purpose

hers

this morning
is april first
it's sometimes called april fool's day did you know that
did any funny things happen today yet
hmm yeah
i i don't know if you can see in a bag but up in front are lots of children
the this morning the program for the children i think is going to be considering the
idea of new life cent right
and i i wanted to
talk with the children little bit about
i'm being happy
and
some of you may not know about what it means to be happy in some of you may i don't know you andrea
give your little growth
so great
do
do any of you know what being happy is any of the children
you don't know
do
do any of you know anybody who's happy
you do who's happy
who
your father's happy
oh you're happy okay
and
do you ah
want anybody wants to be happy

do you do you want your mommy to be happy
wow
do any of your kids watch your mommy to be happy

if any kids if any kids want their mom and to be happy with they stand up please
one two
ah lot
war so new kids all the kids who are standing want their mommy to be happy
right
how many people want their dad to be happy stand up please
okay
great thank you
sometimes we pray we ever sometimes we in this room sometimes we together week we say
may all beings be happy
may all beings be free of unhappiness
we all beings be free of sickness and and pain and fear
and i wondered if you sometimes wish that your mother and father
would be happy you wish you wish to they'd be happy sometimes
you want them to be happy do you sometimes see i i wish my mommy would be happy do something say that
do you sometimes see i wish
my daddy would be happy for my father would be happy to sometimes say that
do you ever wished that your grandfather would be happy
are your grandmother
no you wish that your brothers and sisters will be happy

and do sometimes wish to you would be happy
good good
but you know what happy is
okay i wanted to sing a song with you and
but then and but then when i looked at the song nights it's the song is about it goes you know starts up i think if you're happy and you know it and i thought or what if the children don't know that they're happy
but i thought i thought we could see even though you may not know it
we may we can still sing it
but i did feel a little bit i felt a little more i thought a little pain about the song if some of the children don't know they're happy i didn't want to force any children into singing this song so i thought later we
that maybe we could start by just doing the singing the song even though we're not sure for happy said okay we would you please stand up children
please stand up
maybe i maybe you know this song already so and the adults maybe some of the adults nor too so i go something like this
if you're happy and you know it clap your hands
if you're happy and you know it clap your hands if you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it if you're happy and you know it clap your hands if you're happy and you know what stamp your feet
if you're happy and you know what stamp your feet if you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it if you're happy and you know what stamp your feet if you're happy and your know it shout hurrah
if you're happy and you know it shout hurrah
if you're happy and you know it and you really want to show that if you're happy and you know it shout hurrah
a

now i like to do another version of this another song was similar
way in in substitute for on substitute for happy living
okay you want to do that and of course we want do that just stand to that one
was gonna do living
okay kids want to stand up and do living

okay ready
if you're living and you know what clap your hands
if you're living and you know it clap your hands if you're living and you know and and you really want to show it if you're living in you know it clap your hands if you're living and you know what stamp your feet if you're living and you know what stamp your feet if you're living and you know it
and you really want to show it if you're living in you know what stamp your feet if you're living and you know it shout hurrah hurrah if you're living and you know it shout hurrah
if you're living and you know it and you really want to show it if you're living and you know it shout hurrah
if you're living and you know what do all three
the if you're living and you know if you all three
who if you're living and you know it and you really want to show if you're living and you know it shout hurrah
thank you children now it's enough
the
you are new our new life please go do it for us

i used to see new

there's seeps up in front if you want to sit in the front
by

another version of this song which i was thinking of doing with their children but
i thought it would be a little shocking
but i i would like to to ask you to do it with me
would you please those of you can would you please stand up

so we did happy and we did living and now i'd like to do dying
i don't know if it would have been good to do with the children here or not
but i'd like to do with with you
if you're dying and you know it clap your hands
dying and you know it clap your hands if your die and you know it and you really want to show it if you're dying and you know it clap your hands
if you're dying and you know and stamp your feet is you're dying and you know i stamp your feet if your die and you know it and you really want to show if you're dying and you know your feet if you die and you know it shout hurrah
if you're dying and you know it shout hurrah
if your guy and you know it and you really want to show and if you're dying and you know that shout hurrah
if you're dying and you know and do all three
who gives you dying and you know and do laundry
who rah if your die and you know and you really want to show your dying and you know it shout rod
ah

