before i forget
heaven
i'm in heaven
and my heartbeat so that i can hardly speak
and i seem to find the happiness i see
when we're hearing know
when wherein silence sitting week to read
heaven i'm in heaven and the cares that hung about me through the we seem to vanish like
streak
when where
here know when we're when we're when we're still when we're still
when we're still dancing when we're still when we're in stillness
when we're in stillness dancing week to week
when wherein when we're in stillness there when we're in stillness dancing week to week go
oh so
i'm i i propose that the point of zan is to dance with
and understand delusion
our own delusion
the point of buddha's teaching his enlightenment not surprised the point of zen is enlightenment
the point the point of bodhisattva practice is enlightenment
and
it's the same as saying the point of zen is helping others
face their delusion and become free of it
face their delusion and become free of the suffering that arises from delusion
and this facing the suffering of facing the suffering facing delusion
ah occurs
most intimately in silence and stillness
delusion is not sounds the stillness but when we live in stillness and silence and meet our moment by moment delusions
this encourages other people other deluded people like eyes
meet their delusion in stillness and silence
to be dance with it understand it and become free of it
and become free of suffering that arises from it
so i'm happy to hear from some of you that
you have been trying to be mindful of being a being silent and still throughout the week
opening to silence and stillness throughout the week
and finding perhaps in that silence and stillness that enlightenment is living
ha
i could spend the whole evening reviewing but i like to deal with some new points one is i received a question
from someone
which goes something like this
in class on thursday you made the point that one's practice must be motivated by
body her
rather then the motivation or wish to become enlightened for oneself
it actually is the question actually says the wish to become enlightened ones self
so what i did say something like that that in order to actually
do the work of facing delusion it's hard work to face delusion
in order to be able to do that
it helps to have this thing called body checked a body check dummies mind or heart of enlightenment or spirit of enlightenment and it is usually defined as the altruistic wish to attain enlightenment or the wish to attain enlightenment
for the sake of others
so you actually are wishing to become enlightened but not for yourself but for others to help others
it's a altruistic compassionate desire to be enlightened not a greedy selfish desire to be enlightened
and
ah
and then the question goes on to say because unless you have this body chip to you you would practice would retain an element of grasping
if unless you're practicing for the welfare of others your your your practice would have beset some grasping at it
and so that seem to be a catch twenty two to the person has to question but i want to make clear that body chipped up ah at the beginning when you first wish to attain perfect enlightenment and order to help others
there may be some grasping still in you when you have that wish
so that bodhicitta is caught easy or is used in two senses one sense it's used in a relative sense namely when the when the wish arises in you that you would actually like to live for the welfare of others
and you would like to help others and you would like to have
ah the supreme skill and helping others when at first arises there still may be some cleaning
in in you but this can arise in a person who still have some clinging like us
even
even rather highly developed bodhisattvas who really have been working on this and feeling this desire to help others for a long time they still may have some subtle grasping
so it isn't necessary to have zero grasping and order for this wished to arise
but it's another meaning or body checked and that is the mind of the buddha in the mind which has no grasping at it anymore
so it both means the the seed of the whole buddha path this this altruistic wish to attain enlightenment for the welfare of others and at inter first or the whole path that the cultivation of that spirit for a long period of time until
one still has that wish the buddhist to have that wish the buddha's wished to help all better help our beings
they wish their enlightenment would help what they are enlightened already but they wish their enlightened men would help others and
so that that's also called body chapter
you can also practice
just to help yourself but that's more of that's more heavy duty
then just a wanting to help others but still having some clinging some expectation and so on of how that would go
huh
and also those joseph's expression of the the metaphor of dancing was sometimes rather difficult to understand how that would appear
fly
and so i'm to say load more about that that the i'm suggesting that dumb
ah
when are when our body mind awareness
can interact with delusion and delusion is basically all objects of knowledge by pretty much delusion everything that seems to be out there separate from us it's a delusion
so i see you and and in my see was out there sort of on your own separate from me and separate from each other that's a delusion when i have an idea of what is good or bad
and ah and see that idea as having some substance
then that's cut their ideas or delusion so
meeting my own delusions moment by moment in a and in a dance means that i would be intimate with them
that i would be relaxed with them i would be playful with them
ah and an end this intimate relationship
i would realize the insubstantial holiday of them
i would realize that their delusions which they are
and i would also realized that because delusions although delusions are delusions because they're in substantial because they don't have in any inherent existence delusions are also not diversions
