even elizabeth
through illness stay with us i deeply appreciate but i don't buy it in it
someone might say that
the greatest depreciation is one that you don't buy it in
someone might say that
and so thank you offer stain the whole time and thanks eileen for organizing the retreat
and caring for being here and taking care of his space before after and during
and for and again for all a new for
you're brilliant presence

thank you
and thanks to the mom madonna family for suggesting this idea and
one of the differences between this and usual know about day and also my madonna day is that usually i leave the room
during meditation and go see people individually which is nice i are we like to meet individually
this way we're in the room together all of us the whole time so that has certain virtues to
so let's we don't attach to this style
and we have demonstrated were not attached to the other one so we may be tried different styles we can think of some other ones too but the
so thank you and
i kind of promised to eventually to read you the palms
so on that xiang young
expressed
when he
ah found the place
before he was a self was born

and he also said the teacher also said
ha
where are the sand
oh so say something from the time before you were born and also before you could distinguish objects
and so he found that place and he expressed his thanks to graze on and any compose is he wrote his verses
guess road probably wrote them on paper
one stroke on bamboo and all knowledge is forgotten
no more mere pretense of practice
transform to uphold the ancient path not sunk in idle devices
far and wide not a trace is left
the great purpose lies beyond sound and form
in every direction the realized way
beyond all speech
the ultimate principle
so it says he dispatched a monk to take these verses to showing another know how that monk mail service work runaway gave the pawn of non palm took it to question
and when grace on read it he said ah my student has penetrated
and yeah shaun his older brother said
this is a good representation of mine function
but
wait till i personally go and check out showing guns realization
i thought this is a good representation now
i just wasn't convinced
and then later showing a young sean
the older disciple map showing on and said i'm asked a question has praised the great matter of your awakening
what do you say in evidence for it and showing on resided recited those verses again as evidence
and young shine said yeah but those verses could be composed from things you've studied earlier
if you have genuine awakening then say something else to prove it
and then ah
jiangyin compose the poem another one that said last year's poverty
where's not genuine poverty
last year's this year is poverty is finally
real poverty last year's poverty there was still the ground where i could plant my whole
this year's poverty not even a whole remains
young jean said i grant you have realized the zen of the buddha's but you don't yet know the zen of the ancestors
you haven't seen it even in your dreams and then showing on composed another palm
i have a function it seen in the twinkling of i if you don't see it that's your problem

heaven i'm in heaven and i seem to find that happiness i seek
last mass murder heaven i'm in heaven
and my heart so that i can hardly speak and i seem to find the happiness i seek when we're out together dancing cheek to cheek
then young sean when young shot heard these verses
he went back to gration said it's wonderful jong-un has realized the zen object jig

and when paul page her that some time ago
he thought about the cheeks that are on the seat and meditation seat

so i had this other story but i feel like it's a bit much to get into at this point i'll bring it up later i just tell you what it's about it's it's case thirty took up to of the book of serenity it's called and it's about young sean
yeah sean's mine and environment so grey schon and young sean
those of zone and their schools called grey on grey on song
it's a school with the teacher and disciple are the founders of and they're teaching as a as you can see from the previous story about well actually more than one brief history the first story i told you about was question
and young shaun member
member it this is that reviewed at the anarchy which a story of question and young trying to beginning
hey you're right if if a monk comes up to you and site and ass
about all sentient beings just have comic consciousness with no
boundless and unclear and giddy with no fundamental to rely on how are you test that an experience that squash on and ya genre okay then we have the story of machine yeah studying with question and yarn schon also about consciousness and finding
highway do not abide in consciousness and then the next story i was gonna bring up this is about young schon also teaching about the mind is called a on shines mind an environment where he meets his mungkin gives him instruction about studying the self and
it's a great story about a tickets that much to bring up at the end of the day so i'll bring it up another day and another day and maybe read a book about it right caring
what's the book right here the japan
so catherine gammon edited lot to talks on this case i've done many many talks on case thirty two of the book a serenity
but i just don't pointing out that the school is young zhang wei on school they're very much into the teachings of a mind and how to test to see
if there's any abiding
and there
wonderful dialogues about whether they're testing each other
and now the friendship between them and you can see the conversations were ah question is inquiring at yonge and heath consciousness and young sean is responding to the questions and coming back and greyhounds pointing out sticking points
but this case three to us is not about wish on young shines by young charm and a monk
so i'd better not gonna bring it up sergei
and maybe next time and know board i'll bring up
is there anything else you want to talk about this afternoon
yes brick

