Now, none of that stuff has any substance. So we go from the Zen to where everything's the same, and everything's the same because everything's empty, and then, in this huge empty hole up there, we put a couple boards from one side of the building to the other, and we stand on top of these boards, but actually these boards, if you lifted those boards up, you'd realize there's vast emptiness under them. And then, in addition to that, we gather together around service time, and in the middle there is this vast emptiness, and then the doshi sort of walks out there in the middle of the emptiness, and goes, and then sort of walks across the emptiness up to the altar, and does nothing, and then walks back, and looks at an insubstantial statue, and bows again, and the bowing is empty, and the statue's empty, the person here has no nature, and the Buddha has no nature, and we put out these apparent activities, okay?

[01:04]

That's the spirit we do our practice, and then you study Abhidharma in the same way. Of course, as soon as you start reading the Abhidharma, you start to forget that, and as soon as people start to offer incense, they sometimes think they're doing something, but, like as I said, if you go to New York for a while, and run around New York for a few days, or a month, it took me about a month, run around, I did stuff all the time, and I never remembered emptiness for a minute, and you come back to Green Gulch and you offer incense there, and you go, oh, this is nothing. And then for one minute, or two years, or a hundred years, you remember that all the stuff we're doing has no inherent existence, okay? Then, if you could remember that and then go study the Abhidharma, this would be great. If you study the Abhidharma and think you're doing something, it's not as good as if you don't apprehend it, but still, bodhisattvas do go through the Abhidharma gate, they should

[02:05]

do that. It's a real test, but you should go through it and do all those practices, but all of them through non-apprehension, not grasping them, okay? That's great. And the same way, the other way, is after going through that gate, you could also go through the so-called spiritual trappings gate, with all kinds of psychological stuff. So, for example, if you've got a person who had a Ph.D. in folklore, a Ph.D. in psychology, a Ph.D. in, I don't know what else you want to have, mythology, that's folklore, anyway, a person who had a lot of ... get somebody like Eliade or something like that to come and do Tassajara, you know, he would be sort of popping away theories, psychological, mythological theories all the time, everything he'd see, you know, he'd have all this stuff, right? Because of his background. Or somebody who was on some kind of a drug would do the same thing, okay? Like I remember one time, it was 18 years ago at this time, and one of our students

[03:09]

who used to be a bank robber, went up the road and smoked some dope, and came back to service. And he said, well I really understood what the Daishindrani was about. In other words, the psychic activity was so strong that he could see, you know, what a tremendous psychic event service is. And he forgot the insubstantiality of it all, and could see it very much as a psychological process. So our practice here could be seen as a great psychic drama, great psychic storm, journey, whatever, you can see it that way. So both sides can be done from both sides, and you can approach the usually psychological analysis way from emptiness, and you can approach the emptiness practice, or the so-called traditional forms from a psychological point of view. However, the psychological point of view has basically projections on those practices, and will start to die away, and then you have a hard time practicing.

[04:12]

Just like when you first marry somebody, or fall in love with somebody, there's all the psychological projection on the reality of the relationship, the immutable, you know, immemorial structures, which get pretty boring after a while when you can't project on them anymore. But you can keep doing them as a spiritual practice. Does that make sense? Okay, now I'd like to quote one of our guests. She woke up. I don't know if you can hear me, but my understanding is that action can't be derived from desire. And if everything is empty, there's no desire, there's no intention. And so why should we do a single action? Why should I even walk across the room? Where does that come from?

[05:14]

Why should we bow? There is an action. What does that come from? If you were what? If I realized emptiness. If I was able to see everything as being inherently empty. If you realize emptiness? No, I don't. But if you did, why would you do anything? Why would I do anything? Well, I don't know. The main reason why you do something is because you're alive. And if you're alive, you do things constantly. Why would you not do it? Why would you not do something? There's no strong push not to do it either. There's no strong push not to do it, no. There's strong pushes not to do this, because you want to do that. But as a living being, you keep needing to function. Well, the need is not the same. Need doesn't belong here. Need and emptiness are not the same.