so i think also as someone's after class maybe last week delusions are beautiful
they're actually beautiful how are they beautiful they're beautiful in their insubstantial allottee they're beautiful in their interdependence
but we have to open to the delusions in order to open to their beauty
if we see if we if we believe delusions we're not really open to them if we believed that what we think is true or not open to what we think
perhaps is just an illusion
and being close to that possibility we close to things ah like understanding and
freedom and beauty
and
we can also spend the rest requests asking questions about when i just said i'm sure but before we do that i also want to introduce something which is kind of a
it's kind of a big topic but i
i promised to discuss it and if i don't wait pretty soon it's gonna be brought up at the last minute again
oh also i want to put this calligraphy doctor i wrote this calligraphy and passed it out i mean people some people got this last week but some people weren't here last week and this calligraphy is from a sutra and it can be translated as
the nature of a sentient being assumption been there's there's two kinds of living beings while as two kinds of beings in a sense one kind of living being which we call a living being the other kind of living being is called a buddha or bodhisattva as are living beings
so this says that the nature of a living being a living beings nature
namely enlightenment
a living beings nature to be to be a living being is precisely what we mean by enlightenment
a bodhisattva as are beings who are willing to be be living beings they're living beings who are willing to be living beings
and there and this and when they are and when they are act actually able to be living being then they realize enlightenment which is again to say
when they're able to dance with their deluded being they realize enlightenment but even before we learn to completely be a living being our condition is already completely when it is
and are conditioned being completely where it is his enlightenment
so i would like to be a person
who's willing to be a person to encourage other person's to be a person
and in fact i do feel that a person who's feels encouraged and willing to be a person does encourage other person's to be persons even though there really aren't any persons
that can be found there in on this that's nothing actually there but we won't realize that unless we're willing to be a person
we won't be able to give up our personhood and left for a willing to completely except an open to our personhood
and so at the end of class last week just brought up the question relating to something i mentioned which is that i kind of feel encouraged
that this kind of practice we're talking about here would be helpful in this world and i read an article in a new yorker which gave a nice a history of north american
politics or give a given nice political history of north american politics
i say north american
because it's not south american politics so much and and in particular north american politics starting from the eighteenth century particularly
in the eighteenth century in america was influenced by something that was going on in europe at that time in earlier called the enlightenment
and this philosophical movement
i had a big influence on the educated people educated man anyway
ah in the british colonies on this continent the both you know canada what we now call canada united states
had this british colonists
and as i understand it now that
the enlightenment
proposed that there were basically three rights
while three main rights
the humor or a human being the right to life
the right to property and the right to freedom
and the the america a lot of the american
colonists felt that they had those rights
and when they wrote the declaration of pennant the independence they wrote an additional right which was the right to pursue happiness they didn't say the right to be happy they said the right to pursue happy
and also they didn't explicitly mentioned in that phrase life liberty and pursuit happened that they didn't say life liberty property and the pursuit of happiness but if you look at the documents more you realize that property was a right for the colonists and in and and for example them
massachusetts state constitution it did say
life liberty and property didn't say pursuit of happiness
so the historians suggest that
after these rights were put forth as inalienable rights of human beings that then they had us they had a war
and the war was about one of the rights and the right was liberty
the colonists actually felt that there was a tyrant
in the british isles who was wanting wanting to take away their rights
and so for lot of there were fighting for the right to liberty and student wanted to take a break their liberty so they were particularly they felt that there are fighting for liberty at that time
they weren't actually complaining that much about the property there are more complaining about the liberty route as it related to the property but other kinds of liberty to
so they've had a war over the first of these one of these rights than the right of lived to liberty then as and then we have an in nineteenth century there was a big people felt that the right to property was that was going it was threatened by another government
they no longer afraid that england was gonna take away their property but they thought that the us government was going to take away their property was not going to respect their property rights so we had another war
now the war did not conclude that people do not have a right to property
it did not refute that it said you do have a right to property you just don't have the right to property in the form of human beings
you can't have slaves
