There has been a request, a couple of people have requested having a shosan ceremony. A shosan ceremony is a ceremony in which one of the community members sits in a chair in the middle of the room, or stands in the middle of the room, and then all the other people in the room come up one by one, usually one by one, and express themselves, usually in the form of a question, and then fairly short, and then the person who's being questioned responds. And so we've done that here many times, so that's been requested again, and I just thought

[01:02]

I'd mention that, and also say to you if there's anything you'd like to bring up tonight about anything, but particularly about things we've been discussing the previous few weeks, either on Wednesday nights, or in class, or on weekend talks, or any other venue that you've been discussing Dharma, is there anything you want to bring up? This might be a good occasion to do so. Alejandro?

[02:05]

Can you speak about the phrase, one continuous mistake? This phrase, one place it appears is in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, I believe, and so Suzukuro, she at least said it, I guess, once, and the phrase kind of caught on at Zen Center, so since that time, a lot of people have been practicing that way. So they felt, I guess, encouraged, they thought, oh, I make mistakes, and I guess Suzukuro, she's saying that maybe that's our way, Bodhisattva's way is one continuous mistake.

[03:11]

And I actually looked up the characters of this expression, and the Chinese characters, because he didn't just say one continuous mistake, that was his translation of a Chinese term, which I think appears not just in Zen, but in Chinese texts, and I think that is also a translation, I believe, of an Indian teaching, Indian Buddhist teaching. But other translations of that term are quite different. For example, one translation is making the best of a bad situation, or making the best

[04:25]

of a mistake, or making the best of an error. As a practice. So, that's sometimes the way the Chinese is translated. Another way it can be translated is recognizing a mistake as a mistake, and recognizing unskillfulness as unskillfulness, and in the Indian tradition, which records the words of the Buddha, this expression is sometimes, the way it's usually put is, acknowledging or recognizing a mistake as a mistake, or recognizing a mistake for what it is. But the Buddha then goes on to say that when we do that, when we acknowledge a mistake

[05:37]

as a mistake, the Dharma wheel turns. So, Suzuki Raiji's rendering or interpretive translation of that could be understood as, well, we make mistakes all the time, so let's admit it, or it's good to notice all the mistakes we're making, and admit them and acknowledge them. It's not that we're trying to make mistakes, it's just that we do, and acknowledging them, learning how to acknowledge them, is a practice, and the Dharma practice goes forward in the simple acknowledgement of our mistakes, and the continuousness of it is, you know, practically

[06:42]

speaking, if you look at each moment in some sense, in a sense, although there's nothing in the term that would justify continuous, in fact, our mistakes are in a sense continuous in the sense that we continually mistake things, we continually mistake things for what they aren't, or we continually mistake things for being something that they aren't. We continually see things as separate from us. And then someone might say, well, what about when you're enlightened and you don't see things in that way, or what about when you see things that way, but you know it's a mistake, and you don't fall for it? And what if you were continuously noticing that mistake, and you notice it so often that

[07:45]

after a while you don't fall for it anymore? So maybe there would be an end to continuous mistakes, or perhaps at that point you would also realize that all the beings who still fall for it are not separate from you. So you never really extricate yourself from the process of this continuous mistake. So in one sense, this could be interpreted as, let's be humble about the human situation, and another thing is, let's also be brave to face it. Not just necessarily go around, oh, I mistake mistakes all the time, but notice it, notice the mistakes, notice the little mistakes, the big mistakes, and the fundamental mistake. Keep in touch with the fundamental error, continuously, and continuously keep in touch

[08:51]

with how it seems that what we're aware of is something other than ourselves, or that what the mind is aware of is separate from the mind, that what's out there is something other than mind. Keep aware of that, and then even keep aware of how we kind of believe it, even though we heard a teaching that's not so, basically we still believe it. But we would like to learn, even though we're still making mistakes, we would like to learn to get over it, so that's pretty good. So that's a way to talk about it that I think goes along with Siddhartha's saying continuous, even though that's not a literal translation, but the original term I think harmonizes with his encouragement to notice how continuous at least the most fundamental and subtle mistake is. Does that make sense? So that's a practice for us that's quite available.

