There's lots of painful things that can happen in the world of birth and death. As a matter of fact, the world of birth and death, it has its joys, but it's basically painful all the time. There's an ongoing subtle misery which sometimes gets aggravated into intense, super strong misery. But it's basically going on all the time. Because that's the nature of things arising and ceasing. They're disturbing a little or a lot. But the practice of love is to be open to this stuff. Open to say, yeah, okay, okay.

[27:15]

It's painful, but it feels good to be open. It feels good to listen to this misery. This is how you take your seat in birth and death in the conventional world. And you take your seat there, and you become intimate with it, and you become patient with it, and you become enthusiastic about taking that seat in the world of pain. You think it's a really wonderful practice. You're very happy about sitting in the world of suffering. just like a Buddha. You may not yet understand that it's all a dream but you practice love in the meantime and you put your roots down at your seat of enlightenment and these roots will make shoots and these shoots will blossom into understanding

[28:16]

the dreamlike quality of this world of suffering and the liberating true nature of this world of suffering. Love is the way to take our seat, our Buddha seat, in this world. And after we take it, to contemplate how it is there, and to wake up to its true nature.

[29:23]

And after waking up to its true nature, to re-enter the world which is only conventionally true, and to continue to practice love and manifest the body of awakening. Show yourself and other beings that it's possible to be open to this and to say thank you for everything. So even before I got married, my wife would sometimes tease me.

[31:21]

She thought I was teasing, but I thought it was an insult. And feeling insulted, I used to get somewhat irritated and I think, what, angry or something like that. But I, you know, excuse me for saying this, but after 25 years or 27 years of undergoing this treatment, This teasing, these insults, this torture. Now I usually, often, sometimes, laugh when I'm being tortured. Laugh and smile and say, torture me more, insult me more.

[32:37]

Tell me how stupid I am. It's so nice. It's so nice to be free right here in Torture Central. Buddha is great. An aspect of Buddha is to serenely sit and see that the world isn't even happening. And be very happy about the way it isn't happening. But that's not what attracted me to Zen. What attracted me to Zen was that when Buddha comes back in the world and gets poked, sometimes in ways that look like insult or cruelty, Buddha laughs.

[33:54]

Not a kind of contemptuous laugh like, you can't hurt me because I'm Buddha. But more like, it's so wonderful to be married with all beings. It's so wonderful to practice love even in pain. Even in pain which looks like you giving it to me. But that isn't the way it really is. But still, we need wisdom so that we understand that really there's nobody out there, nobody out there attacking us and nobody out there giving us instruction like, open up. It's really just our true body teaching us, giving us a chance.

[35:01]

to come back with love, no matter what. No matter what, come back with love, and then you're sitting on the seat of enlightenment. And you're just exactly like Buddha. Or if you're not, you're really close. You're right on the verge of waking up to the way things really are. And that really everything and everybody is supporting you and just, you know, pushing you and poking you, stabbing you to wake up, to practice love and wake up, practice love and wake up. And I am talking like this for many reasons, but one of the reasons I'm talking like this is a lot of Zen students, a lot of Buddhist meditators are trying to wake up. They're trying to see what is going on and to observe the ultimate truth, which is good.

[36:08]

This is called practicing wisdom, warming up to wisdom. But some of their practice, I notice, dries up because they... They don't have enough love around it. So they ask questions like, who am I? What is it? What's the sound of one hand clapping? Does a bought doggy have Buddha nature? What is Buddha? What is it that thus comes? These are good questions. If you ask them in the right context, They're doors to the ultimate truth. And so is everything. But those are cute ones. But if you ask those questions without being surrounded by love, without having it streaming into you and streaming out of you in the form of generosity, and very careful attention to everything you do and say and think, and patience with this pain, and enthusiasm about the practice, and concentration.

[37:18]

Without that love to attract yourself to this seat, even though you're doing a wonderful practice, you're losing your roots, and you lose your enthusiasm. So you've got to keep practicing love even when you're practicing wisdom or insight. And when you feel that richness of life, of love, then you can go back to these deep, deep questions about how is it happening. How is this happening? How is this birth happening? How is this death happening? How is this arising coming to be? How is this ceasing coming to be? If you see how things arise, how they come to be and how they cease to be,

[38:27]

you will see the ultimate truth. But you have to see that where you are and you have to love where you are and be loved where you are in order to really see this deep truth. Does that make sense to you? If it doesn't, there's a question and answer session. That's probably enough, huh? Had enough? So one of the songs I had today was called All the Way.

[39:32]

And it's a little bit of a problem because I've been singing it lately, but I've been singing the wrong lyrics. So now I have the right lyrics, but I'm afraid if I try, I'm going to screw it up. I should be open to that, right? Okay, here it comes. I'm going to screw it up now. These, I think, are the true lyrics. When somebody loves you It's no good unless they love you All the way Happy to be near you When you need someone to cheer you Come what may Taller than the tallest tree is That's how it's gotta be Deeper than the deep blue sea is That's how deep it goes if it's real

[40:53]

How am I doing? When somebody loves you, it's no good unless they need you. Oh, excuse me. When somebody needs you, it's no good unless they need you. All the way through the good. No. When somebody needs you It's no good unless they need you All the way through the good and lean years And for all the in-between years Come what may Who knows where the road will lead us Only a fool could say But if somebody loves you It's for sure I'm gonna love you All the way All the way

[42:05]

You mean the ones I used to do? I'll do those during question and answer. Thank you for being open to this.

[42:32]

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