but slaves were a huge piece of property for a lot of powerful people in america so there was a war and after the war it was kind of settled we still have a lot of problems around that but there's no longer a war about it now we're arguing about it
now that now in the last fifty years peculiarly last yeah the last fifty years
in this in the north america area been fighting over the right to life
and
so that's in some sense that's the big one the right to life
and some people who are concerned about the right to life call themselves pro-life now
and they would like to call the people some of the people who disagree with them they would like to call those people pro death but that so far they haven't been able to pull that off
because obviously the people disagree with them
about what the right to life means are not just pro death
they're more pro
choice or pro ah compassion
towards life that's how they would say it
both sides and her men are many sides around the issue of life is also have now to do with the right to death so there's right to life particularly around birth and there's right to death
around death
but it's really a right to life around deck and a right to life around birth
in both cases the right to life it just and then there's a and there's a right to life between birth and death there's a right to life
around disease and then there to there's different opinions about what does right to life main around disease
so in a way i'm very happy because this country seems to become kind of like focusing on the same thing that buddha dharma has been focusing on the whole time name way
birth and death
as a life issue
and what's the appropriate response to birth and death
such that we could have
freedom in the midst of the difficulties of being born and dying and being
have you disease in between
how can this kind of practice
encourage beings
to engage their delusions
to be aware that they're deluded beatings relating to other diluted beings rather than
our position is not diluted their position is diluted know i'm a sentient be
i might want to be a bodhisattva sentient being i'm essentially being who would like to help all beings i would like to help those who have this opinion and i would like to help those who had the opposite opinion i want to help everybody and i think i gotta feeling like it would help everybody if i would
be willing to be me
and to be me so completely
but i don't think i'm better than other people even if i disagree with them
and they could feel that i really value them and respect them
because i do and the reason i do is because i'm willing to be me
completely
so i feel that this this this bodhisattva practice
can be very helpful in this
sort of this war that's happening around this issue of the right to life
and another thing another phrase it came my mind to the day was if one has given to deception there's no better place to exercise it then in the juncture between religion and politics
so a lot of there's a lot of dishonesty and deception going around between the
the political right to life and
and the religion the religious values in relationship to life and how you can get power
political power and economic power and other kinds of power
if you're somewhat deceptive
around what you're doing in relationship to these agendas
and those people also need to be
helped
and if i am not aware of my own deception it will be difficult for me to help others who are not aware of their deception and telling lies oftentimes is easier when you don't know you're telling a lie
so some people stand up and five large groups
and put forth a deception
they actually managed to deceive people
you don't actually say we're doing this for this reason and that's not the reason we're doing it but we in order to say this whole heartedly i have to not notice that i'm
being deceptive
and i don't notice it so i'm not being deceptive
how do you help people like that
why i think i had to be aware of my own deception
and that's not easy and one it even once i notice it is not easy to like
dance with it
and relax with it
and become free of it without getting rid of it and be able to admit somehow
i feel some deception in may and to do that and the same time respect other people who are also being deceptive or
so that's what i was referring to
and i feel like got yeah work will probably going to be struggling with this
for quite a while longer
cause it's you know
the i skimmed like it's it's a
ah i don't know to what extent that the the american politics were involved with the right to life you know a while ago but it just didn't seem to be that big a deal other things that seem to be more
other rights seem to be more crucial
i don't know that i don't know those big you know a political brouhaha about anybody that won't have an abortion
in eighteenth century i don't know maybe there was but i don't see i don't see people going to war over that were seem to be going to war over these issues now
so i i myself for
you know i guess i would say in our and this this this concern kind of week i wouldn't exactly say that i'm pro choice
are pro life according to some the way some people whose say pro-choice or pro-life i would say and i'm not really pro
i'm pro delusion
or pro enlightenment
i'm not really pro samsara or pro nirvana
i think i'm pro the middle way
now the middle way does lead to enlightenment yes
but part of the middle way is that you're not pro to were leading
some kind of pro to be balanced and respectful of different sides and i think some people might not like that
i think i can see some
diluted human compassion in people who have both positions
and i think that compassion can be a cultivated in such a way that we i'm
we can have a peaceful society
and i would be i haven't there
it's not that i haven't really taken a pro-life position but but sometimes when people talk to me about having abortions i am
i seem to be encouraging them to
had the baby
