I would like to talk a little bit more about this thing called the self-fulfillment sonality. What's that look like? Now all Buddhas and all ancestors who uphold the Buddhadharma have made it the true path of enlightenment to sit upright practicing in the midst of self-fulfilling samadhi. Those who have attained awakening in India and China follow this way.

[01:03]

It was done so because teachers and disciples personally transmitted this excellent method as the essence of the teaching. This goes on, as you know, to say some more things like, in the authentic tradition of our teaching, it is said that this directly transmitted, straightforward Buddha Dharma is the unsurpassable of the unsurpassable. You should just wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind.

[02:04]

It strikes me this morning that the reason that it's the unsurpassable of the unsurpassable is that it's so simple, this practice, this method. So simple, so innocent, so naive is the approach. I had a dream that was something like this. There was either an assassination or an assassination attempt some leader, a president or an abbot or something like that.

[03:07]

And then sort of to figure out how it happened or to prevent it from happening again, or to catch the murderer, I can't remember exactly which, they decided to stage the murder over again. It was staged like on a movie set, like a western movie set. So it was staged like in a saloon, a corner saloon, western saloon. And they had the cameras all set up. They're going to film it, too, I think. And the cameras all set up. And so, like, let's just say, like, this is the corner right here coming to where I am. And the steps going up to the balloon like this. And all these people are in the balloon like you are.

[04:12]

I think the person, and then for some reason, the person that was going to, that was playing the part of the person who was going to be assassinated was me. And so I was getting ready to walk up the steps, you know, and so they had the, you know, the pretend murderer, the actor murderer was inside the saloon someplace, you know, the saloon was all lit up with bright lights and so on. And then up on the balcony above the step, and up there, was actually the real murderer. I don't know if it was a real murderer, but it was... I don't know if it was the real murderer, but it was somebody who was actually going to shoot me. Who was going to actually do the murder in this reenactment of the murder. Who was going to do a murder. And this guy... He's a guy in his, I would say, late 30s or 40s.

[05:14]

He looked kind of like a cross between Donald and Steve Miloski. But darker hair. And so this guy was up on the balcony. He was coming up out of the dark on the balcony. And he came over to the edge to get ready to shoot me. And then the camera came in on his face. And it's sort of like we do in the movies, it came in on his face and then it sort of went into his mind to see what the reason for this guy wanting to shoot me was. And we went into his mind and we saw that the reason why he was going to shoot me, and then he saw this too, the reason why he was going to shoot me was because he was being driven by a criminal.

[06:28]

In other words, he had the idea in his mind of some criminal that he saw that was driving him to shoot me. and he was really angry that this criminal was driving him to murder someone and he woke up from the absurdity of being driven by a criminal he got angry at the idea that his life was being driven by a criminal and he was being driven by a criminal to do criminal things and he got angry at that and did not actually commit the crime. He decided not to have his life being driven by criminals. What? He saw, he had in his mind, he went into his mind, and in his mind there was a criminal, I guess maybe the person he was going to shoot,

[07:35]

whoever he thought I was playing, that person he saw as a criminal, that's why he was going to shoot this person. But then he realized that actually what was going on was that he was a slave of the criminals. That his life was under the dictatorship of criminals. And he got angry at that, and rather than trying to kill the criminal, he didn't. Because if he killed the criminal, the criminal would be boss. the criminal would be puppeteering him. And he got angry at that and didn't do it, and woke up. Does that make sense? It really does, as you shall see. So, self-propilment samadhi. We people go around at various speeds, at various velocities, we move around in this world, driven by what we think is happening.

[08:54]

We have various abstract concepts about what's going on, like this is a criminal or this is a good person, this is my lover, this is my enemy. And based on these abstract ideas, we actually then do things. We are driven to do things by what we think is happening. So, to make a long story short, how can we... What is the way in a situation like that to sort of come down and start living your real life? And so the self-fulfillment samadhi is... to look at the world and realize that no matter where you look, what you see is nothing but yourself.