zen enough
so please enjoy your new life

i've been
thinking about an meditating lately
on
this
on enlightenment

and in particular i've been meditating on the teaching that enlightenment is the
the silent bond
among all beings
the silent bond among all of us but also between us
and the mountains in the rivers
in the great earth and also the silent bond between us and all beings who have realized fully realized this silent bond
my experiences that most of us have not fully realized
this silent bond among us
most of us have not fully realized enlightenment
so one way that things are
his enlightenment
that's the way as one way that things are right now
and that one way is the way that you and i are bonded
silently
in in a way that's beyond anything we can say about it i can say something about it i'm just kind of talking about it right now
but this bond between us is my words will never reach it
your words will never reach it it's silent
the way we are in
in close friendship with each other and with all things animate and inanimate
so what i have been meditating on as enlightenment

and included in things being this way
our beings
who do not
except
do not understand
ah that therein a silent close friendship with all things
and these are called sentient beings like most of us are sentient beings i guess we don't fully understand this
and in so for us that's the way it is the way it is is that we do not feel we do not understand that everybody is are close friend it's not everybody's not everybody's our best friend because there's no best or worst
everybody's close
and the way we're close is the way we are and where each of us is different
but our differences the way we're close to each other

and another way i've been meditating on this is to it is i've been thinking about in meditating on beauty
and another way to think about this is i've been meditating on happiness which led me to this song this morning with the children

there is a kind of worldly happiness which i think we have mean we we have some familiarity with it's a kind of happiness which on
can occur when when we get something we want
or when when people speak well of us
or we hear that people speak well of us
and we feel happy when when when that happens or when something pleasant happens when you play your happens sometimes we get happy
other words we we feel good about
we get kind of we feel we feel a positive sensation and we feel happy isn't just pleasure we feel happy about it
pleasures not the same as happiness
but sometimes when we
feel pleasure we feel happy
and then and then there's also that's kinda what we call worldly happiness
the happiness that comes home with your pleasure
the happiness that comes when we get something we want i wouldn't get something the happiness that comes when we once people speak well of us are we hear that people are speaking well of us these are this a worldly happiness
and then there's worldly unhappiness which is on when we feel pain
feeling pain is not the same as being unhappy
but sometimes we feel pain and then we found unhappy
and
we something's taken from us and we want and we feel not just not just as some basement taken but we we feel unhappy about that has been taken and sometimes we someone says speaks but speaks badly of us
and we feel unhappy and similarly sometimes we hear that someone has spoken badly of us and we feel bad this is worldly unhappiness
so there's that kind of happiness and unhappiness
but there's another kind of happiness which
is the happiness that comes with realizing enlightenment
and when we have that kind of happiness
the happiness of realizing that all beings are close friends
then these other kinds of happiness pretty much
either they don't arise anymore
or they're really have almost no motivational impact
so you eat in other words you come to be a person when you realize this enlightenment or when you enter into this enlightenment process when you're on this path you experienced pleasure but you don't get jacked up by it he does feel pleasure
and then you feel pain but you don't get pushed down by it
in fact we don't get pushed down by pain and pushed up by pleasure we get pushed up by pleasure because of our
the way we think about it
because of our habitual
what we call it because of our intentions because of our karma
but when we realize enlightenment waste experienced pain period and pleasure period
we experience gain
or loss period we hear people
insult us period we hear people process period
that's all we don't and we don't then and we also aren't motivated to get people to speak well of us and to avoid having people speaking ill of us and we don't get motivated to get more pleasure
and to avoid pain
we i understand now
that pleasure is our close friend and pain is are close friend gain is a close friend and losses i close friend
all things are are close friend

life is are close friend death is are close friend health as are close friend illnesses a close friend

illness is beautiful
health is beautiful
this person is beautiful that person is beautiful
realizing enlightenment is the same as be able to see the beauty of all things
to be
single mindedly focused
on the beauty of all phenomena
of every thing we experienced of every experience of everything

there there are various paths
leading to
this various path leading to the the path
the path of enlightenment
the path of being aware
of this close friendship with all things
various paths leading to the path the path
i've been intimate
with the beauty of all things
there's various ways to enter that
one way is to train our
our love or our appreciation
have something in which we already sense beauty
and it has been recommended from ancient times to train children detained training young people
to love and appreciate physical beauty
physical beauty of plants and animals
and human bodies
and i would suggest that who he each of us as we begin to train our our love
the appreciation towards loving
beauty towards loving goodness
as we begin this in a sense we are young
we are young again
we are like children to when we begin to learn this
but the childlike quality
the mature side is that we see at the beginning of the practice beauty in some physical forms that's the child part of it
as we proceed we learn to see beauty in more physical forms
this is one path and more and more and then to learn to see beauty in mental forms
to see beauty in to certain types of activity in certain types of study to see beauty in mathematics and literature and music
in thought forms
and finally
to see beauty in everything
and the beauty which is in everything
is this same beauty which is the bond
among all of us