[06:17]

Are not what? Are not the same. If there's a need there, you're not realizing emptiness. No, it's not. The words don't make me happy. Needs are empty. Needs are empty. Therefore, you can still have needs. Because they're empty, you can still have them. Emptiness doesn't sort of take your needs away. Emptiness is always there with your needs. But the realization of emptiness is something else. Realization of emptiness is something else. When you realize emptiness, then you're really free to need. Most people are not free to need. Most people think they can only need some things rather than other things. They need these things. They feel needs for these things, but they don't really let themselves feel these things because they don't realize emptiness. But when you realize emptiness, you're quite free. Your needs are free. All your activities, all your psychic experiences

[07:18]

are set free because you realize that they're all caused. And because they're caused, they have no inherent existence. And because they have no inherent existence, everything need, not need, anger, lust, confusion, everything is completely free. And everything is an opportunity for you to realize how free and happy you are. That's what the realization of emptiness does for you. That's why it's recommended. And Bodhisattvas go tromping into the world barefoot, naked, and willing to encounter the worldly experience because they've realized emptiness. They're willing to need because they've realized emptiness. Most people because of not realizing emptiness are a little queasy about being in this world. That's what that thing about Bodhidharma, right?

[08:22]

Enter through inner truth. If you can't enter through inner truth, enter through, for example, according with the you-know-what. Okay? If you accord with the you-know-what or if you can accord with not, or if you can stop seeking things, then you can enter the conventional world wholeheartedly. It's because of realization of emptiness that you can really enter the world and not be afraid of it. You see, if you think things have some substance, you'll be afraid of some of them. For example, fear, loss of your youthful complexion, loss of your youthful figure, gain of your old figure. Various things will frighten you if you think they have some substance. When you realize they're not substance, you're quite happy to be

[09:25]

exactly what's happening and really willing to be here with all this. Without the realization of emptiness, you're really kind of queasy about life. Do bodhisattvas forget? Do they forget what? Do they forget? Do they get involved and forget? Like you were talking about, like studying the Abhidharma for, you know, on the grounds of emptiness. Bodhisattvas can do anything. They can forget. But, when they forget, because they realize emptiness, they really forget. Bodhisattvas are not afraid to forget. People who have not realized emptiness sometimes would like to forget, other times want to remember, especially if they want to remember good things. And they get quite upset if they forget certain things. Bodhisattvas are willing to forget

[10:27]

because of emptiness. Bodhisattvas are compassionate. Their compassion is based on emptiness. That's why there's a strong recommendation in Mahayana Buddhism to realize emptiness. But realizing emptiness because it's always through form, through feelings, through conceptions, through emotions. You can't realize it sort of in mid-air. You always realize emptiness on some phenomenon. So, there's two ways to realize emptiness, basically. These two approaches. One is, no mind, no Buddha already, and go and bow and sit. This realizes emptiness. The other way is, study psychological phenomena, and as you study them, you realize finally that they're caused. You see how feelings are caused.

[11:30]

You see how forms are caused. You see how conceptions are caused. You see all this stuff is caused. When you realize it's caused, you realize the thing has no inherent existence and that it's empty and therefore it's totally unhindered and free. And including forgetting. Forgetting also is caused. Okay? Does that all make sense? So, it's the fear, and you might forget that it's caused. It's also caused and also empty because it's caused. So, the bodhisattva has fear of forgetting. The bodhisattva can even have fear of forgetting. The bodhisattva really is in the world where anything can happen. The bodhisattva is really in the world where anything can happen. They don't live in a world where certain things can't happen. They're not limited by any rules about, you know, some part of the universe can't happen to them. That's what freedom means. Freedom means anything can happen. You know, it means that two Zen monks

[12:32]

can be walking down the street and all of a sudden one of them can go, boo, to the other one and the other one can go, ha! And you can write that story down in a record of Zen stories and you can read it thousands of years later and say, what was that about? What it was about was, it was about two people that were really intimate and where anything could happen where they can just go up to each other and go, ha! Can you imagine doing that to some old Zen master when you're just a kid? It's hard because that's sort of kind of off the charts. So when it happens, when it really happens, it's written down as an example of how free Bodhisattvas can be. Why can they be free? Because of emptiness. And then some people try to be free

[13:33]

when they haven't realized emptiness and they get beat up because the teacher's free and they're not. What? If it happens the other way around then they also change positions in terms of teachers. In other words, faking doesn't work if one of the people has realized emptiness. They can tell when you're faking and they can tell your faking is empty too and their beating you up is empty. But, you know, there's limits which are empty. Okay, now back to contending. Oh my God. Now, so somebody said about this, you know, well Robin did but then somebody else mentioned me about this too before about that, she said, isn't consciousness itself enough contending? You know, at the beginning of the Odyssey it says,

[14:34]