[10:22]

this will bring you down from the life of believing in your abstract concepts this will make you innocent and unhurt by your concepts of what's happening all these concepts all these criminals all these demons, all these saints, all these Buddha, all these males and females. As not males and females are they targeted. Therefore, we say males and females. What are these males and females dancing before my eyes? They are myself and nothing but myself I look out now at you people I see you with my eyes and you are

[11:57]

reflected in my eyes, the faces are reflected in my eyes. You exist because I see you in my eyes. And what I see is nothing but myself. And each of you are also living out your life that is only yourself. This is not an objective truth that I'm telling you.

[12:58]

This is called the self-fulfilling samadhi. to sit upright with the awareness that all you're seeing is nothing but yourself. In other words, you are you and you are not you. All these people are nothing but yourself. This is called learning the backward step that turns the light around and illuminates the self. But it isn't that you turn away from the world and look back at some self which is over here, separate from the world.

[14:01]

You illuminate self by realizing that everybody else is yourself. That's illuminating the self. And that is the backward step because it is the reverse of the way we usually think. Usually we think, I'm here and you're over there. No. I am not me. What I am is the world. And the world is nothing but myself. We are separated by an eternity.

[15:06]

And we are never separated for an instant. We face each other every moment of the day. And we do not face ourself each other even for an instant. It is through self-identity that the Buddha attains the utmost right and perfect enlightenment. and self-identity as a lack of self. How is the self

[16:14]

fundamentally religious. How is it that the deeper we reflect on the ground of the self, the more self-aware we become, the more we feel the need of religious practice arise from the depths of our being and our struggle intensifies. It is because we are completely contradictory existence. Our existence is completely contradictory. Because this completely contradictory self-identity is our total reason for existence.

[17:26]

Everything is fleeting. Changing, transient, impermanent. All living beings die. And therein, no life exists without death. There is no death. without selfhood, and no selfhood without death. So to study the self means to forget the self and to forget the self means the self to forget the self that is in opposition to the other.

[18:54]

Forget that one. And be aware of the one that is nothing but the world. Or remember the world that is nothing but the self. Sit upright, being aware that this world is nothing but yourself, is the self-fulfilling awareness. Living out our life that is nothing but our self. Living out our self. Our life is our self.

[19:58]

Living out our self that is nothing but our self. Without losing sight of this self which receives the self and uses the self. This is the wondrous method that our Buddhas have used. Our sentient beings, excuse me, our human beings, receive and use the Self. That's all they ever do. This method of the Buddha is to sit upright in the middle of that process. The difference is It's not just juju you. It's juju nu samadhi. It's not just receiving and using the self.

[20:59]

It's the awareness of receiving and using the self that is the method. Sitting upright is a way it sets up the awareness which is then applied to the A concrete, simple situation that what you see is just yourself. It's very simple because you don't have to do anything other than what you're already doing. All you have to do is sit still and watch the show. At this time, dullness and distraction are struck aside.

[22:12]

A couple days ago, I was about to tie a knot, a brocade knot, on top of one of my robes. One of the types of robes I have has a brocade knot on it. And I learned a way of tying and tying this brocade, which I teach to the Jishas. And they enjoy trying to learn how to do this knot. I would be also willing to teach it to non-Jishas if they wish. And is even sometimes try to learn it. So I came back, and my jisha wasn't around for some reason, so I was going to tie the knot. And I looked at the knot, and I thought, well, I can tie this knot, but I'm just going to put this robe on in a few minutes.

[23:20]

I just took it off for a break, and I thought, it takes a pretty long time to tie this knot. It's a lovely knot, but it takes quite a while to tie it. And I thought, well, maybe I won't tie it because, you know, I'm just going to put it on again in a minute. And you know, I felt kind of lousy about that. And then my mind flashed to another situation that's similar to that, is I have, I wear an obi, I have a long obi, and every time I take the obi off, I've got this long piece of cloth, and guess what I have to do with it? I'll have to deal with it. I could just throw it on the floor in a big pile, but usually I roll it up in some way or another. And sometimes when I'm rolling the orbe up, my mind thinks, this is taking a long time.