after all these years of being runs and what and me zen and me

ah probably the part closest to you

development
and i appreciate that you've been nibbling through whatever else you never truly get to the pizza

i heard i think was reggie jackson is it reggie jackson the baseball player
i heard that he he said that way is concentrated when the ball came it looked like a pizza
the pot
big as a pizza yeah his as a pizza
that would make it easier to hit right
this is gonna be easy
the so ah yeah is to officers were time
so anyway i'm very grateful that you hung throughout the perplexity to come to get a close to the sniff of the peter peter smell good at day happen
huh
anything else this afternoon
yes
i i read once that really
i believed in synchronicity
she's she's an amazing
experience
amazing coincidences
sigh
money that is pure delusion as their relationship maybe between you see what you're looking for maybe the simple as that there's a lot of stuff out there and happened to see the thing
that i wanted to you
the secret get down relationship when something appears that so amazing to
just thinking or saying
i'm i'm south or for elizabeth
that's you right
for you synchronicity seems to be
a benefit yeah encouraging
so let's look at this will give us example of synchronicity i had one okay i was i was in boulder off
nice and
difficult family wonderful family and i was
there's a dose or synchronistic great
yea i did they are thinking it was able to be missing sitting next to that was and i look over and right there in the street i see something called a lot of was like a large mailbox i like candy and
it's a part of a movement called free little library that i just got super interested in just because it
ivory planet rotarian started you can use ago and was covering article that the current movie magazine i'm wanting to start that and so here i am in boulder having the very thought and i don't belong here i'm city where my people got blue i see a beautiful little free library thing which i go
over to and eight pictures of and open up in
so it's derrick bird houses production put putting of their house sir somewhere and you can take a boat and political team so that to me was an example of secret is just a moment i was thinking giving visitors to the world but know isn't one of your prime interesting here's your very first one ever seen one before
so you call that you call it a synchronous and ah ok
and
it does to call by synchronise i would give it another name and i'm not a contradicts synchronicity the name i would give it would be inquiry and response
yours you were saying what you're saying i think piece of paper
you were saying it's so painful to be missed tuned but when you say so painful to name is tuned
i yeah i hear a tone and plays yeah i wanted to and man to the again that's what i get higher i play his atonement and then you see a tournament
the evening
and so affected you can synchronise i would call that inquiry in response and that's
that's the our relationship with the buddha
is we say i want a tournament i want peace i want freedom
but the way might say it is i don't i'm not free
the cry of i'm not free or i'm not attuned but the bonuses or she's asking for help
now she's putting a negatively but positively speak and she says please join me please meet me
that
is what we called good friendship he said we call and actually at the very moment we call this at the same moment synchronistic the same moment we call
there was a response so as you known in a jewel mere samadi of our school it says inquiry and response come up together
and are also some other things so dear like if you're excited it becomes a pitfall so
when you see this
if you get excited about it or also if you don't see it and you get excited about not seeing it if you get excited it becomes a pitfall the very thing you're concerned with to get excited about it the thing is most important to you if you had excited about if the pitfall and if you hesitate you miss it and you're really sad
this the synchronicity synchronicity of what
have your request and the response
so in and buddhist as basically this relationship
is the whole of the path
so we do various good things many of you do i know
but the that the life of it
the excuse the expression a holy life of of your life is when you realize if the things you're doing
are either a response to something has been asked
or it's a request which is being met
then then your activity
really becomes the way of enlightenment if you think i'm doing this but nobody requested it
you're missing part of your life if you think i'm doing this and numbers responding you kind of missing it but it doesn't look like that sometimes and as many as a story that was just in texas telling stories of monks sincere monks great students have their teachers for their teachers really appreciated who thought they were
we're asking their teacher for teaching in the teacher wasn't giving it and then finally after feel like to ask and asked if i say i ask him he never teacher teaches a mouse answering it is or how and and i assure them
so sometimes we think we're asking we don't get it like sometimes you're walking in the hills of
mongolia and you think why doesn't anybody help me and noble anything nobody answers but they do use don't see it
other times he walked into mongolia's hills and somebody says did you ask for something you say no
but you did where we're always walking around saying
either buddha please give me the dharma or buddha can i help you would i wanna be your friend buddha be my friend where everything we say is actually asking for enlightenment to meet us all day long we're doing that
