On Enlightenment and Delusion 

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in a sense i am the descendant
or a descendant of the rob anderson was here at the last yoga room class
i'm fresh and new in strangely older then
the one that was here last week
who is also fresh and new
so yeah we're your all are older than your ancestors
by the same name
which till you're fresh and new
so as i as i said before the
the nature of a living being is itself
enlightenment and i calligraphic that in chinese
this is sentient being nature
is itself
ah bodhi enlightenment
if you like copy of this
cheer for you to receive
another way to say it is the condition of a sentient being
and the condition of a sentient beings to be a sentient being
the condition of a sentient being
being a sentient being is exactly what we mean by body
and right where we right where you are right now
if the place where you are a sentient being
i also said that for a sentient being to attain enlightenment is nothing other than for a sentient being not to move
so enlightened man is living in stillness and it's living in the stillness of each of us being ours
self
so we're not really make the stillness of ourself being set ourselves but the
we seem to need to work
at being herself
because the kind of being we are is a being which can be distracted
from being itself
we have the ability to be unenlightened in the sense that we have the ability to be moving away from where we are
before we even left
we can think of the next moment before we arrived at completely here
in stillness
we say in stillness mind and object
merge
and enter enlightenment
and then leave enlightenment together
in stillness
you emerge with yourself
when you merge with yourself you enter stillness and you also enter enlightenment and you don't stay there you go you go beyond it
in stillness awareness and objects of awareness come together
in stillness
awareness and delusion
dance together
and enter enlightenment and then go and then go beyond enlightenment
and then have a chance to embrace each other
can enter
embrace each other and stillness and enter again and leave again
so the dance is the dance of
embracing ourselves and entering enlightenment embracing ourselves in stillness
because we can to move to embrace ourselves
stillness we embrace ourselves and enter enlightenment

mind an object means awareness and delusion
because
hot objects graspable objects or delusions
but to completely be with the delusion
so completely that the stillness
there's no wiggling with it
we entered
with it there's entering with it and leaving entering enlightenment and leaving enlightenment not stopping there
so enlightenment is this is this embracing and dancing and stillness with delusion
enlightenment is living in the stillness of this dance
enlighten minute
for a living being to be a living being
enlightenment is not it for us it's not just to put a kind of a record an abstract stillness is the stillness of a living being that's enlightenment it's a stillness of a living being
who can imagine
movement and imagine avoiding stillness
can imagine not being able to find the place
where she is
and still while imagining not being able to find a place you are to find the place you are
and be there is enlightenment
for a sentient being to be a sentient being as enlightenment and for a sentient being to be a sentient being is the bodhisattva precepts
sent him beings can break bodhisattva precepts
they can kill they can lie they can take with not given
but for a sentient being to be a sentient being is not killing
in the stillness of being ourselves
there is not killing there is not stealing there is not lying
there is enlightened action in stillness
a being herself
and there is a leading ourselves into ourselves and a following ourselves into ourselves
there is a kind of verb
invitation of ourselves strong invitation of ourselves to be ourselves and there is a surrendering ourself to herself
in the dance like untangle
there's an in writer and a follower a surrender
the follower
does not move until invited
and then when she's invited she surrenders to the invitation
the invited the leader makes the invitation and then surrenders the invitation and surrenders the inviting and becomes a follower
did i tell you that
this tangle with my wife
the taylor
we weren't either you do
i did
and i and i will
we went to tango classes and the tango teachers helped me and helped her they said to her
you're not following him

i didn't say you're not following me
but she wasn't
she was posted but she wasn't she was kind of leading me or she was moving before i invited her is kind of like man you're too slow at the invitation
here we go
and the teacher sovereign said
russia you're not following you
and she surrendered and she learned to follow i'm not very good leader
she gave up she surrendered her leadership
and became a follower
there was
an amazing thing