[09:52]

Yes? I have a question I have. I remember we talked last time, and we talked about the signs, and that they're not the same as the mind, but they're not so easy because they're out there, too, like the signs of component phenomena, they're there, and then our mind... Did you say designs? Designs. Or signs, uh-huh. So my question is, by watching this, you know, it's just an observation, and there's constantly meaning there, so the meaning, there's constantly a story right there, and I wonder, to bridge the gap, maybe we can talk about bridging the gap of just seeing something and designating it, and then suddenly being in a huge field of stories about it, that seems to be so far from just designating this is an object, and then immediately there's

[10:57]

a whole story about it, and I wonder, how come it's so far? How come we need to have so much around us on meanings, and, you know, I don't know. Well, that's good. Did you understand what she said? So, in one sense, you know, what's happening is immediate, we have an immediate life, but in its immediacy it's not meaningful, but if we interpret immediacy as referring to something, then immediacy suddenly has significance or meaning, and we are to some extent addicted to meaning. Our nervous system is kind of like geared for meaning. A lot of us feel really comfortable when what's happening is meaningful, and when it's not meaningful, we can feel quite uncomfortable, although we can sometimes tolerate it.

[12:00]

I often use the example of tolerating it for a few seconds when you're traveling, you know, and you wake up in a foreign country and you look at the ceiling in your motel room or something, and there's a little while where you're kind of like, okay, you know, I can stand this. Even you can stand a little while not knowing whether it's the ceiling or the floor, or the wall. Sometimes it's like, it could be the wall, it could be a ceiling, and you say, well, that's still pretty meaningful. But it's anyway a little bit loosening up, like, what and what the orientation of the surface is, we can stand it a little bit, what country we're in, and how about who is the person in this room? Is it me in this room or somebody else? You know, this kind of stuff we can stand for a little while. And then we say, that's enough of that, and we just settle it, get it straight again, and come back to work. Ah, I tried something unusual, huh?

[13:04]

So, I've been talking to people about this, and I'm sort of wondering, can we look at what's happening, can we meet immediacy without interpreting it and making it meaningful? Can we stand to face it? And that's maybe possible. So, part of us can stand the direct impact of the moment and not be able to have any meaning of it, but another part of us knows what to do with that and makes meaning out of it by interpreting it as referring to something. And, in some ways, actually, they both happen at the same time, really, but distinguishing between them will help us stop believing that the interpretation of what's happening as referring to something is not the same as the thing that's happening. It's not. But the sign embraces both the immediacy, that doesn't mean anything, and the interpretation

[14:21]

of the thing, which does mean something. So, that's part of our study of continuous mistake. And if you're making mistakes all the time, this is one of the mistakes you can study, but it requires some education to find it, which we're doing right now in studying signs, and as I said last week, when we're cultivating insight alone, this is one of the things we're cultivating, studying or attending to these signs, which means that I'm seeing signs all the time, and I'm seeing both my interpretation of what's happening, and I'm also seeing the immediate impact of what's happening. Both are happening, and to pay attention to that is what it's like to study insight. So then, it's not so much a matter of not having any meaning, just not believing that

[15:26]

the meaning is really what's happening. Well, we don't usually think that the meaning is what's happening, it's just that it's meaningful for us to think that our interpretation of what's happening is what's happening. That's meaningful. We don't usually think, like if I meet you and it feels meaningful, I don't think meaningful is what's happening, I think you, in a meaningful way, are what you are. We can believe that there's meaning, but to believe that the thing I use to make meaning, namely interpreting you in your immediacy for me, as referring to, for example, Luminous Owl or something, that's the mistake. And your idea of me is really what I am. Well, my idea of you as being this thing which refers to something, that's the mistake. And so the meaning can keep coming, but it's also good to be able to tolerate some shakiness

[16:31]

or breaks in the meaning in this process. And this naturally does come in the process because as we study these things we keep losing meaning as we're discussing it because as we probe the depths of this we have trouble finding a way to find a reference to the new level of understanding that's emerging. So we have to... This, right, shake up your meaning. Yeah. It really, it really worked. I think as red as he's getting, it's really working. But then also, as I mentioned last week, if you're cultivating in this sutra, if you're cultivating this tranquility, I mean this insight work by studying this process of interpreting