i noticed i do i offer a dumb some people who were thing having abortion i said well why don't you just have the baby because it wasn't a health issue it was it was other issues so won't have the baby and then give it to me i'll take care of a call i'll take but i'll find i'll find somebody to take her before you
that was a long time ago before
a bit adoption was so popular
i had lot of confidence that
the baby that would come would be a lot of people would like to take care of the baby
and
and they had a miscarriage but then they got pregnant again and then the next time they didn't talk about having an abortion and they had the baby and the baby
was born in everything's going really well
and there's some other cases to or somebody people
came to talk to me and i encourage him now some people who didn't come to talk to me it's possible that i would have different something different the people would i didn't have anybody coming to me who who who was telling me telling me that her life was in danger
to have this baby in that case i might have said while i support your to have an abortion
so i do not have a
ah a fixed position in this matter
myself
but i do i but i can but i'm happy that we have this problem
i think it's a wonderful opportunity to find the middle way
around this issue of the right to life
so american politics is is dealing with this i think crucial
the of life and death now i think that's good
i think it's more interesting actually than property and
and i'm entered will more interesting and property anyway
self
that's enough from me
thank you very much for letting me sing my song
is there anything you'd like to bring up
yes ted
something
ask a question about something zucker she said sure
he cannot reach your full understanding of
that is why we practice
the thinking mind or the feelings
what is it that reaches his understanding
ha the thorough engagement with thinking
reaches the realization of the emptiness of thinking
the thorough engagement with feeling
that practice of their engagement with feeling is
where you say
i just said the thorough engagement with feeling reaches the emptiness of feeling
but i would change it now said again the thorough engagement with feeling is the realization of the emptiness of feeling
the through engagement with feeling
is the realization is the enlightenment
of
feeling it's the enlightened understanding of feeling is thorough engagement with it if you're willing
or not even your but the willingness to be thoroughly engaged with a feeling is
the realization of a sense of staff geology dash is enlightenment
because we do not understand the emptiness of our feelings we cringe from certain feelings
and we attached to others
if you fully engage with your feelings you only will be able to do that
when you understand that the feelings cannot be grasped
i said well i don't understand that the camp be grasped but i'm fully engaging with them i say well
your understanding that the cat be grasped is none other than your ability to fully engage even though you may not think i understand their insubstantial you act like someone who did understand who doesn't understand
and even if someone said i understand all everything's insubstantial and nothing can be found
i understand that
but i can't stand to be here for my feelings
another example says gershon uses his like he liked he actually was a member of a brown rice society in japan i think before the second world war a group of people that are really good eat brown rice
and when he came to america he was no longer in the brown rice society but when he went to toss a hero when we started tassajara there was lots of
interest in serving quite a bit of brown rice and he really appreciated the way the students eight and chewed their brown rice
and he said basically at one point that emptiness is like chewing brown rice
you know you really when you really sure your rice you realize emptiness of your race
the the thoroughness
a thorough engagement realize is emptiness
so you can approach the realization of emptiness through their engagement or you can approach to their engagement through emptiness
but most people start by trying to be more and more through the engage with what they're doing
noticing their resistance and then being kind of that until they get me
more and more into the dance and in the fullness of the dance you realize the emptiness of the dance and who you're dancing with or what you're dancing with
okay said
so it isn't it isn't my thinking that reaches emptiness
it's my engagement with my thinking
it's not my feeling it reaches emptiness because emptiness is the nature of feeling
so of emptiness is the final nature of feeling then you should completely engage with feeling and you'll realize it's final nature it's ultimate nature but you can't realize the ultimate nature of it if you kind of are just wanted a little bit involved in it or again a little bit involved or
one way to be a little bit involved is to be possessive of it so to have a feeling
and to think you can get a hold of it you're not really fully involved with it said make sense
just like with a person if you possess somebody you're not yet really intimate with them
and when you're an intimate with them you do not possess them you cannot find you cannot find them
you can wonder who they are that works ok you can be amazed by them the way they have the way they change and the way they a man appear
but if your but that amazement should be
can join with respect
and not grasping
and then you realize the emptiness and you realize ultimate relation ultimate truth in the relationship
more questions did
right to say that
practice is not to try to understand anything but
is it right to say that
ah no it's not right to say that
her practices is not to try to understand and it's also our practice is not
do not try to understand
it said if you're trying to understand
if you want understand then you must be the person who wants to understand so completely that and you're completely being a person who wants to understand
you've become who you are and your and who you are as