i know a lot of
you could say women who are very good dancers
and they can follow and they can they can follow and they can lead if they wish
sometimes when they're dancing with not very good deck dancers
they think maybe this will be a time not to follow
because this person doesn't know what he's doing
in effect if they lead the dance would go quite nicely
but in some cases
the teachers are watching if know it's true is not a good but still
do not move until
he lead you
and it doesn't lead you were not given enough is going to happen so they were have to get him to leave suddenly say you're not leading
lead
we have to lead ourselves
we have to invite ourselves to be yourself

it's hard actually for people to invite themselves to be themselves and that's hard to follow that invitation for that instruction or that lead
it's hard
even though all the time the condition of being ourselves
his enlightenment and in all the time actually the enlightenment is that we're not moving
the enlightenment of us is that we're not moving the enlightenment of as as we are actually being ourselves
and that not moving
he's the dojo is the place of enlightenment
the place where we are we don't move to get to the place we are in the places where we are the place where we're over ours we are herself and that is enlightenment
but we have to somehow
find the place
which course is here we have to find it
we can't just assume that we're where we are we have to find it or on here why i'm here are you i mean if be ourselves and find our place right what we are and then
the practice occurs
how we have
sentient beings live in now what we call some sorry or birth and death and birth and death is uncomfortable
usually birth and death is uncomfortable it's also
inconceivably wonderful but
i'm comfortable
the borns uncomfortable
and dying is uncomfortable
we resist the discomfort or birth and death
they sent him being is uncomfortable
we resist the discomfort of being essential been
we have to invite ourselves into
we have to merge with
being a sentient being
in order to realize the stillness in which enlightenment is living
and so i've i'm mentioning all these different nodes are ways of expressing enlightenment bodhisattva precepts
not moving a sentient being being a sentient being
dancing with delusion not resisting
birth and death
mind and object merge in stillness and enter enlightenment different these are all the same
place the same time the same life
and we have to we have we have to perform this stuff we have to
we have to work at being ourself
the nature of ascension days that has to work had been itself
it has to work at for at at finding the place where it is
it has to remind itself in and be mindful in order not you had to remind full to be a sentient being
you can be unmindful and forgetful and still qualify as a sentient being
but an ordered to
realize enlightenment as a sentient being you have to remember to be a sentient being
you have to exercise you have to make being a sentient being
an exercise along with the other exercises like the exercises of getting something in accomplishing something and being famous are becoming a goddess along with those exercises you have to do this simple and most difficult exercise
among all the other exercises the most difficult and unusual and rarest is the exercise of being yourself
huh
one could say so we go to the trouble of writing off these characters
but it wasn't really trouble quit again but it wasn't wasn't that bad
little bit of drama
huh
and this dance
he is a is for leading it just like for a moment and then for a moment and then for a moment
in stillness
where a moment feel the difference between being a sentient being
who's not remembering to be a sentient being and being a central bank was remembering to be a sentient being
none and i'm not recommending to spend a lot of time
into the difference between those two different ways of living
but there is kind of a flicker of awareness of the difference and maybe some encouragement there
for me it it's encouraging
i yeah
so far i haven't regretted the moments when i'm nourished with myself
i remembered to be a sentient being
and i have various levels of regret when i forgot
huh
how these characters come from a mahayana sutra which can be translated as
the inactivity
or the non-action of all things the inactivity of all phenomena
is the name of the scripture
and only little fragments have been translated and you've heard most of them
maybe someday somebody will translate the whole sutra
he's there anything you'd like to express
s from your stillness from the stillness of being yourself

