This dharma of thusness has been transmitted to us. We already have it. Now our job is to take care of it. And in order to take care of it, we need to take our dharma seat. The Dharma's seat is our current life of birth and death. Our seat, in a sense, is not the practice. It's the opportunity.

[01:01]

It's the place where we practice. It's the place where we realize we are in the presence of the Buddha teaching the Dharma. Right now. But of course, our place is often very difficult to just sit. We have deep tendencies to try to hold on to something. or get away from something. Those are the worldly affairs that we just spoke of. Worldly affairs of trying to get something, trying to avoid something, or trying to have some pleasure. It says, when you see the dharma, you will abandon these distractions.

[02:16]

But in a way, we need to abandon them in order to see the dharma. And the way of abandoning them again is not to get rid of them, is not to push them away. It's to be friends with all this messy... deluded consciousness. And we can and we are learning to be friends with the mess which is more or less stressful and painful and nauseating and suffocating and frightening. And now I have a story for you about the world of jet lag.

[03:26]

Not last night, but very early this morning, in the darkness of room number 11, there was waking up. in the dark but there was a waking up and then there was a thought and the thought was uh oh waking up and saying uh oh I I'm in trouble because if I'm awake now I might really be asleep around lunchtime, like the previous days. Pretty good up through lunch and then... But since I was awake, I said, is that true?

[04:55]

Is that thought true? There was that wonderful question. Is that true? And I did not say no. And I did not say yes. I was delighted that I questioned my thought about trouble. And then I started to recite scriptures in the dark. And you heard this morning one of the little scriptures I recited, the flower adornment scripture. I recited it in the dark. And I was happy to recite it in the dark. The body of Buddha pervades throughout all the great assemblies, filling the Dharma world without end, silent and still, without any nature.

[06:21]

ungraspable. It appears in order to liberate living beings. Because this body is silent and still, it can be present no matter what we're saying or how we're moving. Stillness can always be with us no matter what What dance we're doing. What contortion we're in the midst of. The stillness pervades. And no matter what we're saying, the silence is here. Right now, as I talk, the silence is pervading this talk. Because it's the body of Buddha and it's ungraspable. And since it's ungraspable, it's unstoppable.

[07:29]

Nothing stops it from completely pervading everything of our body and mind. And I recited other things too. Other... Yeah, like I recited. The Bodhisattva Samantabhadra is present in all lands. Sitting on... a jeweled lotus throne, manifesting all spiritual powers, entering infinite samadhis.

[08:38]

Yes, in the dark, in the midst of thoughts of trouble, there was reciting of scriptures. And then there was the appearance of a body and mind. And in that embodied mind, there seemed to be an I, a me. And it was in the midst of lots of other phenomena.

[09:48]

And it wasn't in control of them. And they weren't in control of it. Everything was free. The self was appearing. The I was there. But it was ungraspable. It was free. In the midst of thoughts like, uh-oh, I'm in trouble. Or it could be, uh-oh, I think I'm doing something wrong. Or, uh-oh, I think I'm below average. Or, uh-oh, I'm afraid. Someone said, I'm working on, I'm struggling with anger.

[10:57]

And I've noticed that anger often comes up with threat. And the threat often comes up with words. Words, threat, and anger coming up together. And I said, what's the practice? And I say now, the practice is to sit, to take your seat in the midst of, for example, threat, words, words, threat, and anger. Sit there, because that's your mess to sit in. And then, once you're seated, learn to be friends with this knot, with this twisted mass, and settle into it lovingly.

[12:09]

discover that when there is threat anger and words words feeling threatened and anger for example we are still in the presence of Buddha we are never anywhere else we are seated at the site of awakening to the presence of Buddha But if there's a little bit of separation from this mass of stress and fear and greed, hate, and delusion, then we don't... Then we're in worldly affairs again. And then we're out of attunement. And then it's like this whole presence with Buddha is like...

[13:15]

very far away. It's not really, but because we're resisting a little bit being in this ordinary factual spot, it's like the presence of Buddha is far away. This is what I was doing in the middle of the night. I was contemplating what I just said to you. and I was happy I was very happy I felt like I felt really free and at the same time I knew that later in the day it might get quite difficult and I thought oh wait a minute now I might not be able to sit up in other words I might if I tried to sit up I might I might collapse because various forces of jet lag gravity are pushing me down.

[14:27]

And that happened yesterday and the day before. And people said, please rest. And I said, okay. And I did. And I rested in that good old room 11. It was okay. However, one problem of room 11 is that somehow it's hard to feel it in room whatever number this is. I thought, well, wait a minute. Maybe instead of resting in room 11, I could rest in the middle of the assembly. So today, if it happens again, would you allow me to come in here and rest in this room with you? I don't know what happened when I'm resting. I might snore. I don't know if I do. Huh?

[15:33]

Brilliant. Huh? I'm not going to. I'm going to sit on a different platform. I'm going to sit on that one. I'm not going to sit there. I'm going to lie down because I got so tired I couldn't stand up anymore. I mean, I could, but I'd fall over. I mean, I was like wobbling. The body is saying, get down on the ground. So if it's okay with you, if that happens again today, I'll go and lie on the ground. on that platform with you. And probably I'll wake up someday. And then we'll have another night. The key thing is to lovingly take your seat.

[16:40]

You're already where you need to be. You don't have to move a muscle to be in the presence of Buddha if Buddha was you Buddha would be very good at being just right where you are Buddha is very well trained at not getting away but we're having a hard time really not turning away or touching but we can learn we can learn this intimate transmission but we have to be intimate with our own twisted karma first completely with our own resistance we have to be intimate with our resistance so I'm not trying to get rid of anybody's resistance I'm trying to encourage complete total love of the resistance and you look like

[17:46]

Now that I've said this for three days, you look kind of like, okay. Kind of like, let's do it. Let's be who we are. Of course, you know we have no choice. But that's part of the irony of human beings, is they do, they try to do, and they know something that they know they can't do. which is be somebody else. Or even be this person for more than one moment. So that's the report from jet lag world. Sometimes I need to put these hearing aids on in order to hear.

[19:02]

Like now. I'm going to put these on and see what happens. I can hear them sort of, but not really. Here we go. Yes, Rasmus? well no you can also be yourself in the past and future too but in order to be yourself in the past and future you have to be yourself completely in the present and you can be completely yourself in the present we can learn this is our skill that we can learn which we sometimes call just sitting or we call

[20:09]

the bodhisattva samadhi. And we can't do this by ourselves. We can't really even take our seat by ourself. But we don't have to because everybody wants that and everybody's helping us. And I also meant that you take your seat in this moment and this moment goes away and then you have to do it again moment by moment so it's not a permanent taking your seat it's a taking your seat in that world in a temporary painful changing world and then again and it's like take your seat congratulations and let's move on to the next challenge I asked you if I could come here and rest.

[21:21]

I asked you, can I be who I am with you, rather than be who I am, you know, kind of in isolation. Can I be who I am with you? And you said yes. Thank you. And if you want to ask, can you be who you are with us? I think we say yes. Really amazing. We say yes. Yes, David, please do that hard work.

[22:29]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.98