you know that you're not or you aren't etc
and if you don't want understand anything i do not want to if than anything about buddhism
okay then be that person
completely
and you and you will understand if you're completely yourself you will understand
you will be enlightened you will be enlightenment
but no no way that anybody is is the practice
the practice is
to be whatever you are
and part of what you are is this is a diluted version of yourself
so where we have a responsibility to take care of who we think we are that's part of being who we are is to accept and embrace that we think we're something
but it's not that the something you are is the practice
because then the rest of us wouldn't be the practice
but we're not the practice either
the practices all of us together and when you're willing to be yourself completely you will open to all of us practicing together the same practice
the same practice of each of us being ourself
which is a practice that a lot of people are not into
even though that's what they are
come in
i'll bear with you going back
people

focus

very opposite

no idea
to really engage with that person
productively
well i think my idea of of engaging productively has some element of wanting to convince them of my point of view
which i realized
i guess i do have a hard time learning how to engage in that situation without becoming so passionate that i can't function in that relationship
so i'm wondering if you can talk more more about
how to deal with them
it can be a very contentious you know that kind of engagement yeah and how to deal with that contention well
again i'm thinking i'm just thinking of dancing again
and how and dancing ah
you can dance for people who you have a difference of opinion with
but you don't have a difference but you might not have a difference of opinion about how to about them the the the rules at the dance
so one of the rules for example and tango is there certain forms that you practice and allows the two people to be quite close to each other physically
and like to be actually quite close intimate physically quite intimate with somebody you don't you don't even know
if that could happen by using the forms and then the usual thing is that when when the dance is over the intimacy
in a sense the intimacy doesn't have a form anymore so it's over pretty much and now the two people part and for example the the follower might go over and sit at the edges the dance floor and it's it's not part of the form that the leader would go over with her
and sit at the table with her especially if you've never met her before
now that's actually his usual part of the form is at the the the forms and loud for intimacy
one of them is that it is is that we don't have a form for at the table at the edges down for we don't have form for that there's other social forms for that but those forms do not allow people to be that close if you went over and tried to get that close to the person at the table i know people would get
they probably to ask you to leave the leave the dance floor area
and yet you actually can invite someone to get really close to your and and she might accept the invitation and you get really close and you can in that way be intimate so and the indian person might be different have different views from your politically
but the agree on this form of enact interaction so i think we need some form of interaction or to be intimate with people who
usually anyway are often we need forms in order to be intimate with people who we disagree with around those forms and a sense to follower and the leader heart are in disagreement
they don't do the same thing they don't they don't agree to have the same position they have different roles and yet having different roles the republican role in the democrat role having different roles how can we have a form by which they can be intimate
and i think right now for what for various reasons these we don't seem to the foreigners for them to be intimate and some and some politicians are saying you know i used to go out to dinner with my friends from the other party
we used to be closer so how they had forms social forms where they could actually work together and they seem to have somewhat deteriorated
and as zen center to we have people who are different and but we have forms that we can be intimate with each other
so again i would propose intimacy is reality but we need forms to realize it
and without as forms then the difference between us can seem to make it difficult to be closed
so i've completely understand how if i sense that somebody has a really different view of men and they're very stiff feel very strongly about it
and maybe i feel strongly to and it's hard to imagine how we can get close we're gonna need some we need some form
so we have we have we have one
got we have legislative bodies that have formed to allow people like that to be in the same room we have lawyers
we have mediators
and we have ah we have one teacher teachers of buddha dharma to help people also find a way to be close when they really feel differently about something and they can hardly imagine how how to get together
so on

yeah people in your community read friends your family yeah so i would think it i would think it might be necessary
to offer some forms some formal way to interact
particularly for family members you don't think you need forms to talk about things but in fact
when you get intimate with each other you do need forms and especially you could say when you're playing quite different roles in a social interaction
so it's pretty easy to without forms you don't really need formed
if you need for for you don't need to agree on forms in order to have a fight with somebody
in are you can if they can say i want to fight where he this way and then you could say i don't wanna fight with you that way and if i can go on quite nicely