[17:33]

what's happening so that we can get meaning, and studying that process, and then the other process is letting go of interpreting things and making stories out of all that, letting go of the wandering around and making something out of this interpretation, letting go of that, and just doing that is developing tranquility. And then when you combine the two, let me say one more thing, and that is that if you study this process of signification, the process of meaning-making that we're making in the world of change, if you study that alone, that's not actually insight unless you're in a state of tranquility. So the sutra says, if somebody's studying this very thing we're talking about here, but you're not in a state of tranquility, is that insight work? And the sutra says, no, it's not. It is intensified effort concordant with insight, concordant with vipassana. So you can prepare to study vipassana by doing this kind of discussion and thinking about

[18:40]

these things and using your discursive thought to meditate on phenomena this way, look at the text, have discussions and do all that, that can be concordant with vipassana, but it's not actually vipassana unless you're quite calm. But the calm that you're practicing this in is the state of calm. It's not the practice of cultivating tranquility. It is the tranquil state which is the fruit of giving up discursive thought. When you go back now and combine both cultivation practices, and you can cultivate tranquility in a state of tranquility. So you can be quite calm and then in the calm state you can continue to cultivate calm by in a calm state giving up discursive thought. The calm will generally speak and get deeper in that case. But you can also give up the practice of calm and just enjoy the calm once you've attained

[19:42]

it and then go over to the insight. And that's authentic insight work that's done in that context. Once you're doing that kind of insight in calm, then you can now do this new thing of combining the two where in a state of calm you're practicing both using discursive thought to study what's happening, and you're also simultaneously giving up discursive thought. And these two start to combine, giving up discursive thought, giving up wandering thought, giving up trying to relate the teaching to what's happening, giving it up in a state of calm, and in a state of calm using discursive thought simultaneously to analyze and then examine what's going on and what mistakes am I making. And they start to combine the two. And as the two start to combine, the object changes. It changes from mental attention to giving up discursive thought and mental attention

[20:46]

to using discursive thought to study phenomena, it changes to mental attention to mistake. It starts to be mental attention to the thing you're studying is not other than the mind. So in that way we shift from studying mistake to looking at things the way they really are. And I don't want to say that's the end of our mistakes, but anyway, we're actually not mistaken anymore. When we actually combine the two and they become united. We practice them separately, we start combining them, but they can be combined but not be united. When they're combined and actually become united, then the thing we're looking at changes from what it was in either realm. It's no longer what is seen in tranquility and it's no longer what is seen in insight. It's a new level of insight. So in that sense, at that moment anyway, there's no more mistake.

[21:52]

However, in order to continue to develop, we have to shift out of that meditation on no mistake back into the realm of mistake in order to practice virtues. And at the end of the course of the Buddhist path, the Buddha sees both realms simultaneously. Both realms means he sees the realm of mistake and the realm of no mistake simultaneously. Before that, from the point at which you combine the two and can actually see the way things are, from that time until Buddhahood is fully realized, we alternate back and forth between seeing emptiness and seeing form, for example. Go back and forth. We do not practice virtues in emptiness, in the vision of emptiness. We practice virtue in the vision of form, and forms look like they're out there. So actually, this kind of plays into the earlier question of, in that sense, we continue to make mistakes because we continue to have to go back to the realm

[22:54]

where things appear to be a way they're not, which is the conventional world. So back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And at the end, the Buddha is not going back and forth anymore. The Buddha straddles both worlds simultaneously, perfectly, completely. Always looking at the way things are, and always looking at the way they aren't. Or always looking at the way they are when your vision is clear, and always looking at them the way they are when your vision is obscured. Seeing both obscured and clear versions of the world simultaneously, and also again verifying that they're non-dual in the Buddha's mind. So that's a kind of review of last week, if you remember the discussion. Yes? In the Bible, there's some line about God creating the university, saw that it was good, right? Something like that? Hmm? Something like that. Yeah, something like that. And when you look at the universe, would you say it's good?