[24:25]

And then my mind thinks, and I do this a lot. And then my mind thinks, if this takes a long time and I do it a lot, that means I'm spending my life rolling up orbees. rolling up obis and tying brocade knots. How much in my life am I spending doing this stuff when I could be dancing or skiing? But I feel bad about that because I think, well, what, you know, do you think, would you rather be in the zendo doing this really cool thing called sitting upright rather than rolling up obis or tying knots that just get unrolled and untied in a few minutes? Would you rather do something eternal and extremely dignified, like sitting like a Buddha? They don't talk about Buddhas rolling obis up and tying brocade knots.

[25:33]

I thought, wait a minute, what am I gonna do? I'm stuck in a, I have to do this stuff. Am I going to be wasting a big chunk of my life rolling this stuff up? What's the way out? I'm wasting my life. I also spend a lot of time folding up paper sacks from the grocery store and so on. You know, they come back from the grocery store and They're sometimes crumpled. And you can take those crumpled things and you can crumple them some more and throw them away. Right? But, you know, we're trying to save paper so you can actually use these things over and over. If you fold them up again, nicely, making the seam again and then pressing them and then putting them in a pile, you can use them over and over maybe.

[26:34]

I don't know. three, four, five, or more times. And each time you fold them, it's an opportunity to practice mindfulness. But see, this is like, what do you call it, this is optional good works that I take on. So I feel pretty good about that. Matter of fact, I feel even that I'm superior to the people who crumple them and throw them away. But when it comes to folding up my OB, I really don't have somebody to compare myself to, to feel better, superior to. It's just me, all by myself, alone in my closet, wasting my time. I can't really feel superior to someone and more holy. What's the way out? What? I thought you said dog poodle. Flat? What?

[27:40]

What's an oldie? Come over and see me sometime. And I'll show you. Or do you want to hear about it? Forget this self, you know, this self that you usually think about, this one over here that's separate from the rest of the world. Forget about it. And learn the self that is realized by everything. by being aware that all there is but there's nothing but the self receiving the thoughts and using the self this is not an objective fact because everybody else is doing the same thing this is not the light that we all share

[29:08]

together. This is a life which is nothing but our self. The life we actually share is what we realize when we are free of the life which we usually live out, which is just nothing but the self receiving the self. I may say to you, you know, that there is a life beyond the self. There is a life bigger than the self. Namely that I know that there's other selves who also are living their life which is nothing but their self. However, I live in a little world which is nothing but myself.

[30:15]

And I will be released from this little world that I live in which is called the world. I will be released from the world if I can accept, if I can be aware that my world that I live in is nothing but receiving myself. and using myself. I will then be released from the world which is nothing but the self. And in that way I forget about the self which is something other than the world. I forget about the world which is something other than the self. And then the world confirms myself. And when the world confirms myself, I drop body and mind. Now, some people confirm myself in a way I call, oh, how sweet.

[31:24]

I love it. Some people confirm myself, oh, I hate it. It's repulsive. Get it out of here. Out of my face, world. This is nothing but myself. This person I want to get rid of is nothing but myself. This person I want to hold on to is nothing but myself. I really do want to hold on to this person and they're nothing but myself. I really want to control this person and they're nothing but myself. I really want to get rid of this person and they're nothing but myself. They're not that person. They are nothing but myself to me. What they really are, who knows? They think various things about it.

[32:27]

Other people think various things about them. But what the other people think about this person is nothing but themselves. And what the person thinks about herself is nothing but herself. Where do Buddhas meet? How do they meet? They meet, strangely, by each of them realizing that the other is nothing but themselves. They meet face to face when they realize that the other one's face is nothing but their own shits, is nothing but their self. This is how we meet. This is the G.G.U. Sama. This is the self of Dhamma Sama.

[33:31]

It's very simple. Very radical. It is the reverse. There is no one to blame. There is no good out there. There is no Buddha out there. There's no evil out there. There is only the delusion that this self is separate from the world. As soon as there is awareness in a human being, There is the affliction of what is called self-view. And the affliction of self-ignorance. And the affliction of self-pride and the affliction of self-love.