and they can say you're not playing to my according to the rules you know you say i don't want to play according to rules by do on a fight you can i do hate you
and so that's a form but it's not a form you agreed on in order to be close so tango has forms so that people can be close
and in part of the form also is that when those forms are not been used you're not if you shouldn't expect to because
so some sense
with your family who you might expect to be close expecting to be closed is kind of i would say
antithetical to realizing closeness
like i just kept my mind is my my daughter and my wife rid of my daughter with me for about two months with my wife was travelling in europe and when when they got back together
i saw them get back together after two months and i i was i was watch i was for them between them and their about fifty feet apart and i watch them approach each other
and each of them had an expectation of their intimacy of course their intimate but they both had an expectation of their intimacy
they expected it to have a certain form and i could actually see this like golden golden missed between them kind of a golden a golden ark of warm golden light it was actually kind of a sunset or something so it helped but
they and they approached each other they sort of ran towards each other in this each in this mutually created sense of i'm gonna be with this wonderful person and they got together and then i watched him fight for two weeks
because they both had their expectations
of who the other person was and how they're going to be intimate again
and after two weeks they will they worked out their forms again and they were it and they realize their intimacy but again you think of like when musicians get together
the glue on you lie you
they have to get a tune and that attunement is irritating sometimes to listen to and then they get in tuned and then this separate from each other for a while and they get out of tune
so with family members youth you're right that your intimate but you assume that the way you think your intimate is the way that you are intimate and they assume that the way they think your intimate is the way our intimate and then you clash
if you assume if you expect now if you know i have an expectation but that's just a delusion
i don't really know what is gonna be like to be with this person that i think would promote
looking for some form by which have you're gonna meet
so we're going to get back together know how should we meet
well how about let's have a policy that for an hour
neither one of us
deal with any emails
form may agree on are like my daughter system me what do you want for christmas and i say a walk and talk
because i had to take a walk with my daughter usually to talk to her
if she just comes into the into the house
it's pretty hard to like walk right up to me and be intimate and have a talk
you know hi i love you i love you and then a snack like a telephone call going to computer go the toilet take a nap
which is those are okay things but they're not she's not talking to me
and then why do i so we take a walk out of the house is no she didn't she doesn't take her cell phone
we'll take a walk out of the house is no snacks is no naps is not telephone
they're just were walking together and when refresh walk in together should not really talking to me maybe or i'm not really talking to her
it's not really talk it's it's like gonna know what it is
it's a walk were walking out and then we start climbing the hill and that kind of talk that was happening on horizontal surfaces stops because of the or because of the incline
and then
and then we start talking maybe before we get to the top but the talk that comes then
he's a talk that comes from silence i was being i will be together in silence for a while
there's no ball going on for awhile
and then something comes in maybe just a few words before we start going down
again i go back but we need we need that form
or we need we say okay let's sit down at two o'clock at the table you me and your mother and let's have an hour for that purpose we create a form and then same thing happened you this is fussing for awhile and then gradually sits to become still
and then you start
expressing this intimacy which is there but without creating a space that formal space
it's easy to avoid it
we don't want to avoid it but we do want to avoid it because it's so intense week or so nervous
an embarrassed and all that stuff
about our intimacy
so we need to do that with our children with our spouses with our parents with our brothers and sisters
which and hopefully saturday that that the group includes some people who disagree with us about something
otherwise we need to go do that same thing with some other people who disagree with about something
so it's it's kind of nice if a family does have people have difference of opinion because maybe there's motivation to work on getting on i'm i'm i'm realizing intimacy with people whom we disagree with that's what we need
we need intimacy with people we disagree with
we really need that and we need intimacy with people we agree with to
but we really need the other thing because the housing is kind of harder usually
and that's one of the nicest things i heard arnold schwartzenegger say was i get in bed every night was somebody i really disagree with politically

yes
so i noticed that in the forms of sorrows and it appears to be very low physical contact
now instead of shaking
don't think i've ever seen in a sensor hug
i'm sort of wondering
there's a reason for that
whether or not there's a reason about how they came about if it's
the faster some some role notice who who yeah could you hear what he said
you didn't he said he hadn't seen well he hasn't seen you have seen people hoggard sensor and shake hands the can't seem to remember that while is always ballet yeah
he hasn't seen and he hasn't seen any pupils and her shaking hands or hugging in his time as zen center but i would say we do not have a traditional form of hugging