O Muse, sing in me and through me tell the story of the wanderer foremost in contending. Okay? So the hero of that story is the foremost contender. But consciousness itself is enough contending. Your ordinary consciousness, our consciousness is enough contending. Just the arising of life is enough contending actually. And foremost in contending in some ways you could understand is you are foremost in contending when you realize and study what your consciousness is. Your consciousness is a great contention. It's standing up there and saying this is happening. That's a great contention. And that's why I think at the end of the story Odysseus is still contending. He'll never stop. However, if you get certain messages you don't really stop,

[15:36]

you just sort of cool it. You still have that urge to contend, to exist as a contention. Can you say, last time you were talking about having this killer and also about that he didn't his mistake was not paying homage to don't forget he didn't make no sacrifices but the paying homage is also killing. Well, how is it killing? They slaughter cows isn't it? Isn't that what the sacrifice when they This is not you're not actually supposed to slaughter cows in this way This is a story about a warrior

[16:36]

who's manifesting the basic contention of life namely I exist over above I don't exist. This is the basic contention. The first precept is don't kill but a strict interpretation the first precept is don't be contentious which is very similar to saying don't be alive Now this is a pretty difficult understanding, right? But that's exactly what it's saying If you are alive, you are a killer You're killing. What are you killing? You're killing, for example, death You're killing the other side of the story You're contending You're ignoring the other side

[17:37]

and you have to do that in order to live Another Greek guy named Heraclitus said contention is excuse me for saying the father of everything If you don't contend If you don't stand up against non-existence nothing will happen It's a contentious act So the first precept is saying don't do life So is that why paying homage is making sacrifices because you can't do anything else? Paying homage is to pay homage to what you're doing But paying homage is nothing You see, the thing about in that story anyway the sacrifices are that you spend your good time and money paying homage to what? What are you paying homage to?

[18:41]

To the forces of your own psyche Right And as a living being you are in trouble because you have violated the whole story You're standing up as opposed to standing up and lying down So there's a basic contention so you're told not to do that and you have to do that as a balancing act So this is like all things are contentions and you have to realize their emptiness All things are killers of emptiness or killers of non-existence whatever you want to say and you have to pay homage because you're a killer because you're a warrior in order to continue doing your business with the God's permission you have to pay homage to them Not exactly say I'm sorry but say I recognize and will spend my time recognizing you And another thing

[19:45]

that this person said was that when she hears me say immortal forces she immediately hears that they're dead These forces I agree, these forces these immortal forces are dead because they're dead in the sense that they're not alive because they can't die and they need us to act a risky version of their forces in order for them to really be alive So there's some responsiveness there That's why they support If we honor them they will support us in this basically violent business of being alive Being alive is fundamentally killing and everything we do from then on also will be killing We have to keep killing in order to keep living And the gentlest people

[20:45]

in the world are those who are willing to admit that they're killers and spend time honoring that fact honoring that force honoring that mistake This act is not killing Paying homage is not killing Paying homage is mindfulness And mindfulness can be done this way but also mindfulness can be done all at once, all the time So the fourth patriarch is suggesting a unified mindfulness So that would be paying homage to all the gods all the time No, that would be paying homage to all the gods, all the immortal forces And then to do it all the time would be a constant uninterrupted mindfulness or an uninterrupted unified mindfulness

[21:46]

That's sort of one of the cornerstones of Zen Buddhism That's the one practice, Samadhi Which, another way to put it is constant mindfulness of the unified activity of life And then if I am constantly mindful of the unified activity of life all the psychic forces are unified as life not just mine, but all life then I can continue to do my basically warped activity Warped Biased Relative Particular All similar words for existence Our existence is relative biased, warped bent in a certain way towards life and it's contentious So the precept don't kill is an impossible thing

[22:50]

in a way, but the point is while killing you have to figure out how not to kill while being contentious Even now as I'm speaking I'm being contentious How can I be not contentious while I am being contentious Well I realize emptiness How do I realize emptiness? By unified awareness of life's activity Which in Greek mythology in this story is to pay homage to spend time and money paying homage to these forces which are acting through our lives And to learn how to do that effectively, consistently, artistically in a satisfying way Satisfying means satisfying our own psychic forces and the psychic forces all around us But the homage the paying homage the thing about killing the oxen you're not really killing oxen You're just sacrificing

[23:50]

your most valuable stuff whatever it is If you have oxen and you kill oxen for a living then you kill oxen But you don't have oxen so you don't kill oxen But you do have intelligence feelings, time money, clothes Raksus Give those things to Buddha Give them to anybody Just give them away And whatever you give them make that as homage to what? That's not killing That's a sacrifice That's generosity You don't have to actually pass any goods around You can just look up in the mountains there and give those beautiful mountains to Buddha That's generosity too But you have to spend time doing it You can also hike up the mountain and give that to Buddha But you can hike up the mountain