[23:55]

Would you use the word good? Would I? Yes. What? Not that I'm God, no. When you look at suffering, would you say that's good? The universe is good except for this thing called suffering, and that's not so good. I think, as I was talking about earlier today, I think there's something really good about suffering, because suffering tells us that something's rotten in Denmark. Suffering is a signal to us. It can be meaningful. In other words, it refers to a condition which dependently co-arises with a mistaken vision. When we don't see things properly, we're stressed, and part of our life is that we have to see things in a way that they're not,

[24:56]

otherwise we can't talk about them. So this mistaking things for our interpretation of them, that's a mistake, but we need to do that in order to carry on ordinary human life and not only go to high school, but get a date. The kids are very concerned with that. Now, we've graduated from that, but we still have the equipment that we used at that time. Now we just use it for following the schedule and having meetings. But also, remember, the Bible also says, I think before the thing about it was good, didn't the Bible say, in the beginning there was the Word and it was good? Different part? Oh, and he was one with the Word, or what?

[25:58]

In the beginning there was the Word and he was one with the Word? Yes? What was going on in that Old Testament, the Genesis, that in the beginning, you know, there was darkness, there was a void, and God did all the creation. Then the Gospel of John, which is playing on that earlier... Oh, I see. ...saying in the beginning there was God. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was God, and so they're playing with the idea that in the beginning, kind of like the Word of God creates everything, in the New Testament saying that Word is God... I see. ...who then becomes man and comes to earth. Yeah, so to study that would be, if you were in a state of tranquility and you studied that, that would be studying signs. There it is right there. And it's good. Okay, and I can see that could be good for people who, they suffer and they examine it, and then they can kind of come to some realization about suffering. What about all the people who just suffer in their life,

[27:00]

just more suffering, more suffering, more suffering until they die, is that really good? If it's not suffering, is that used to kind of awaken some beneficence from that in their lives, that it's just suffering? Well, it seems like the story you told is a story of people who think suffering is not good. Yeah. Yeah. And we all know how to do that. We all know how to say, this is not good. This suffering is not good. And that frame is used quite frequently and doesn't seem to be much good. You say it's not good. I think good means to be free, to be at peace, to be fearless and compassionate. That's good. That's what I mean by good. And I think in Christianity and Judaism and Buddhism it's kind of the same value. I was asking, is there a radio in there? Yeah. We can listen to NPR now, they have a show on now

[28:01]

about talking about, you know, for example, you know, how God actually is sometimes represented as peaceful and loving. You know, like Mohammed said, anybody who attacks a Jew or a Christian attacks me personally. And so, you know, there is that message in various traditions, including the tradition which some people think they're upholding by attacking Jews and Christians. So, anyway, if that's what we mean by good, then I would say it might be good to frame the universe and everything in it as good. But it doesn't mean you don't, like, try to relieve people from some of this good stuff. From everything. Because people can become stressed over pain

[29:06]

and they can be stressed over pleasure. So everything, pain and suffering, all can be framed as an opportunity to enter. Like the Samadhi, every Atom Samadhi we're studying, right? No matter what it is, enter. And then arise from what... enter what's happening and arise from what's happening. And demonstrate for yourself and all beings that this is our life. And there's freedom in that. That's what life is. Essentially, one could meditate on that. But it doesn't mean that you think that attaching to suffering is a good idea, or attaching to anything is a good idea. But you still might say, well, attaching is good too. Attachment is good.

[30:06]

When you see a kid attaching, little kids, they learn how to attach, it's good. When you see monkeys grab on to their mom, it's good. There's something good about everything. Matter of fact, everything is an opportunity to enter the Buddha's Samadhi. Everything. So everything is a gate to Buddha's life. Everything is a gate to Dharma. There's nothing that isn't a gate to Dharma. Doesn't mean that everything is Dharma, but everything be a gate to Dharma. The way suffering looks is not Dharma. The way pleasure looks is not Dharma. But pleasure and pain are opportunities to enter into Dharma. So in that sense, they're good. Okay. So, this is the last question. This is the last question? So, I mean, I can see that everything gives an opportunity to enter, but there's always missed opportunities

[31:07]

that people have had throughout their time. Isn't that a bad thing that they've missed these opportunities, and there's people who've gone through a whole lot, and they've missed these opportunities to kind of awaken or enter into this thing, and it's just been suffering for them? Isn't that kind of like a bad thing about the universe? Well, you could say it's bad, but the fact that you feel bad about it is good. You know? Like I said earlier today, Jung said something like, don't squander your problems. Don't squander? Squander means like to waste. Don't waste your problems. Don't like say, you know, use your problems. They're very important for our development, for us to realize our life. Don't waste, don't squander them. So, if you do miss the opportunity, that is a waste. You wasted an opportunity, and it's not good. But if you realize it's not good, that's good. Now, what do you say, what if I don't even realize it's bad? What if I think it's good?