characters
the knew the names of each character
ah the first character means assembly second character means living
does two characters together mean living beings
so these first two characters are you often translated as sentient beings can be one or all next year to meet nature for condition of
next two characters this mean this is this character means then in his character is by means is er yes for this and together they mean
immediately are or hard r are are themselves
like in the heart sutra words as form sometimes you say form is emptiness
it says form and then a have these two characters
form isn't an emptiness but sometimes we'd save form itself is emptiness
our form in reality is emptiness in emptiness is forms so emptiness is form is emptiness these two characters form
and form these two characters emptiness
so these two characters are like mediators between conventional and ultimate truth
so sentient beings the nature of sentient beings
and then here's enlightenment the nature of sentient beings the nature of assumption being is itself
mrs body
these two body flush one is kind of like ah
it goes it is a grammatical thing which goes with these just to say to make it work to make the sentence work in such a way that this up here is itself this
and then this is this is my part of my name and my seal
and my my name is the main translator the whole works
which is also kind of what does the saying that but the body works through sentient beings
in stillness
so this is a condition of sentient beings as a condition of a sentient being
in a sense of stillness since be never move from its condition
so the condition of a sentient being or you can save a sentient being in stillness is itself
enlightenment
i seem to big was not a running away from her nature
who is exercising her nature more by moment
is itself body
a sentient being whose ignoring being a sentient being is just a sentient being
who is ignoring being a sentient being was missing out on
her condition which is itself
enlightenment

he's possible to stay there
movement is form and stillness is beyond form
ah you could say movement is movement is form to say a movement is form
sent him beings are forms
and stillness he says beyond beyond beyond what
well ah stillness is form entering into form
and not been stuck in form
so in stillness mind and object mind and objects are like forms so form is one category of phenomenal
form is one kind of category of phenomenal experience of sentient beings sentient beings have form experience colors smells and salon sounds
they have eyes ears nose tongue body sense so those reforms a sentient beings have then sent beings have feelings sent him being have a perception sentient beings have ah active consciousness sentient beings have ah basic awareness they have these differ
dimensions each one of these are like ah like movement
movement is like all those things some movement can be for mum can be feeling woman can be ideas movement can be perception movement can be thinking movement can be
ah hatred and confusion does are different because those are movements stillness is when those things are themselves and when they're themselves
they go beyond form they go beyond stillness and enter enlightenment but they also go beyond enlightenment
they don't get stuck there
yes stillness isn't exactly beyond former beyond feeling or beyond being a sentient being stillness is a sentient being entering into being a sentient being but then entering into being sentient being
that's enlightenment but enlightenment ah being entered through being yourself enlightenment being entered by stillness also leads to an to going beyond enlightenment
so when we enter into what's going on we don't move
and we enter enlightenment but also we go beyond enlightened into the next opportunity
to be still because this isn't a non this isn't a static vs dynamic
fleeting stillness
which have to be found again
now now now not just
on thursday nights
for an hour or so but
all week long
living in stillness we find that enlightenment living there too
but the hard part is that a sentient beings living there
and we've gotta get we have to be the center of being
and it's hard work or any way to work sometimes it's hard sometimes is joyful but it's definitely an exercise
we have to practice being ourselves
otherwise we miss enlightenment know if you if you don't practice being yourself you don't miss being yourself
he dismissed the enlightenment
that is there in the stillness of your being yourself fully
from being ourselves is route often quite uncomfortable comes with a very challenging situation of birth and death
and so i'm i'm offering these teachings to help us get a get over our resistance to being ourselves
a fresh
new self who's older then all the previous ones that we are the successor to
hi i
i heard that some microbiologist said to somebody
you know people used to not know that aging is a disease
you know sometimes you say
birth old age sickness and death
but another way say his birth
and disease and death the whole aging process is basically a disease i said say what about no no
it's only it in the later part that is the same as a disease
okay
but teenager seem to have the hardest time
they really are a suicide rates so high there
so anyway birth aging disease and death
sentient beings or indirect
but they're usually not
dancing with it
usually they're waiting for a better partner
if you are not inviting
did you not inviting this or do you do not invited themselves to enter it
he's are not surrendering to it you don't hear the or sometimes they do here the invitation which you please come and visit me
and then they serve resist the invitation sometimes
but not always
yes
have a question
most of the time expressing things
you notice to you know the service
in yourself
in in myself today
most of those and teachers to be
habit of saying something is
good or not as good rather than say something crowd or not as bad
and i ever see some criticism recently
because a friend of mine was really into saying that these things are good things are bad
it seems like the field i see something that i meditated columbus's
they they feel judgmental disabled or mad
i'm ordering
a conscious intention till they express things positive
huh
huh
i don't know a fire
if i don't know i don't know if i only expressing positively
i don't know if it's pattern of i was a stillness is positive and movement is negative i don't know that so
i think what i'm
say here is that up judgments of positive and negative
or expressing things positively or negatively for sentient beings is part of a process from delusion usually
so whether i'm expressing things positively or negatively i'm bringing up now
to embrace
dear
embrace a positive and negative
you know not to not to he added to embrace them
to be still with them
to dance with them
if you have experience of his of your history of hearing certain people's express things positively
and that's something about the sentient being that you are
if you're if you're in some situation and he thinks other places i hear people speaking negatively that's about you that your view of from situation