[34:32]

Four afflictions arise as soon as there is awareness of the world. Self-fulfillment samadhi is to honestly accept that you are afflicted by self-view. to admit, to be aware that you are afflicted by self-view. In other words, that you view everything as the self. It's an affliction, but Buddhas are aware of that affliction. They sit with awareness of the affliction of self-view. They sit with awareness of the affliction of self-ignorance. Self-ignorance means we do not, we ignore what the self is. We do not understand what the self is. They sit with awareness of that. Because what we think the self is is something separate from the rest of the world.

[35:34]

And they reverse that ignorance by telling themselves repeatedly that what I think the self is is not correct. I think the self is this as opposed to the other. The other is the self. And there is self-love and self-pride too. Now I look into my dream. Am I really angry that I'm being driven by a criminal? The criminal that's driving me is that thing out there that I don't understand is myself.

[36:42]

and you can call that criminal Buddha or whatever or whatever that is out there and this self are really one thing and that's dharma the fact that the world and the self are one is a dharma which the Buddhas uphold And they uphold it by sitting upright in the awareness that this world is nothing but the self. And they live out the self which is nothing more than the self. Excuse me, Pam, but I wanted to get that out of my body.

[38:21]

And one of them is just beauty is the signal of the reality of our bodies. So when I look at you, it's very clear that anybody's going to let me come with a breath on ice. It's just good with hope in the right where you interpret it as you. And everything that you say is already interpreted and also by everything that I think, but that kind of you I mean, I'm not, I don't actually, I can't actually describe as you. There are other levels, too, with that. It looks like I see the experience of other people I think about. Yes, however, it's a more complicated way.

[39:46]

It's a more sophisticated way, which is okay. And it's okay. It's like that thing about that example that I used about hearing on the radio on a revival station or on a fundamentalist Christian station about talking about whether Jesus would wear a Rolex on his TV show if he were alive today. Did you ever hear about that? When I was driving out here one time, I I turned the radio on and got a revivalist station and they said, would Jesus wear a Rolex on his TV? Show, evangelist, show. That was the first brain. And I think that the feeling of the song was that no, he wouldn't because he's into poverty, right? So in other words, the singer or the author of this song, the composer, their theory was that in the modern times, Jesus's poverty practice, it would mean that he wouldn't wear Rolexes. They did not specify what type of watch he would wear, or whether he would wear a watch at all, or just had his Jisha carry a watch.

[40:54]

Now, would Jesus' Jisha wear a Rolex? We don't know. Anyway, the point is that this would be rather sophisticated to try to figure that out. And we could figure it out, probably. But what I recommend is, first of all, become Jesus, and then see what kind of watch he'll wear. So, your reasoning is perfectly good, and I think I agree with it. However, I would recommend, actually, that you don't spend your time getting quite that complicated, unless you're talking to somebody who needs you to be that complicated. I mean, the second example that you gave. the actual practice that opens the gates which will answer those questions for you and will take care of those kinds of situations and unfold that kind of skillful means to handle those problems comes from a simpler version a simpler understanding which is simply that anything is nothing but you and all these other examples will be able to be handled from that awakening from that opening

[42:08]

so you gave an example but that example is not the opening awareness it's not the fundamental thing the fundamental thing is just simply your life is nothing the life you live is nothing but simply yourself receiving and using yourself that is the ground of your life that is the ground of your existence is the self which is absolutely, completely contradictory. Namely, it's the world, not what you think it is. It is the world, and it is the world entirely easy to accept and difficult to accept manifestation.

[43:10]

And you also... demonstrated that on a physiological level, on that level too, it actually now is, science is showing that it's the same there too. Everything follows the same pattern. It's just a question of whether it's been understood yet or not. But this is what the Buddhas, this is what they have understood. Michael? It's hard to write yourself and everything. So, or how do you put it in your drive? Yeah, yeah.

[44:10]

It broke on the screen, but I still barely got this. um i think that if you don't think it's true in other words if you really if you really think that other people are not you if that's what you think then i think it would be good if you admit that because that thought is now what you're talking about okay and that thought is you but you have to admit that thought i i have to admit that with michael in order before i can realize that that's nothing but me Also the thought that I don't believe this teaching is something that I have to recognize for what it is. The main thing to confess is that you really have a sense, you really believe in separation. That you think that's true. And you think all these abstract things that you're seeing.