[32:09]

Well, if you think it's good, then you're happy that you missed the opportunity. Then it wasn't a problem. But we can suffer. So, we don't have a problem there. I guess the real problem is how to use the problems. Is that the last question? Not what I said it was. Yeah, you said it was, but you know, study that. Asking questions is good, too. And not asking questions is good, too. So, if you want to go listen to NPR now.

[33:20]

Yes? How do you feel about offering a show concert? How do I feel about it? I... I have mixed feelings. I guess part of the problem is that I think when people said that they wanted a show song ceremony, they wanted me to be the person in the middle of the room. I wouldn't have a problem with somebody else being in the middle of the room. But for somebody to ask me, would you stand in the middle of the room, I have some kind of, a little bit of a problem with that. What is the problem? It seems kind of like, it looks like things aren't like, somehow, it might support the idea of us being separate. Like I'm the teacher and you're the... Fukutena. Don't I need to go to Fukutena any time? But maybe we don't experience it that way.

[34:25]

Show song as separation. Yeah, that would be great, wouldn't it? In the last show song, I asked you about the red lock of chair and what you would do in sitting there. Do you remember that question? No. Does anybody remember the answer? Fu, what was the answer? You can't remember? Maya, can you remember? We have a red lock of chair that we can use on such occasions. It's got gold decorations on it. It would be a shame to squander it. It would be a shame to squander the problem chair. It's kind of a problem chair, isn't it?

[35:29]

What? Put the questioner in the chair. I have a questioner in the chair. The questioner in the chair. Okay, that sounds good. We already did that. We had people come up and give talks and answer questions. It had mixed reviews. Okay. One of the people that was upset about it said that the consequences of switching the tables like that were very upsetting. And so, was there an awareness that some people would be very disturbed by having many people come up and sit in that seat?

[36:33]

Who's taking care of that? So, when you change a tradition, if you don't consult with everybody about it, somebody might get really disturbed by it. It's a tricky thing. Was that a signification of being disturbed? Yeah, right. As part of the practice, the disturbance signification can sometimes be very pivotal, but you can make a mistake. And if you have a big group, how are you keeping track of all the disturbances you're creating in the whole group? You know. One time someone sat next to me during Tangario at Tassajara. Just by chance, the person was assigned a seat next to me. You know, the Tangari people were just sitting all around the room and that's the way that thing was set up for that period of time.

[37:36]

And that person, you know, took that seriously, that seat assignment, and for five days, just sort of like taking that as a meaningful seat assignment, as meaning something in relationship to the habit. And it was really, the person got all out of this orientation. And nobody noticed, though, because they were sitting in Tangario quietly, right? But then when Tangario was over, she came out, and people immediately noticed that she was in another world. And so I went over and talked to her, and sure enough, there was like this... She was inside of a clear plastic bottle, and she was very happy in there, and I kind of went, hello? I said, you know, come back, you've got to come back. If you don't come back, it's not going to work.

[38:39]

You know, you can't be here like this. And she wouldn't come back. I said, well, I can't tell you to leave, and the community won't let me do that, but I think really you should. So, anyway, so I went and told the community about this, and sure enough, they didn't want her to leave. They wanted to try to help her with it, and she just kept the whole community up all night for several days, because the energy of this, of the space she went into by this disturbance of the signification of who she was and everything, just, you know, she couldn't sleep, and so basically she wore out all the people who were trying to take care of her, because people all didn't feel like you could leave her alone at night, because she's awake all night. So she wore people out, and then finally said, and then, so then, and I said, okay, I'm leaving Tassajara. So I got in the car, and she got in with me because of sitting next to me. She sat next to me,