hmm completely on my said the boot on your side you say
no i'm just talking about
what your to what your with not so much that it's completely on your side but what you're describing as your side of the story
you depend on what you're talking about
but your story about it is your is years sentient being story
and
before anything else happens there's this there's the stillness of you have in his view that somebody is expressing something positively
and somebody else is expressing something
in terms of britain bad
in somebody else's not even addressing good and bad
so you you have experiences at some of these situations
have your experience of these situations is a
diluted rendition of these situations
does your essential being and you like dilute you like to delude a fi everything
that's essential things do they make they make the universe into little delusion packages that they can work on work with
but we're not trying to get you to stop doing that
we're trying to get you to dance with that
because enlightenment it's already dancing with it
and and but he have to be still and are through this dance
so before you can't like move away from
the fact that you have a delusion or a story about what's going on here on this in this universe before he moved away from that first of all remember to be that person
then if you if you wholeheartedly
don't just don't get distracted from being this person
i've some people get distracted from it
they get into the delusion rather than big thing worth of the diluted person who is aware of this delusion and believing it maybe
so the candidate are they're sort of resisting being this person who's got the more into the objects they're going outward towards the objects
rather than being the person who is living with these objects this living being so i'm saying be this living being and
beings living being enters enlightenment
and you and so this this living this enlightenment can occur with the story of somebody expressing things positively it can it can occur with a story of people of people expressing something negatively it can be a it can occur with with a story about people being totally can
fused it can be with a story about people being enlightened but a sentient being
has got its own little deluded story about whatever's going on
if we're willing to be ourselves we enter enlightenment and then we're in a good position to deal with all this stuff whatever it is
and to show others how to join the dance and enter enlightenment and leave enlightenment together
and this process is freedom from the from the thing which were no longer resisting
so resisting birth and death resisting birth aging disease and death keeps us in birth aging disease and death
that's what that's resistance to to birth and death runs birth and death
and so part of our resistance to work not yeah so birth and death comes because of our our imagination because comes because of our delusions
our delusions create birth and death
our resistance to reality
take the form of us packaging it in such a way that recreate birth and death and then we resist birth and death and then with what we say we're off to the races
so we are mind creates birth and death together with other people who are supporting us and we're supporting them to create birth and death and most of the people on birth and death are resisting it which means they're resisting being a person who is contributing to the ongoing process
so sentient beings are the ones who are who driving birth and death and most sentient beings are resisting the process and thereby reducing its i'm talking about
have you still with it dash dance with it dance give up resisting it
then
by not resisting birth and death we become free of birth and death
but not by taking it away which is their usual thing well if i if i don't resist it anymore will go away like on people say well i i hadn't been for experiment with not resisting and it is still there
i say didn't say would go away
if you're a little bit trying to get rid of old age and sickness
then you're a normal sentient being so now if you can stop resisting being the person who's trying to get rid of
disease
really you know join that you enter into the place which is without changing anything
is a total different way of living in it
called enlightenment or freedom and peace without moving any of these things around and body sought there's like that kind of enlightenment because then the right in the same situation showing other people how to do the same
which is the which is the and and again the reason for learning this is not for your own freedom but for other people's freedom because of it's free own freedom it gets back a little bit of a little bit resistance there
so your story that if you told i heard as an example of a sentient being as an example of birth and death
of noticing over here these people are posted speaking positively and most of the zen teachers and over here are some other people who are speaking negatively or good and bad and nose or not the zen teachers and upstairs as and teacher was talking about good and bad
that's all fine with me this is all opportunities to be the sentient being was having this different experiences
said make sense
mike