all but the way we're doing it all day long which has never interrupted is inconceivable we cannot see how that can be the case how every gesture we make
is actually a request to meet enlightenment and also every gesture remake is met otherwise we don't see how we're supporting the buddhism buddhist or supporting us we don't see how non-stop were supporting each other age or each other our support everybody supporting us but that's the funny
mel reality that the buddha's realize then there's other cases of friendship where you think you're asking and you don't see an answer
or you got an answer but you didn't think he asked example you used was one where you thought you at ease you kind of saw you asking yeah and you got an answer that's one of the four varieties which is some sits a happy one
but that one comes and goes
it's not like every moment you notice you're asking and answered like the okay asked and answered the next moment i asked
why do i had enough for me now like like brexit okay i got to this place now what's next
right
so this is for varieties and they're all part of the game
i asked the teacher the teacher said she would teach me i came to study in the teacher didn't teach me and then you tell the teacher that the teacher shows you that they did
or against people to teach you give your teaching so not thank you ever need that one
and a teacher shows you you asked that exactly the when you ask for
and but sometimes in which is a happy story you ask for teaching and the pity anything he get the answer that's great that's part of the story and not actually is a conscious that that's in consciousness in the conceivable realm of consciousness that's a reflection of the
way things really are
but the way things really are cannot really be seen and costs just to get a little reflection of it just i can you look in mere to your reflection that's not you in a mirror you're a little bit more fleshy than that
thing on the mirror
but you can present
and then from certain angles read that
but you're far beyond who's that who's that are much more than them so synchronicity is really the nature of that relationship
also as i mentioned to you before when i'm exposed to give a dharma talk and i have nothing to say
that openness happens at the same time with an abundance of stuff being available
what he's a nice
and sometimes also if i hurt if i have nothing to talk about i just open a book
can there it is it's like this is this is it
just like i didn't plan to day
to talk to give three stories about those those two teachers
even in this disc
i do not intend to bring up any of them will actually the first one did intend to bring up but the other way just came out this topic is about consciousness so i didn't think that that's gonna bring up have three stories about people who are focusing on consciousness the study of consciousness as the pat just by coincidence that that was a title of this topic of this
retreat which most of you didn't know and and caravan
because she just came anyway you know and then you find out that was the topic but i i shouted elizabeth knew about it i showed it to her and she gave me some feedback the edge of eileen saw right anybody else here
that's what some people saw it and you forgot it
and i can remembered
but i didn't i but i also felt like how does go there and it'll come i have a consciousness
so when i get there are just look in there and there will be the bachelor
they're always study it and then that will be overdoing together and then you join me he studied your consciousness and there was something there wasn't there to study yeah lot there so thank you
yes
saying that if a call
remind
yeah you're missing part arnold's half you're missing the wholeness of your life yes
whole and actually you are
but actually you're you you consciously are gonna miss part of it because
this relationship is going on nonstop and you're gonna get distracted from that you keep you may not distract you consciousness is a distraction from the inconceivable life we had together it's a distraction you could say or it's a reduction of it so in the reduced version of your infinite
relationships in the universe of where you're responding and and requesting him his consciousness is a small version of that so unconsciousness this process was doesn't miss a beat has has a beat and we're gonna miss it somewhat but you understand the did so you understand it that's the
just a way consciousness is and we have to remember the teaching and then we look and we see i'm making a request
and i don't and i don't see the response and that is one type of friendship or somebody's giving me a response that i don't think somebody's coming and give me something which i didn't think i asked for
okay i definitely think i didn't ask port for tories and you said all these things he joked the garage for is the border coming to give you what you asked for
and you don't say you don't get it yet but you hear the teaching me how did i asked for this how could this be what i asked for the various things that come
exactly even that look on your face happen
and then sometimes and is sometimes maybe often you feel like i asked and there it was that's great to guess part of it but there's the other ones
i wouldn't i was going to i was going to tell the story but i thought i was too long but i have a normal toilet
an elizabeth looks at the clock and i
i'm not tell the whole thing but basically it's a story from a book called the kite runner
how many people read it
read part of it anyway
my wife said i think you might like this book is kind of a boys book in away because it's about boys mostly