[39:40]

and we drove out, and I got out of the car, and the car kept going, and as soon as she got to the medical facility, she snapped out of it, because she realized this wasn't a joke, you know, us saying, you know, it wasn't just a test to see if she really got it. We really were not kidding that she was not playing the game with us anymore. Then when she got to the hospital, she said, well, these are regular doctors, there's no Zen students around, and she just snapped right out of it. But it, so it's, you know, these things are powerful that we have here, these seats and these chairs, so we've got to be careful. So that's why, in some sense, I don't want to do the ceremony. because it's this thing, you know, somebody's sitting in that seat. Who's sitting in that seat? It reminds me of that situation where in 1987, I was invited to go with a bunch of Christian

[40:42]

Protestant bishops to go meet the Pope and his bishops when he was visiting. He went to Carmel Mission to start the process of canonizing what's his name? Bonifacio, yeah. And it was really neat, and I really liked the Pope's bishops. His jishus are all bishops. But they really, they had a really, they felt they very much had the energy of monastic Zen monks. They were kind of really energetic guys. And they were, you know, like 60 years old, 70 years old. And the Pope was very nice, very nice vibes. Really, really, really wonderful, great compassionate feeling. And then I heard that after that, there's a cathedral in Helena, Montana. I think of Montana as a Catholic place, and it's not, but there is a cathedral in Helena,

[41:46]

the capital of Montana. And so he went, he went to Montana, but the distance from the airport to the cathedral was a long ways. And when he was, when he was driving in the back of the limousine, he told the chauffeur that before he was the Pope, one of his favorite activities was driving. He used to like to drive. And the chauffeur said, well, we're out in the middle of nowhere. This isn't a motorcade or anything. You can drive for a while if you want to. And the Pope got in the car and started driving, and he started going really fast. And he got pulled over. And the state trooper came up to his car, you know, and looked in the window

[42:47]

and saw who it was. And he went back to his partner and said, the person in this car is a very important person. I know who it is, a very famous and important person. I can't give this person a ticket. And his partner says, no, go ahead, give him a ticket. You shouldn't, don't make exceptions, give him a ticket. So he went back, he started writing out the ticket, and he just couldn't do it. He went back and said, I can't do it. And the guy says, well, who is it? He said, I don't know who's in the back seat, but the Pope's the chauffeur. So, you know, that's the problem of having this. You know what cathedral means, right?

[43:49]

Cathedral means chair. Cathedral is where the chair is. So, he said, well, let's just not have the chair. But anyway, that's part of the problem of having a chair, is this thing about, well, is God here, some place? Is the Divine here? So it's a touchy business, this stuff. And so, even if a person who's got the right hat on and stuff sits in the chair, it's still touchy, but to have, to start switching it around, have a lot of people come up and sit in the in the Pope's seat or the Bishop's seat, we don't know, we've got to be careful, we don't know what we're doing here with these archetypes, right? So, I was kind of open to it, but it really disturbs some people. And it was very, but it liberates lots of energy too, you know, people can stay up all night with that stuff, but it's, huh? It's, yeah, it can be, it can liberate, but it can also push people

[44:52]

into like another box, like, okay, well that means I'm something or other. So that's a little bit, that's part of my problem with these, with the ceremony. And so, but, you know, I'm thinking about it and if you have any guidance, maybe the community can figure out a way to do it that is kind of like sophisticated or, you know, in terms of the issues that are at play here. That's not, you know, not a naive idea, well we're just having a little Shosan ceremony. There's something, there's a shadow side to this stuff. It's interesting, it happens sometimes in a really lovely way. It strikes me that everything, a lot of what you've been talking about, the whole period, can't be resembled without that arrangement. Something like that,

[45:53]

because it strikes me so much of the Well, you're right. But I mean, I'm kind of enough outside the system. But there is a form. The ceremony has a form. And supposedly, part of the reason you're having the form is to contain this energy. So, it might be good for us to meditate on is the form sufficient to contain this in a healthy way. And we've actually downplayed the form in certain ways. I used to hit a drum beforehand, which gets the heart pumping, you know, and, you know, and come in with a procession and inkings and stuff. We sort of downplay some of those things. But that's, you know, the usual way. In Japan, you know, the way they do it, actually, they sometimes have stock answers, almost. And, so anyway, there it is for your consideration and I'm considering it too. Anything else