well like if the body is like gum you know usually in buddhism was a body we mean ah we mean
the organs we mean we're referring to the m receptive sensitive
responsive
aspects of a body
like the of the i oregon the your organs to the touch oregon the smell and taste oregon
so these are the this this is the body which is like
for dancing with physical objects physical phenomena like
you know like electromagnetic radiation and heat and and colors and smells and so on and pressure so that body
is a key ingredient in being a living being
so being when you have a body to having sensations being willing
to be with those sensation other words
inviting herself and surrendering to the sensation completely not moving
with each physical sensation with each
sense of color and smell and so on so forth so that's
usually when we start in terms of being a sentient being we start with
being a sentient beings body
had not moving away from it
in the moment and then again next mama
so remember to be a sentient being group is to remember to be a body
because human beings for example
i'm very
i very often not
ah not being their body
in other words they're not with the stillness of their current bodily experience
even though they're standing right there they're not
remembering i'm standing right here
and they're leaning far little bit better not
they were that they're leaning far your bed
and that that feels a certain way in the back and stomach
and if they start paying attention they weren't always because they can't always but they will often and stand up straight when they realize that they're leaning forward just mostly because of your attention
but whatever position we're in
the encouragement of this class is dance with it
be with that posture
be with this posture be with this posture be with this posture be with the sound be with this site
be with this touch
so you actually being a sentient being usually we recommend starting with the body's kind of
it's the easiest in a way to start with that
can start with that okay start with something else like feeling are your ideas some people are so out of the habit of
being a sentient body that the hard for them to get back into it
but for most people it's the easiest thing to start noticing
so we start that did not address your question at all
is it reality
ah
the way it exists
is called a a conventional truth
her conventional reality the way it the way it exists depends on numb
it all depends on on mental imputation
but the beyond the way it exists ultimately
ah it's ultimate it's highest truth is that you can't find any these things you can find any of these ah physical sense physical experiences they cannot be found they had no substantial existence
see if you reach for them all you get as the conditions they depend on they have no cost
while you get it all the things that make them that aren't them there's nothing about them makes them that's the ultimate truth of them but the ultimate truth of them isn't it isn't reality the ultimate truth isn't isn't reality reality is both ultimate truth and congressional truth
the juice it's it's it's the ultimate truth is the way conventional truths really are an ultimate truth is also a conventional truth
ultimate truth also an insubstantial
so the ultimate truth and conventional truth art
you know are intimately related conventional truth itself is ultimate truth so reality is more like
includes conventional truth like bodies and and mental activity and include conventional truth like living beings but it also includes ultimate truth is that you can't find any living beings if you really look carefully you can not find they cannot be found
we are the includes both of them ultimate in conventional and their relationship
but in order to realize reality we have to work with conventional truth like
a sentient being as a conventional truth
a sentient being is not an ultimate truth however all sentient beings have an ultimate truth namely
you can never find any sentient beings
and if you're willing to be the sentient being that you think you can find he stopped resisting being a sentient being you will discover the
ultimate truth of a sentient being
which comes along with the enlightenment package
he's wanted one of the things you get with enlightenment is ultimate truth but the other thing you'll get is the ability to to stop resisting birth and death and freedom from it
and realizing ultimate truth helps us not resist and not resisting helps us not resisting gives us access to ultimate truth and ultimate truth encourages us not to resist
because there's not really something there to resist
there aren't any beings actually to to not accept so
marvel accepted
by his first if you really accept things you realize ultimate truth and i knew from and you're free from further resistance and also further cleaning
round and round we go
carmen
everything's an illusion
yeah everything that exists is an illusion
he
ultimate truth is