[24:51]

and not give it to Buddha Some way anyway you have to give something Is that a gradual practice? It seems like if you give something away you're you're not Buddha's mind You could be done either way that practice How can you give something away if there's only if there's no separation Well you don't You give it away by not thinking You practice generosity And the way you practice generosity is you experience how the giver and the gift and the receiver are all empty You do it that way And you don't really feel like you're losing anything Because you're getting the joy of generosity You're not losing anything If you think you're losing something then it's leaking That's not Bodhisattva's generosity Bodhisattva's generosity In order to practice generosity you already have to realize emptiness Otherwise

[25:52]

it's a leaking kind of thing which is wholesome You can still have wholesome activities which leak where there's gain and loss involved namely I lost something That's still a wholesome thing to do It's unwholesome to take what you don't experience as given But it is wholesome to give something whether they ask for it or not to give something But particularly if people ask for it to give it is wholesome But if you think you lost something that's not based on emptiness And it's not Bodhisattva's generosity Bodhisattva's generosity is giver, gift and receiver are empty And that kind of transaction clears your heart out Empties your heart And makes it really pure and open But to thoroughly do that you really have to know you have to actually have a taste of the insubstantiality of yourself the thing you're giving

[26:53]

and the thing you're looking at whatever you're giving it to Then there's no gain or loss And that's Bodhisattva's That's Dhanaparamita And that's a way to practice wisdom beyond wisdom I need some clarification in relation to paying homage to meditation With the one practice Samadhi By the way, the word homage means No, I just want to repeat The word homage means to Homage is different from praise They're similar But homage means you align yourself with what you're paying homage to So when you say homage Homage to Amavairvacana Buddha You're aligning yourself in that lineage So paying homage could be a sacrifice too Or an offering It could be an offering and an alignment Yes

[27:53]

This is through that book that you lent me They talked about one practice Samadhi My understanding of it was focusing on emptiness Sometimes it used the number one But it was focusing on emptiness And then another one was as the myriad things arise noticing the myriad things arising through all sorts of activity and recalling the emptiness behind it And in a look it feels like it's two different things And which is the paying homage I didn't quite understand Did you understand? What you were saying? It's a pretty complicated question I'll forget it No, go ahead After all, it is about the one practice Samadhi Which is the fourth page of our paper

[28:58]

That's the practice he really recommends Constant awareness of oneness of all being Unified form of existence So, what about that? When you define it like that it seems like it's the same thing as as as this other practice That you heard about So, what did that sound like? As far as I can understand it is when through activity as things arise to continually realize the emptiness behind each of those things behind the activity as they arise to consciousness from moment to moment and it seemed a more active

[30:06]

Why did you bring it up? It sounded different I thought you said it sounded the same It was presented differently from how you're talking about it now What's the difference? One seems more passive and one seems well, the one practice Samadhi appears to be focused on It feels like there's less action It feels like it's just focused on on on non-responding It's focused on non-responding? Yeah, there's a non-responsive It's focused on on ultimate reality It's focused on the uniform the unitary form of all existence Without object, I guess How I was understanding

[31:08]

was without a feeling of object And without a feeling of object because if there's an object, there's not a unified Yeah And the other one just seems that it has an object There's a recollection There's a There's an object And then there's the realization of emptiness behind it Yeah, okay So that language is getting You're getting a little tangled up, okay The object is not eliminated It's not like people who are practicing this this unitary awareness don't see anything anymore It's just that everything they see is unified because everything's empty It's the same as what you're talking about Just when you see When you see those objects and realize their emptiness You don't see objects out there as empty You realize that the object and subject are empty of difference And then you realize the emptiness of them as objects That separation has no basis And the things have no basis Just like, again

[32:08]

Receiver or giver Gift And receiver are all empty They're all unified This is all one life Life is all that Life is not this, life is not that Life is not the space in between Buddha is not me and you're a student Buddha is the relationship is the life that includes the whole thing here This whole thing here is Buddha Okay, this whole thing is what is our life And to meditate on objects and realize that they're empty is to realize that they're empty of separation from subject It feels like two different things The two different things to me sound a little bit like the two different entrances Like the one that's on the side of there are all these things and then you walk through them the other one is more the entrance

[33:11]

through emptiness and then seeing there are all these things Two different approaches One is approach One is entering by inner truth The other one is entering by the four practices or myriad practices One is skillful means and the other is the one vehicle But the one vehicle also includes these So if I kind of got my one vehicle earphones on now, everything you say is one vehicle and you maybe have your skill and means earphones on so what you hear is this is one kind of practice and this is another kind of practice Maybe that's what's going on Yeah, that's how it was presented Well, that's how you heard it I don't know what was presented You have to show me what was presented It's my book, you know Which I loaned to you