it's about these two boys and these two boys one of the boys had they both have fathers and they don't know if the beginning a book that they have the same father
but they do know that they love each other very much and what ended the narrator of the book really knows that this other boy who he lives with
really loves him
he knows that he knows this boy would give his life for him
and again to make the story short like an occasion arises where the the narrator's dear dear friend
in his vision is being raped by a gang of boys
and he doesn't do anything to help him and and runs away
and the way the guy wrote it i kind of felt like somehow i just made me feel if that's the worst thing i heard of anybody ever doing and it's worse it's almost like worse than in a way he was beating the guy up he was he was participating in the rape but worse than that
you know he wasn't taking responsibility for it and this guy was his most beloved friend i thought perhaps the i just i know this is possibly terrible
in other words if i did you really feel bad
so that's the story and then
and then he does of and then because of that he watched somebody to find out and punish him but he's not going to tell anybody
but he wishes you know somebody would find out and you'd get he'd get the response
this is very difficult to see how when you see somebody being brutalized and you don't help them that you're not helping them is a request for a response that you want you're not helping somebody who needs help and you're not helping them you're asking for response guess what response you're asking for
you're asking for some super strong pain and future asking for your ask you some would somebody please show me
that this is
really not the right idea
i'm doing this i want our he couldn't confess and repent
and then it and because he couldn't confess and repent
the root of that kind of stuff was not
melted away he did other cruel things to this boy who continued after that
because a boy didn't know he saw him and ran away that boy continued to be kind to him and be devoted to him and he continued to do cruel things to that boy
and not get any and nobody finding out
and deepening and deepening and deepening debt the root of that transgressions from kindness towards the person who most he he knew most he should give it to
it's just like in an identity i i was really like caught by that horror and then they grow up
begin to make a long story short they grow up and their lived this is taking place in afghanistan they grow up and they up it dwindled into adulthood into the era the early era the the early years of the taliban
and the boy who raped his best friend becomes a big wheel in the taliban
and this the the narrator somehow has gone gone and come from
from afghanistan become competent know it comes to back into gaffe afghanistan he has no standing in this taliban world and this guy who he knew you know is one of his people on his social world week and he grew up with and spent time with after this rape
this guy captures him you know as a whatever and takes him into custody and started beating him
and beats him and beat him and beat him and beat him is just about dead
and he understands
this is what he'd been asking for for twenty years and he starts laughing
how are how funny it is that this visit that being beaten to death is what i think
asking for and now i'm getting it finally for it's true
of course is minister as soon as he gets it it's done it's job
and he says laughing and we just lack in the guys you know
and he's free
basic perhaps that's the prison
but he didn't he didn't quite at the beginning of the beating he didn't understand this is what i've been asking for he didn't see it that that was what is requesting
but he did but he got a timely and and that was and when you get that put and when you get that what's happening to you is if something you requested and what you're doing his response this is the mrs friendship
this is friendship and when you get it you're you're fine you're happy you're free even though the person beating you are yelling at you when you get that is like before i get the joke a wonderful
the tap into meat sometimes you know and i remember one time somebody turned into a not person has only but i will say exactly how high how tall but anyway they were not six feet tall but suddenly there were eight feet tall burning demon
and i just like that and i said okay okay thank you i knew it was love
i was enlightened in that regard i wasn't abiding in this thing being my enemy it wasn't my enemy it was love coming to me as a fierce flame and i
i accept i'd i realized i requested it and i got it sometimes you request the demon to come and shake you out of your laziness and it doesn't come and you just keeping lazy sometimes you're being lazy like lazy like not telling the truth
lazy like knots not you know by clerk lazy and not giving your heart you know and people can let you to say okay
you don't want you don't want to leave you alone you want to say you can't you asked if you're not been kind of couple you want to say you can't do that to me you gotta you gotta give your heart to me he wanted to say that you know me you don't want to get by with it
and then when they don't let to get by with it at first you say who i didn't ask for that
but if they if it comes stronger and stronger eventually you say
ha thanks
but i was asking for it thank you
but have to get pretty bad sometimes before you finally realize i didn't ask for it you know like a little bit of cancer i didn't ask for a bit more no no but when it gets really bad superior that's why did ask for this