[45:12]

When I think you're you, not me, that's an abstraction. When I realize you're me, it's not abstract anymore. That is not abstract. Me, actually, is concrete because me is what dies. Me is what I'm worried about, wasting time holding Hobies in closets. but the way to not waste time is to remember that all these are nothing but me and that really what I'm doing is I'm rolling up me and folding me and tying a knot of me and I'm never doing anything else but that and this is the way you realize eternity

[46:17]

And this is the way you meet Buddhas who are doing exactly the same thing. And in fact, this is what you're doing all the time in your life. It's just a question of sitting upright and being aware of it. Yes? I think it's a V you're talking about. So what I think you said, yeah, I think that could be consistent with what I'm saying. The self is not anything. The self is not anything. The self is not anything because the self is absolutely self-contradictory. Therefore it can't be anything. The self completely embraces its total negation.

[47:21]

What could there be that embraces its total negation? What could be that way? It's called life. And you cannot grasp it. There's no such thing. Because as soon as you reach for it, you get its negation. You cannot grasp it. There's no such thing as life. There's no such thing as death. And life entails death, and that's a contradiction too. Self-awareness and total oblivion. That's what life is. You can't get a hold of those. If you get a hold of one without the other, that's simple delusion. So there's no such thing that you can grasp as self. Because self absolutely entails its complete negation.

[48:26]

And its negation is not something you have to work hard to find. It is everything you see. And its negation is its affirmation. The negation of the small self that you can get a hold of is the affirmation of the real self, which is The only thing, the only way, the only opportunity for perfect enlightenment is the self. It is this self-identity through which the Buddha is awakened. And that self-identity is through the absence of self. This is the intense, contradictory, dialectical, dynamic radius where life awakens to itself we sit upright busy with our body if we do that we have a chance to be aware of this intense process of change of impermanence

[49:43]

which exactly implies this real self, which is self-contradictory and identical with self. It is here that we are able to be together for an eternity, never separated and always separated. We are together, hand in hand, in an indestructible love relationship and we are constantly being separated and snarling at each other or grabbing for each other depending on how the dials turn. But no matter whether we're trying to avoid or attach to each other we're always together. We can never get away from each other because All we know about each other is that word, ourself.

[50:46]

You're me. That's all I know about you. I can't get away from you because you're me. And I can't get you because you're me either. Pat, get in my gut. That's me, rather than Jeff. Yeah, I think it's a bit much. I think just touching would be sufficient. But if you say that's me, then you probably should also say beforehand, can I touch you to verify that you're me? Will you explode in my face if I touch you, if I suddenly am intimate with you?

[51:52]

Will people talk? Are you open to the scandal that might ensue if I should check out now whether you're really me by touching you? Everything you do, actually, to verify this is a bit much. It's very simple. It's simpler than that. You do not have to do anything to verify it. However, once it's verified, then everything you do comes from that. And it's totally wonderful. But once you realize that everybody that you see is just you, then you realize that you should be very polite to people because they're not you. And so it's appropriate to be very sweet and hesitant as you approach yourself because you're separated from yourself every moment.

[53:09]

Excuse me, but could I touch you just to express that I've discovered who I am? It's you. And you keep being me in unpredictable ways. I am actually amazing. I can't make rest. You show me this. Or how you show me. Oh, you should. And even saying this to your closest friend, we should be very polite. This is intense work. It's an interesting practice to do that with yourself. To touch yourself instead of touching someone else.

[54:14]

Yeah, you can warm up like that in the morning. But the real thing I was going to say is that you made me think of this man-hearted not having no head because it actually sort of works for me Which, you know, his exercise is to see that everything that you see is where you thought your head was. And you can't see that. You can look around and see your feet and the legs and come off your body, but when you get to the thing that's doing the seeing, it's everything else. When you get to the thing that's doing the seeing, it's everything else. That's all there is. All there is is everything else. Yeah. Mm-hmm. and everything else is just you. The hard part is to sit upright and be aware of this, which also involves total self-negation.

[55:17]

But we got this down, so it's possible to practice. It's possible to settle into it's possible to settle into folding OBs for the rest of your life. There's no end to this, so I might as well stop.

[56:31]

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