[34:15]

and you read the whole thing and I haven't read it yet And now it's all worn out There's a lot of Abhidharma in this book, by the way especially in the fourth patriarchs teaching quite a bit of Abhidharma which I may torture you with There's eyes and ears and noses and tongues and feelings and conceptions and stuff like that that dealt with in the context of the awareness of the unified quality of all life So Before we move Yeah, we should But before we do Are you going to tell us about meeting a living God? It's actually him

[35:18]

He came to San Francisco to meet me He has several bodies I'm actually Thomas Clear So I met the living God and like Albert he's a nice Jewish boy You are a nice Jewish boy, aren't you? Well He used to be Anyway, the story is The nice story is that I had this this guy or this assistant of this guy that I called a number of times over the last few years wanting to come and meet me I didn't know why he wanted to meet me, but he did and he sends me, every month he sends me his community's newsletter or magazine actually, it's quite a thick magazine it comes almost every month or three or four times a year or something

[36:20]

and the name of the magazine is Divine Slave Gita Divine Slave Gita and I don't know what Gita is, but anyway and it's full of pictures of the guru of this group his name is Lee Lozowick and he also sends me his books for some reason I didn't know the reason, but one of his books is called Living God Blues and it's another book called something, I think, one of his books, I'm not sure I think it's called No Buddha, No Mind, I'm not sure or, you know, No Buddha Enlightenment or, anyway various kind of interesting titles and pictures and stuff like that and the last few times he came, the last few times I wasn't trying to avoid him, but anyway I couldn't meet him the last few times he wanted to meet me and I found out that the reason why he wanted to meet me was because the editor of that of his magazine met me at the Christian Buddhist Conference and I reminded him, I reminded this guy

[37:22]

of his teacher, Lee you have a cat I'm a nice Jewish boy also when I at the Mountain Teeth Ceremony, Lee sent me a present which some of you may have seen in the steps of my house it's this little old man sort of like a little old woodcutter he has a log over his shoulder and it's one of the guardian statues I have on the stairs of our house I didn't know where else to put it so anyway, that's and I felt a little funny about Lee because of being a living, being called a living god I felt a little funny about him, but I think it was mostly just jealousy so I agreed to meet with Lee

[38:25]

partly because he said he was going to take me out for sushi and my wife so what didn't work out that way was because of Lori offered for us to give them dinner so that slightly reduced my motivation but anyway so I was Green Gulch so we had this date on the 25th or whatever it was for dinner and what was the actual date 26th we had this date we had dinner with Lee and his wife sushi and then it got changed to them coming to Zen Center in the meantime, Green Gulch told me that they wanted to have an end of practice period ceremony on that date and a shosan ceremony so I couldn't resist and went out to Green Gulch and I knew I would be a little late for dinner because

[39:25]

I thought I'd get back about 7 o'clock and I thought, you know, dinner starts about 6.40 at Zen Center and I had David Chadwick and a few other guru hunters you know turns out Rusa met him by accident and took good care of him but anyway, I got there late because the shosan ceremony lasted a long time but I noticed that I was a little bit happy about keeping a living guy waiting and a little bit happy but it wasn't intentional anyway we got there quite late, they were done with dinner by the time we got there and I met him and he wasn't I expected him to be a big puffy puffy living guy but actually he was what?

[40:26]

what did you say? a little shriveled up that's what he was he was a little shriveled up living guy he was just a little guy and he kind of looked older and not so beautiful as he does in the magazine he's pretty handsome but he looked really handsome in the magazine they choose the best pictures whereas at Zen Center they choose the worst pictures anyway he was kind of a shriveled up little living guy and he was kind of quiet and humble kind of like a living god and nice you know no big deal and he was kind of a nice person he wasn't just like a living god somebody somebody reminded you reminded I reminded some of his students of him did you ask what the most important part was? no we didn't get into any heavy dharma stuff mostly talked about stuff like you know sushi

[41:30]

and vegetarian food what do people in Arizona think of you you know and and just kind of nice friendly social talk and and for example if Vanya had been there we would probably have gotten into some heavy dharma stuff because Vanya probably would have said what's this living god business laughter see Vanya is not jealous of him for being a living god so he could bring it up with detachment but if I brought it up I probably would have been insulting no matter what you say we're not going to start calling you a living god laughter silence

[42:29]

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