that's basically
a path to realizing
enlightenment
this path however has certain difficulties in it in that rate we experienced the limits of what we can see as beautiful
are we since we we see the limit and what to what we feel as beautiful
the limits to who we feel is are close friend and so on the limits to where we see goodness
working with these limits
of our vision is part of the path

noticing that you feel that you sense that someone is not your close friend
to be aware of that
because you're trying to learn how it is that everyone is your close friend to be aware that you don't feel that is a normal
and almost always necessary
part of the process
to notice that you don't think something is beautiful
is part of the process
of giving up
all your ideas of what is beautiful
so when you start to love beauty when you start to appreciate beauty in some physical form
or some mental form anyway some living form
and living forms art physical and mental when you start to appreciate it you have some ideas of what is beautiful
that's somehow are probably coming with your appreciation of this beautiful person
i would say you're right that everybody who you think is beautiful
he is beautiful
and you're right to think that and feel that
however your idea of their beauty which may be there
with the feeling that they're beautiful
that idea of their beauty is not their beauty
it's nobody's beauty it's an idea of beauty
and in the case for you feel someone is beautiful when you're enjoying someone's beauty
are you enjoying some physical non living things beauty
at that point
you do you may have an idea
but the idea needs to be dropped
because beauty is essentially free of all ideas of beauty
and still even though we have ideas of beauty we do sometimes
receive the blessing of opening to the beauty even though we have ideas
sometimes our ideas let us feel the beauty anyway
sometimes we even are allowed to feel beauty in relationship
when we have an idea that this is not beautiful
sometimes we don't get caught my idea of this is not beautiful and we accept that it is anyway
so that the hard part of this path is renouncing all of our discriminations of beautiful and not beautiful
of close and not close
recognizing and realizing that someone you're close friend is not the same as having the idea that they're your close friend
but if you can give up the discrimination
between closed and na close in not giving up you will open to the closeness that is actually waiting there to be enjoyed
but it's not easy to give up discriminating between close and far of course
we're highly attuned and tuned and geared and wired to sense close and far
it's a big adaptation we have it's like an instinct so this will be difficult
but in a way simple

so i'm meditating on enlightenment i'm meditating on how all of you are my close friend i'm meditating on the close bond between all of us in this room and all of us in his room with all enlightened beings throughout space and time and all animate or inanimate being
things throughout the universe i'm meditating on that and i'm also meditating on
any discrimination i have that of close and far near and far friends
and i
i wish to study this feeling and tell it's dropped study this discrimination until i realize
it can't be grasped
then i can let go of it and open to the actuality and learn to see the beauty and everything
the tune into that beauty which is the beauty of everything and again i suggest that this way that were related is
the true beauty is the beauty which when we see that beauty
all other beauties
which have in the past made is hot and bothered
made us have burning foreheads and parched tongues those beauties
although they might occur for some reason or other just for fun
they may not occur anymore
what occurs is a serene
infinite and
happiness
and this happiness happens in a moment
but it can be practiced the practice which allows it that can be consistent you can we can learn to practice continual to be concentrated on this way of being so that we can tune in to this path
even though each experience is fleeting
everything i meet
i need he is an opportunity to check
do i see beauty or not
and
if i at this point if i do not see beauty i consider it a are just a simple
limitation on my wisdom or limit our i'm not even my wisdom a limitation a limited
yeah limitation on the wisdom of the moment of this moments wisdom this moments vision doesn't see the beauty
and i generously accept that this is a
ah
low grade wisdom

a wisdom which does not see the beauty which i'm pretty clear
the buddha teaches is in all things
the beauty of each thing is not itself
it is the way each thing
supports all other things
and the way all things support each thing that's the beauty of each thing
i recently read about the birth of arrows
which is can sometimes be translated as love
arrows
i thought arrows was aphrodite's son
but and a greek and newest i would call greek mythology or greek religion is not highly well organized
so there's lots of different stories about the gods and goddesses so maybe there's some stories about arrows that he's aphrodite's son that he's the son of the goddess of love and beauty
the goddess of love and beauty the beauty of the goodness of all things he's the son of her but another story is he was born in her presence
and his parents were poverty
and
abundance