ultimate truth is not an illusion but but the way it exists as an illusion
so like ah
when you realize that something cannot be found not just that you can find it but it can't be found when you realize that something doesn't is substantial can't be grasped when you understand that
the truth isn't it is not an illusion however
the truth as the dutch truth as it exists is another illusion
because we don't make the truth the things are substantial into a substantial thing
if you make but but is in order for to exist for us we converted into another illusion
so this teaching is
in some sense saying all things all things that exist are illusions but it's also sang if you have any resistance
to any of these illusory things then you will be enslaved by them
so birth and death are illusions
and the pain of birth and death is an illusion
but if you don't invite yourself into the pain of birth and death
if you resist the pain of birth and death
then it will see my birth and death
our heavy duty substantial truth
whereas hit were at birth and death are actually only conventional truths and you can't actually find them
when you can't find them you released from them but you can't realize that you can find them if you resist them
if you resist pain he keep thinking it could be found and that's why you resisted because you think you found it i found it and i don't like it i'm trying to get away from it that's when that's the usual sentient being so to stop resisting pain is similar to stop resisting being a sentient being who norm
really resist pain
so i'm i'm i'm willing to be somebody who is resisting the pain is similar drum was i'm willing to be with the pain
i'm willing to be somebody was running away from this is similar to be not run away from it
i'm willing to be somebody who's afraid
a similar tooth not running away from the fear
and if you face fear
completely you realize it's ultimate truth
but you have to be compassionate
to these things in order to not in order to surrender to them
and yet to be compassionate yourself in relationship to him in order to stop resisting
so being a sentient being is hard because it requires so much kindness
it's hard it takes a lotta love to settle into being somebody who's got the problems of a sentient being
it's hard to be a sentient being sentient beings have a hard time
they have a hard time being born they have a hard time growing up they have a hard time falling apart they have a hard time with all kinds of illnesses they have a hard time with fear they have a hard time with gain and loss sentient beings have a hard time how could pug we possibly be a sentient being
how can we turn around and be who we are or got to be really kind to ourselves to get ourselves to do that
if to be really kind of people in order to get encouraged them to be bodhisattvas
but some people because of feeling a tremendous amount of kindness they stop resisting being an ordinary person
because not only does the kindness tell them please be an ordinary person because that will help everybody else is having a hard time being an ordinary person
it'll help them be an ordinary person than now help them be enlightened you'll help them become free if you're going to be you
but we're not saying be reality were saying be a diluted person in in on brace and dance with being a diluted person
okay the time and
so we're trying to encourage you to do that
yeah

yeah

when doing something ordinary better
necessary
be yourself
or yourself stop say to yourself
this
thank you
jeff
pardon

yeah we you and maybe can can remind me
earlier
as nine o'clock
like i told your story of my my wife told me to when my daughter from from her pacifier
as she went off to europe for a couple of months
and
and i so i told her you know when we were alone her mother is gone i said your mom wants me to we knew from using your pacifier and she said in our dad it helped me go to sleep at night
and i thought well yeah that's a reasonable thing to do considering what adults do the go to sleep
so i didn't i didn't try to get her to get after
the pacifier but she am
here
she accidentally broke it and were wrestling
she broke at one night and she was very upset because she broke it and she wanted me to go by a new one in the middle of the night
i said the nearest grocery stores fifty miles away
now but i'll go tomorrow morning if you remind me but she
forgot to remind me i got to be
nine o'clock again when she reminded
so i said if if you if you remind me during the day i i'll go
so remind me earlier and i'll tell you the story of american history or american political history
which is very relevant might be a nice sir
a nice way to end the classes to discusses
the current difficulty of this nation a struggling with how to ah
how did not resist birth and death this is sort of where the whole countries like struggling with this right now so remind me earlier
thank you very much
and if you'd like he can have one