in in in a zen tradition
we do not have it we do not have a traditional way of shaking hands in this and tradition
we do not have a traditional way of kissing in his and tradition
so it's true those those forms have not been transmitted as far as i know by almost any school of them
however there is hugging and kissing that zen center and shaking hands of zen center however these i would say excuse me this is my opinion but these are not the the occasions in which people are thunderstruck awestruck
by intimacy
within zen tradition
and within zen center i haven't heard about that it may happen but i haven't heard about it i do see people hugging but i don't hear later that they said when i was hugging that person i thought most intimate with them
i thought the most intimate than i've ever felt in my life i haven't heard that
what i have heard just is though when i was bowing to so and so when i was offering incense to so and so when i received in sense from so and so almost always so looked at me when both of us were sitting upright and said yes i never felt so intimate in my life before
i have heard that
i have people that i've been practice with long time in i like
for thirty years or even more
and we and we have for example we had certain forms traditional forms which are very elaborate and it takes like
about twenty or thirty years to be able to do these forms together
and we do these forms i say that this is like in some sense the most intimate thing that either of us do in our life not necessarily more intimate than some relationships
but more and more intimate than almost all relationships
and we have to be highly trained in order to do these these forms
so people often ask me ah
can i hug you or is it okay to hug you or how can your haga zen priest
and they often ask me and when they asked me they're being somewhat formal
people don't so often just come up and hugged me
but people often say may i or as it is it is a traditional they almost say is it a traditional thing to do and sometimes when i'm in a room along with someone they say can i hug you are i want to hug you and i say
oh i know i say
and i've been saying this for a decade or two you can hug me
but we need to go outside this room and do it in public
or i feel i need to do that
so then we go outside and sometimes they they don't they forget about it but sometimes we go outside and we hug where everybody can see us
and ah
i don't know i i don't have a clear sense but that's a formal way of hugging the i have developed
as a way of and i think is appropriate and and also it's a way to be intimate with someone like a hug was someone in a way that i feel like almost everybody supports
but if i have somebody in private i think a lot of people would not support it
what have a problem with it
if the person said yeah i hugged him in room no day
but if the person says i i hugged him but we went we hugged yet we hugged in you know we hug guinea in the buddha hall or you know where everybody could see us that that i had want a hearing problem with that and also my wife says i like you're hugging policy
she says i think that's a good way to handle it because we don't want to be cold people
and one time a young man ah
told me a in in public he told me he told me my father just died and i reached out and hugged him
and then later he said
i you know that i really feel violated by you
said i need you to ask me before you hugged me
now if i'd asked him he might he said okay i might have said no i don't feel comfortable doing that but i thought well here i'm just trying to be compassionate right
but intimacy isn't just act on what you think is compassionate it's to use some you know where you act like what you expect would be intimate what you expect would be intimate for the other person know when we need a form usually and even between mother and daughter
they need a form they can overwhelm each other if the without a form
mothers daughters can feel overwhelmed by their daughter by their mothers and vice versa
so
people do hoggard zen center
but i'm and we may actually have in it in the recording the
in the catholic church now at the eucharist sometimes they have in go around the circle of the people's the eucharist and hug each other that's a formula that they agree on
and i i did a on a couple of times at zen center i am i suggested to a group of people in public that we all that we go and hug everybody else in the room we did that but it didn't catch on
that that ceremony that bristle didn't catch on
i haven't felt a need to sort of encourage it
but i do feel a need to encourage lots of forms and i do feel that and with these forms people feel comfortable with me being intimate with people through those forms

and as and
but as as you as you watch them center more you'll you'll see that there is some hugging going on but it's not necessarily on
intimate i think when you when you when the hugging his intimate
i think you'll find that the people who are hugging i have some formality about the way they're doing it
like they've they've had considerable discussions about
but the hugging thing that you might observe some other people hugging but it's not really it's not necessarily intimate
are you go on about this we will
and as i am
i really appreciate
your devotion to this to these meetings
it's it's really great at the end of the class to have almost everybody here
and doubt will be offering another class in the springtime here starting in march i think
yes starting in the first thursday emerge
and that will be on basically on some some practices to get ready for enlightenment or practices for cultivating compassion
which
i hope you can come up it works for you thank you very much
and if any you're welcome thank you thank you daniel for taking care of the door
and if anybody wants this calligraphy out please come up and receive it
and thank you charlie for taking care of the recording people really appreciate it