and one of the things about arrows
who is said by some to be neither mortal nor immortal neither god nor human
one of the things about bottom which i thought was very interesting was he was that he was described as
be as lacking as lacking
all the things that surrounded him
at his conception

and i thought when i read that we're all like that we all lack
all the things that surround us at our conception
every moment that were born every mormon that we live we lack all the things that surround us
at our at our birth
we lacked those things because we aren't we don't possess them
we can we we lacked them we have we do not have them we are them we are all the things that surround us
every moment
we don't have the things that surround us
they surround us they support us
we are all the beings we are all the beings that we are a closely related to and we are nothing in addition to that
we are nothing in addition to our relationships
and each of us have different relationships therefore each of us is a different person
and we lack all the relationships that surround us
we lack of the beauty and goodness that surround us surrounds us
and the way we lacked
is
the true beauty
and all the beautiful things that support us their beauty which supports us is the way all things support them

this is why it's difficult this this this is part by the way i'm talking now is is to open us to give up our ideas of beauty but as part of the reason why we want to hold onto some idea of beauty
because we want to hold onto some idea of what we are in addition to everything that surrounds us when reborn
because we have some
aversion to lacking
everything has surrounds us
we think we're supposed to be something in addition to our total support system

this talk is in hopes of initiating us into an intimate awareness
of true beauty
an intimate awareness of enlightenment
an intimate awareness of the silent bond
between all of us
with generous
with generous feelings with a generosity towards our unwillingness
to open to this practice
a patience with
our unreadiness
to do is practice even are unreadiness to notice
and be generous when we feel someone is not close to us
and generous and we feel like we are something i am something in addition to all the beings who support me i appreciate your support but i'm something a little bit more than just your support
that's not true but if i think so i wanted to accept that i feel that way and notice what it feels like to feel that way and the way it feels the way it feels
is that is called suffering
the world is suffering is the world where we do not accept
our close relationship with our bags
and in that world
all these all kinds of happiness is of that world
i will be frustrated and in that world we will be here comes the fire and brimstone in that world we will be
driven
voraciously
with voracious desires and lust will be driven to try to get more of that same kind of happiness which will not satisfy us
and we will be driven in this process as long as we don't accept enlightenment which is one way that things are
and it's one way that we can resist
and we can resist and is called the world of suffering and this world is the worst of all possible worlds
but in this worst of all possible worlds we have where we have not yet accepted this teaching of enlightenment and this practice of enlightenment we can still start to practice enlightenment we can still start and admit well i'm try
wang but i'm not i i'm i'm still holding back a little that means i'm still feeling like so and so is not my close friend
so and so as not beautiful i'm still caught by some idea of beauty which i'm holding on to by habit that makes it hard for me to see this person as beautiful or to see the beauty which all things share
the one beauty which all things are sharing every moment i can't see that now and if i admit that i'm on the training program
to learn the practice of enlightenment
although i may not be very far on this path just that i notice
some beauty
or even if i don't notice any least if i noticed i don't see any and i accept that i don't see any among the path of seeing it everywhere

huh

i propose to you that the path
to realizing buddha in this world to realizing enlightenment
mr meditate on enlightenment
that enlightenment is available
that it is it is the way we are related to each other right now
and there's a practice of opening to that
and part of the pan then again opening to it
usually usually involves being aware that you're not completely open to it
and becoming aware of that lack of openness and revealing it disclosing it
and using that as a way to return to look again
the orient again towards a silent bond
towards the beauty of all things towards the goodness of all things
is a path of happiness and harmony
in this world
i guess said that maybe that's clear is it can clear
said that i'm saying that anyway
and maybe we can if you want to we can have some discussion a little later
and i i am
i don't know what song to sing at this time

old man river

hmm
blue sky
blue sky
nothing but blue skies

on a clear day
people who need to
people who need people
row row your boat
i can see clearly now
once i had a secret love

boom boom boom boom
boom boom mean
i can do when i want diamond complete control
don't need any body else
got a mind of my own

i got a month know i can do and i want i'm in complete control don't need any body elms got a mind of my own i'm in complete control don't need any body else gave myself a good talking to know more be
a in a food for you but then i see you and i remember how you make me wanna surrender the bhutto way
you're taken myself awake buddha way you're making me want as day with buddha way
boom boom boom boom boom
poo poo poo poo poo