[46:54]

you want to bring up tonight? Yes? Last week, in your opening comments, you gave some nice summary of kind of where we were going. And I had a question about innate. You said something about how we aren't innately something. And I have got this disagreement come up. And do you remember what your comments were in terms of we aren't innately gifted to see wisely? Or I can't quite remember. And that we have a tendency towards what you were actually saying, what our tendencies were. I can't quite catch what that... Well, I don't remember exactly, but I

[47:54]

think that I just, I said it tonight too, didn't I? That all beings fully possess the wisdom and virtue of the Buddha. Didn't I say that tonight? I didn't? I said it at the tea. The Buddha said all beings fully possess the wisdom and virtue of the Buddhas, of all the Buddhas. And then later in the same chapter the Buddha says all beings fully possess the wisdom and virtue of all the Buddhas, but they don't realize therefore I need to teach. So we we innately possess the wisdom of the Buddhas, but we also innately possess physically a nervous system which interprets what's happening in such a way that it's strongly under the influence of the predisposition towards conventional designation. Because of our language-oriented nature of our nervous system we're predisposed to see things in a way to make that possible, but in order to make

[48:55]

verbal designation possible, conventional designation, not just verbal designation, but conventional designation possible, we have to miss-see things. So we're innately also gifted with the ability to speak. And part and parcel of that is we're innately gifted with the ability to project upon things a packaging which then we misconstrue as the thing. So I look at you and I package you, you look at me and you package me, but my packaging of you is not you, but if I don't package you I can't talk about you. On the other hand, if I do package you then I can make designations, but an unpackaged person you can't talk about or talk with. And the Buddhas also package people so they can talk to them, so they can say, oh, Kara, Steph, Will, they do that, they package you to say your names too, but the Buddha does it not by predisposition but by creative intention.

[49:55]

They intentionally create the package. We do it instinctively or habitually or impulsively, so we have to counteract that impulse and part of it is to notice that impulse, to notice that mistake. It's not really a mistake to package people, it's a mistake to think that the way we package them is them. So we say beauty is only skin deep, but it's more like the skin we put on things obscures the beauty. The actual beauty of people is the basis upon which we put this package, which we say is beautiful or not beautiful, but we really put the package on not to obscure the beauty even though it does, but so we can talk about the beauty. So we love beauty, but we also want to talk about it. So then we make a compromise. So that's maybe

[50:56]

what I was talking about. There's an English expression called beauty is only skin deep, but in the Buddha Dharma it's more like beauty is underneath the skin and we put a packaging on beauty, we put a skin on beauty, which we sometimes call beautiful and sometimes called not beautiful, but the package we put over it actually obscures the beauty and we're willing to obscure the beauty because then we can name the beauty, but the actual beauty that's underneath the skin of things that we put on them, that's really much more, that's very deep and if we don't interpret it, it's not meaningful. So we package it and interpret it and it's meaningful and then we feel pretty good, but we lose the beauty in the process even though it's still there right in front of us, actually hitting us all the time,

[51:57]

but in an unmeaningful way. And also Rilke talks about you know, beauty is a terror we just barely can stand, it's the beginning of a terror we can barely stand. So it comes at us and we go, and then we package it. We can stand just for a little while and then we package it. So let's get in touch with that, let's notice that we just, we have a problem directly accepting how awesome everybody is and us too. Right? It's hard. No, I think, I think it's more like by projecting in essence on things we get meaning. So that's part of why we like self is because self makes possible meaning. If you don't project

[52:59]

an essence on things, it's the packaging is kind of like a self. If you don't cut things off from their causal nexus, they're not meaningful in the usual sense, the habitual sense. So that's our addiction to meaning and predisposition towards conventional designation, self is a thing we can use to facilitate that process. So all animals and plants have the ability to work with some sense of being isolated, but we're really into it in our language process. Thank you very much. I minister every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[54:02]

Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Dilutions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to be kind.

[54:34]

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