yes thank you and then you started and then you're free so have cancer but he still a big beaten half to death but he was he was free until the next lazy thing he does yes
going to give back the last word
don't like i get the kite runner who did something pretty awful
the the different level
because someone
you know every narrative or they can happen to people in the world
yeah yeah it's not your know what to look at other people say this though in i supposed to say they asked for it it's only for yourself
do every part of thing that everything horrible that happens to me
is because i asked for it that's what that's that's that's what that pretoria is angie said right when these terrible things come this is the border coming to help me become free of my past karma
it's not like ah blaming yourself for it is not blaming years i'm a bad person because has happened to me know i asked for this so i can so i can respond to it i asked for this this is the response now i get to respond to that i remember that ask for it this is what the zen master does
when they get whatever it is your name and
not even the likelihood of one of us being beaten to death is i would say is less than one of us getting cancer
so i i mentioned cancer like okay beat as well how about cancer which is probably going to happen or heart attack
when i got my heart attack i felt pretty good about it
i think that i know i felt like yeah this is my this is this is probably the way i'm gonna go if if i get cancer and three words surprises me i thought i was gonna get a heart attack so i don't i don't know if way i am going to get the way i'm going to die as the way i'd probably think i would i think i probably will but i do when whatever the way it could
you welcome i've been waiting for this opportunity and i'm in training for this
now here comes this is what i've been waiting for i want like say thank you here we go now as the time
rather new not when i went that way
later
so if you say okay to this wine okay this find this one is like i didn't ask for this one
that's one type of friendship is one type of communion is the ones where we don't think we invited the response we don't think we asked for it
and the other one is i asked her ex and i didn't get it that's also a kind of relationship there are such relationships that's friendship to it's friendship to say please help me and not get a response
i mean i should say it's friendship to ask for help and get help it you don't see
that's friendship that's one type of another type is you get help it you don't think you asked for and help you get sometimes that junk the gasp for is a really strong negative feedback
that you don't think you're asked for this isn't you know
and the other one is you i say give me some really strong teaching gimme some strong feedback can you get it and then sometimes after people get this they actually i actually i didn't want that strong
that's quite frequent
victim or that wasn't strong enough like people said this is a conversion in the early days of toss her they said
grow she would you be more strict with us and he said okay when you put the when you start the blues doing with the head up
that you know and not smooth as a form which and we're still trying to practices and center and he can practice that know about do by the way i found a broom with head down out there are better up hello
that's a little strictness on her
put the brooms up and that strictness did not cause all the monks at touch hard to leave
and approved on i laughed at time i looked in the garage or the brooms were head up and and the shovels were head up
but if they're not
and i see somebody put him down and might say can i get you want to get back and they might say no i didn't ask for feedback
and they might say yes as they would put the her up and they i'd say whatever you know
but that's not too bad right but the head brewer
and he said that because he thought pip the american product handle that
and we could
and then we said we want more strict with us he said well because you leave
yeah i don't want to leave i came here to be with you guys so but some teachers you know if there's a whole if there's a lot of teachers around some futures than you know push it a little bit further to see if the people who realize that the asked for it because if they run or if miss teacher didn't go to another team
yeah which they have the death they have the other teachers set up waiting for them
so
this quite a few stories of the zen teacher giving the feedback to students say i've had it my said would okay i know you've had it i accept because he saw and so and they go see someone so songs so it shows them that
how kind the other teacher was and i see it but the they can't see it from the teacher but they can see it from the teachers friend
so the teacher know sometimes you squeeze them in the cast down and was there okay okay go see her nikos he heard to all he did that wow
what a sweetheart like oh
it's the wake up right is to wake up from no that's too much that i didn't ask for this this is not the life i asked for you know that one that's one type of friendship the one where i didn't ask you this like the other one is i asked her life didn't get it the other one is i asked for it and i got it
there's that but they're all just derivatives of basic reality is we are living in peace and harmony and that's what we can wake up to and today we kind of woke up to a dimwit and then and then there was a pause
and we wake up again in as part of its kind of rhythm
so thank you so much
i don't want to keep you too late
thank you thank you for him
hope you're welcome